DeltaWalker Preferences

It's easy to make DeltaWalker work the way you do. A lot of it will happen behind the scenes, transparently to you—the rest is just a click or two away.

In the 'transparent to you' category is the comparison history— DeltaWalker automatically creates a history entry for every comparison you successfully complete, so that later you can run it the very same way you last did. Another notable member of the 'transparent to you' club is everything you do with the main window—every change to its layout, position, and size gets recorded so that next time you launch it, it looks the way you left it, including opening all comparison windows that were opened at the time the app was shut down. DeltaWalker remembers all that so that you don't have to, and next time you launch it, it appears exactly the way it was when you last closed it.

In the 'click or two away' category are a wealth of preferences available through its preference pages—from controlling the speed, accuracy, and output of the differencing algorithms, to general application options such as fonts, colors, appearance, and shortcut keys.

DeltaWalker offers three sets of preferences.

Comparison Preferences

As soon as a new comparison successfully completes, DeltaWalker automatically creates a new entry in its comparison history capturing all specifics of that comparison such that the comparison can easily be re-run at a later time in the same way. The specifics include the preferences of the comparison, the resource paths being compared, and, in the case of a remote comparison, the specifics of the remote connection—your credentials, etc.
The preferences of a particular comparison represent a snapshot of the default comparison preferences made at the time the comparison was created. From that point on, comparison settings have a life of their own, independent of the default preferences.
To access the preferences of a comparison, open that comparison, then go to DeltaWalker > Preferences..., or use the Cmd + , shortcut. Together with all preferences specific to the active comparison, the Preference window will hold all other application-level preferences.

Application Preferences

The Application Preferences include preferences that are common to all comparisons, as well as preferences that control application-level settings.

Examples for preferences that apply across comparisons include various display/sound preferences, showing info alerts, playing sound at the end of a comparison, etc.

Examples for application-level preferences include checking for software updates, memory requirements, logger configuration, etc.

Default Preferences for New Comparisons

When you create a new comparison, its preferences are a snapshot of the default preferences for new comparisons. Once such a snapshot is created and becomes a part of a comparison, these preferences become the preferences of that comparison and are independent from the default preferences. Independent here means that changes to default preferences won't affect existing comparison preferences and vice versa.

You can access the default preferences from the Edit > Default Preferences... or via the Cmd + Shift + , shortcut.