Custom File Sort Order for paperless office

Help & Support
10

Remember that me & Tanis don't work for GPSoft so your analogy should be changed to "people who kind of help out at General Motors...", or something like that...

I think the point is that there's an infinite amount of ideas and features to be implemented and a finite amount of time, so things have to be done according to how useful they are to everyone and how much time they take to do (which takes away time from looking at other features). Whether another program has a feature isn't a huge factor and Opus has thousands of features that no other program has.

If you want something added, argue the case about how useful it is, not that another program has the feature (or will have it in the future).

11

Umm, I don't think i've been advertising something here. The feature discussed is so special, however simple, and at the same time difficult to understand because no one ever had anything like it, that I grasp every straw trying to make clear that this feature actually could make a file manager into a perfectly simple project management / electronic document management solution.

Since I know that you're not the developers, and that there are other channels to submit feature requests, there would not be much point in trying to do this here.

Btw. if Tanis as one snappy shark finds it is already "extremely rude" :confused: just to mention another product, what would you call big shots like "....before it's even close to being a file manager"?

Anyway, my point was, I'd "possibly" even quit DOpus and move to some other file manager if it only offered said feature [as well as the great thumbnail and preview features of Dopus of course;]. This is because plain file management, folder overview and file preview is my (very personal!) main concern for a file manager.

Regards,
David.P


(click to enlarge;)

12

The developers are here and spend plenty of time reading the forums. So my point stands.

I'd call it sarcasm.

Perhaps I wasn't clear or direct enough. To avoid confusion, this is not a recommendation, nor a request for debate. Advertising competing products here is (especially with a link) not acceptable. Understood?

13

Wow, you're being exceptionally nice once more :open_mouth: 8)

Anyway, although it was definitely not an advertisement since I'm in no way associated with any file manager company [remember, I'm an DOpus power user -- as well as I've been posting DOpus screenshots over there at X*plorer without being hit over the head]

--- feel free to remove the link to that other product from my [and from your!] posts.

Regards,
David.P

14

Posting a link to a competing product is advertising no matter what the intention - that's clear and obvious to anyone.

The implication from your post was "add this feature or I will change to another product" - it certainly added nothing to improve our understanding of your request (which is your reasoning for posting it) - the implied threat is distasteful and unneccesary. The developers are very open to well thought out and described feature requests. I doubt very much that they respond well to such threats though.

You did not need to link to this product (which, it should be noted, doesn't have the feature either) to fully explain your request.

Already done.

15

Come on, calm down just a little… :frowning: 8)

You can call it advertising if the intention is selling something -- which intention I definitely don't have.

Oh well… :open_mouth: :open_mouth: :confused:

Of course I didn't mean to and didn't express any "threatening" to anyone. What I said simply was "this feature [is so important to me that it] could make me move on to another product.

This is because it is my strong conviction that said feature
"re-arrange the sort order of files
in details mode with the mouse and keep
this custom sort order in between sessions"
is an absolute killer feature for professional electronic document management. It already has proven to be a killer in "slide" programs like Google Picasa and FastStone ImageViewer, and it will also be there in the next version of a not-so well known file manager from Cologne... :smiley: :frowning: 8)

This is VERY well-known to me, and I'm quite sure that my feature request qualified like so from the very beginning. Of course I have sent this feature request also directly to the developers, as I have been doing since 2003.

For example, I've suggested the ActiveX viewer and floating tooltip thumbnails in July 2003, PDF thumbnail generation and b/w tiff file preview antialiasing in April 2004, as well as the new File Filter Control Field in April 2005 --- to name but a few feature requests I had handed directly to, and discussed at length, with the developers. Not to mention that these feature requests actually have been implemented in the software 8).

Cheers,
David.P

PS: Here's some more yet to come: :slight_smile: :slight_smile: :slight_smile: 8) 8) 8)
[ul][li]The new "File Filter Control" seems not to work when switching to Flat View™.[/li]
[li]Make the normal find dialog usable as well inside file collections.[/li]
[li]How about the possibility to search for files "inside previous search results"![/li]
[li]Possibility to search for occurrences of text inside preview pane while html/mht-document is being displayed.[/li]
[li]*.eml file preview seemingly not working although *.eml-files are equivalent to *.mht-files, preview of which does work. [resolved][/li]
[li]When copying/moving files by dragging them over toolbar buttons, cursor "+" sign and copy/move behaviour seems not always consistent[/li]
[li]Automatically highlight first occurrence of search term when searching for text inside the preview pane![/li]
[li]Even better: "Find-as-you type"-highlighting (as in Mozilla Firefox Browser) when searching for text inside the preview pane: just by starting to type on the keyboard while preview pane has the input focus. Killer feature![/li]
[li]Different thumbnail sizes when lister in Thumbnail View Mode (here: smaller thumbnails for better overview) as compared to when lister in Details View Mode (here: very large floating thumbnail preview inside the tooltip for better recognition of file contents).[/li]
[li]Suppress preview generation inside the preview pane (because it slows down the opening of large files) when the respective file is being double clicked in the lister.[/li]
[li]Enable Ctrl+C for "Copy" inside the preview pane for all file types.[/li]
[li]Enable placement of preview pane separately on second monitor (as a separate window that can be maximized).[/li]
[li]It seems not possible to assign (multipage) TIFF with an external ActiveX viewer (e.g. AlternaTIFF) inside the preview pane, although the respective viewer is there and working. Dopus instead still continues to use its internal TIFF viewer[/li]
[li]Possibility to set the sort order of folders always alphabetically, even when file sort order is set to "sort by date".[/li][/ul]

