The controls on this options page enable you to create, edit, delete, and select filters to control which files and folders appear within a folder comparison.
For information about folder comparison filters, patterns, and why they are useful, see Folder Comparison Filters.
Folder comparison windows will update their results list to reflect the new settings when you click OK or Apply to apply filter changes. Files that were hidden during the last comparison, but that subsequently become visible due to a change to the filters, will display a no-entry symbol in the changes column to show that they were not compared. You can use the Retest selected ribbon button to compare these files.
Active filter
Use this control to select which of the filters will be used by folder comparisons.
New…
Click this button to create a new filter.
Delete
Click this button to delete the active filter.
Patterns for the active filter
This list displays the patterns that define the active filter. Double-click a row to edit the pattern.
The order of patterns is important. Merge works downwards through the list to determine whether a file or folder should be included or excluded from a folder comparison. The bottom-most pattern that matches a file or folder determines whether the file or folder will be included or excluded from the folder comparison.
The Type column determines whether the pattern is to include or exclude matching files and/or folders in the folder comparison.
The Match column selects whether the pattern should match only files, only folders, or files and folders.
The pattern text can contain wildcard characters. * will match any sequence of characters excluding path separator (\ or /) characters, ** will match any sequence of characters, and ? will match any single character. You can include multiple pattern texts within the control if you separate them with a semicolon character. If the pattern text contains at least one path separator character then it will be matched against the path of each file or folder, relative to the folders that are being compared.
For example patterns, see Folder Comparison Filters.
New…
Click this button to create a new pattern in the active filter.
Edit…
Click this button to edit the currently selected pattern.
Delete
Click this button to delete the currently selected pattern(s).
Up
Click this button to move the currently selected pattern up the list.
Down
Click this button to move the currently selected pattern down the list.