Selected files are opened in two side-by-side editors. A text perspective is used to offer a
better view of the differences. You can also compare XML fragments by copying and pasting them
into both sides of the panel, without selecting files. To compare XML fragments, if files are
already opened you need to close them in order to paste the fragments into the panels.
The two editors are constantly kept in sync. Therefore, if you scroll through the text in one
side, the other one also scrolls to show the differences side-by-side. The differences are
indicated with highlights connected through colored areas. To navigate through differences, do
one of the following:
Use the navigation buttons on the toolbar.
Select the navigation options from the Compare menu.
Select a block of differences by clicking its small colored indicator in the overview
ruler located in the right-most part of the window. At the top of the overview ruler there
is a success indicator that turns green where there are no differences, or red if
differences are found.
Click a colored area in between the two text editors.
You can edit the content in either side of the editor and the differences are refreshed when
you save the modified document. If you save modified fragments, rather than a file, a dialog
opens that allows you to save the changes as a new document.
Both editors provide a contextual menu that contains edit, merge,
and navigation actions.
The Find/Replace dialog is displayed by pressing Ctrl+F (Command+F on OS
X).
Find/Replace options are also available:
F3 - Performs a
forward search, using the last search configuration.
Shift+F3 -
Performs a backward search, using the last search configuration.
If the compared blocks of text are too large and you want to see the differences at a more
fine-tuned level, you can choose options in the Compare menu to do a
word level comparison or
character level
comparison.
