Araxis Merge 2009.3725

Merge is the visual file comparison (diff), merging and folder synchronization application from Araxis. Use it to compare and merge source code, web pages and other text files with native application performance. Compare images and binary files. Synchronize folders. Perform code reviews and audits. Work with source hierarchies containing thousands of files.

Benefits:

• For legal and publishing professionals:  instantly identify every change between different contract or manuscript drafts. Directly open and compare the text from Microsoft Office (Word and Excel), OpenDocument, PDF and RTF files. Copy text from other applications (such as Microsoft Word) and paste it directly into a text comparison window.
• For software engineers and web developers: compare, understand and combine different source file versions. Work quickly and accurately, whether you are comparing individual files or reconciling entire branches of source code. Use three-way comparison to integrate changes made by you, and those made by a colleague, with a common ancestor version.
• For release and quality control managers: compare different source code branches to give total confidence that you know and understand every change made to every file for a specific release. Compare product releases to be certain that only the expected files have been modified. Create an html or xml report of changes for audit purposes.
• For code reviewers and auditors: identify in context every change made between two or three source code hierarchies. Create a standalone html or xml report of your findings. Add bookmarks and comments to a file or folder comparison, then save it as a single-file archive for emailing to other team members for review.
• Other users: Whether you are working with multiple revisions of text files or need to keep multiple folder hierarchies in sync (for example, between a desktop and laptop machine), Merge could help save time and reduce errors by helping you to work quickly and accurately. 

Major Features:

1. File comparison and merging
   • Merge allows you to compare and work with various revisions of text files, such as program source code, xml and html files. It supports files with ascii, mbcs and Unicode character encodings. A colour-coded side-by-side comparison makes it easy to pinpoint at a glance similarities and differences between files. Linking lines are drawn between the documents showing clearly how they are related.
   • Point-and-click merging lets you choose the parts of each file that you would like to add to a final merged version by simply clicking buttons. The in-place editor with unlimited undo enables complete control over the merged file as you create it. The file comparison display dynamically updates as the merge progresses.
   • Merge shows detailed highlights of changes within lines. It can be configured to ignore differences in whitespace and line endings, as well as changes in lines matching specified regular expressions. The latter is useful for ignoring unimportant changes such as timestamps or expanded version control keywords.
2. Binary and image file comparison: Merge doesn't just compare text files. Use image comparison to compare various types of image file and instantly see which pixels have been modified. Binary comparison enables you to identify differences in data files at a byte level.
3. Three-way comparison and automatic merging
   • Merge Professional adds advanced three-way visual file comparison and merging to the Standard Editions two-way visual file comparison and merging. This is particularly useful when more than one person is working on the same set of files.
   • Automatic Merging enables swift reconciliation of even the largest files. Three-way file comparisons can be launched directly from a three-way folder comparison, allowing efficient integration of entire branches of source code.
4. Integrated folder hierarchy comparison and synchronization
   • Merge supports folder hierarchy comparison and synchronization, enabling you to compare and merge entire directory trees. This is ideal for detecting changes in different versions of source code or web pages. You can even use the efficient byte-by-byte comparison option to check the integrity of recordable cds.
   • The Professional Edition of Merge supports three-way folder comparison, enabling two revisions of a folder hierarchy to be merged with their common ancestor or some other folder hierarchy. This can be especially useful when used in conjunction with a source code control or software configuration management system.
5. Direct access to configuration management systems
   • Merge integrates with Time Machine on Mac OS X ‘Leopard’, so you can open any earlier revision of a file or folder. Open the same file or folder in both the left and right comparison panes, then use the Revisions (Time Machine) button to compare a file or folder with an earlier revision of itself.
   • Merge comes with plugins for Perforce and Subversion. These give Merge read-only access to files and folders located in Perforce and Subversion databases. Therefore, for example, a Merge folder comparison can be used to compare a Perforce client workspace against the depot. Alternatively, different branches (or the same branch at different points in time) within a depot can be compared directly.
6. Report generation: File comparison reports (examples: two-way, three-way) can be created in html, html slideshow, xml or unix diff format. html reports are particularly useful for archiving and distribution. Folder comparison reports (examples: two-way, three-way) can be created in html or xml format.
7. A folder comparison report can, optionally, include file comparison reports for some or all of the files involved in the folder comparison. Thus it is possible to generate a report that is a complete record of all the differences in all of the files involved in a folder comparison. This is especially useful in code review and code audit situations, particularly as reports can be generated directly for files and folders in configuration management systems for which there is a Merge plugin.

Enhancements: Various aspects of the Japanese-localized version of the user interface have been corrected.

Requirements:

• Mac OS X v10.5.7 ‘Leopard’ (64-bit PowerPC and Intel Universal binary)
• Mac OS X v10.5.7 ‘Leopard’ (32-bit PowerPC and Intel Universal binary)
• Mac OS X v10.4.11 ‘Tiger’ (32-bit PowerPC and Intel Universal binary)