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Arbed - Comparing Real Studio Projects

1.  Terms

PDEF

These are the "Property Definitions" that appear in Controls and Windows, e.g. a Window's Title and a Control's "TabStop" property.

TLI

Short for Top-Level Item. Means the items of a project that appear in the Project tab, i.e. Classes, Modules, Windows, Menu Bars, FileTypes, Pictures, and so on. It does not include members of those items, i.e. Methods, Properties, etc.

2.  Hiding items

The Hide button hides selected items from the differences list. They can be unhidden by checking Show hidden - the hidden items will then appear in italics in the list.

Hidden items are remembered by their file names, their Locations (i.e. their name) and their right and left values. If any of the values changes later, the hiding is cancelled.

This makes it possible to filter out "confirmed" differences for later, making them only reappear if the item (e.g. method source) changes.

Note: If using the hierarchical list view, and an expandable item is selected when pressing the Hide button, then all its contained items will be marked for hiding. But only those items that will appear unter that item, not item that are currently filtered out using the view options. This means that the hiding only affects what you could currently see if you'd open all triangles.

3.  View options

You can view and filter the difference display in various ways. Some via the menu bar, others via checkboxes in the window:

3.1  Comparison Menu: Include Minor Differences

If checked, will not show the following kinds of differences:

• Different amount of white space in any text (includes values of string constants)
• The "UI State" items, i.e. the state of open tabs, editor etc.

This option is persistent (i.e. it is remembered as a preference)

3.2  Comparison Menu: Include 1-sided PDEFs

If checked, will not show PDEFs that appear only on one side.

Real Studio isn't consistent including PDEFs in the project (if they's missing they get automatically recreated with default values), and so you might see a lot of "TabStop" PDEFs appear in one side of the comparison only. Since these usually do not matter, you can filter them to avoid the clutter they cause.

This option is persistent (i.e. it is remembered as a preference)

3.3  Comparison Menu: Top-Level Siblings Only

If checked, only those TLIs are shown that appear in both sides.

This is useful when you want to compare two separate projects which share common classes. Instead of getting listed all those items that unique to one of the projects, you only see those that appear on both sides. This usually includes the App class and any other top level items that share the same name.

This option is not persistent, it gets reset for every new comparison

3.4  Checkbox: Use Folders

If checked, the project items are shown in their respective folders, just like in the Real Studio IDE. If unchecked, folders do not show, and all their contents are listed at the root level of the list.

This option is persistent (i.e. it is remembered as a preference)

3.5  Checkbox: Hierarchical

If unchecked, each found difference is listed as one entry in a flat list. If checked, differences are hierarchically shown, based on their project container.

To open more than one level at a time, hold down the Option (Alt) key while clicking the expansion triangle or pressing the cursor right key.

This option is not persistent, it gets reset for every new comparison

4.  Comparing differently named items

If a method, class or similar item has been renamed between the two compared projects, these items will appear as two separate differences, as extra left and extra right. To get them lined up for comparison, select the two items in the upper left and right project items list and then choose Match selected items from the Comparison menu.

Selecting the two items is a bit tricky, though: It doesn't work by simply selecting the two items in the lower diff list (I should change that but it's complicated). Nor can you simply select one, then the other in the upper lists, because when you select one, the other side will try to match the selection - and since there's no match, it'll select the its parent (I should maybe change that, too). For now, the trick here is to first select one side, then select the other side while holding down the option (alt) key. That way, there will be no selection matching performed on the other side.

5.  Caveats

• Here's a list of items that are currently not checked for differences (if you notice others please let me know):
  • The Dynamic state of Constants (see RS User Guide on Constants)
  • Breakpoints

6.  Notes

• You can double click on list items marked as differ Source to view the source code difference in a separate, larger, window.
• The Hide operation remembers the hidden items in a central file named IgnoredPairs.arbed, stored in the user's ApplicationSupport folder. The project for a set of hidden items is identified solely by its file name, without the path.