Kaleidoscope - File comparison for Mac released | Hacker News Reader

Kaleidoscope - File comparison for Mac released

kaleidoscopeapp.com

137 pointspstinnett53 comments

If 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_shading.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.

Good catch :-) I hoped somebody would notice it...

We know about merging. One step at a time...

Without merging, I don't see Kaleidoscope as a legitimate competitor to Changesapp, except in image comparison. Still, I'm glad to see the competition.

(This is one place where Mac devs could also benefit from looking at Beyond Compare or ExamDiff Pro on the Windows side; they're great tools themselves.)

That's interesting - I didn't know about Changesapp. I think I'm going to give it a try. Thanks!

I 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?

Hi 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.

Versions has barely been updated since launch.

Obvious 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

Overall, great looking slides. That image effect is very clever, but maybe just a tad to subtle - I skipped right past it.

We made it that subtle intentionally. It was supposed to be an addition that doesn't take your focus away from the actual website.

So in a way, it's there to not be seen.

After emailing their support address, I was told that merging is a feature of a future release.

Not to beat a dead horse, but they've been promising that feature for Versions at least since July 2008 (that's as far back as I could trace in their Google Groups mailing list). If you're happy with Kaleidoscope's current feature set and will continue to be happy if they never deliver on this promise of future updates, go ahead and buy a license (it does look pretty nice as-is). Just don't hold your breath waiting for that merge feature.

Absolutely 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.

Man, no merge capabilities is a bummer. I was rooting through the menu items and help viewer in vain.

Sofa 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.

Same with Versions indeed. I asked for some really simple improvements. All were promised more than a year ago. None appeared in any update.

I 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.

The 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.

Personally, 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.

It'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.

+1, back and forward browser button breaking isn't good.

Definitely. My first thought was, "Oh, another diff viewer" but the binary comparison is an excellent feature.

Amazing website design, love the attention to design that quality mac apps get in comparison to windows ones.

I 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]

It 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.

Beyond 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.

Beyond Compare is amazing. The only app I miss from Windows. If you are on Windows, and haven't used it, you are missing out.

Beyond compare if fantastic. If you miss it that much then you can run it nicely under Wine/Darwine/Crossover etc. I've been using Deltawalker on the Mac which is nice if a little brittle sometimes. It sucks hugely for FTP/SFTP compares though.

Even 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

Araxis Merge seems to be the closest Mac equivalent, though it's a bit pricey.

http://www.araxis.com/merge_mac/index.html (there's a windows version as well)

It'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

It'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...

I 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.

I use Araxis as well. Cross platform too.

Seems nice. Although, just makes me wish Beyond Compare was available on the Mac as a native app.

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.

Yeah the only thing that found that is close for Mac is Changes - http://connectedflow.com/changes/

Expensive. Is it really that much better than Apple's FileMerge?

these are from the same guys that made Versions (http://www.versionsapp.com), the subversion app for mac

Yes, 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.

I 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.

Does 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.

Yeah 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.

You 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/

Yep.

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.

And 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. :)

The 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.

It 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`

I've been using `git difftool` and `ksdiff` for more than half a year now and it works perfectly.

I absolutely love the use of the scroll effect. It feels very smooth and natural (Chrome).

Crashes on startup for me - hopefully they'll get the stack trace I sent.

Why did DynDNS say this was a phishing website?

Yep. 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.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com