How to compare mods with Tes4Gecko?

[jaime74]

Hi everybody!

 

I know that Tes4Gecko has a "Compare Plugins" function, though I don't understand how it works, or whether it is the right tool for solving my problem.

 

So my question in the first place is: Does anybody know of a good documentation for that comparison feature?

 

Furthermore, here's what I am trying to do... maybe there's even some better solution for it, apart from Tes4Gecko?

 

I have modified the esp of an existing mod. This mod comes in two alternative esps, one "full" version and one "reduced" version, the latter leaving out a couple of objects (mainly NPCs, I suppose), in order to improve performance.

So far, I have applied my manual changes only to the full version, but I also want to apply them to the reduced version. As the changes are quite complex, it would be tedious to manually go through the reduced esp once more. So I am looking for a way to find out what the exact differences between the (unmodified) full and reduced version are. Then I'd like to copy my modified full esp and simply remove all the relevant objects with Tes4Edit. I suppose that Tes4Gecko's comparison feature might help, but I find it hard to interpret its output: It simply lists the records that are differing, but without allowing me to look into these records. Maybe I could use Tes4Gecko and Tes4Edit in parallel? Just an idea...

 

Any hints highly appreciated!

[omeletted]

I usually just use Tes4Edit, it has a compare function as well. Much easier to work with and you can see exactly what was changed. Might not even have to use compare really, load both and you can see which records are different. Use the "Hide no conflict rows" option to see just the differences. Edited January 14, 2012 by omeletted

[jaime74]

I usually just use Tes4Edit, it has a compare function as well. Much easier to work with and you can see exactly what was changed. Might not even have to use compare really, load both and you can see which records are different. Use the "Hide no conflict rows" option to see just the differences.

Ooops... never noticed that feature. Thanks!

 

But it seems that "Compare To" doesn't do anything other than just opening the esp, which I choose from the file prompt, and adding it to the list in the left pane. It doesn't seem to compare or highlight anything.

In additon, I cannot find the "Hide no conflict rows" option. It is neither in the "Apply Filter" window, nor in the context menu option that pops up on right-clicking the esp. Where would I have to look for it?

 

Anyway, as you pointed out, just loading both mods and applying a filter seems to do the trick, with some interpretation. In my case, I mainly need to detect objects that are present in the first esp, but have been deleted from the second. As it seems to me, those items are recongnizable in the first esp by having no highlighting at all (just white background). Hope that's correct. They're a bit more difficult to detect, because they'res are not marked as conflicting rows. So it requires a lot more scanning through the list in order not to miss anything. But it might work.

 

Thanks for the hint!

[omeletted]

In additon, I cannot find the "Hide no conflict rows" option. It is neither in the "Apply Filter" window, nor in the context menu option that pops up on right-clicking the esp. Where would I have to look for it?

At the right-hand side window, right-click anywhere and you should see the option in the context menu that pops up.

 

Anyway, as you pointed out, just loading both mods and applying a filter seems to do the trick, with some interpretation. In my case, I mainly need to detect objects that are present in the first esp, but have been deleted from the second. As it seems to me, those items are recongnizable in the first esp by having no highlighting at all (just white background). Hope that's correct. They're a bit more difficult to detect, because they'res are not marked as conflicting rows. So it requires a lot more scanning through the list in order not to miss anything. But it might work.

Yeah, anything only present in one esp but not the other wouldn't have any background colouring. If the record is in both but are the same it'd be green. So shouldn't take you long to eyeball everything.