Beyond Compare 5.0 Beta
5.0.0.29491 - May 14, 2024
Notable Changes
- Improved Table Compare behavior and stability.
- Linux: Added KDE6 file manager integration and fixed various issues with other file managers. Thank you to Benjamin Robin.
- Improved startup time in trial mode.
- Windows: Improved Explorer context menu extension.
- Updated help for v5 features and changes.
Appearance
- Linux: Fixed various controls that didn't change colors when switching appearances.
- Linux: Fixed menus incorrectly always using 16x16 images on high DPI displays.
- Linux: Fixed color selection edits drawing the selected color over the top of the down arrow.
- macOS: Fixed Table Compare > Session Settings > Columns table showing black text in dark mode.
File Manager / Explorer Context Menus
- Windows: Fixed "Hide 'Select Left' if there is already a saved selection" option for folders.
- Windows: Fixed captions showing "%s" instead of the requested filename.
- Windows: Fixed support for in-place expansion of "Compare Using" and "Compare to
Using" submenus in Windows 11 top-level menu when optional commands are enabled. - Windows: Filename shortening now occurs on grapheme boundaries rather than codepoints to avoid splitting combining characters, emoji, etc.
- Windows: "Compare to
" commands are now enabled even if "Select Center" has been used. - Linux: Added KDE6 integration. Thank you to Benjamin Robin.
- Linux: Fixed integration with Gnome file manager.
- Linux: Fixed menu incorrectly showing disabled items.
- Linux: Fixed menu not comparing archive files as folders.
- Linux: Fixed integration reading settings from ~/.config/bcompare instead of ~/.config/bcompare5.
FTP
- Replaced SFTP "Force faster uploads to older OpenSSH servers" profile option with "Use aggressive uploads to OpenSSH servers" one that affects all OpenSSH versions, not just v3.9 and earlier. It's on by default, which matches existing v4 and v5 behavior.
Help
- Updated help for v5 features and changes.
- Windows: Updated .chm appearance.
- Linux: F1 now opens context sensitive help in dialogs.
- Linux: Fixed launching help from a .tar.gz install.
Misc
- Improved startup time in trial mode.
- Windows: "Register for All Users" option will now store the key in C:\ProgramData (%AllUsersProfile%) instead of Program Files so it doesn't need to show a UAC prompt.
Settings
- Import no longer tries to copy file format helpers if source and target folders are the same.
- macOS/Linux: Added first run prompt to import v4 settings automatically.
Table Compare
- Fixed files incorrectly returning an equal result if they contain orphan cells, rows, or sheets.
- Fixed crash when data includes a header row.
- macOS: Fixed editing cells adding a line feed character to the cell contents.
- Fixed viewport positioning behavior.
- Added more feedback when using "Align With" commands.
- Fixed popup hints appearing when the mouse cursor was below the last row.
- Fixed column width auto-sizing to limit the width to the visible width of the control.
- Fixed using "Resize Column" in line details with "Auto Resize Columns to Fit" enabled.
Text Compare/Merge
- Fixed toggling "Conflict" and "Ignored" status to update the toolbar and statusbar.
5.0.0.29328 - April 12, 2024
Notable Changes
- After upgrading, settings will be incompatible with previous v5 betas. Make a backup if you may need to run older betas.
- Added support for importing BC v4 settings.
- macOS: Fixed 'Follow symbolic links' so it copies symlinks as the target file.
- Fixed crashes when scrolling in text compare and when closing app on Linux.
- Fixed file content being endlessly repeated when loading a comparison.
Appearance
- Linux: Fixed comboboxes autosizing too narrow.
- Linux: Fixed menu separators in dark mode being too difficult to see.
- Linux: Fixed various dialogs being too narrow and showing the Ok/Cancel buttons overlapping the Help button.
- Linux: Fixed checkboxes in list tables being hard to see in dark mode (e.g., Preferences > Commands).
- macOS: Fixed checkboxes not drawing in list tables (e.g., Preferences > Commands).
- macOS: Further improved appearance of buttons in the Picture Compare and the Text Compare Find panel.
File Views
- Fixed file content being endlessly repeated when loading a comparison.
Folder Compare
- macOS: Fixed 'Follow symbolic links' so it copies symlinks as the target file instead of as a symlink.
Misc
- macOS: Fixed mouse hover hints not updating/dismissing when moving from between cells/lines in a compare.
