{"id":494,"date":"2020-10-10T09:10:00","date_gmt":"2020-10-09T22:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chuchuva.com\/pavel\/?p=494"},"modified":"2025-05-13T08:08:08","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T22:08:08","slug":"how-to-start-beyond-compare-from-far-manager","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chuchuva.com\/pavel\/2020\/10\/how-to-start-beyond-compare-from-far-manager\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Start Beyond Compare from Far Manager"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Beyond Compare is an excellent tool for comparing files and folders. I use it most often during software development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My weapon of choice for file operations is Far Manager so I decided to make launching Beyond Compare fast and painless. After some experimentation I settled on creating bc.cmd in C:\\Program Files\\Far Manager folder:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

@start \"\" \"C:\\Program Files\\Beyond Compare 4\\BComp.exe\" %*<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Note the empty string as the first argument to the start command: it wouldn’t work properly without it<\/a> since the full path to BComp.exe has double quotes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now I can compare files from Far Manager by typing<\/p>\n\n\n\n
bc file1.txt file2.txt<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Usually I use Ctrl+F shortcut to insert full path to the selected file in Far Manager.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Comparing Folders<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
My next idea was to use some keyboard shortcut to compare Far Manager’s left and right panels. Both Far Manager and Beyond Compare have 2 panels so it’s natural to open and compare folders:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Here’s how to set it up:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    \n
  1. Press Ctrl+. to start recording a macro<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Type bc, then space, then press Ctrl+[ to insert path to the left folder, then space again, then Ctrl+]<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Press Enter. This should launch Beyond Compare. Close it and go back to Far Manager.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. Press Ctrl+. to stop recording the macro<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. Press Ctrl+B to assign a hotkey:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
    \"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
    Voila! Now you can press Ctrl+B to launch Beyond Compare and compare folders that you have open in Far Manager. Normally Ctrl+B turns on and off the key bar at the bottom of the window but I never do it. You can still turn it off by opening Options menu, then Interface settings:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    \"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
    Don’t forget to save settings by pressing Shift+F9. Happy comparing!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
    Beyond Compare is an excellent tool for comparing files and folders. I use it most often during software development. My weapon of choice for file operations is Far Manager so I decided to make launching Beyond Compare fast and painless. After some experimentation I settled on creating bc.cmd in C:\\Program Files\\Far Manager folder: Note the … Continue reading How to Start Beyond Compare from Far Manager<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":498,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[9],"class_list":["post-494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-software","tag-far-manager"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chuchuva.com\/pavel\/images\/2020\/09\/far-manager-plus-beyond-compare.png?fit=636%2C256&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chuchuva.com\/pavel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chuchuva.com\/pavel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chuchuva.com\/pavel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chuchuva.com\/pavel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chuchuva.com\/pavel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chuchuva.com\/pavel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chuchuva.com\/pavel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chuchuva.com\/pavel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chuchuva.com\/pavel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chuchuva.com\/pavel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}