Analyzing Differences in the Compare Models Window

The Compare Models window allows you to compare the contents of two models.

Four types of differences between the models can be detected during a comparison:

Creation: When an object is created in one of the models, it is displayed in blue.
Deletion: When an object is deleted from a model, it is displayed as a ghost object in the model tree.
Modification: When the properties of an object are different between models, a red exclamation mark is displayed in the bottom right corner of the object node.
Move: When the object has been moved to a different position, for example, a column moved in the list of columns. In this case a green triangle is displayed in the bottom right corner of the object indicates that there has been a move. The green triangle is displayed both on the ghost object indicating the original position of the item and on the object in its new location.

The window is divided in two parts:

The object comparison panes in the upper part of the comparison window display two models of the same type in a tree format and highlight the differences between them.

The property comparison pane in the lower part of the comparison window displays the properties of the nodes selected in the model trees. The property comparison part is divided in three columns, listing the property name, and the values in the two models. The following kinds of differences are possible:

Difference type	Property name column	Model 1 properties column	Model 2 properties column
Object creation	No sign	Object properties displayed	No properties displayed
Object deletion	No sign	No properties displayed	Object properties displayed
Object modification	Diverging property type highlighted by an exclamation point	Divergent object properties displayed	Divergent object properties displayed
Object move	No sign	Identical object properties displayed	Identical object properties displayed
Object moved and modified	Diverging property type highlighted by an exclamation point	Object properties displayed	Object properties displayed

Comparison Symbols

Symbol	Description
	Ghost object which does not exist in one of the models
	Shortcut exists in model
(yellow)	Sub-objects are different
(red)	Object exists in both models with different properties
(green)	Object was moved and modified. This symbol indicates the initial location of the object in the model. This symbol always is displayed besides a ghost object.
(red)	Object was moved and modified. This symbol indicates the new location of the object in the model.
(green)	Object was moved

Note:

You can open the property sheet of an object (in read-only mode) by double-clicking its node in the tree view. You can also right-click the object node and select Properties from the contextual menu . You can open several property sheets in order to compare the properties of different objects. However, all property sheets will be closed when you close the Comparison window.

Navigating Among Differences

You can navigate among the differences that appear in the object comparison part using the following tools from the comparison toolbar:

Tool	Description
	Goes to the first difference in the tree view
	Goes to the previous difference in the tree view
	Goes to the next difference in the tree view
	Goes to the last difference in the tree view

Note:

To expand all nodes at once, you can press the numpad star (*). To collapse all nodes at once, you can press the numpad minus sign (-).