- Fixed error message when trying to register using a license key for an older version.
Settings
- Added full support for importing BC v4 settings.
- Windows: Updated first run to prompt to import v4 settings automatically.
- Improved behavior when settings files are from a older/newer version than is currently running.
Text Views
- Delete previous char/word at start of line below an orphan gap now deletes preceding line terminator.
- Delete next char/word in an orphan gap now moves to next line.
Crashes
- Linux: Fixed crash that would prevent the process from exiting when closing the last window.
- Fixed Folder Compare crash when using Actions > Quick Compare command.
- Fixed Text Compare/Merge crash after a vertical scroll.
5.0.0.29206 - March 28, 2024
Notable Changes
- Deleting in folder compare/sync will now use the recycle bin by default.
- Changed FTP/FTPS/SFTP server character encoding default from "Detect" to "UTF-8".
- macOS: Fixed setting last modified times when copying files to exFAT volumes.
- Windows: Fixed shell extension support for non-Explorer apps on Windows 10 and earlier.
- Various improvements to appearance, scaling, and stability.
Default Settings Changed
- Folder Compare and Sync sessions set "Use Recycle Bin if Possible" by default. This will affect existing sessions.
- Changed FTP/FTPS/SFTP profile "Server > Encoding" default from "Detect" to "UTF-8".
Appearance
- macOS/Linux: Fixed various edits showing black-on-black text in dark mode.
- macOS/Linux: Fixed right-aligned labels drawing past the edge of various dialogs.
- macOS/Linux: Fixed appearance of buttons in the Picture Compare, on the Text Compare Find panel, and the Text Compare gutter arrows.
- macOS/Linux: Fixed Options > File Manager Integration drawing in dark mode.
- Linux: Reverted fix for dark mode menu separators being difficult to see. Will be addressed again later.
- Linux: Fixed treeviews not displaying ▸ button to expand/collapse folders when using the hardcoded light/dark mode appearances.
- Windows: Fixed character encoding combobox (e.g., Text Compare > Session Settings > Format > Left encoding override) drawing the separator line in the edit area in dark mode.
Folder Compare
- macOS: Fixed setting last modified times when copying files to exFAT volumes.
FTP
- Changed FTP/FTPS/SFTP profile "Server > Encoding" default from "Detect" to "UTF-8".
- SSH public/private key generation in Profiles dialog now supports ed25519 and EcDSA keys and will generate ed25519 keys by default.
- Windows: Fixed misalignments when filenames included invalid character sequences.
High DPI Scaling
- Linux: Fixed trial mode nag dialog scaling.
- Improved scaling in Table Compare grid.
- Fixed overly large color spots in Folder Compare.
- Fixed size of resize hit area between column headers.
Installer
- Windows: Portable installs will now default to 64-bit versions on 64-bit Windows. Silent installs can use the /32 switch to force a 32-bit version.
- Linux: Fixed apt warning about missing i386 info in BC5 .deb repository after installing amd64 build.
Misc
- Windows: Fixed shell extension support for non-Explorer apps on Windows 10 and earlier.
- macOS: Fixed using [Spacebar] to click buttons.
- Linux: Updated readme's list of dependencies for Debian/Ubuntu and RedHat.
- Windows: Adjusted order of Explorer extension's commands so they're consistent across different selection types.
- Removed outdated pricing information from Help.
Table Compare
- Colored spots in column headers, row number cells, and sheet tabs are now only shown when there are differences to make them stand out more.
Crashes
- Fixed crash when expanding archive types that use the 7-zip libraries.
- macOS: Fixed Picture Compare crashes when opening ProRAW and DNG images.
5.0.0.28983 - February 21, 2024
Notable Changes
- File encoding auto-detection now matches against the entire file instead of just the first 64KB.
- Added protection against SSH Terrapin vulnerability.
- Linux: Enabled apt (.deb) and yum (.rpm) repositories for BC 5.
- Various other fixes and enhancements.
Appearance
- Linux: Fixed detection of system light/dark color scheme on Ubuntu and other distros that don't update the Qt5 theme.
- Linux: Made dark mode menu separators more visible.
- macOS/Linux: Improved visibility of Picture Compare labels and slider controls.
- Windows: Fixed scaled width of horizontal splitters in file views.
Archives
- macOS: Fixed 7-zip and various other archive types on M-series CPUs.
