No more Component toolbar?

Our next release will include two new "Favorites" display filters: Left Orphans and Right Orphans. You can assign keyboard shortcuts to display filters, so assuming you assign Ctrl-1 to "show right orphans" and Ctrl-2 to "show right newer", your sequence would be:

<BC2 Auto-Refreshed by script, showing 1 obsolete and one changed>
Ctrl-1 => show right orphans
Ctrl-A => select all (or Alt-E,F if you prefer)
Ctrl-L => copy to left
Ctrl-2 => show right newer
Ctrl-A => select all (or Alt-E,F if you prefer)
Alt-A,C,C,C => copy filenames
Ctrl-L => copy to left
Paste filenames into notepad

Does that work for you?

Thanks for adressing this. I guess it would work as well (maybe just a "got to get used to it"-problem). But IMHO a selection-menu like in BC2 would be the best so I don't have to mess with the filtering, i.e. I don't have to keep switch back to original filter after copying files (I never close the BC session).

(Regarding what the other posters wanted, a "*"-toggle, this is not my case since I very rarely want to se identical files).

[Tim]

Yes, this post was about using display filters instead of the old Select Newer/Orphan commands, specifically for GreenMoose's workflow.

[jdmarch]

Tim, since our recent messages crossed I presume that you were responding to earlier posts only.. What you describe is a slight improvement but does not address the incremental exploration which I describe in my most recent post. It sounds as if this incremental style of working is not one which you use much, but I find it very intuitive in a non-routine (i.e. non-scripted) situation.

Also: To do this using the keyboard (rather than toolbar), I really would need the ability to toggle each toggle button from the keyboard. And, not to wax tiresome, the ability to Show All [oops, see edit below] from the keyboard.

EDIT: I meant "Show None"!

[Tim]

Our next release will include two new "Favorites" display filters: Left Orphans and Right Orphans. You can assign keyboard shortcuts to display filters, so assuming you assign Ctrl-1 to "show right orphans" and Ctrl-2 to "show right newer", your sequence would be:

<BC2 Auto-Refreshed by script, showing 1 obsolete and one changed>
Ctrl-1 => show right orphans
Ctrl-A => select all (or Alt-E,F if you prefer)
Ctrl-L => copy to left
Ctrl-2 => show right newer
Ctrl-A => select all (or Alt-E,F if you prefer)
Alt-A,C,C,C => copy filenames
Ctrl-L => copy to left
Paste filenames into notepad

Does that work for you?

[jdmarch]

Tim,

Thanks for thinking about this. I'd be very grateful for the ability to see Favorites at the same time as Toggles.... especially if you also included an optional "Show None" command.

To me, Toggle Mode is great for manual exploration, precisely because it allows the user to construct a view incrementally and decrementally: "let's just look at left orphans... now let's include left newer. Oh, there are a whole lot of them, let's exclude left orphans and just look at left newer. Hmm, this file changed but its companion is missing... did it not change? So let's include Equal for a sec and check for that..." etc.

Yes, I could do the same thing with Favorites with the same number of button presses, but I'd have to live and breathe BC (and have young eyes) in order to instantly and intuitively figure out which of those multibutton icons is the one that I actually want. Since I no longer live and breathe BC, the odds are slim of my ever fully internalizing the deep geometric meaning of twelve similar 4-color-speckled buttons, and their location on the toolbar. When I try to use Favorites or Drop Down I've got to stare and think, and by then I've already taken 3 times as long as it would have taken me to click the necessary toggle, and I've lost my train of thought.

Given that the toggle buttons are at their strongest when doing incremental / decremental filtering, one often naturally starts a new phase of the comparison with either Show None or Show All. One then works up/down from there. So the ability to quickly unset or set all the toggles is not just to save physical button clicks but to make the work process reflect the thought process. What I think is "ok, let's start over"... but to do so, what is now required is to unset all the already set buttons. Not so arduous but an utterly unnecessary distraction from the thought flow.

Including both Toggles and Favorites (preferably including a Show None command) could give us that, and with Favorites stripped down I might have a fighting chance of internalizing a few simple buttons in addition to All and None -- maybe "Different", "Left Orphans", and "Right Orphans" -- which would nicely complement the Toggles.

Thanks again.

[Tim]

Not necessarily a whole set of buttons -- only the ones you commonly use. (Favorites are configurable.)

