Move is cumbersom - better way?

[harveyab]

I often move my files or folders to improve my organization. I have a backup drive and periodically want to update my backup structure to match. So I use BC to compare, but when I want to move a folder or file, I drag and drop in Windows Explorer because it is too much of a pain to use the "Move to Folder..." function because it is pointing to some completely useless place (I wanted last time).

I wish BC supported drag and drop of files and folders. Is there a better way?
Even if it was:
click to select a destination or default folder.
Then
click file to move
choose "Move to Folder..."
And have my destination directory already loaded in the dialog.

Or something like that?

[Aaron]

Hello Harvey,

Our Move to Folder command's folder path is populated with your most recently used location (and mru of past Move To Folder paths). We don't currently populate this with other information, but it is on our wishlist to improve this behavior. For your workflow, instead of "click to select destination", you could right click it and Copy Filename. Then in the Move to Folder dialog, you could paste, which should paste the full path of the item you selected. You can then browse, and the browse dialog should navigate to this item (if you need to navigate to a subfolder) or you can just type a new name and BC3 will create the folder.

How does that work for you?

[harveyab]

[Solved] Copy filename - then Move - paste filename

Thank you for the tip. I had not noticed that menu item (Copy Filename)
That does make moving much better.
Not quite as nice as drag and drop, but it will work for now.

[street spirit]

+1 for drag and drop

I've been using BC for about five years now, on Windows and (since the option became available) on Linux. I find it tremendously useful - over the years it has probably saved me weeks of manual comparing and writing one-off sync scripts. It's the only non-free software I routinely install on Linux desktops (apart from device drivers).

The lack of drag&drop manipulation in the folder compare view is the only major gripe I have. I've discovered the "copy file name and paste it into the move-folder dialog" workaround some time ago, and it does make things easier, but it's really not what I would expect from a program as polished as BC. When I compare two folders in which the directory hierarchy differs a lot, my first impulse is "I want this folder there". Dragging files and folders around is just such a natural thing to do on a desktop. It's frustrating when it doesn't work as expected.

I realize that the act of dragging the mouse over the file list already has a different function in BC, changing the current selection, but D&D could still be used when a modifier key is pressed, or maybe when the right mouse button is used.

You mentioned that D&D is on your wishlist. That's good to know, I'm really looking forward to this feature. Please regard this comment as a vote in favor of D&D, and otherwise as a compliment for your software.

[chrroe]

Hi,

I also think a drag & drop modus in the folder-view can be very usefull.

Scooter, pleaase take a look at this:



This is a capture from the german Adobe Reader 9.4.7. When you load a PDF-File you can change the different mouse-modes (selection-tool, hand-tool) via context-menu.

Since there are already a lot of entries in the BC context-menu I would suggest a toolbar button which switches between different mouse-modes.

What do you think?

Bye
Christoph

[Chris]

Christoph,

Thanks for the suggestion. I will add your screen shot and suggestion to our wish list entry for drag and drop support in BC.

[aposter]

I often move my files or folders to improve my organization. I have a backup drive and periodically want to update my backup structure to match. So I use BC to compare, ...

So do I. I would even like to propose a new feature to BC: a feature to automatically propose or execute renaming, accordingly to heuristic data.
I wrote a - very clumsy - 'Hypertext Application', i.e. a html file with VB script, to do the following

- collect data about the folder and file structure of the reference drive
- move and rename the files of the mirror drive accordingly to the reference data

I attach the file here - but I must warn you: I wrote it for my personal use only and please become acquainted with it first, with some uncritical data. Don't blame me for loss of any files!
DirPattern and Pattern are VB regular expressions (not wildcards) which must be met for the folders/files to touch if these fields are not empty. DirPattern must be met for the old and the new name. For regEx help, look inside the script. Do not try to use it on drive roots or folders with lacking access rights since the script wil throw errors for such folders.