Copying folders ignores "Include Hidden" option

[Michael Bulgrien]

Set file filter to -*.*
Set view option to: Always Show Folders
Collapsed all folders under base folder
Selected the collapsed folders and chose "Copy to Right..."
Unchecked the "Include hidden items in operation" setting
Clicked Start

BC3 copied the entire folder structure under the collapsed folders. Since I did not want the subfolders, I had to manually delete all the collapsed subfolders that got copied.

[Zoë]

"Include Hidden" refers to items hidden by the file filters or the display filters. It's never referred to items in collapsed folders, and I think copying a collapsed folder is a fairly common thing to do, so I can't see it changing.

I've honestly never liked the idea of the requested behavior. BC's "Sync" commands actually had an "Only visible files" checkbox that did what you wanted, and it was one of the only things I can think of that we conciously removed going to 3.0.

[Michael Bulgrien]

I often have good reasons for only copying (not synching) what is visible. In this case, I have a complicated packaging process that needs to be duplicated for a new release of our product. Some folders that contain automation scripts and support files must be copied in their entirety. However, other folders contain underlying baggage additional files and folders generated during the packaging of prior builds in the prior release.

I wanted to copy a folder structure containing approximately 200 folders. BC3 copied over 6,100 folders. It was really tedious to clean up.

I don't care about the Sync commands... Frankly, I agree with you and don't like the idea of such an implementation in a folder sync. However, users often have need to copy partial folder structures for a plethora of reasons. It would be very userful to have a tweak to place the following checkbox on the copy to other side dialog:

[ ] Expanded contents only

Alternately (less preferable option) an option on the context menu of a folder to create the folder on the other side would work as well.

[Aaron]

Hello Michael,

Could you go into a bit further detail on your folder structure? Is it not preferrable to define filters to hide these folder structure? (-subfoldername\). Then in future copies you would not need to expand your previously expanded folders, just to recreate the same sync/copy you performed before.

[Michael Bulgrien]

There are no folders in the root that I did not want copied. The folders that needed to be suppressed were deeper down, and the names of the folders vary greatly. That is why simply not expanding them is a whole lot easier than defining a bunch of folder filters.

Further more, some of the folder structures I did want copied in their entirety contain subfolders of the same name as in the folder structures that I wanted supressed... it complicates the filter when you want to see a folder of a given name in one place, but not in another.

As I said above (alternate solution) just being able to use the context menu to create an empty folder on the right to match an existing folder on the left would be a great help. This would allow me to select folders then create the empty folder structure on the right without worrying about what files/subfolders are contained within. Then at least I would not have to copy each folder name from the left, create new folders on the right and paste in the copied names (which also is tedious).

[Michael Bulgrien]

Is it not preferrable to define filters to hide these folder structure? (-subfoldername\)

Personally, I do a lot of work "on-the-fly", and it irks me to have to define formal filters for a one-time task when it seems there could be an easier/quicker way to accomplish the same thing. I was able to come up with a folder filter to do what I wanted to do, however, and I'm not going to drag this one out. If other users would like the flexibility of working with their visible set of files & folders they are welcome to chime in.

[Zoë]

I often have good reasons for only copying (not synching) what is visible.

The Sync/Update commands in the directory compare are really just selective copies, so I don't think the distinction is all that significant. We are working on a smarter "sync" that will detect and propagate deletes, but that will be limited to the folder sync session only. The folder compare's version will stay an easier way to copy newer and orphans. If we were to add something like this again, I'd be far more likely to put it back in the sync than to add it to the copy. The sync command always has a confirmation dialog where we could put that kind of checkbox, but the copy command frequently doesn't.

[Zoë]

Actually, the BC2 sync commands copied visible files, not folders, so it may not have done what you wanted.

One thing you could do (manually) is to include path information in the "New Folder" dialog. You can put something like "Dir1\Dir2\Dir3" into the "New Folder" edit and it will create the parent directories if they don't exist. One way we could improve that for you would be if you right click across from an existing folder, pre-fill in the edit with that folder's relative path.

[Pete]

"Include Hidden" refers to items hidden by the file filters or the display filters. It's never referred to items in collapsed folders, [...]

Regardless if you guys change the behavior in the future, I think it would be nice if the text in the dialogs could be rephrased somehow to make it more obvious that collapsed folders don't hide things, only filters do.

Maybe this only matters in the case of the user unchecking "Include hidden items in operation".

[Pete]

I think the last sentence is the most ambiguous: "Folders with hidden items will not be moved", because from what a user sees on his screen, "hidden items" could refer to both filtered items and collapsed folders.

[Michael Bulgrien]

One thing you could do (manually) is to include path information in the "New Folder" dialog. You can put something like "Dir1\Dir2\Dir3" into the "New Folder" edit and it will create the parent directories if they don't exist. One way we could improve that for you would be if you right click across from an existing folder, pre-fill in the edit with that folder's relative path.

Your manual work-arounds are needlessly complicated. You keep avoiding my second suggestion. Is it too much to ask for a "Create folder on other side" context menu option that only shows up when you right-click on an orphan folder, and have it create an empty folder of the same name on the other side?

[Zoë]

The only difference between my suggested enhancement and your request is that it requires clicking "Ok" to the confirmation dialog instead of introducing another command. I hardly consider that "needlessly complicated".

[Michael Bulgrien]

The only difference between my suggested enhancement and your request is that it requires clicking "Ok" to the confirmation dialog instead of introducing another command. I hardly consider that "needlessly complicated".

The big difference I see is that pre-filling a path in the new folder dialog means that I would have to duplicate the folder structure one folder at a time. With a context menu option, I could select a group of orphan folders and duplicate all of them in a single operation.