Full support of filters for Copy, Move, Pack, Unpack, …

[jb]

I suggest that at least "Copy", "Move" and "Pack" fully support named and unnamed filters (eg: ">Documents" resp. "*.doc") with history like "Show Custom…" and "Select/Unselect Group…".

Currently the situation is as follows:

1. "Copy" and "Move" support only unnamed filters with history (ComboBox "Only files of this type:").
2. "Unpack" supports only unnamed filters without history (TextBox "Files to unpack:").
3. "Pack" does not support filters at all.

I think filters for certain operations in addition to "Show" and "Select" are very useful, although they may be considered as not completely compliant with the Windows GUI standard. As far as I remember the standard says something like: "Select objects and then operate on the selection". But standard conformance is actually not an issue here, because TC already supports "post-selection filters" partially. I call the suggested filters post-selection filters because they restrict the selection.

The post-selection filters could be applied to other operations not mentioned so far. Intentionally I omitted "Delete", because I think in this case filters would be too risky. Since "Delete" is probably the most dangerous command, I prefer to see the matched files before deletion. The latter is already possible by the following approach: Branch View, Show Custom…, Select All (visible), Delete.

[ghisler(Author)]

"Copy" and "Move" will support named filters and regular expressions in Total Commander 6.0. They can be entered on the second line in the copy/move dialog, and be chosen from the dropdown combo (but not be defined there).

[jb]

"Copy" and "Move" will support named filters and regular expressions in Total Commander 6.0. They can be entered on the second line in the copy/move dialog, and be chosen from the dropdown combo (but not be defined there).

Thank you!
What do you think about adding the same feature to "Pack" later? Very often I would like to pack some folders excluding some files such as Word backup files (*.wbk), log files (*.log), or regenerable files (*.obj, *.pdb, *.pch, ...). The need emerges approximately as frequent as with "Copy" and it would be great if the very same filters could be used. I think for this reason the filtering should be done by TC, not by the packer.

[Hacker]

Don't forget about Synchronize dirs...

TIA
Roman

[jb]

... oh yes I forgot, named filters would be handy sometimes also for "Synchronize Dirs..."!
(Currently there is a ComboBox for unnamed filters in the middle at the top.)

[ghisler(Author)]

It wouldn't be possible for packing, because the external packers couldn't handle it.

... oh yes I forgot, named filters would be handy sometimes also for "Synchronize Dirs..."!

This is problematic: Immagine a filter by date, or a filter by contents. Now what if the left file matches the filter, but the right file doesn't?

[Hacker]

Immagine a filter by date, or a filter by contents. Now what if the left file matches the filter, but the right file doesn't?

Good point, I'll see if I come up with something.

Thanks
Roman

[jb]

It wouldn't be possible for packing, because the external packers couldn't handle it.

Above I wrote that TC should do the filtering, not the packers. I meant that the filtering would result in a temporary file that lists each matched file explicitly. Then the temporary file (instead of the filter) would be passed to the packer.

... oh yes I forgot, named filters would be handy sometimes also for "Synchronize Dirs..."!

This is problematic: Immagine a filter by date, or a filter by contents. Now what if the left file matches the filter, but the right file doesn't?

I don't know whether it's worth the work, but I see the following two solutions:

1. If two files with the same name exist on both sides and at least one matches the filter then they should be treated as duplicates. Maybe the non-matching side of a duplicate pair could be displayed specially (for instance marked by an icon, ...).
2. Ignore all criteria except name patterns. Write a warning below the filter ComboBox if the active filter is named and contains ignored criteria.

[Hacker]

Ignore all criteria except name patterns. Write a warning below the filter ComboBox if the active filter is named and contains ignored criteria.

We already have name patterns... the strength of filters lies in their complexity.
My idea would be either to specially mark the files if one of them doesn't match the filter, or ignore them (there could be an option - checkbox in Sync dirs for us to choose the behavior).

Roman

[jb]

Ignore all criteria except name patterns. Write a warning below the filter ComboBox if the active filter is named and contains ignored criteria.

We already have name patterns... the strength of filters lies in their complexity.

I know, but after all with this cheap solution (my second suggestion) you could use named filters that contain complicated, lengthy name patterns. In case of "Synchronize Dirs" it would already be quite an improvement. Of course as a user I also prefer your suggestion which is basically an enhancement of my first suggestion, but it is much more expensive.