Completely automatic directory sync button?

[louwin]

I have 3 RAID mirrors so I can't have any more. I sync another pair of drives daily.

I have created (from this forum ) a Sync button which is great but this still stops and waits for "Synchronise" to be pressed and then, at the end, "Close".

Is there anyway to make the Sync Button process COMPLETELY automatic?

Press the sync button then the process launches, runs the compare then starts the sync and when finished closes down, all from the one button push?

TIA,

louwin

[Ambaquista]

Even with 2 more presses ("Synchronise" and "Close"), it´s a nice feature!
Can you publish the code of your Sync button?
And of course we will continue to watch this topic, may be some "magic" find a way to complete the process without any other press...
thanks

[MVV]

Ambaquista, you may save sync preset (with dirs, filemask and sync options) and load it with single command SYNCOPEN preset_name.

[Ambaquista]

to MVV
ok, its easy!
thanks

[louwin]

Even with 2 more presses ("Synchronise" and "Close"), it´s a nice feature!
Can you publish the code of your Sync button?

Command : %COMMANDER_PATH%\TOTALCMD.EXE
Parameters : /O /L=d:\Backups\Pending /R=e:\Backups\Pending /S=S:=SyncDirs

In wincmd.ini under [SyncOptions] put

SyncDirs_L=d:\Backups\
SyncDirs_R=e:\Backups\
SyncDirs_Wcs=*.*
SyncDirs_Flags=1|45|6

change your directory names to suit.

There is another message (search for automatic sync, sorry I don't have the reference at the moment) if you need more info.

[MVV]

louwin, just as additional information, it is not necessary to manually edit wincmd.ini in order to create such button, you can just save your preset SyncDirs from Sync window.

And, parameters /O, /L and /R are not needed in TOTALCMD command line if you're using /S=S:=SyncDirs (new TC instance will just open sync window and exit when it is closed). But parameter /O="path_to_filelist" may be useful here (but not necessary).

[bobputnam]

Have you looked at xxcopy? Put it in a batch file and make it a scheduled task.

[john999]

While I appreciate TotalCommander is an excellent program, I don't understand why the author doesn't implement automatic synchronisation. At work I have my laptop hooked up to my work desktop. I take regular snap shots of important pictures on work computer. These pictures are automatically saved in a folder on my desktop. Now I would love those files to be automatically sent over to a same named folder on my laptop. This is where automatic synchronisation comes in handy. I don't want to press synchronise each time I take a new snap shot.

Anyway the author has his reasons.

But good news looks like there is a software out there that does have the automatic synchronise function. It will mirror two folders on each end of your USB data cable. You copy a file into one folder, it will be duplicated in the other folder. You don't even need to tell it. It will detect file change and update by itself. The software is SmartSync Pro. You can google and try it for free for 30 days, then if you like it about $30 to buy. So far I tried it on my laptop and home computer and it works well. I will try it with my work computer next few days and update you guys with progress.

ADDENDUM 15 March 2013:
Thanks ghisler for the reply.

Just to clarify some things after another 2 weeks of desperate searches myself. I really searched hard because I need the function for everyday work purpose.

Firstly, the SmartSync software I mentioned before actually doesn't work with USB data transfer cable, it only works when you are part of a LAN (eg. Microsoft's homegroup or workgroup via ethernet). So if you have LAN, then it auto sync perfectly. When I was testing it, I had both computers automatically connected to my home LAN and I forgot about it, haha so I thought it was a USB connection. In reality the sync was done over the LAN, not the USB cable. But we are talking about USB link here, so SmartSync turned out to be useless to me afterall. Good software but useless to my situation.

To my surprise nothing out there actually lets you synchronise folders automatically. This is what I can suggest to people if you have to have that function: Use AutoHotKey or automouse whatever scripting software to click on synchronise for you every few seconds. But that's not good enough for me. I just want the software to synchronise when I change either of the folders, I don't want it to work so hard and keep synchronise every two seconds when nothing has changed.

