First off, 2XExplorer rocks. It's become an essential part of my job at work where I do computer tech support. I must add that I found the documentation entertaining and actually fun to read.
I've been looking for a file manager that can do dual-pane file viewing but have been unable to find one. I'd like to be able to view one text file in the left pane and another text file in the right pane for side-by-side comparison. Since I can't find a program that does this, perhaps it ought to be a feature in an upcoming release of Explorer2.
A great tool which displays the two files more visually appealing to the casual user is 'Compare It!' It is shareware, but worth every cent (be that dollar- or eurocent )!!
personally i still use windiff
it has no frills but you can't beat its system showing files interlaced with each other
side-by-side viewing is more organized but impractical unless files have few characters per line, not 100-odd like my source files!
I don't think there's any comparator (even shareware) that compares non-text files line-by-line. The best you can do is to compare two doc files in MS Word.
I did look into that a little while ago, but the hex comp. is only available as a plugin, and plugins are only available to registered users... so I cannot try out the hex comp functionality without paying for it first... idiots...
In the meantime, I have come to like 010 Editor, which is a hex editor, but also has a pretty neat hex comparison tool too...
It is my job to comfort the disturbed,
and to disturb the comfortable.