5 ms·
Kaleidoscope - File comparison for Mac released
- boucher 16y agoThe title doesn't really give you much to go on, but the app is incredibly well done. It diffs all kinds of binary image formats like PNG, JPG or even PSD. Oh, and the product website is amazingly beautiful too.
- unwind 16y agoPersonally, I found the super-fast "shake"-like effect when you click what you think is a link to be very distracting. It also breaks "back", you need to hunt for and learn to use the "Top" button in the top right corner of those pages.
- bradleyland 16y agoIt's not a shake effect, but a scroll effect (jQ scroll-to plug-in). The appearance of shake occurs because the scroll rate is higher than your browser can render smoothly. The site uses a paginated, single-page model with sections styled with significant design differences for each "page". When clicking a link (they're not actually links [boooo!]), a JS scroll event is triggered. Some relatively straight-forward tweaks could fix this. The author uses span tags to wrap elements that act like links. A far more appropriate markup would use an anchor tag with a fragment identifier (#fragment-id). The span tags that are currently in use use class names to identify the "location" of the target. This is, again, poor form. A URL is the tool for specifying location, and URLs are linked using the anchor tag. HTML Excerpt 1: <div class="wrap"> <span class="scroll_to_text">Text Scope</span> <p>Compare text and source code.</p> </div> Change to: <div class="wrap"> <a href="#text">Text Scope</a> <p>Compare text and source code.</p> </div> JS Excerpt 1: $(".scroll_to_text").click(function() {$.scrollTo($("#text").position().top-40, 300)}); Change to: $("#text").click(function(event) {$.scrollTo($("body").position().top, 300);event.preventDefault();}); I'm a novice HTML/Javascript guy at best, so the code above may not function correctly in production, but I'm certain that the principle is appropriate.
- Torn 16y ago+1, back and forward browser button breaking isn't good.
- RyanMcGreal 16y agoDefinitely. My first thought was, "Oh, another diff viewer" but the binary comparison is an excellent feature.
- ttol 16y agothese are from the same guys that made Versions (http://www.versionsapp.com http://www.versionsapp.com), the subversion app for mac
- lylejohnson 16y agoYes, the Subversion app that still doesn't provide a merge capability despite users' requests for it year after year. Kaleidoscope does look beautiful (not unlike Versions), but given Sofa's track record I wouldn't hold out much hope for support after the initial release.
- st3fan 16y agoI switched to Cornerstone. Not that I use SVN that much anymore .. but some clients still do. Cornerstone is much more pragmatic about features. Like drag and drop simply works.
- robryan 16y agoAmazing website design, love the attention to design that quality mac apps get in comparison to windows ones.
- frou_dh 16y agoI think this is a major point that is surprisingly left out of many of the 'Mac vs X' debates. [The thought that goes in to 3rd party GUI apps, not their websites]
- obeattie 16y agoIt is amazing how well-designed Mac apps are in general — it's a shame the trend doesn't really seem to have translated quite as well to the iPhone. Don't get me wrong, some iPhone apps are amazingly well-designed — I guess it's probably down to most Mac apps (at least the ones I use) being produced by indie software houses that really care about experience, whereas most apps on Windows et al are generally developed by large corporations that don't care as much about their apps' aesthetic, and on the iPhone it's those big companies employing outside contractors that are never going to care as much. Also, that may well be the longest sentence ever penned.
- sid0 16y agoBeyond Compare 3 -- which I'm a really happy user of -- seems to be much more powerful. For example, it can actually merge files. And there's clearly been a ton of attention paid to its design.
- solutionyogi 16y agoEven though two users have already raved about Beyond Compare, I can't stop myself but join the chorus and announce that BC3 is FANTASTIC! If a text compare program doesn't have a 'bottom' status bar like Beyond Compare, I won't use it. Period. Check this snapshot to see what I am talking about: http://i.imgur.com/tLjCr.png http://i.imgur.com/tLjCr.png
- kenshi 16y agoBeyond Compare is amazing. The only app I miss from Windows. If you are on Windows, and haven't used it, you are missing out.
- petewarden 16y agoIt's just for text files, but opendiff is a pretty nice GUI diff that gets quietly installed as part of the Developer Tools package on OS X: http://data.agaric.com/node/1101 http://data.agaric.com/node/1101
- Ixiaus 16y agoIt's a beautiful application, the one thing it does that Emacs can't is the binary image diffing - a cool feature! If I were a designer I would buy that in a heart beat...
- funkdobiest 16y agoDoes anybody remember the original Kalediscope for Macs. It was awesome for a different look other than Mac OS defaults. I suppose it went away with the classic OS.
- makecheck 16y agoYep. The web site of that program is kaleidoscope.net...it doesn't seem to have a Mac OS X version. Unsanity created ShapeShifter, which is similar and worked on Mac OS X for awhile, but since Snow Leopard it seems Apple has changed enough of the system that it can't work anymore.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- dirkstoop 16y agoYeah that was really cool :) I vividly remember the Scherzo theme; who could erase that memory? ;) We emailed Greg and Arlo (authors of the classic Kaleidoscope) to see if they were cool with us repurposing the name and they were, you'll find their names in our app's About window.
