It took some time until I noticed that choosing "Skip Identical" option in the file replacement dialog forcly skips the current file even if it isn't identical. The "Skip Identical" mode is only applied for all succeeding files that are identical but not for the current one (which is skipped in any case even if it is not identical).
Thus I'm wondering how I can activate the "Skip Identical" mode considering the current file too (which needs to be replaced)?
Let's say you have a selection containing 100 files and you want to copy this selection into an other directory which already contains an old copy of this selection. Assuming that the first 20 files are actually changed but the last 80 are identical. Thus you have to click 20 times on the replace button because you have to wait for the first unchanged file appearing to click the "Skip Identical" button otherwise you will "loose" exactly one file.
In other words I'm talking about a "Replace all files but skip identical" mode that can be applied in the replacement dialog to copy a bulk of selected files from the source to the destination file display.
You can't do exactly that, but if you use the Copy UPDATEALL command then it will automatically skip over any files that already exist and have the same size and date.
(Although it's not quite the same: Copy UPDATEALL only cares about files; it won't copy empty directories that only exist in the source. You could follow it up with a command which just copies folders and skips existing ones if needed.)
FWIW, we may make it so that the Skip Identical option only appears when the files are identical. (The Archives plugin already behaves this way but I'm not sure if we've made the main program do the same.)
But in this case the user also have to click 20 times "replace" before he can enable the "skip all identical" mode (based on my 100 files example given above).
After thinking another minute about that ... I'm pretty sure that one replace option is missing.
We have three major skip options but only two replace options.
Replace vs Skip Replace All vs Skip All Replace All Modified vs Skip All Identical
Obviously the third replace option (underlined) is missing and would provide exactly what we are talking about. Having these 6 options would provide all meaningful permutations to the user when the dialog appears for the first time. This should work even if the files are identical or not in all cases.
To make the selection more sensitive you can define that "replace all modified" doesn't mean "skip all identical" and vice versa. Obviously that makes things more flexible but even more complicated. In this case the user have to accept the golden hammer two times:
First time the dialog appears when the first modified file was found -> "Replace All Modified" can be selected but "Skip All Identical" is grayed out (since the files are not identical).
And then the dialog appears again when the first identical file was found -> "Replace All Modified" is grayed out but "Skip All Identical" can be selected.
After the user confirmed the golden hammer for replace as well as for skip mode, the dialog will not appear anymore.
[quote="AKA-Mythos"]Replace vs Skip Replace All vs Skip All Replace All Modified vs Skip All Identical
Obviously the third replace option (underlined) is missing and would provide exactly what we are talking about. Having these 6 options would provide all meaningful permutations to the user when the dialog appears for the first time. This should work even if the files are identical or not in all cases.[/quote]
Leo, just because I'm curious ... what do you think about the third option? Would this be a possible improvement from your point of view?
I just want to trigger that topic after some month again.
I think two independent modes have to be maintained during a copy operation. One mode (skip once/all or replace once/all) for identical files and another similar mode for modified files.
Such an "replace all modified" option would make the dialog more consistent and I assume that there are other users who may appreciate this option too because it is a very common option -> at least for me it's the (missing) "default".
I refer to the behavious described in this (and the following) posting:
Thus it would be nice if the "replace all modified" option can be selected in addition to provide a finer and more consistent control about how files are skipped or replaced.
This is the new stuff I wanted to publish here. It was a simple idea --- that comes in my mind a few days ago --- how a common copy workflow can be realized under the surface by maintaining two different modes (instead of a single one as it is currently realized).
But you are right the other stuff is redundant.
Anyway what is the correct way to ask for the status of an issue if it shouldn't be done in the forum? Do you prefer a PM in this case?
