Spekter

Visual GUI tool for recursive directory and file comparison. Side-by-side and unified diff views with synchronized scrolling, inline character-level highlighting, Meld-style Bezier gutter connectors and a tabbed interface. Binary files are detected and reported with sizes rather than rendered as garbled text. Detects when JSON or JSONL files differ only in element ordering, and applies hunk-slider postprocessing so an inserted object in a JSON array is marked as one whole object.

The diff view has a read-only caret with full keyboard navigation (arrow keys, word-hop with Ctrl, smart Home/End, Shift to extend the selection, Tab to move between panes, Ctrl+G to go to a line, F7 and Shift+F7 to jump between changes). A diff opens on its first change. Spekter watches the compared files on disk and shows a pulsing reload chip in the header when either side changes. A change-overview minimap on each pane marks where the diffs sit, and clicking it syncs the opposite pane.

Large files stay responsive: a file's text appears instantly while its diff is computed on a background thread, computed diffs are cached, and the changed files are prefetched as you browse, so opening or revisiting them feels immediate even at a million lines.

Ignored entries (.git, node_modules, editor swap files and the like) are skipped but listed as dimmed stubs rather than silently erased, and the rules go both ways: expand an ignored directory or open an ignored file to compare it anyway, or right-click any entry to ignore it yourself. These choices are remembered per directory pair.

An instant, keyboard-driven alternative to Meld and diff for comparing folders and code.