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I've long been confused about what EDP means with "Added" and "Deleted" (in the legend in the status bar and in the Color page of the Settings dialog). Now I think I mastered it and I'm not convinced.

You're invited to merge added stuff in the "newer" version on the right, into the "older" version on the left. The "Synchronize Dirs' command in Total Commander, and in particular its Asymmetric flag, expects you to copy from left to right instead. That is the more intuitive order in my mind: I grew up on the command line writing "cp source target".

That's just an opinion. But say you're looking at an EDP directory comparison that reports the left version of a file is newer. You zoom in on the pair of files. Now the items unique to the newer file are labeled as "Deleted"?

On the other hand, while TC imposes a preferred order of copying, EDP lets you merge in whatever order you prefer. It just labels differences in a biased way. Why not label items "left only" or "right only" instead? Well some people (including me) have trouble remembering what is left and right so that's not better.

Okay, up to now, all this ranting ends up in me suggesting to add "left-only" and "right-only" to the "Added items" and "Deleted items" in the Colors page of the Settings dialog. But then I turn to the status bar and see a box with the Added color listed first, then a box with Deleted. The left box is trying to help you realize what stuff is in the right pane only, right? Right?

You're invited to merge added stuff in the "newer" version on the right, into the "older" version on the left.

It depends on how you select your first and second directories. Note that I use "first" and "second" instead of "left" and right", since you can split the window horizontally.

But say you're looking at an EDP directory comparison that reports the left version of a file is newer. You zoom in on the pair of files. Now the items unique to the newer file are labeled as "Deleted"?

When it comes to file comparison, the concept of "newer/older" does not exist anymore. What's the alternative?

Well some people (including me) have trouble remembering what is left and right so that's not better.

As I mentioned above, we use "first" and second". The order is defined when you select files or directories in the Compare dialog. The order can also be reversed by using File | Swap or Directory | Swap command.

The left box is trying to help you realize what stuff is in the right pane only, right? Right?

I think you are referring to the order of the main status bar panes. I suppose we never though about it. It just seemed more common (positive?) to have "Added", then "Deleted". I see your point but I'm not sure that changing the order of the first 2 status pane is necessary, especially considering that there are more panes in the status bar, and they don't have any correlation with the main panes.

you can split the window horizontally

Good point...

When it comes to file comparison, the concept of "newer/older" does not exist anymore.

I agree it shoudn't, but to me added/deleted suggests the same concept as newer/older. Spiced with the feeling that I have some control over it.

What's the alternative?

Use temporally unbiased and politically correct terminology. How about this? In the Color settings, "Added items" becomes "Items unique to second file" and somewhere is a user chosen label for the status bar, defaulting to "Added".

Use temporally unbiased and politically correct terminology. How about this? In the Color settings, "Added items" becomes "Items unique to second file" and somewhere is a user chosen label for the status bar, defaulting to "Added".

Perhaps. But this maybe an overkill for the GUI. I believe it belongs to the Help, and the appropriate changes will be made there.