I am using the folder diff feature.
I see a bunch of files in RED, meaning there is a difference. When I click, I get a message "files are identical or equivalent under the current rule set". Whatever that ruleset is, shouldn't it apply to both the list view and the detail view?
Why are they sown in RED if they are equivalent?

Do the files have different timestamps on them?

Are you using keyword expansion in those files?

They very well may have different timestamps - why does it matter? When I do this folder diff, I have to go through pretty much all the files one by one to see if there really is a difference, which defeats the purpose of the folder compare...

I do not know about keyword expansion...

Check your settings on the "Equivalence Mode" page in the Options Dialog.

There are several options here.

Historically, the Folder Diff Window used an "exact match" (byte-for-byte)
method to determine if the individual pairs of files are identical. This was
for speed when looking at the entire tree because usually I could just look
at the file sizes and say they were different (and if that failed just do a
simple byte-for-byte compare on the 2 files). This latter step is done without
any knowledge of the file content type (again for speed). Having the file
equivalence mode set to this is the usual cause of the false positives that
you're describing.

There are 2 other modes that successively approximate more of what we
do when we open a pair of files in a File Window. These are slower, but
take into consideration/ignore changes in the EOL chars, whitespace,
ruleset setttings, unicode, etc. False positives are still possible, but a lot
less likely. The help button at the bottom left of the dialog page gives
more info that what I've entered here.

When either of these modes are turned on, the red/pink lines in the
Folder Window should change to gray and have a double '~' icon on
the line. These can then be shown/hidden using the 'show equivalent files'
button on the toolbar.

Let me know if you have any more questions.
jeff