WinMerge 2.16.59 Beta Release Notes

• About This Release
• What Is New in 2.16.59 Beta?
• Known issues

October 2026

About This Release

This is a WinMerge beta release which is meant for preview the current state of
WinMerge development. This release is not recommended for the production.

Please submit bug reports to our bug-tracker.

What Is New in 2.16.59 Beta?

General

• [BUG] MDI window controls (Minimize/Maximize/Close) are completely hidden
  unless hoveredbug (#3511)(PR #3552)

• Add an option to remember and restore splitter positions for text, image,
  web page, and binary comparisons. (PR #3611)

Appearance

• BugFix: Fix cramped toolbar icon spacing at high DPI

• Migrate toolbar and margin icons from BMP to PNG (GDI+ decoding) (PR #3510)

• Rebuild toolbar buttons based on active window (PR #3631)

File compare

• Add a Merge Result pane for reviewing and resolving 2-way conflicts and
  3-way merges. (PR #3515)

• BugFix: Fix Shift+Insert paste going to file instead of Filter Bar (#3585)

• BugFix: Fix cursor movement and scrolling across gaps created by the display
  filter (#3601)(PR #3622)

• BugFix: Fix initial status bar display for file comparisons (PR #3644)

• BugFix: Fix issue [BUG] Keyboard shortcut to "Copy to right" does not work in
  3-way merge (#3645)

• BugFix: Fix undo/redo after swapping panes and avoid invalid undo target
  tracking (PR #3646, PR #3647)

• BugFix: Flush undo groups when deleting text fails

• BugFix: Fix blank line handling in comment difference filtering (PR #3651)

• BugFix: Fix ignored diff ranges with missing trailing EOL (#3653)(PR #3657)

• Show the selection margin when adding a bookmark

• Add an option to prefer the WIC decoder when loading images for image
  comparison (PR #3537)

• Add Save command to filepath bar context menuheader bar (PR #3654)

• tree-sitter: php and f-sharp grammars update (PR #3656)

Table compare

• Add column range filtering and ignore columns in comparison (PR #3565)

Image compare

• Remember the image compare splitter position (PR #3593)

Folder compare

• Preserve the sort order for columns that can be safely sorted while folder
  comparison is running. (#3579)(PR #3581)

Filter expressions

• Add the FilterExpression support required by the upcoming ApplyLineFilter
  plugin (PR #3530)

• BugFix: Fix case-insensitive contains in filter expressions (#3586)

Status bar

• Make merge mode indicator clickable and reduce its width (PR #3529)

Archive support

• BugFix: Fix issue #3588: Cannot compare folders inside zip files

• BugFix: [BUG] Comparing 7z-archives: file cannot be accessed by the system
  settings are restored. (#3633)

• Update 7-Zp to 26.03 (PR #3613)

Plugins

• BugFix: Fix off-by-one bug losing the last byte of pack/unpack plugin buffer
  output

• BugFix: Special UTF-8 characters not compared correctly (#3071)(PR #3568)

• Add plugin selection buttons to the status bar (PR #3518)

• Support adding plugins to pipelines from menus (PR #3523)

• Add filter expressions to plugin pipelines (PR #3540)

• Add MiniMax provider support to AI plugin (PR #3499)

• Add local LLM and custom OpenAI-compatible API support (PR #3589)

• Validate plugin pipeline filter expressions (PR #3578)

• SelectLines plugin: Add literal string matching with -F option.
  (#3500)(PR #3598)

Translations

• New translation:

  • Azerbaijani (PR #3624)
  • Indonesian (PR #3636)

• Translation updates:

