Merge is a compelling choice for software developers, lawyers, product release managers, web designers and other professionals who work with multiple revisions of text files, including ASCII, MBCS and Unicode files. Merge integrates with many version control (VC) and software configuration management (SCM) systems (e.g. Subversion and Perforce) that allow a third-party comparison/merging tool to be specified.

For legal professionals: instantly identify every change by copying text from different contract drafts being edited in another application (such as Microsoft Word) and pasting it directly into a file comparison window. Many more features.

This is the version of Araxis Merge for Mac OS X ‘Leopard’. A ‘Tiger’ version (Mac OS X 10.4.11 and later) is also available on the Araxis website.

Major changes

• The Merge user interface and online help have been translated into Japanese. This means that Merge for Mac OS X now fully accommodates both English and Japanese-language users. [I10595]

Other enhancements

• Merge will now delete Araxis Ketura comparison files after it has opened them. This enhances the integration between Ketura, Merge and the supported configuration management systems. For more details, see the ‘SCMs’ section in the documentation for the Ketura System Settings Page. [I10324]
• A visual indication has been added to show whether the p4 and svn paths in the Preferences window are correctly set. [I10543, I10542]
• The detection of character encoding based on <?xml ...> XML processing directives within files has been improved so that Merge will only use such a directive if it is the first non-whitespace content within a file. [I10512]
• AppleScript examples have been added to show how to launch image and binary comparisons. [I10398]
• Support has been added for determining from AppleScript whether the Standard or Professional Edition of Merge is installed. An example script showing how to do this is included with Merge. [I10458]
• It is now possible specifically to request a binary or image comparison from an AppleScript script. [I10397]
• By default, filenames with the .xsl extension are included in the list of file types handled by the XML/XHTML filter. [I10472]
• The Comparing Text Files (or Typed/Pasted Text) help topic has been updated to mention that password-protected documents can’t be processed by the text extraction filters. [I10482]

Bugs fixed

• Merge no longer crashes if a merging button is used immediately after adding a synchronization link. [I10506]
• In certain circumstances, a crash in the 64-bit version of Merge can be caused by a known fault in Apple’s 64-bit Ink input method code (described at http://lists.apple.com/archives/Java-dev/2008/Aug/msg00283.html ). Merge will now detect this crash if it occurs, and suggest a workaround. [I10572]
• Any change to the default character encoding option in the Preferences window now takes full immediate effect, without Merge having to be restarted. [I10513]
• Navigating to the next/previous bookmarks and conflict markers within a folder comparison now correctly scrolls the display. [I10570]
• Merge no longer creates large numbers of log entries when comparing Microsoft Excel or Word documents. [I10559]
• Columns in tables within the Preferences window are now shown correctly if they have been re-arranged. [I10579]
• After resizing a column in a table within the Preferences window, the mouse pointer now reverts back to the arrow image, instead of staying as the resize indicator. [I10578]
• The documentation relating to line numbers in the Add Synchronization Link dialog has been corrected. [I10574]
• Certain debug diagnostic messages have now been disabled. These had been left enabled accidentally, resulting in unneeded messages being written to the system console log. [I10569]
• When closed, Merge will now prompt to save any unsaved text that has been typed into an empty text comparison pane in a text comparison created from an image comparison using the View > As Text Comparison menu item. [I9957]
• A link within the Integrating with Source Control, Configuration Management and Other Applications topic has been fixed. [I10507]
• HTML comparison reports now work when literal tab characters are present in regular expressions set in the Expressions page of the Options dialog. Previously, such characters were not being handled correctly, resulting in an error when HTML reports were created. [I10485]
• The Display help topic has been updated with the correct key combination for enabling/disabling file panel linking when scrolling.
• Dropping a shortcut from Finder onto a file panel now results in the target file being loaded. [I10444]
• It is now possible to delete a file that resides on a network share when that file cannot be moved to Trash. Previously, an error would occur if the file being deleted could not be moved to Trash. [I10610]