Item Revision Comparison
Using the power of Altium Designer's native file format comparison technology, Altium Vault 2.6 now supports the visual comparison of two revisions - of the same, or different Items - for a range of supported content types, directly from within the Vaults panel.
Supported Content Types
Revisions of Items of the following content types can be compared:
- Component Items (altium-component)
- Schematic Symbol Items (altium-symbol)
- PCB Component Items (altium-pcb-component)
- Managed Schematic Sheet Items (altium-schematic-sheet)
- Schematic Template Items (altium-schematic-template)
- Released Board Content (altium-pcb-blank, altium-pcb-assembly)
Feature Access
Within the Vaults panel, browse to the relevant folder, select the two Item-Revisions that you wish to compare, then right-click and choose Operations » Compare from the context menu.
Accessing the Compare feature - in this case for two revisions of the same Component Item.
Comparing Two Component Item Revisions
When comparing two revisions of Schematic Symbol Items, after clicking Compare a sequence of events takes place:
- The referenced PCB Component Item revisions are compared.
- The referenced Schematic Symbol Item revisions are compared.
- The parameteric data for the two Component Item revisions are compared.
The results of the comparison are presented in the Compare Component Revisions dialog.
Example comparison of two revisions of a Component Item.
The dialog is divided into three distinct sections, showing the results of comparsion for the parametric data, footprints, and symbols. The following icons are used:
- no difference exists between the parameter value/footprint/symbol for the two compared Component Item revisions.
- a difference has been detected in the parameter value/footprint/symbol between the two compared Component Item revisions.
Comparing Two Symbol Item Revisions
When comparing two revisions of Schematic Symbol Items, after clicking Compare a graphical comparison is made and the differences detected listed in the Differences panel. The SchLib documents for the two revisions are opened within the workspace - by displaying them side by side in the design editor window, you can peruse the differences graphically. Clicking on a top-level folder for a detected difference will highlight that difference on both documents simultaneously.
Example comparison of two revisions of a Schematic Symbol Item.
Comparing Two PCB Component Model Item Revisions
When comparing two revisions of PCB Component Items, after clicking Compare a graphical comparison is made and the differences detected listed in the Compare Components dialog.
Example comparison of two revisions of a PCB Component Item.
Comparing Two Managed Sheet Item Revisions
When comparing two revisions of Managed Schematic Sheet Items, after clicking Compare a graphical comparison is made and the differences detected listed in the Differences panel. The SchDoc documents for the two revisions are opened within the workspace - by displaying them side by side in the design editor window, you can peruse the differences graphically. Clicking on a top-level folder for a detected difference will highlight that difference on both documents simultaneously.
Example comparison of two revisions of a Managed Schematic Sheet Item.
Comparing Two Schematic Template Item Revisions
When comparing two revisions of Schematic Template Items, after clicking Compare a graphical comparison is made and the differences detected listed in the Differences panel. The SchDot documents for the two revisions are opened within the workspace - by displaying them side by side in the design editor window, you can peruse the differences graphically. Clicking on a top-level folder for a detected difference will highlight that difference on both documents simultaneously.
Example comparison of two revisions of different Schematic Template Items.
Comparing Released Board Content
This will simply be a comparsion of the generated file structure, and a check of the files within that structure.