Options file saving 'Directory Exclude filter' in hex

aaronp · Post by **aaronp** » Tue Dec 19, 2006 9:49 am

I have about 30 different ExamDiff options files for comparing a number of different folders. They have rather elaborate 'Directory Exclude Filters'. I need to use ExamDiff to compare these options files, but because the data is in Hex, it isn't meaningful. It would be better if it were to save the Exclude filter in the human readable format that I typed them in as.

Before
[Directory comparison]
Include filter hex=2A 00
Exclude filter hex=3A 00 2A 00 44 00 6F 00 63 00 75 00 6D 00...

After
[Directory comparison]
Include filter=*
Exclude filter=:*Documentation*, *.scc, ...

Ideally the Options file would be Xml instead of Ini format, so you wouldn't have to have so many things in Hex (could use CDATA[] sections in the xml).

Thanks,
aaron

Post by **psguru** » Tue Dec 19, 2006 8:21 pm

You are right, these HEX strings are no very user-friendly. They were implemented when we added Unicode support.

We'll look into this issue. One problem is, of course, the migration from one format to another.

As far as XML is concerned, I'm not a big fan of it when it comes to simple settings files.

aaronp · Post by **aaronp** » Wed Dec 20, 2006 1:26 pm

Well, I guess that when you added Unicode support, it no longer became 'simple file settings'. You seem like a smart guy, I'm sure you could figure out some way to migrate to xml.

While were on this topic, I've one more idea. It would great if the 'options file' also saved the From/To folders and the 'options file' were saved with an extension that was associated with ExamDiff. Then I could just double- click the file and ExamDiff would run and do everything I want. As you know, currently one has to create a shortcut that points to ExamDiff and passes in the two folders and the 'options file' as parameters. Anyway, its not a huge deal...just an idea.

Thanks

Post by **psguru** » Wed Dec 20, 2006 8:13 pm

While were on this topic, I've one more idea. It would great if the 'options file' also saved the From/To folders and the 'options file' were saved with an extension that was associated with ExamDiff. Then I could just double- click the file and ExamDiff would run and do everything I want. As you know, currently one has to create a shortcut that points to ExamDiff and passes in the two folders and the 'options file' as parameters. Anyway, its not a huge deal...just an idea.

Not a bad idea. Perhaps one day...

Post by **psguru** » Sun Jan 07, 2007 12:06 pm

Just to let you know that strings will be saved as normal strings in options files for Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista (NT-based versions). For 95/98/Me we still will use HEX strings since these versions of Windows do not support saving INI strings in Unicode. This change is coming in the next build of 3.5 Beta.

Also, we'll implement another idea of yours: saving sessions in files (this includes file names and options), and having an ability to "run" these files in order to start EDPro sessions. The session files extension will be .edpsess