[Michael Bulgrien]

You would consider adding a whole set of buttons (favorites) to the toolbar before considering one additional toggle that would eliminate the toggle view's only weakness? Why?

[Tim]

Sorry, guys. We're going to keep the toggles as a simple set of comparison states and not add extra buttons to try to make it easier to manipulate them. We have the composite display filters (Favorites) for quickly setting a common pattern. We've added Left Orphans and Right Orphans to Favorites for the next release.

We've had requests to show both the Toggles and Favorites on the toolbar at the same time. This would accomplish much of what you're looking for since you could have the Toggles for complete control and a few of your favorite Favorites buttons for quick selection. I'm not commiting to this change, but I would consider it before other options.

[jdmarch]

Great idea, Michael! And it removes the need to use the keyboard for the unset function. I would add one thing, for consistency:

Whenever all the other toggles are set by any mechanism (including one at a time manually), then the * toggle would automatically be set.

[Michael Bulgrien]

I think the hesitancy to put "*" button with the toggles is that it is not a toggle. What if it was implemented as a toggle when in toggle mode?

Click the "*" and all the other toggles set.
When the "*" toggle is set, clicking any other toggle will unset the "*" toggle.
When the "*" toggle is set, clicking it again will unset it and all the other toggles.

[jdmarch]

Thanks, Erik, I'm aware of these commands. I did say "no toolbar way to set them all." While I'm generally very keyboard-oriented, there are no keyboard commands to toggle these buttons one by one (if there were, I would almost certainly use them... something for Scooter to consider!), and there are simply too many "Show..." combinations to be worth assigning and learning keyboard shortcuts for them all.

So in this case, almost uniquely among commands, I find the toolbar easiest to use. Since I'm using the toolbar, then for the smoothest thought-action flow, I want to use only the toolbar for the operation. In particular, I don't want to use the keyboard for part of this operation, and I virtually *never* use a mouse to navigate menus unless I'm just browing an unfamiliar program... too much fine hand-eye coordination needed to settle on the correct sub-command without distraction. So IMO there really should be a toolbar-only solution.

Is this a huge deal? No. Would it be a nice touch? I think so.

[Erik]

I exclusively use the toggle display filter mode. To quickly set all the toggles, I use "Show All" in the "View" menu. To quickly unset most of the toggles, you could use "Show Same".

[jdmarch]

Toggle filter toolbar buttons

Speaking of the toggle filter toolbar buttons...

These buttons are my preferred way of filtering: very clear (vs all the tiny multiple button icons in the other two display modes). But it can seem a little laborious to toggle 4, 5, or 6 of them. At present there's no way to unset them all, and no toolbar way to set them all.

I would like it if there were a way to quickly set and unset all the toggle buttons. Two schemes occur to me:

a. Add a [* button] to the toggle button set (for All), and have shift+[* button] mean None.

or

b. Ctrl+[Equals button] means All, and Ctrl+[Different button] means None. A little arbitrary, but easy to remember I think.

Thanks.

[jdmarch]

I may be missing some element of Michael's concern, but FWIW, when doing a manual sync I also like to see the big picture, but then use the toggle filters to narrow the view before selecting and copying. So I'm not missing the old commands which he and the thread's initiator refer to.

I do share some of Michael's trepidation when using the full sync commands. It's always scary to set one of them in motion, and hope that there's nothing unforeseen taking place (the summary screen is not as expressive as the normal folder view.) So I really only use sync for creating a one-way mirroring backup, not for anything fancier, too scary.

So I'll be very interested to see both the new sync session type, and the contemplated Quick Sync command. It would be great to be able to set up a sync and then, before executing it, explore it: filter for only orphan copies, only left-to-right overwrites, browse and sort by date/ext, etc, and of course exclude any files from the sync during this phase.

[jdmarch]

I don't like it that I can only select all on both sides of the folder compare. It is disconcerting to see all files and folders selected when I only want to work with the files on one side. Even though I've tested enough to know that Cirrus will usually allow me to finalize the context of the operation before executing it, it still makes me nervous every time I set up to do a mass copy or delete.

When focus is in the left pane, could a Ctrl-A to Select All in the left pane only?
When focus is in the right pane, could a Ctrl-A to Select All in the right pane only?
And if the user clicks between the panes, then Ctrl-A could Select All in both panes.

Agree strongly. And of course this would also apply to "Select All Files".