Comparing variables in FM files in FM10

[Jang F.M. Graat]

Hello Robert,

I have had the same problem often in the past, and one of the annoying things about the Variabled pod is that you cannot easily see whether or not a variable is actually used. The suggestions done so far on this list did not impress me at all, but give me a challenge and I will not rest until I have cooked something up.

I wrote an ExtendScript that lists all user-defined variables in two files and writes a report as CSV textile, which can be opened and studied in Excel. With that you will be able to determine which variables need to be deleted, copied, imported and in which direction the copying should be done.

The CSV lists all variable names and shows whether or not they are defined in both input files, how many times they are used in both input files and whether they have different values in the two files.

If I had a little more time I would include a dialog with checkboxes and an option to cleanup both files automatically, but I do have some paid scripting work to do and deadlines coming up.

If you are interested, send me an e-mail and I will send you the script. As FM10 includes ExtendScript out of the box, you do not need to install anything to run it. I will also see if Adobe wants to make the script available on their site somewhere. It might be handy for more Frame users in this world.

Kind regards from Amsterdam

JANG Communication
Coaching - Copywriting - Consulting
Amsterdam - Netherlands
Tel.  +31 20 755 8466
Cell +31 6 5478 1632
http://www.jang.nl

> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 09 Jul 2012 09:50:22 +1200
> From: "rebecca officer" <rebecca.officer at alliedtelesis.co.nz>
> To: "Robert Lauriston" <robert at lauriston.com>,
> 	<framers at lists.frameusers.com>
> Subject: Re: comparing variables in .fm files in FM10
> Message-ID: <4FFAA95E020000380004AF94 at gwia.alliedtelesyn.co.nz>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> 
> Take a screen snapshot of each variable pod and compare them from the snapshots. If you've got snagit, you can even use the scroll capture mode and get the whole pod in one snapshot.
> 
> Cheers
> Rebecca
> 
> 
>>>> Robert Lauriston <robert at lauriston.com> 7/07/12 09:06 >>>
> I inherited this book so I don't know what kind of messes are lurking
> in the source, so I want to check that all the variables in two .fm
> files are the same before I modify one to update the other.
> 
> The obvious thing seemed to be to bring up the Variables pod and
> switch between the two files to see if there are any differences, but
> (1) the pod can't be maximized, (2) at its maximum size it displays
> only about 2/3 of the variables, and (3) when I switch from one file
> to the other the pod scrolls back up to the top. (What idiot designed
> this?)
>