- tjmaxal 16y agoYou can still do the same sorts of things with another app in OSX I think the name of the app is candy or something like that. Just googled it. It's called candybar here's the link http://www.panic.com/candybar/ http://www.panic.com/candybar/
- obeattie 16y agoAbsolutely beautiful UI, icon and website… but it doesn't do merge resolution. This is practically all I use opendiff (Filemerge) for, so it's useless for me. Add it, and my €29 are yours in a heartbeat — I tend to do lots of merges, and I find this is one of the very few cases where a proper desktop app can make the job so much easier than a command-line tool like vimdiff/emacs. And let's face it, Filemerge is pretty horrid… having to quit the entire app to move onto the next conflict and watch as it spews SIMBL errors over your terminal is hardly ideal.
- frou_dh 16y agoMan, no merge capabilities is a bummer. I was rooting through the menu items and help viewer in vain.
- rnicholson 16y agoSeems nice. Although, just makes me wish Beyond Compare was available on the Mac as a native app.
- waleedka 16y ago+1 I tested a lot of compare utilities for Mac and finally settled on running a virtual box with Windows on it so I can run BeyondCompare. This app looks promising, though. For me, a killer missing feature is the folder compare view.
- rnicholson 16y agoYeah the only thing that found that is close for Mac is Changes - http://connectedflow.com/changes/ http://connectedflow.com/changes/
- makecheck 16y agoAnd it even comes with a command-line tool...amazing. I really like seeing developers put in this kind of effort. Maybe Apple will choose to package it with a future version of Xcode. :)
- raimondious 16y agoIf you're using a Webkit browser, notice the app icon over time. They use these images for that effect in CSS: http://www.kaleidoscopeapp.com/static/img/ks_color.png http://www.kaleidoscopeapp.com/static/img/ks_color.png , http://www.kaleidoscopeapp.com/static/img/ks_shading.png http://www.kaleidoscopeapp.com/static/img/ks_shading.png , http://www.kaleidoscopeapp.com/static/img/ks_mask.png http://www.kaleidoscopeapp.com/static/img/ks_mask.png Lack of merge support is a deal-breaker for me. I was so hopeful because that's the #1 most requested feature in their other app, Versions.
- koenbok 16y agoGood catch :-) I hoped somebody would notice it... We know about merging. One step at a time...
- raimondious 16y agoI know you won't answer this, but do you think it will come to Kaleidoscope faster than it's come to Versions? (how long has Versions been out? 2 years?) Or, when it comes to Kaleidoscope, will you use that functionality in Versions?
- pclark 16y agoVersions has barely been updated since launch.
- elliottcable 16y agoObvious solution: Stop using SVN. Versions is a great app, but it’s long since time to move on. That said, Kaleidoscope is pretty neat! :D
- dirkstoop 16y agoHi Ray, I started typing a really long reply yesterday, but you're right, there's not a lot we can share in public about our plans right now. One thing I do want to share is that SVN merging and text merging are completely different problems. Both would be great features for either app, but there's not a lot they could share implementation-wise. SVN merging means dealing with the pre-defined features and limitations of SVN (both a pro – it already works – and a con – it is really hard to make something within the contraints of SVN that's not too error-prone and easy enough to use). For text merging, we'd get to work on a completely 'new' problem, the only systems we have to code against are the file system and the cocoa text system.. More work maybe, but 'easier' to create something excellent.
- mcantor 16y agoI absolutely love the use of the scroll effect. It feels very smooth and natural (Chrome).
- kissickas 16y agoWhy did DynDNS say this was a phishing website?
- diskrete 16y agoYep. We had the same problem. I had to use a different Internet connection to download it. (I assumed it's not actually a phishing website based on the comments posted here by users I respect.)
- far33d 16y agoI use Araxis Merge. It's expensive but it's hands-down, the best merge / diff utility I've ever used. All the rest look and feel like toys in comparison.
- jawngee 16y agoI use Araxis as well. Cross platform too.
- sdutoit 16y agoCrashes on startup for me - hopefully they'll get the stack trace I sent.
- jason_slack 16y agoSofa sort of has a slow track record for releasing updates. They tend to just fizzle out. Anyone remember Disco? They released one version and a few small updates, people bought it, they HAVE NEVER DONE ANYTHING ELSE TO IT. Versions is in the same boat. I doubt there will be a 2.0 release of it either.
- st3fan 16y agoSame with Versions indeed. I asked for some really simple improvements. All were promised more than a year ago. None appeared in any update.
- jason_slack 16y agoI hope they can turn around this trend. They make great stuff. I liked Disco a lot and it helped me out. Then it stopped. So I wrote my own, getting ready to release soon.
- st3fan 16y agoExpensive. Is it really that much better than Apple's FileMerge?
- whalesalad 16y agoIt actually won't work for me at all. `git difftool` does not exist anywhere, and I can't even pipe a normal diff to it like `git diff HEAD | ksdiff`
- klaaspieter 16y agoI've been using `git difftool` and `ksdiff` for more than half a year now and it works perfectly.
- abstractwater 16y agoThe website design is so beautiful and visually striking that even if I don't have a strong need for Kaleidoscope, it really makes me want to try it.