While looking for folder auto sync software, I accidentally came across auto synchronise clipboard. This is actually exactly what I need. I need to sync the clipboard, not folders. So my search changed direction. My real need is I actually just need to share my clipboard (has to be able to share pictures, not just text) between desktop and my laptop. That's all I need, everyday I copy and paste lots and lots of pictures from workplace desktop and I need to paste it quickly into my laptop. This cable solves my issue:
J5 Create JUC400 Wormhole Switch
Here is its user manual:
www.j5create.com/download/juc400/juc400en.pdf
It's basically a cable that let's me synchronise the clipboard between two computers via USB. So that's better than my previous attempt at synchronising folder, because after synchronise folder I still go in and grab the picture out of destination folder myself. So synchronise clipboard is a godsend for me. Hope this information is useful for some people. You can read about feedbacks on amazon. Most people seem to like it. I will order one today and update you guys with the result when it arrives.

If you want a cheaper cable which synchronises clipboard text (probably not clipboard picture), you can consider this one:
"Smart USB Data Link Cable with Keyboard Mouse Sharing Support" by Ambery.
www.ambery.com/smusbdalicaw.html
Their website says you can share clipboard text, but says nothing about clipboard picture. So I assume picture is not shareable by this Ambery cable.

In terms of softwares, I came across these two which are pretty good (in addition to TotalCommander):
(1) Laplink Gold for Windows 7.
(2) Go!Bridge made by some Japanese or Taiwanese company. In fact a lot of USB data transfer cables come with this software onboard already. For example this cable : http://usbaccess.com/gosuite.html
This cable in particular is quite good because it actually also comes with a writable flash drive function of 16Gb space. So if you don't like its built-in transfer software, you can load Total Commander onto the cable itself.

Note, all of the stuff mentioned above won't synchronise folders automatically for you as mentioned before. You have to push some buttons for things to happen. Please note also I don't know if any of the cables mentioned above works for TotalCommander.

So that's it for now! Can't wait to try the j5 juc400 cable.

ADDENDUM 21 March 2013:

The J5 JUC400 cable arrived today and it's excellent. I plugged it into my laptop and desktop both running Windows 7. I can cut and paste pictures, text, drag files / folders across the two computers. Here's a demo of what this cable is capable of:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyO3qlKdeyE

[ghisler(Author)]

I haven't added automatic sync because I think that it's too risky. Even if a file is newer, it may have been edited on BOTH sides. Only the user himself can know that and exclude the file from sync.

[Sphyrna]

I haven't added automatic sync because I think that it's too risky. Even if a file is newer, it may have been edited on BOTH sides. Only the user himself can know that and exclude the file from sync.

I can imagine some really good uses for this, even with the potential dangers.
For instance in my case I would like to use it to keep my NAS and internal hard drive synced. I am aware of the dangers, but would happily take the risk.

In my opinion this would be a great addition!

[leonardog]

I haven't added automatic sync because I think that it's too risky. Even if a file is newer, it may have been edited on BOTH sides. Only the user himself can know that and exclude the file from sync.

I can imagine some really good uses for this, even with the potential dangers.
For instance in my case I would like to use it to keep my NAS and internal hard drive synced. I am aware of the dangers, but would happily take the risk.

In my opinion this would be a great addition!

Also I would happily take the risk!

This would be a great addition
This is for advanced user, and the advanced users known how do

[Lefteous]

I think the best way would be to do all the noncritical sync operations automatically. All conflicts should be stored in a report. The user can now resolve the conflicts in order to finish the sync based on the report. In many cases this is no work at all as edits on both sides are quite rare.

[HBB]

All needed is just auto start of sync operation (without needing to press a button).

This feature helps a lot for backup purposes (asymetric sync). For normal sync, it may not be preferred as Author worried.

Two cycled sync already displays conflicts. It can be improved if needed.