Let’s check the results! You can see 3 files: first is the Visual Composer archive and it’s a binary file, and the second and third which are text files. In my case, there were no major modification between these two versions, it was a quick fix and only the Visual Composer’s latest version was added so we shouldn’t have many files changed. Once you’re done, click the OK button and wait for the compare process to be complete. In my case I’ve selected the folders for Newspaper version 6.5 and 6.5.1, the other filters were set to compare all files and include subfolders.

This will open a new window, and you have to choose the directories or files you want to compare.

To do this I will open Winmerge and I will click on File -> Open. menu. In the following example, I will compare the Newspaper theme folders for version 6.5 and 6.5.1. The Compare -> Folder settings were not modified. The settings used by us are presented below but you should play with the settings until you obtain the result you’re looking for. empty space, blank lines or carriage return differences) if you don’t consider them important and you want to return only the result on which you’re interested. Depending on what you want to compare, you can set it to ignore certain aspects (ex. The most important settings are located on the Compare tab, from here you can specify how the compare process works. The settings area can be accessed from the menu Edit -> Options.

We won’t cover this area here, it is explained in detail in the Winnmerge software documentation. The tool we will use is Winmerge, it can be downloaded for free and you can check its documentation here. One would be when you want to check the code modifications between different versions of the theme. This operation may be useful in many cases. In this section, you will learn how to compare files or folders in order to check the structure/code differences.

Winmerge review