- Windows: Fixed reading/writing .bcss snapshots on systems where the system ANSI encoding is UTF-8.
- Windows: Fixed .cab archive extraction in 64-bit builds.
- Updated 7-zip library to 23.01 on all platforms.
- Windows: Updated UnRAR DLL to v6.24.
- macOS/Linux: Updated UnRAR library to 6.2.12.
File Views
- File encoding auto-detection now matches against the entire file instead of just the first 64KB.
- macOS/Linux: Fixed switching between over/under and side-by-side layouts hiding one of the panels.
FTP
- Updated SFTP/TLS/cloud storage library.
- Added protection against SSH Terrapin vulnerability.
- macOS: Fixed SFTP connection hang on M-series CPUs.
Installer
- macOS: Fixed Check for Updates failing if the
Beyond Compare.app
bundle was renamed. - Linux: Enabled apt (.deb) and yum (.rpm) repositories for BC 5.
- Linux: Creating an empty
/etc/default/bcompare
file will prevent the .deb package from adding the Beyond Compare repository and public signing key to the system configuration. - Linux: Uninstalling the .deb package will now remove the repository and public signing key configuration files if they were added automatically.
Misc
- Windows: Disabled path autocompletion for URLs that aren't supported.
- macOS: Removed ability to run on macOS 10.11 and 10.12.
Table Compare
- Updated Excel reading libraries.
Text Views
- macOS: Fixed gutter getting out of sync with main content area when scrolling.
Text Merge
- macOS/Linux: Fixed support for detached Output window.
5.0.0.28767 - January 9, 2024
Notable Changes
- General polish, bug fixes, and improved stability.
Appearance
- Fixed file view crosshatching for missing lines being too bright in dark mode.
- Improved appearance of the mini window thumbnails in Folder Compare confirmation dialogs.
- "Check for Updates" dialog now matches light/dark mode.
- macOS: Fixed path edit coloring in dark mode when a remote profile is loaded (e.g., SFTP, cloud).
Command Line
- Fixed scripting error dialogs closing immediately after being shown.
File Views
- macOS/Linux: Fixed file format conversion errors incorrectly reporting that the converter app isn't found.
- Drag & drop now opens on the correct side when dropping on editor scrollbar and statusbar areas.
Installer
- Windows: Fixed updates prompting to reboot or failing with an access denied error when BCClipboard is running.
Misc
- macOS: Added M-series native 'bcomp' executable.
- macOS: Fixed window jitter when resizing using the mouse at the top of the window.
- macOS: Fixed drag & drop always loading items on the left side of the view.
- Windows: Updated license in installer.
Text Edit
- Fixed unnecessary scrolling when editing.
- macOS: Fixed cases where scrolling was allowed past the end of the file.
Text Compare
- Fixed viewport position when changing display filters.
- Fixed "When loading new files, go to first difference" when both files begin with a large amount of matching lines.
Text Merge
- Fixed word wrap to wrap all input lines to the same height.
- Fixed support for "When loading new files, go to first difference" option.
Crashes
- Windows: Fixed Table Compare hang when editing a cell in dark mode.
- Fixed Text Compare/Merge crash when enabling word wrap while scrolled to the right.
5.0.0.28643 - December 11, 2023
Text Views
- Fixed scrollbar maximum calculations.
- Fixed excessive flicker and cases where changes weren't redrawing the display correctly.
- Fixed copying a gap to the other side leaving the caret at an odd position.
- macOS: - Fixed "### filtered lines" repeating past the end of a filtered display.
Crashes
- Fixed Text Merge crash when input files don't have a trailing line terminator.
- macOS/Linux: Fixed potential crashes in 64-bit builds.
5.0.0.28625 - December 7, 2023
Text Views
- Fixed "Next/Previous Edit" jumping to the wrong location.
Crashes
- Fixed Text Compare crash when refreshing if the comparison is scrolled and there's a selection.
- macOS: Fixed crash when clicking/hovering over column headers.
- macOS: Fixed crash when clicking the toolbar Session dropdown.
5.0.0.28589 - November 29, 2023
Appearance
- Fixed gutter selection arrows in light mode so they're correctly colored instead of white.
- Windows: Fixed scaled width of vertical splitters in file views.
- Linux: Fixed column headers being too short.
Explorer Context Menu
- Windows 11: Context menu is now only installed using the embedded .msix file.
- Windows 11: Top level context menu now supports drive letters.
