Specifying EDP as an external file viewer/editor

General questions about using ExamDiff Pro, ideas for new features, bug reports, and usage tips.
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zweistein
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Joined: Wed Jul 27, 2005 8:13 am
Location: Belgium

Specifying EDP as an external file viewer/editor

Post by zweistein »

(this is not about accessing external file viewers from an EDP directory view - quite the opposite)

When browsing files outside of EDP, you want to quickly view/edit an individual text file with something smarter than notepad. EDP's viewer/editor is definitely richer, you're familiar with it, and it launches quickly. Only it tends to look for a second file to compare with. So just compare the file to itself. Of course now EDP shows the same file contents twice. You can Ctrl-2 the first pane away, or enjoy a cool feature during editing: you see the difference with the original file contents, and can undo changes selectively by merging them back in from the original.

How then can you launch EDP on a single file in a single interaction? Total Commander and other programs typically let you specify an external editor as a command line (to which they append the file name as a parameter). Set this to:

Code: Select all

"C:\Program Files\ExamDiff Pro\ExamDiff.exe" // .
Note the trailing dot. This only works if the external editor is started in the current directory as Total Commander does. Otherwise you can still specify \\.\nul instead of the dot to get a very empty first pane. Or go over to proxy scripts, file type actions and other stuff that make you pull out your hair when it stops working half a year later.

You do want to disable warnings about identical files being compared. If you want to keep them on for real compares, first disable the warnings, export options to a file, and insert a /g: flag in the external editor command line.
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