Does anybody use File Collections? If so, how?
I have't thought of really looking into this but need some examples of how it would be useful.
Gracias.
I use them sometimes to collect together things to burn to CD or to upload somehwere.
I used to have a collection containing all the music albums that I wanted to copy to a portable player but I don't anymore.
If you use the Find or Duplicate Finder tools in Opus then you're probably already using collections without realising.
I have used them in the past. But I would use them almost daily if they were dynamic instead of static.
I have some folders that I add and delete files from on a daily basis. Once you set up a file collection it doesn't change. That makes it worthless within a day or two for me.
My girlfriend and I both work from home (we live apart). Whenever she travels, I house sit and take care of her pets. Since I built her home-office PC it can handle everything I need, I only need to bring my work files which amount to several GBs located all over my system (I use several hard drive partitions).
I also own an Iomage Rev Drive, which can store 35 GB of files on each cartridge. I use this to transport my work. In Opus I created a File Collection named "Work Packup". It stores each folder I want to pack up and take with me to the other office. I use this File Collection along with several other Opus Features to quickly Synchronize all my current work files on my Rev cartridge. Then I transport the files to her PC, and I'm ready to work at her computer. At the end of the week, I do the same thing to bring everything back home. The File Collection has become my checklist for what to packup, and it helps me ensure nothing gets left behind.
Yeah making collections dynamic would make them a 100% more useful. I do use them on occations but if they were dynamic I would use them all the time.
I guess you'll be able to use NTFS junctions/links for this in Opus 9. (Or Opus 8 if you don't mind having to press F5 to refresh.)
Ok teacher. Teach me.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS_junction_point
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS_symbolic_link
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_link
The Warning section of the first article is quite important. Lots of things (including Opus 8 in places; Opus 9 is better) don't fully understand junctions and links so you have to be very careful, especially when deleting things.
Junctions are pretty cool but it's one of those tools that works too well. You can make yourself the biggest mess if you screw them up. It's why Microsoft left them undocumented all these years. You'll see them in Vista though or actually you won't (without the new DO 9). They look like the a real directory and act like one too, but they point to something else. It's the something else that you can define. Not too unlike a UNIX Link.
I use them to find files across multiple disparate directories. I
make a collection and put the directories under it. To do a Find on
the collection, specify "Find files and folders in:" as:
These collections are dynamic, at least as far as finding files in
them is concerned (i.e., if I add new files, the next Find will
locate them, without having to refresh the collection).
Ron
I concur, if file collections can tell if a file has been deleted, they should also notice if a new file has been added. Making them dynamic would be much more useful.
Is there an easy way to refresh the file collections without having to remove and re-add each one?
You could create a button which runs the Find tool on all the desired folders at once. The Find will clear the collection and then re-populate it automatically and I think you can do it all from a single toolbar button click.
You could create a button which runs the Find tool on all the desired folders at once. The Find will clear the collection and then re-populate it automatically and I think you can do it all from a single toolbar button click.[/quote]
This would work! Say that I have a collection named "MyCollection" can you give an example of the specific command the button should execute?
Here's an example which clears and then re-populates a collection called "Test Collection" with all of the files in and below two folders, C:\Data\Information and C:\Data\Virtual:
Find IN "C:\Data\Information" "C:\Data\Virtual" NAME * COLLNAME "Test Collection" CLEAR RECURSE=yes SHOWRESULTS=lister,tab QUIET
The collection gets displayed in a new tab. Have a look at the Find command in the manual if you want to tweak what the example does.
[quote="nudel"]Here's an example which clears and then re-populates a collection called "Test Collection" with all of the files in and below two folders, C:\Data\Information and C:\Data\Virtual:
Find IN "C:\Data\Information" "C:\Data\Virtual" NAME * COLLNAME "Test Collection" CLEAR RECURSE=yes SHOWRESULTS=lister,tab QUIET
The collection gets displayed in a new tab. Have a look at the Find command in the manual if you want to tweak what the example does.[/quote]
Hmm that doesnt seem to have the desired result. If I were to drag-n-drop "C:\Data\Information" to "Test Collection", choose "Sub-Collections", the file/folder structure is properly preserved. But by using the find method, I end up with about 10,000 files and folders all the direct child of "Test Collection" instead of the folder structure of all of the children of "C:\Data\Information" being preserved?
Just started using the program but i always use file collections to collate various files from acrross diferant folders.
Normally this is current work i am working on.
I also use it as kinda a desktop where i can group various program .exes into folders
for example
Graphic Apps
File Utilities
ect...
Perhaps not what it was intended for but i find it usefull on that note it would be good if in the file collections you could use .PNGs or similar to change the folder image/icon rather than just icons.
[quote="H.A.L.F"]Just started using the program but i always use file collections to collate various files from acrross diferant folders.
Normally this is current work i am working on.
I also use it as kinda a desktop where i can group various program .exes into folders.[/quote]
I agree, its "almost" perfect for increasing productivity by allowing you to consolidate files from accross different folders/drives/machines into one managable structure.
I'm not sure if you've realized this yet though, but collection folders will not see new subfiles or subfolders. Example, if you were to use a graphic app (photoshop) to create a new .jpeg image, and you save the new image. If you look in your collection an try to find that new .jpeg, it won't be there!
For collectiosn to be used in a practical manner, there needs to be either an option for collections to automatically see new files/folders, or at least a way to force the a root collection folder to refresh its children (F5 would be nice).
You're right. I forgot sub-collections existed to be honest. I don't know if there is a way to automatically add folders to collections as sub-collections.
If you're using collections for different purposes remember that they can "lose" files if the original file gets deleted and a new version then gets written in its place. (I think that's already been discussed in this thread but it's important so I'm mentioning it again just in case, to avoid any problems!)
[quote="nudel"]
You're right. I forgot sub-collections existed to be honest. I don't know if there is a way to automatically add folders to collections as sub-collections.[/quote]
sub-collections is an absolutely brilliant concept -- it could be the single most productivity-boosting feature offered by Opus (at least, for programmers and web devlopers who deal with many filesystems and several deeply nested folders). It's just missing a couple things that would make it complete.
There needs to be the ability to mark a collection folder as being dynamic, so that it can either singly or recursively automatically recognize new/deleted child files/folders. A second best option would be one where you could right-click a collection folder and manually have it singly or recursively recognize new/deleted child files/folders. In other words, just have it do the exact same thing it did when the folder was first added as a sub-collection.
There also seems to be a bug in the way it handles forder names with periods. If I add "r:\etc\rc.d\init.d" to a collection as a sub-collection, the sub-collection filestructure becomes "\etc\rc\init"