- Windows 11: Fixed support for \netshare and media devices
- Other minor polish and improvements.
File Views
- Added Ctrl + / ⌘+ and Ctrl - / ⌘- keyboard shortcuts for "Display Font Increase/Decrease" and Picture Compare "Zoom In/Out".
Misc
- macOS: Improved handling of mouse cursors.
- macOS: Improved various issues on secondary monitors.
Settings
- macOS: Fixed assigning shortcuts that involve the [+] key.
Text Views
- macOS: Fixed blurry text on macOS 14 Sonoma.
- macOS: Fixed Line Details showing incorrect lines when navigating in the main editor.
- Linux: Fixed gutter width when line numbers are hidden.
- Fixed line details scrollbar not updating correctly.
- Fixed scrolling horizontally when using the mouse to drag and select text.
- Fixed changing display filters leaving the editors scrolled too far.
Text Compare
- Fixed Find Next and Next Difference so matching lines outside the current viewport scrolls enough to show the match near the top of the view.
Crashes
- Fixed Text Compare crash when enabling word wrap.
- Fixed Table Compare crash when closing.
- macOS: Fixed crash in caret handling after closing a file compare.
- macOS: Fixed crash when opening Preferences on macOS 10.13.
5.0.0.28324 - September 15, 2023
Notable Changes
- macOS: Fixed various cases where the editor would display incorrect data or scrolling artifacts.
- After a search the matched text now flashes brighter to make it easier to see, before switching back to the normal selection color.
- Fixed hex compare incorrectly marking some single byte matches as differences.
- General improvements to stability, high DPI support, and dark mode appearance.
Per Monitor Scaling
- Windows: Icons and images will be now sized correctly for all monitor scaling factors rather than only using prescaled images at fixed sizes.
- Windows: Fixed modal dialogs on non-primary monitors with different scaling factors not disabling their parent window and not taking focus when they're first shown.
Appearance
- Adjusted dark mode color scheme to make it more readable and improve contrast.
- Increased dark mode saturation and contrast of dynamically recolored icons. Folder "Older" and "Exact" coloring are much more different now, more closely matching their text colors, and Newer/Orphan coloring is less washed out. Icons can be closer to pure white.
- Changed unfocused selection color to gray and added ability to customize it.
- Dark mode default color for the folder compare log is now based on the active theme rather than using hardcoded colors.
- Windows: File "Open" and "Save As" dialogs and folder "Open" dialog now follow system dark mode and support per-monitor DPI scaling better.
- Windows: Made it more obvious when menu items are checked in dark mode.
- Windows: Fixed white flash when first opening a dark window.
- Linux: Fixed Options dialog's side panel coloring when using a dark system theme.
File Views
- After a search the matched text now flashes brighter to make it easier to see, before switching back to the normal selection color.
- The "current" editor now uses the active selection color even if it doesn't have focus (e.g., when focus is in the "Find Text" panel).
- Windows: Fixed using Ctrl+Shift+Mouse Wheel to change viewer font size.
- Windows: Using Ctrl+Shift+Mouse Wheel to change viewer font size now forces an immediate repaint to smooth out the zoom.
- macOS: Fixed comparison results icon not showing in the status bar.
Hex Compare
- Fixed single byte matches being incorrectly marked as differences.
Misc
- Appearance > Theme Mode is now Imported/Exported/Reverted to Defaults as part of the "Colors, Fonts" settings rather than "Program Options".
- Updated pdftotext to 4.04.
- macOS: Fixed mouse wheel scrolling the entire viewer when the cursor was over the titlebar, toolbar, or status bar.
- macOS: Fixed dragging viewer windows when clicking on the window caption.
- macOS: Fixed double clicking on the titlebar to maximize/restore a viewer window.
- Windows: Fixed "Import Settings"/"Restore Factory Defaults" not showing the "Delete existing..." checkboxes, and the Source Control integration file operation dialog not showing the "Keep files checked out" checkbox.
- Windows: Fixed some flicker when first showing a maximized window.
Options
- Windows: Fixed "Explorer Integration" saying it's a portable install if BC was installed and registered by an administrator and then run by a limited user.
- Windows: Fixed "Apply" button not enabling when toggling commands in the "Explorer Integration" table.
Text Views
- When changing display filters, making edits, etc, the text editor now preserves the top line instead of trying to maintain the "current" line's position in the view.
