Page 1 of 2

Spacebar in Synchronize directorries

Posted: 2020-09-23, 11:24 UTC
by browny
Check Equal and Unequal buttons and press Compare. Then select some or all lines in the list.
In the selection spacebar cycles through Right - Left - Unequal for unequal files, but only resets to Equal for equal files.
That is not very logical; particularly when the selection contains both equal and unequal files.

Re: Spacebar in Synchronize directorries

Posted: 2020-09-23, 12:59 UTC
by gdpr deleted 6
Why is it unlogical? What would be a logical reason for wanting to right/left copy equal files? The files are already equal, so there should be no (obvious) reason for wanting to copy them. (If you find yourself in rather extraordinary circumstances where you really need to left/right copy files despite them being equal, you can force this through the context menu. But offering such an option via spacebar makes the spacebar feature much less convenient, because offering to copy/sync files that are already equal is pointless in 99.99999999999% of all cases, imo.)

Re: Spacebar in Synchronize directorries

Posted: 2020-09-25, 23:04 UTC
by browny
elgonzo wrote: 2020-09-23, 12:59 UTC Why is it unlogical?
Because it is easier to understand uniform handling. And simpler to change direction for one selected group of files instead of playing with several different selections.
elgonzo wrote: 2020-09-23, 12:59 UTC because offering to copy/sync files that are already equal is pointless in 99.99999999999% of all cases, imo.)
Could you please tell, why anybody might get interested in a personal opinion, based on nothing better than a random nonsensical number?

Re: Spacebar in Synchronize directorries

Posted: 2020-09-26, 07:08 UTC
by gdpr deleted 6
browny wrote: 2020-09-25, 23:04 UTC Because it is easier to understand uniform handling.
That has nothing to do whether something is logical/meaningful or not. Making/doing things can be easy, but just because a thing is easy to do/make or easy on the eyes does not make the thing inherently meaningful.
browny wrote: 2020-09-25, 23:04 UTC And simpler to change direction for one selected group of files instead of playing with several different selections.
Why would it be generally meaningful to want left/right copying files that are already equal? It's not like having those files selected for left/right copying will result in a no-op when the synchronization process is being initiated.

The whole point of the current behavior is that you can make just one wide selection regardless of whether that selection contains equal files, without having to worry about pointlessly setting left/right copying for files that are already equal, or having to hide them, or create multiple individual selections in an attempt to avoid equal file entries when preferring to use the spacebar/keyboard. That's not a bug, that's meaningful behavior.

browny wrote: 2020-09-25, 23:04 UTC Could you please tell, why anybody might get interested in a personal opinion, based on nothing better than a random nonsensical number?
I am sorry i had to make this number up. I would have wanted to calculate an accurate number, but my pocket calculator doesn't have enough fractional digits, so what was i supposed to do? (Seriously, were you unable to read it as a figure of speech for "vast majority" or perhaps "overwhelming majority"? Have you never seen this rhetorical device before?) And even without my posts, this topic would not be in danger of lacking in opinion. Not sure if you just haven't noticed this or whether my irony detector is utterly broken... :twisted:

Re: Spacebar in Synchronize directorries

Posted: 2020-09-27, 17:47 UTC
by browny
elgonzo wrote: 2020-09-26, 07:08 UTC (Seriously, were you unable to read it as a figure of speech for "vast majority" or perhaps "overwhelming majority"? Have you never seen this rhetorical device before?)
Your so called opinion was based on the following:
- you failed to understand how the feature might be used
- next, substituted this lack of understanding with "nobody needs it"
- as the last step, numbers were applied to "confirm" the nonsense (great idea - numbers make things look so scientific).

Unfortunately, this empty rhetoric of yours was lame and unimpressive.

Re: Spacebar in Synchronize directorries

Posted: 2020-09-27, 17:48 UTC
by gdpr deleted 6
Ui! More opinionated rambling and weak insults from the man himself!
So much easier to do and so much more convincing than to argue on the merit of the argument, amirite? :lol: 🤦‍♂️

Re: Spacebar in Synchronize directorries

Posted: 2020-09-27, 19:44 UTC
by Hacker
[mod=Hacker]Please guys.[/mod]

Re: Spacebar in Synchronize directorries

Posted: 2020-09-29, 05:32 UTC
by MVV
It was funny to read the discussion but I don't understand the reason to copy equal files too, so I don't see any reason to implement such feature, and I also see an annoyance in this extra mode suggested by Space. Since Space cycles actions but copying equal files is a pretty useless action (except some very rare cases when you e.g. know that files are really different but Sync doesn't know it) so it shouldn't be in action list as it is now.

Re: Spacebar in Synchronize directorries

Posted: 2020-09-29, 10:15 UTC
by browny
This is not a feature request, but report on non-uniform behaviour.
Maybe not a huge bug, but why nobody even tried to explain this?
Logically, not because someone "failed to understand why".

Hint 1: if there is no need to copy so called "equal" files, simply uncheck "Equal file" button.
Hint 2: definition of "equal" might be different, and, contrary to the claims above, this is very common.
Hint 3: file copy is not a no-op

Re: Spacebar in Synchronize directorries

Posted: 2020-09-29, 12:30 UTC
by MVV
This is not a feature request, but report on non-uniform behaviour.
I would say this issue is rather a missing feature than a bug, because it is so by design.
Maybe not a huge bug, but why nobody even tried to explain this?
Maybe because no one needs this?

Your hints really look like attempts to make extra difficulties for zero advantage. I don't need to copy equal files but I often prefer to see them in list, but with this change I will have to hide them to prevent rewriting equal files.

Re: Spacebar in Synchronize directorries

Posted: 2020-09-29, 12:49 UTC
by browny
MVV wrote: 2020-09-29, 12:30 UTC I would say this issue is rather a missing feature than a bug, because it is so by design.
Literally, this tells that the design of two different ways of handling spacebar function is by design.
MVV wrote: 2020-09-29, 12:30 UTC Maybe because no one needs this?
Two different ways of handling spacebar function were implemented because nobody needed it?
MVV wrote: 2020-09-29, 12:30 UTC I don't need to copy equal files but I often prefer to see them in list, but with this change I will have to hide them to prevent rewriting equal files.
FIle might have differnt sizes and timestamps, but compared as equal.
I often do overwrite such files.

Re: Spacebar in Synchronize directorries

Posted: 2020-10-01, 12:07 UTC
by petermad
2MVV
I don't understand the reason to copy equal files
I can think of this: Comparing with the options "by content" and "ignore date" enabled - one might want to synchronize the equal files to sync the dates of the files.

Re: Spacebar in Synchronize directorries

Posted: 2020-10-01, 16:29 UTC
by sqa_wizard
... or just to document THAT specific files are equal.

Re: Spacebar in Synchronize directorries

Posted: 2020-10-03, 11:39 UTC
by MVV
I can think of this: Comparing with the options "by content" and "ignore date" enabled - one might want to synchronize the equal files to sync the dates of the files.
In such specific case one may set direction via context menu. The question is how popular is such a case so one really needs to be able to set it via Space press.

Re: Spacebar in Synchronize directorries

Posted: 2020-10-03, 16:28 UTC
by browny
MVV wrote: 2020-10-03, 11:39 UTCThe question is how popular is such a case so one really needs to be able to set it via Space press.
Most users never go deeper than very basic usage patterns.
Everything else gets labelled "specific", or even claimed that "nobody needs it".

Once again, the current behaviour is less than logical.
Maybe the author would change this, maybe not.