  • Brazilian (PR #3526, PR #3528, PR #3536, PR #3538, PR #3558, PR #3571, PR #3592, PR #3605, PR #3618)
  • Chinese Simplified (PR #3531, PR #3542, PR #3554, PR #3572, PR #3595, PR #3604, PR #3619, PR #3637)
  • Chinese Traditional (PR #3642)
  • French (PR #3534, PR #3547, PR #3569, PR #3580, PR #3634)
  • German (PR #3524, PR #3541, PR #3555, PR #3576, PR #3597, PR #3603, PR #3612)
  • Hungarian (PR #3564, PR #3590)
  • Korean (PR #3548, PR #3563, PR #3621)
  • Italian (PR #3551, PR #3561, PR #3573, PR #3594, PR #3607, PR #3623)
  • Lithuanian (PR #3543, PR #3574, PR #3608, PR #3620)
  • Polish (PR #3527, PR #3549, PR #3556, PR #3577, PR #3616)
  • Spanish (PR #3614, PR #3615)
  • Russian (PR #3546, PR #3583, PR #3600, PR #3626)
  • Turkish (PR #3532, PR #3544, PR #3562, PR #3575, PR #3596, PR #3627)

Manual

• BugFix: [BUG] Spanish help is in French (#3658)

• Set localization parameters for French, Italian, and Spanish manuals
  (PR #3617)

Known issues

• Pressing OK in the Options window while the INI file specified by /inifile is open for comparison in WinMerge may corrupt the file. (#2685)
• Suggestion to make the result of image comparison more reliable (#1391)
• Crashes when comparing large files (#325)
• Very slow to compare significantly different directories (#322)
• Vertical scrollbar breaks after pasting text (#296)