- Fixed graphical glitches when changing the current line.
- Fixed caret not showing immediately when opening a new compare/editor view.
- Fixed "# Filtered Lines" bars scaling too large, and not resizing when moving between monitors with different DPIs.
- macOS: Fixed various cases where the editor would display incorrect data or scrolling artifacts.
- macOS: Fixed selection color not dimming when window loses focus.
Crashes
- Fixed crash when clicking in text compare after loading binary data.
- Fixed crashes when changing between light and dark themes.
5.0.0.28069 - June 29, 2023
Significant New Features
- Word wrap in Text Compare and Text Merge.
- Dark mode.
- Table Compare can compare multiple Excel sheets and has other enhancements.
- Text Merge manual alignment supports multi-line selections.
- Windows: Per-monitor DPI scaling.
- Windows: Explorer context menu integration enhanced and supports Windows 11.
- Linux: Upgraded to QT 5.
- macOS: Native Apple M series support and additional performance improvements.
Additional Enhancements
- Version Compare supports more header fields, and has better MUI and error handling.
- Media Compare (formerly MP3 compare) has been enhanced and supports additional file types (FLAC, MP3, MP4/AAC).
- Media Compare, Picture Compare, and Version Compare now launch Hex or Picture Compare when double clicking on tags.
- "Open Clipboard" command added to Registry Compare, Media Compare, Version Compare, and Text Edit.
- SSH keyboard interactive authentication now combines multiple prompts into a single dialog.
- Command line now supports using /fv="Hex Compare" for archive files.
- Fixed reading BC scripts saved as UTF-8 without a byte order mark.
- Mouse wheel scrolls the control under the mouse cursor rather than the one that has focus.
- Windows/Linux: Titlebars now show "Administrator:" or "(Root Session)" when run elevated.
- Windows: Loading a base folder that contains a Windows shortcut file named "target.lnk" will no longer automatically redirect to the target of that shortcut.
- Windows: Fixed various issues with control and menu appearance on Windows 11.
- macOS: Copies within a single file system now make linked copy-on-write clones, so the file data isn't duplicated until one of them changes.
Default Settings Changed
- Table Compare default comparisons have been significantly improved. Existing sessions won't yet import.
- Windows: File views now assume UTF-8 instead of ANSI encoding for files unless it detects extended characters.
- FTP/FTPS/SFTP use binary transfers for all files instead of doing ASCII ones for some file types. The previous "Auto" behavior still exists as an option.
- Windows: "Tools > Source Control" dialog (MSSCCI integration) is now hidden by default since most version control systems no longer support it. It can be manually re-enabled in "Options > Toolbars, etc".
- Increased "Binary size for binary compare" from 65KB to 4MB.
- "Limit next difference files to current folder" is now off by default.
- Added "Ignore Same", "Favor Left", and "Favor Right" buttons to Text Merge toolbar.
- Removed Text Compare "Full Edit" toggle. Full editing support is always enabled.
Table Compare
- Autodetection of file formatting and column type has been improved.
- Multiple MS Excel sheets and multiple HTML tables can be compared with tabs. Sheets will be aligned based on their names.
- Default comparison uses a standard alignment rather than a sorted one.
- Individual cells are colored based on their differences.
- CSV files support editing on a cell-by-cell basis.
- Existing v4 sessions will not import yet.
Windows Explorer context menu extension
- Works in the top-level menu in Windows 11.
- Added "Compare Using Hex Compare" for archive files.
- Added support for right clicking on the desktop or in the background of a folder view to act on that folder.
- Using "Select Left File" and then right clicking on a folder now supports comparing a file of the same name within that folder.
- "Edit" command is now enabled for a selection of up to 15 files.
- Added "View Patch", "Compare to Clipboard", and "Open for Compare" commands.
Windows Installer
- Added /DisableUpdates switch to disable check for updates for the current user or all users.
- Install mode prompt (All Users, Current User, Portable) is now shown before the UAC prompt, so it no longer needs admin privileges for non-admin installs.
- "All Users" installs no longer prompt to run the Clipboard Compare on startup. Previously this only affected the installing user.
Picture Compare
- Mouse now uses a precise + cursor when over images and the two images that the mouse isn't over show smaller cursors in the same relative positions.
- Mouse wheel scrolls the view rather than zooming. Shift+Wheel will scroll horizontally and Ctrl+Wheel will zoom in and out.