I spent some time over the last week tracking down some files that were corrupted, from god knows what. The problem was that the files were changed and I had to restore a previous version of the file that went nuts. I was scratching my head trying to figure out just how to track down which particular file was screwing things up. It’s usually easy to do, but when the code was part of large group of files it became a tedious task. This is where Changes comes in. It saved my butt and let me track down the code with ease. Essentially what it does is compare both files, and folders to a backed up version, or another version all together. In a matter of minutes I got a listing of all the files and which were different in some way, and was able to replace them with the originals.
If you’re comparing files a lot this app is something you need. Below is a sample of two different wordpress installs. As you can see in the screenshot, it also allows you to merge files and pick which versions of the file should be moved to an install. If you code at all, or work with a lot of text, this app needs to be in your arsenal.