How to compare any two items either components or pages in Tridion

Question

Currently we have compare function which compares between the versions of a given item.

Now how can I compare any two given items (either two components which uses similar schema ; or pages) on selection?

I tried to provide the tcmid's of the source and destination items like

"http://sdltridion/WebUI/Editors/CME/Views/Popups/Compare/CompareDialog.aspx#root=<tcm-source>&id1=<tcm-destination>&id2=&popup=UID_393" but it was considering only the root i.e tcm:56-1520 and providing the comparision between the latest version and immediate previous version of tcm:56-1520 item.

How can I have comparision between two different components implemented using similar schema?

Answer 1

SDL Tridion does not offer you a compare between different items, there is only a comparison between versions of the same item.

If you need to have a comparison between different items (might be interesting to know what the use case of that is), then you have to create something yourself. Most important is that you start with defining what exactly do you want to compare, because there will be a lot of differences which you might not be interested in (different TCM URI, different location, different title/file name, etc.). So it will be impossible to do a straight XML comparison.

Answer 2

As stated by Bart, Tridion's compare tool will only work with different versions of the same item, and I do agree with him that the reasons compelling you to want to compare different items might be a bit puzzling.

Nevertheless, there are tools out there like this one from Microsoft that you could use for your own purposes.

N