What's Changed

• update zh-cn translations by @yingang in #3493
• Update Russian.po by @Timon34 in #3494
• Update Polish.po by @miroslaw-zylewicz in #3501
• Update Hungarian.po by @efi99 in #3502
• Update Polish.po by @miroslaw-zylewicz in #3504
• Update ChineseTraditional.po by @love80312 in #3505
• Update Turkish.po by @bilimiyorum in #3506
• Migrate toolbar and margin icons from BMP to PNG (GDI+ decoding) by @sdottaka in #3510
• Speed up diff view rendering for large contiguous hidden sections by @KCMertens in #3517
• Add plugin selection buttons to the status bar by @sdottaka in #3518
• Support adding plugins to pipelines from menus by @sdottaka in #3523
• Update German.po by @Havoc7891 in #3524
• Update Brazilian.po by @Marcellomco in #3526
• Update Polish.po by @miroslaw-zylewicz in #3527
• Update Brazilian.po by @Marcellomco in #3528
• Make merge mode indicator clickable and reduce its width by @sdottaka in #3529
• Add the FilterExpression support required by the upcoming ApplyLineFilter plugin. by @sdottaka in #3530
• update zh-cn translation by @yingang in #3531
• Update Turkish.po by @bilimiyorum in #3532
• Add MiniMax provider support to AI plugin by @octo-patch in #3499
• Update French.po by @t3chnob0y in #3534
• Add an option to prefer the WIC decoder when loading images for image comparison. by @sdottaka in #3537
• Update Brazilian.po by @Marcellomco in #3536
• Update Brazilian.po by @Marcellomco in #3538
• Update German.po by @Havoc7891 in #3541
• update zh-cn translations by @yingang in #3542
• Updated Lithuanian translation by @Tichij in #3543
• Update Turkish.po by @bilimiyorum in #3544
• Update Russian.po by @Timon34 in #3546
• Update French.po by @t3chnob0y in #3547
• Update Korean by @VenusGirl in #3548
• Update Polish.po by @miroslaw-zylewicz in #3549
• Allow none to be ignored when concatenating strings with +. by @sdottaka in #3550
• Add filter expressions to plugin pipelines by @sdottaka in #3540
• Update Italian.po by @bovirus in #3551
• Add options to control the visibility of MDI window buttons. by @sdottaka in #3552
• Update ChineseSimplified.po by @zuoyuanchun in #3554
• Update German.po by @Havoc7891 in #3555
• Update Polish.po by @miroslaw-zylewicz in #3556
• Update Brazilian.po by @Marcellomco in #3557
• Updated Lithuanian translation by @Tichij in #3558
• Update Italian translation by @bovirus in #3561
• Update Turkish.po by @bilimiyorum in #3562
• Update Korean by @VenusGirl in #3563
• Update Hungarian.po by @efi99 in #3564
• Update French.po by @t3chnob0y in #3569
• Preserve file encoding when applying prediffers by @sdottaka in #3568
• Add column range filtering and ignore columns in comparison by @sdottaka in #3565
• Update Brazilian.po by @Marcellomco in #3571
• update zh-cn translations by @yingang in #3572
• Update Italian.po by @bovirus in #3573
• Updated Lithuanian translation by @Tichij in #3574
• Update Turkish.po by @bilimiyorum in #3575
• Update German.po by @Havoc7891 in #3576
• Update Polish.po by @miroslaw-zylewicz in #3577
• Validate plugin pipeline filter expressions by @sdottaka in #3578
• Fix issue #3579: Preserve the sort order for columns that can be safely sorted while folder comparison is running. by @sdottaka in #3581
• Update Russian.po by @Timon34 in #3583
• Add local LLM and custom OpenAI-compatible API support by @sdottaka in #3589
• Update Hungarian.po by @efi99 in #3590
• Update Brazilian.po by @Marcellomco in #3592
• Remember the image compare splitter position by @Ikkoru in #3593
• Update Italian.po by @bovirus in #3594
• Update Turkish.po by @bilimiyorum in #3596
• Update German.po by @Havoc7891 in #3597
• update zh-cn translations by @yingang in #3595
• SelectLines plugin: Add literal string matching with -F option. refs #3500 by @sdottaka in #3598
• Update Russian.po by @Timon34 in #3600
• Update German.po by @Havoc7891 in #3603
• update zh-cn translations by @yingang in #3604
• Update Brazilian.po by @Marcellomco in #3605
• Italian language update by @bovirus in #3607
• Updated Lithuanian translation by @Tichij in #3608
• Add an option to remember and restore splitter positions for text, image, web page, and binary comparisons. by @sdottaka in #3611
• Update 7-Zip to 26.03 by @sdottaka in #3613
• Update German.po by @Havoc7891 in #3612
• Update manual Spanish.po by @P0rsche-911 in #3614
• Update Spanish.po by @P0rsche-911 in #3615
• Update Polish.po by @miroslaw-zylewicz in #3616
• Set localization parameters for French, Italian, and Spanish manuals by @sdottaka in #3617
• Update Brazilian.po by @Marcellomco in #3618
• update zh-cn translation by @yingang in #3619
• Updated Lithuanian translation by @Tichij in #3620
• Update Korean by @VenusGirl in #3621
• Fix cursor movement and scrolling across gaps created by the display … by @sdottaka in #3622
• Update Italian.po by @bovirus in #3623
• Add Azerbaijani translation by @jamalkamaladdin in #3624
• Update Russian.po by @Timon34 in #3626
• Update Turkish.po by @bilimiyorum in #3627
• Rebuild toolbar buttons based on active window by @sdottaka in #3631
• Update French.po by @Need74 in #3580
• Update French.po by @t3chnob0y in #3634
• Add Indonesian translation by @Yoruxyv in #3636
• update zh-cn translations by @yingang in #3637
• Update Italian.po by @ffaamm in #3639
• Update ChineseTraditional.po by @love80312 in #3642
• Fix initial status bar display for file comparisons by @sdottaka in #3644
• Avoid dangling iterator in undo target tracking by @sdottaka in #3646
• Fix undo after swapping panes by @sdottaka in #3647
• Update French.po by @t3chnob0y in #3648
• Fix blank line handling in comment difference filtering by @sdottaka in #3651
• Add Save command to filepath bar context menu by @sdottaka in #3654
• tree-sitter: php and f-sharp grammars update by @Thorium in #3656
• Fix ignored diff ranges with missing trailing EOL by @sdottaka in #3657
• Merge-result panel with option to do KDiff3 style 3-way merge (2) by @sdottaka in #3515

New Contributors

• @KCMertens made their first contribution in #3517
• @octo-patch made their first contribution in #3499
• @zuoyuanchun made their first contribution in #3554
• @Ikkoru made their first contribution in #3593
• @jamalkamaladdin made their first contribution in #3624
• @Yoruxyv made their first contribution in #3636
• @ffaamm made their first contribution in #3639

Full Changelog: v2.16.58...v2.16.59