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Issue 3

the Art of Joomla - Tools of the Trade

DeltaWalker

Written by Andrew Eddie

Every programmer needs to have a visual file diff application under their belt. I recently did the hard yards to once again review what was available and stumbled upon the perfect solution that was eerily familiar.

For some time now I've been pining about the loss of the only application that was originally holding me back from jumping ship and going Mac. That application was Beyond Compare from Scooter Software and it was just the best you could buy for a bit more than 30 bucks. Sadly they don't have a version for OSX and though I did have a go an running it under an emulation mode, it just was just too clunky a setup to use realistically on a daily basis.

I then turned to Araxis Merge for a while until the trial license ran out. It was ok but had some annoying habits like constantly opening new comparison windows. It's price point was also a bit steeper than I was wanting to pay unless I absolutely had to.

Then one day I decided to have one last go at finding something (as you do when trial licenses run out) to replace my beloved BC2. Then, after a long forum trace I finally found an innocent link to a company called Deltopia. It was a jaw-dropping moment to behold DeltaWalker. Because DW runs on top of Eclipse (hence the familiarity I immediately noticed since I used that as my IDE), it's available for Mac, Linux and of course Windows.

I use this application on a daily basis and while there are a few things missing, the authors (very responsive people) have assured me that my few "absolutely must haves" (and some minor bug fixes) are on their way in future versions (like saving a comparison session - I do miss that). However, with the current feature set I am able to work around those minor things I miss.

So, here is a summary of the things I like:

  • File comparisons open in a tabbed pane, so you can quickly skip between several file pairs (that was one an "oh wow" moment).
  • The file comparison windows are actually fully fledged Eclipse editor windows so you can do almost anything in there that you'd normally do in the IDE. I find this particularly useful for doing a regular expression search and replace over multiple (and usually annoying) differences - this usually brings the difference alerts down to a reasonable number. This feature really beats Beyond Compare and Araxis hands down.
  • Copy to the "other side" is quite intuative and easily allows you to remove and add blocks as appropriate.
  • The scrolling in the file comparison window is smart, with the connectors between difference blocks moving to sensible locations as you scroll.
  • Typing paths will bring up a suggestions for the next file or folder names.
  • Most importantly, the developers are easy to contact and very responsive to email requests and suggestions. That's always a good sign.

As I said, there are a few things I miss, like:

  • There is no ability to save sessions (it's coming though, and the history of folders is enough to get by).
  • There is no indicator that a folder has changes somewhere under it (this was a nice feature of Beyond Compare).
  • You can select two files of different names and compare them, but this will open up two file comparison tabs (with the left and right sides blank respectively). You can copy the path of one side to the other tab, but it would be nice to just open the two files up to be compared together in the one tab.
  • A right-click then "Set as base folder" would be useful in my view. This was a useful feature in Beyond Compare.
  • Beyond Compare has the ability to put in manual align marks. I think this would be useful because DeltaWalker doesn't quite get some of the lining up the way I would like it, but I also understand this would probably nasty to implement. While a nice to have, it's something I can live without.

The price-point for the advanced version, which I purchased, is very reasonable at just a tad under $60. This allows for 3-way comparisons should I even need to do such a thing, and also XML comparisons which I have used a couple of times.

I'm told that support for comparing zip files, comparing to FTP (and other) locations, and of course my session saving is coming in future versions. All those things will round off what is already an exceptionally well put together product.

DeltaWalker is a worthy replacement for Beyond Compare. In fact, if I ever did have a momentary lapse of reason to go back to Windows land, I think I would be taking DW with me.

Errata

Version 1.8 has been released with quite a few improvements and new features, notably FTP support and comparing into archive or zip files.  Sessions and some other neat things will be available in the soon-to-be-released version 1.8.1.

I have updated this review in a more formal format appropriate at developer.joomla.org, adjusting for the new features in 1.8.0.


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  1. I tried posting here earlier... Just a note on folder comparison performance as I spent time benchmarking both Araxis Merge and DeltaWalker before buying. DeltaWalker came out faster by 60-70% with similar settings (the latest releases of both apps in Sep. 08). I used folders ranging from ~10 to ~30 thousand files, up to 2-300 MB in total size, on a 2.8 GHz, 2GB ram iMac, running Leopard.
  2. Good review. I also settled on DeltaWalker and not just because of the price. For one, I prefer the tabbed application interface even though it's not the OS X standard, as it's much easier to manage. And FTP/SFTP access is a must for me. That said, I want to see in DW some of the features currently only Araxis offers, like the Time Machine integration, or the image comparison. A comment on performance: DeltaWalker is a bit slower to start up, but when running folder comparison it didn't feel slower at all. Here are the numbers I got: ~80MB (15K items) - 40 sec. Araxis vs. 14 sec. DW ~150MB (25K items) - 1m 46sec Araxis vs. 36 sec DW Both apps were with their default settings, except that in DeltaWalker I choose content type comparison as this is Araxis' default and overall the more meaningful type of comparison. I re-ran these comparisons several times to minimize statistical errors. In short, on a 2.8GHz Core Duo, 2GHz of RAM, Leopard 10.5.4 iMac DeltaWalker came up faster by ~70%.
  3. Silly isn't it that a $30 folder/file comparison tool like BeyondCompare could hold one back from moving from Windows to the Mac? However, I had the exact same problem -- how to live without BC2. Just like Andrew, I finally found DeltaWalker and now I feel complete on my new Mac. I still use BeyondCompare in a Windows VM when doing Windows based development but it can't compare files on HFS drives. My only complaint with DeltaWalker is that it is about 25% as fast as Araxis Merge but then it costs 25% less too. DW has a much better user interface than Araxis, one that approaches that of BC2. The fact that it is written in Java using the Eclipse RCP are what gives the program true cross-platform coverage. Now I can try Linux too without leaving behind my essential folder compare and sync app. Kudos to Deltopia. Now all I need is IBM to port Websphere to OS X and I won't need Windows for anything. (BTW, the above is dumb on account of the fact that Websphere is also Java and Eclipse based)
  4. hi, Good work! Tanx.
  5. As part of my daily work I routinely do comparisons of different text data, including programs, scripts, CSV datasets, and modeling output originating in both Windows and UNIX environments. For many years I was looking for a real visual tool to facilitate such comparisons but almost lost any faith to find anything truly useful. I was wrong! When I discovered DeltaWalker, it not only satisfied all of my original cravings and desires but also taught me new ways to think about text comparisons. A true gem in the sea of mediocrity! 10/10
  6. I'm glad to come across such an enthusiastic review - it mirrors my own faith in the ultimate usefulness of DeltaWalker! As a developer, using DeltaWalker to compare and edit source code beyond whatever other tools I use, has proven to be my ultimate saviour. Day in and day out, my own versions of code, or code versions from repositories, I end up using DeltaWalker to do what I need to do because with DeltaWalker I really can see what I am doing and I really can do what I need to do right there. Must say that even though this way of using DeltaWalker only employs part of its functionalilty, the simplicity and reliabily of it is just as satisfying and rewarding as using any advanced features. Oh, I'm forgetting that the 3-way comparison is actually an advanced feature :-)

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