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UltraCompare latest changes

The list below contains the latest changes for UltraCompare Professional. For a more thorough look at what has been added, take the tour of the new features.

The current major version is 2024.0, released on 2024-05-15. Please note, hotfixes for this version may have been released since then.

UltraCompare 2024.0 changes (2024-05-15)

  • Features and enhancements
    • Support for cloud storage services:
    • Google Drive
    • Microsoft OneDrive
    • Amazon S3
    • Dropbox
    • Access and compare files and folders from all your cloud storage services
  • Patch compatible output
    • “Patch file format” setting in Configuration->Backup & Save
    • “Save Result Report” command to output a patch file
    • Use a command line patch utility to patch files in place
  • Other notable enhancements and quality improvements
    • Issues with display of accented Unicode characters
    • FTP Account Manager doesn’t honor selected account
    • FTP Account Manager doesn’t automatically open to selected account
    • Long code sequence breaks syntax highlighting, following text highlighted as string
    • Strings are clipped in themed configuration dialog
    • Text cleanups and misspellings
    • TAB key has no effect in text compares
    • Modified key mapping doesn’t work as expected in UCX 2023.0.030
    • Impossible to scroll to bottom of listing when “Hide same folders” is selected
    • “Explore first folder” and “Explore second folder” context menu options always subdued
    • PDF compare: erroneous prompt is shown to switch to binary mode for empty PDFs
    • Difference text background colors are not set for themes by default
    • Confirmation prompt is not shown before merging unique file from one folder to the other
    • Active difference flashes repeatedly

UltraCompare 2023.1 changes (2023-11-20)

  • Features and enhancements:

    • Merge into New File
      • Merges 2 existing files to a new file
      • Prevents accidental merges to existing files
      • Select “Run read-only compare” from folder mode context menu
    • Integrated dockable PowerShell window
    • New command line options
      • -bt Ignore tabs
      • -gitcp Compare to previous version
      • -gitcu Compare to unmodified
      • -gitor Open local repository
    • “Compare as” context menu command for Folder mode
      • Select specific compare mode for selected file
      • Choose from Text, Binary, Table modes
    • Multiple difference alignment methods
      • Myer’s algorithm (traditional) – standard diff algorithm that is fast and efficient but may not produce the most human readable or comprehensible difference matching and alignment
      • Patience diff (new) – context specific method that works off of common sets of data within documents to build difference matches and alignment to produce results closer to human expectations within short ranges of common text blocks
    • Other notable enhancements and quality improvements:
      • Compare engine improvements for better matching and alignment
      • CTRL+Z results in undo of ALL session edits, not just the last one
      • Add support for “Use bold font for differences” for binary/table modes as well
      • Allow users to merge “fake lines” over content in file compare to delete content in target file
      • Impossible to enter =! in quick find dialog
      • Attempting to compare specific RAR archives fail
      • Repeated crashes during specific folder merge
      • Timestamp difference enhancements suggested for comparing FAT to NTFS folders
      • When adjusting columns in one table column widths should be automatically matched in the other table
      • Improved application stability
      • Allow customer to specify folder that should be used for temp files
      • -nonrec should force non-recursive compare but doesn’t work
      • Sync rules are empty after install

UltraCompare 2023.0 changes (2023-05-31)

