Export to HTML

[Deg950]

One thing UltraCompare should have is an export results to an HTML file to send off for others to see. To save in a format more similar to the native way we see the results in UltraCompare app. The "Save Results" as a txt is ok. But this could use the HTML version as well.

[mathias]

Beyond Compare provides an excellent set of export options. If UltraCompare could provide similar features to export, especially HTML, I'd definitely promote it more at work where they're already growing into UltraEdit.

[Mofi]

I hope you have all requested that feature by email to IDM support. Writing feature requests in the user forum is good to find other users who wants to have also such a new feature. But if nobody requests it from IDM, you will never get it - read the paragraphs at top of this forum page. The more user request it by email the higher is the chance to get it.

As workaround until the new feature is available (if ever) I suggest to write an UEStudio/UltraEdit macro which converts the txt export of the differences to whatever format you like. That's is my prefered method because it gives me total control about the format of the differences file.

[mathias]

Done. Thanks for the heads-up Mofi. Any chance your macro(s) could be shared with the rest of us until the IDM team has a chance to release the new feature?

[Mofi]

Any chance your macro(s) could be shared with the rest of us until the IDM team has a chance to release the new feature?

No, because I have not really written a macro to reformat the difference output. My statement in the first post was not very precise. I have to say that I would do that with a macro if I would need it.

I have written a macro which reformats a part list from a MS Word table into a special CSV formatted file for our parts list tool (that was a really hard job).
I have written a macro which reformats the saved online HTML pages of the site statistic of the website I take care of to make it offline available and usable.
I have written a macro which reformats the captured printer output from an Amiga program to a readable list file on Windows.
I have written a macro which reformats several PostScript files.
And many more. But none of them are really useful for other people because they are extremly personalized. However, I share my experience and knowledge as you can see in the macro forum.

[CKemp]

Come on IDM, this request has still not been addressed in version 5.0. I work in a test environment and need to report on comparisons. The text format is terrible.
I'm going to have jump ship to Beyond Compare for now...
(shame I have paid for UltraEdit - should have done the trial)

[devrick0]

We managed to get through 2008 without a comment on this but I wanted to make sure it was mentioned in 2009. IDM, what is the story? Open source programs have been doing this for years, it's time to reel back in the users that have regretted purchasing their ultracompare licenses. This post has the most views in the ultracompare forum. That has to tell you that this is probably the single most sought after feature people want. I have a license for ultracompare but 9 times out of 10 I find myself using winmerge because I can save my output in HTML and pass along to colleagues without it looking like a command line 'diff' like ultracompare.

[Mofi]

It looks like many users are reading this topic, but only a few users have requested that feature by email to IDM support. This is a user-to-user forum. IDM is normally not reading what users write here.

[mmeany]

Okay chaps, that's one support email on its way. Maybe more will follow.

[devrick0]

No traction in 2009. Let's see if 2010 is the year IDM cares what users want.

[Mofi]

IDM cares what users want. The new features in currently latested UC and UE are the proof of that. From a user to another user I would be really interested in how you have determined how many users requested an export to HTML feature for UltraCompare by email to IDM. The page view count of this topic can't be trusted. This count is always increased by any visitor who searched in any WWW search engine for "export to HTML" and followed the link to this page although not using UltraCompare at all. Counters of public pages are in my point of view nonsense for such ratings. There would be a poll or something similar needed.

[bulgrien]

I would be interested in seeing how users really envision an HTML diff report to look. This thread would be a good place to begin such a discussion. It may not be very difficult to take an existing text file format and throw some HTML tags around it...in fact, it would be quite easy to write a script to reformat a text based diff report with HTML tags. If the existing text format is really not sufficient for a user to pass on to their co-workers, however, it is unlikely that an HTML format depicting the exact same information will make much difference. If IDM were to take on this effort what would you, the user, like to see happen to the diff report? If you have specific ideas on how such a report could be improved and what you would like it to look like, creating and posting a mock-up screenshot depicting a proposed format would be useful.

[sklad2]

There is a free program that puts the diff output in "HTML" and it is exactly what I thought UC had. I am really amazed that it does do this type of output.
check out --> http://www.arstdesign.com/articles/difftool.html

This is exactly what I need to show Management what is happening. His website also discussing implementing this in many tools already available.
The compare tree showing lines and arrows and both sides should be shown in the HTML file. I would think it could also output a PDF.