I'm having an issue which is starting to make my head hurt and I figure someone must have a workable fix for it.
I have a standard Windows 10 installation, with the exception that my 'Virtual' user directory folders (so all of these: 3D Objects,Contacts,Desktop,Documents,Downloads,Favorites,Links,Music,Pictures,Saved Games,Searches,Videos) have been relocated (using the windows function for this exact purpose: right click, properties, location tab)
Now if I double click my computer on the desktop to open opus in explorer replacement mode I see the following in the folder tree (note my user folder is missing):
If however I double click my user folder on the desktop I get this in the tree instead (the user folder is now magically visible):
So my first confusion is why does my user folder NOT show up when opening opus unless I click that folder specifically?
And then secondarily.. Why does the tree view for the user folder, when expanded show all the virtual folders (as desired), but the actual folder view does not have those folders in it? And how can i get them to show up there?
Is the tree view in some way using the standard explorer functionality (and if that's the case why does my user folder sometimes disappear - it doesn't do that in explorer) and the folder view uses custom opus code? Why is that, is it possible to make the folder view use whatever explorer does which makes this work?
This is related to these 2 posts, but I never really resolved the issue listed there and kinda just gave up on Opus however I'd like to get it working:
You must have User Profile Folder turned off under Preferences / Folder Tree / Contents, so it would only appear in the tree if it was forced to by going to it.
The tree view shows the Windows shell's view of the virtual folder hierarchy.
The folder display displays the actual directory on disk. (At least for the user profile folder. We have explicit support for virtual folders in some places, like This PC and Desktop, but not for the profile folder, at least not currently.)
My experience is that the "official" locations of those folders (moved or not) will end up so full of unwanted junk that other software saves there (incorrectly, but you can't stop it happening), that they're all basically useless in terms of me storing my own files in them. (e.g. Documents is so full of program settings and other automatically saved state data which should be under AppData or SaveGames or similar folders but ends up there because so many developers don't care to use the right folders for things.) Instead of moving the folders, I abandon them where they are and create my own folders in other locations, then create shortcuts to them in my Opus toolbars or the Windows Quick Access list so that I can quickly access them without badly written software using them as a location for config files.
I'm probably straying off topic here, but can't resist. I've never used the user profile folders for anything. All my user data is in folders of my own creation not even on the OS partition.
Some of this is left over habits from pre-windows days, but it's always seemed crazy to me to tightly bind all my user data to a particular Windows version/installation and then have to struggle with how to keep and/or migrate them when I install a new version of windows.
That's kind of exactly the reason to re-locate them using the built in feature, which is what causes this problem.
I relocate them all to a non-system drive with the same path as they would have (i.e documents is usually in c:\users\sam\documents say.. so i have an E:\users\sam\documents) , and on reinstall or upgrade of windows, i just go to each of the folders, right click, properties, location tab, and point them to the E:...... instead of c:... its a 2 minute way to have everything work as intended.
Its actually designed for exactly you and me and allows doing as you do, but automatically having all apps and API calls still be able to access the files without having to go look for them in the same/open dialogs etc. It was added in windows 10 for that reason.
Thank you - That almost universally gets round my major frustration here (with the exception that personally I'd love to see the virtual folders supported in the user profile folder as well, as its still weird having things in the tree i cant see in the folder display when selecting the parent of the tree).
I'd also say it would be less confusing to people (maybe its just me) for that option to be selected by default, since the defaults should expose the same folders explorer would?
I used to find that a problem, however on Windows 10 it's nowhere near as bad as it used to be is my experience.. I have 20 years worth of stuff cataloged in those folders and I can find anything from that period with minimal hassle despite the occasional rando folder appearing in there.
Making shortcuts I've always found to be an untidy solution as the windows API is always going to send me to documents (etc) by default, and its another click or 2 to follow some shortcuts that I didn't need to.
You might be right. I guess I really don't know, but this is probably off topic here (my fault), so suffice it to say that, at this point, it would cause me a lot more confusion and effort to conform to the "proper structure" than to leave well enough alone.
and allows doing as you do, but automatically having all apps and API calls still be able to access the files without having to go look for them in the same/open dialogs etc. It was added in windows 10 for that reason.