  • Features and enhancements
    • File merge UI enhancements
      •  Merge buttons for each difference
      • Improved visibility of difference blocks
    • Folder mode enhancements
      • Added hash compare options: CRC, MD5, SHA1, SHA256
      • Added timestamp compare options: Modified, Accessed, Created
    • New ignore options:
      • File extensions
      • Daylight savings
      • Timestamp range
    • Compare arbitrary column ranges between two files
      • Supports multiple arbitrary column sets
    • Folder session display and filter option defaults can now be set in settings
    • Other notable enhancements and quality improvements
    • Allow users to specify Git folders to include (not just exclude)
    • Ignore DCIM folders from connected devices
    • UltraCompare doesn’t properly extract text between square brackets from PDF documents
    • UltraCompare doesn’t properly extract German open quote from PDF documents
    • 3-way compare doesn’t show scrollbar for each map on Windows
    • Prompt to normalize line terminators interferes with detection of UTF-16BE file format
    • Crash attempting 3-way compare with certain files
    • Allow difference text background color and common text background color to be independent
    • EAR and WAR files should be handled the same as JAR/ZIP files
    • File merge in 3-way folder mode doesn’t update modified file
    • Restored command line functionality from previous versions
    • Print preview shows incredibly small text
    • Cannot select a large number of lines after editing in text compare
    • Confirmation button added dialog prompting users to apply changes to the active session
    • UltraCompare shows two files as identical when comparing local files to network files
    • Wrapped lines are not completely copied to clipboard if they include “||”
    • Git merge shows incorrect line count for certain merge conditions
    • “New compare” dropdown should include Zip/Rar/Jar compare sessions
    • Crash during folder merge with certain files

    UltraCompare 2022.20 changes (2022-05-24)

    • Binary compare improvements
      • Hex offset support
        • Set hex offsets per frame to compare or ignore different areas of binary data
        • Right-click on any byte to set beginning and ending offsets per-pane
        • New session properties for offsets
      • Configure number of bytes per line
    • Folder compare improvements
      • Sort folder lists by file type / extension
      • Sort indicators for column headings
    • Text compare improvements
      • New UltraEdit-style Quick Find
      • Ignore spaces and tabs separately
      • Active line window can always show paired lines
    • Table compare improvements
      • New option to ignore whitespace
    • Git improvements
      • Optionally show conflicts / modified files at top of branch browser
      • Optionally hide remote branches in branch browser
      • Better visual indication of background Git interactions
      • Improved aesthetics for Git reviews and compares
    • Command line and output improvements
      • Support for multiple ignore option flags for text mode
      • New -ignt switch to “ignore timestamp differences” for folder mode
      • Added support for -ne, -m, and -a switches for folder mode
      • New switches for setting output format:
        • -ofa will use “All frames” result format
        • -ofc will use “Difference in context” format
        • -ofo will use “One frame only” format
        • -ofs will use “Side by side” format
        • Note: These switches must be ordered after file/folder paths used for comparison
      • Generate HTML result report from command line (add .html extension to output file)
      • Difference indicators for folder mode result report:
        • * = file is different between folders
        • < = file exists in the left pane’s folder only
        • > = file exists in the right pane’s folder only
    • Other improvements
      • See active / total number of differences in status bar for text, binary, and table modes
      • Support for Ctrl + mouse wheel to zoom in / out
      • New print option to set printed font size
    • Several issues resolved

    UltraCompare 2022.10 changes (2022-01-21)

    • Performance and visual improvements for text mode merge
    • Improved responsiveness of merge controls
    • Optimized navigation of large files when compare is still processing
    • Improved accuracy of differences map
    • Visual improvements for table mode column and row headers
    • Automatic correction of mixed or incorrect line terminators on paste
    • Improved handling of externally modified MS Word document
    • Addressed isolated folder mode crash
    • Addressed issues copying selected text in “Diffs only” view
    • Addressed issue merging last difference in files
    • Addressed issue with “Next diff” button not working properly
    • Addressed copy/paste issues in third pain of 3-way text mode
    • Other minor issues addressed

    UltraCompare 2022 changes (2021-11-17)

    • Lightning fast text merge results
      • Re-engineered text merge to provide instant merge
      • Eliminated compare / pane refresh after merge
      • Various other minor merge improvements to provide better user experience
    • New merge settings in Settings » Merge
      • Separate “prompt on merge” settings for text and folder mode
      • More granular settings for folder and text modes
    • Various theme and difference color improvements
    • Scrollable map sizing improvements
    • Force refresh for folder mode (Shift + F5)
    • Theme improvements:
      • Added three new dark color themes: Studio Dark, One Dark, Predawn
      • Set Studio Dark as default theme
      • Improvements for text mode colors
    • Key mapping for Find Next / Find Previous
    • Support for ignoring files or folders with spaces in name
    • Updated FTP component
    • Improvements for selecting items in 3-way folder compare
    • Other minor improvements