The iNexus

Compare Folders 3.2 released

Brian — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 14:35:09 +0000

Today is the release of another really solid update for Compare Folders. This update removes .Mac/MobileMe support but also improves exclusions in the engine and polishes more of the UI. These are just a few highlights, there are many additional features and bug fixes throughout the entire app.

See the changes in in the full article

As always, you can find the disk image for download at: http://www.infinitenexus.com/cf/

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FYI: help is a bit outdated

Brian — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 01:57:16 +0000

A quick note for Compare Folders users - the online help at www.infinitenexus.com/support/cf/ is somewhat out of date, especially with respect to known issues and release notes. If you are curious as to what the latest changes are see the version history in the Compare Folders product section.

When the new site comes online officially the help will be updated to match the latest released version, I promise

Whatcha doin’?

Brian — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 05:15:04 +0000

As the news of late can attest, Apple has made the transition to MobileMe. I’ve already covered what that means for dotMac Menu (goodbye old friend) so it’s probably pretty obvious what the next step is for Compare Folders.

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dotMac Menu in the world of MobileMe

Brian — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 05:20:08 +0000

Unless you’ve been living under a rock you likely heard the news - Apple is recreating .Mac as a new service, MobileMe. It’s quite an impressive offering from what I saw in the guided tour and I look forward to trying it out soon.

The most common question I’ve received since Steve made the announcement has been - “when / will you be updating dotMac Menu for MobileMe?” To address this we’re going to look at dotMac Menu itself.

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Compare Folders 3.1 released

Brian — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 14:42:53 +0000

Today is the release of another really solid update for Compare Folders. This update brings better precision for file sizes, folder size calculation, and a new feature - merging (which was previewed in this post.) These are just a few highlights, there are many additional features and bug fixes throughout the entire app.

See the changes in in the full article

As always, you can find the disk image for download at: http://www.infinitenexus.com/cf/

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But does it break? Let’s see!

Brian — Wed, 28 May 2008 06:18:24 +0000

I’ve already discussed some of the improvements that have been added to Compare Folders for its next update and I’m excited to announce that its first round of beta testing started today.

There’s a crash related to saving large results as a text file that I’m going to work on getting in before release but by and large this update is complete. The help files are in need of refreshing and this is another issue I’d like to see wrapped up as well.

So keep your eyes peeled, as it were, Compare Folders 3.1 is coming soon!

Size, it’s all about equality

Brian — Mon, 12 May 2008 02:36:09 +0000

I’m working on Compare Folders’ next update right now and added support for a known issue/feature request that’s quite nice - folder size calculation. It’s not necessarily the most in-your-face new feature but it’s an important detail that’s also quite useful. This change increases the sizing accuracy for bundled files (folders that look like a single file, like an RTFD.) Altogether these changes coincide perfectly with other sizing changes I discussed earlier for this update.

Mad props to my friend Daniel Jalkut, Rosyna, and the others who worked on FSDirectorySize.

Two folders, one target

Brian — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 19:17:16 +0000

That might seem like a bit of an odd title, but it’ll make sense by the end, I promise

When you finish a comparison in Compare Folders you’ve got a sorted set of results that makes it easy to determine differences between any two folders. To work with these results we provide Item Actions. Using the Copy To… Item Action allows you to copy any item(s) from a section into the other folder or anywhere on your disk. That’s not the most robust way to bring these results together though.

In the next release there’s a new feature that’s been requested and honed, Merge. How does it work? you might ask.

Once you’ve finished a comparison you choose which folders, which parts of their results [and who wins in a conflict], and a destination to set the multi-threaded merge component in motion. You could merge into either of the folders to create a single version or create a new folder to merge into for review. It’s up to you.

Feel free to leave a comment if you’d like to provide feedback!

Valuing Software (from both sides of the table)

Brian — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 19:14:47 +0000

One of my fellow indie Mac OS X programmers, Daniel Jalkut (author of MarsEdit, which I’m posting from right now), has posted an excellent article dissecting the aspects of ‘free’ software that have become more apparent in the past few years on the Web.

It’s incredibly easy to forget the amount of work in initially creating, then maintaining and supporting an application and Daniel cogently brings out all sides of the issue in my opinion. In addition, I’ve found (as discussed a bit in the comments) that many forget the ads that bracket their IM, email, search, TV, streaming and other experiences to provide the ‘free’ cost they enjoy. Can you imagine software moving in such a direction? *shudder*

Better by Suggestion

Brian — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 06:37:55 +0000

Today I started on the next Compare Folders update, which caught me a bit by surprise since I’ve already got a fair bit on my plate. However, I got a bit of feedback that set me to work.

The first feature for this update comes from a suggestion from a user I received today - display size difference in the Difference column for Similar Items. I was immediately struck by the utility and simplicity of this and added it straight away. I’m not omniscient and getting feedback directly from users truly helps improve all our products.

However, it also illustrated how serendipity can pay off in spades. While I was working on adding these numbers I also had a chance to clean up and improve size calculations (for KB/MB), memory usage and decimal precision. Not a bad windfall for a simple request and definitely a win.

And I’m just getting started