Black Pixel's Comparison App 'Kaleidoscope 2' Goes Live on Mac App Store

[dodowolf]

Originally Posted by Stella

For developers,Beyond Compare is being released for the Mac - when v4 comes out for windows and Linux. With any luck, sooner rather than later.

I am keeping my finger crossed for this one. I paid for Beyond Compare 2, 3 and Kaleidoscope 2. And I find K2 for programmer is particular lacking in terms of folder and program files comparison, and I keep going back to Beyond Compare in WineBottle

[whooleytoo]

I bought K1, it's a nice, polished app. It was lacking any folder comparison (which the free FileMerge always had, and K2 seems to have added).

Don't really feel like paying to buy K2. It seems nice, but is it nice enough that every significant upgrade (other than bug fixes) costs €20-40, when free alternatives are available? Don't think so.

[Keerock]

Originally Posted by wetrix

Why does macrumors give this app the time of day? Is there really that much of an appeal to the readership?

I don't know their publishing model first hand but it is either a paid placement or ad space was purchased and they ran the article. Very standard.

Although perhaps they really felt it was relevant or a staff writer likes it :-)

[iSee]

Originally Posted by Stella

For developers,Beyond Compare is being released for the Mac - when v4 comes out for windows and Linux. With any luck, sooner rather than later.

Now, that I would pay $70 for!

Beyond Compare is, by far, the best diff tool I've found (talking software development -- not sure on other uses). It has so many nice little features, and lots of integrations. My stomach turns a little when I have to use something else. It would be great to have it native on the Mac.

[headfuzz]

So, this is basically

diff foo bar

with a shiny Cocoa GUI slapped on top?

$70?

Srsly?

EDIT: Just read the rest of the thread and seen the image comparison feature. Nice, but still not worth shelling out $70 for imho, given that the rest of the app seems to fall squarely into my comment before it was edited.

[blomma]

Have you actually tried it? they have a demo version you can try out.

Originally Posted by headfuzz

So, this is basically

diff foo bar

with a shiny Cocoa GUI slapped on top?

$70?

Srsly?

EDIT: Just read the rest of the thread and seen the image comparison feature. Nice, but still not worth shelling out $70 for imho, given that the rest of the app seems to fall squarely into my comment before it was edited.

[tex77]

Originally Posted by shurcooL

Now, as nice as DiffMerge is ... It's just missing a few easy-to-implement (IMO) features that'd make it so much better,

Originally Posted by shurcooL

it is lightyears ahead in some of the core functionality.

Can you please be specific about both of these statements about DiffMerge? How is each app better?

[whooleytoo]

Just trying Beyond Compare now for comparison (Windows eval version, I'll buy when the Mac version is available) and it looks nice.

It seems to lack a feature like Kaleidoscipe has (see the screenshot above) where it highlights the differences in each line in the main view. With BC you need to click on the line to see where in the line the diff is. This makes Kaleidoscope much quicker at looking through changes.

Conversely, Kaleidoscope v1 doesn't have a "ignore unimportant changes" feature; which means you have to sift through lots of false positives when comparing two files. I don't know if that's been added in the more recent version.

[hayesk]

This app is fantastic. If you can use the improvements that this provides over the standard diff app, it'll pay for itself in a couple of weeks. $70 is nothing.

If you tried it and still can't see the value over the standard diff app, then it's probably not for you. I don't mean that to sound elitist, just that some people have needs diffing needs that the standard diff app can't handle or doesn't handle well. $70 is not outrageous at all.

[prowlmedia]

Lovely... now are you going to promote the other 1,000's of apps on the store?

[shurcooL]

Originally Posted by tex77

Can you please be specific about both of these statements about DiffMerge? How is each app better?

The best way to find out is just to try both of them yourself, and use them for your needs, and see how the two compare. DiffMerge is free, and you can use a trial of Kaleidoscope.

Now, the one missing feature of DiffMerge that I would find extremely helpful would be the ability to edit text on both sides of the panel, similar to how WinDiff allows you to. DiffMerge only lets you edit on the right hand side. See here for info. So if you want to make a small change to the file on the left, you have to reload the diff and swap the two files - extremely annoying.

Other than that, I really like everything it does, especially the way it highlights the differences and lets you edit the right hand file. It makes merging different versions (with custom changes, not just keep left/keep right) very easy.