Comparing folders involves:
| Menu | File > Folder Comapison > New |
| Toolbar button |
|
| Keyboard Shortcut | Cmd+Shift+D |
|
Folder Selector:
|
|
| Keyboard Shortcut | Cmd+O (when folder comparison window has the input focus) |
| Drag and Drop | Drag a file from the file-system browser and drop it onto one of the path entry/browse widgets or onto one of the tree areas. |
Folder comparison, particularly of thousands and tens of thousands of files, is not instantaneous the way file comparison is. Therefore DeltaWalker leaves it to you to initiate the actual comparison when you are satisfied with your choice of folders.
| Menu | File > Compare |
| Toolbar button |
 |
| Keyboard Shortcut | Cmd+R |
Folder comparison in DeltaWalker used to be a two-phase operation. Fist, the files and folders in the selected hierarchies were scanned so that DeltaWalker could accurately determine the amount of work involved. Once the scanning was complete, the actual comparison would begin.
The advantage of the two-phase process was that once phase one was complete one had a reasonably good idea of how much work was involved; the disadvantage was that having two phases was always slower than having a single phase; in certain cases e.g. remote comparisons having two phases can almost double the amount of time a comparison requires.
Navigating folder comparison differences is identical to navigating file comparison differences:
| Menu | File > Navigate > Next/Previous Difference |
| Toolbar button |
/
 |
| Keyboard Shortcut | Ctrl+Shift+Down Arrow / Ctrl+Shift+Up Arrow |
| Mouse | Ctrl+Mouse Wheel |
| Other |
The mini difference navigation buttons
/
at the bottom of the common scrollbar |
The results are presented in a way consistent with the file and xml comparison so understanding the folder comparison is equally straightforward.