16

It works fine for me. I use it all the time. What doesn't work for you? Are you sure you're not doing something like filtering Files and Folders, and filtering out the parent folders and thus everything below them?

[quote]# Make the normal find dialog usable as well inside file collections.

How about the possibility to search for files "inside previous search results"![/quote]

The first feature would give you the second. Not sure if it's been requested (via GPSoft support) beyond some brief discussion in the forums.

Not sure why Ctrl-F doesn't work there since it's just IE. Has this been brought up before? I don't remember anyone pointing it out but I haven't looked at the ActiveX stuff for a while so maybe I forgot about it. I'll make sure it's on my list of things to look at in the ActiveX plugin, either way.

That would be cool, I agree.

Not a bad idea, could be done by allowing the {thumbnail} infotip code to take a size argument. But is also something that the viewer pane takes care of to a large degree, I think.

Would you be happy waiting the extra second or so (whatever the double-click time is) for the preview pane to update after single-clicking? I think it'd be annoying, at least for image filetypes which load instantly. Maybe on a per-filetype basis or something.

Which ones does it not work for? Which plugins handle them?

I had a feeling there was a way to do this but I can't find it now so maybe I'm imagining things. I thought there was a way to launch the standalone viewer window but still have it tied to the lister that launched it like the preview pane is. Maybe I'm thinking of the way you can interact with checkbox-mode selection from the viewer. (Press Ctrl-T in the viewer.)

If you've added the .tif extension to the ActiveX viewer then it's probably an incompatibility between my ActiveX plugin and AlternaTIFF. I've been working towards a native multipage-TIFF plugin; there's still a bit more work to do on it but I hope it will fill that feature hole.

17

Haven't you just said that lighttable sort belongs to image management programs?

X.

18

Hi nudel,

sorry that it took me such a long time to come back to you. Christmas, and quite a lot of work, you know...

It works fine for me. I use it all the time. What doesn't work for you? Are you sure you're not doing something like filtering Files and Folders, and filtering out the parent folders and thus everything below them? [/quote]

Well that could be one reason. However, Dopus behavior seems not entirely consistent, or at least difficult to understand and handle. If I switch to Flat View first, and then put some expression in the File Filter Box, Dopus acts as expected, and filters the entire list -- even if I filter Files and Folders (as I always seem to do).

If, however, I start the other way round by putting my expression in the File Filter Box, and only then switch to Flat View, Dopus doesn’t catch all respective files all the time. Maybe it does if I only filter files, and not folders, but this is really difficult to check all the time when switching to Flat View.
Anyway, this really is some minor issue for me.

[quote="nudel"] [quote]# Make the normal find dialog usable as well inside file collections.

How about the possibility to search for files "inside previous search results"![/quote]

The first feature would give you the second. Not sure if it's been requested (via GPSoft support) beyond some brief discussion in the forums. [/quote]

I have submitted that feature to the developers as well.

Not sure why Ctrl-F doesn't work there since it's just IE. Has this been brought up before? I don't remember anyone pointing it out but I haven't looked at the ActiveX stuff for a while so maybe I forgot about it. I'll make sure it's on my list of things to look at in the ActiveX plugin, either way. [/quote]

Thanks already for checking this issue.

That would be cool, I agree. [/quote]

The upcoming Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0 has this also for its preview pane. Amazing feature! However probably much more difficult to implement in Dopus because of all the different viewers that are used to display file contents.

Not a bad idea, could be done by allowing the {thumbnail} infotip code to take a size argument. But is also something that the viewer pane takes care of to a large degree, I think. [/quote]

Agreed. Anyway, I have like five different stages of file preview :slight_smile: :

1.) Small; or
2.) large icons show (image) file contents [by Xentient Thumbnails, great!];
3.) on clicking-and-holding the mouse on an (image) file, I get a medium sized preview popup on the Desktop and in file open dialogs [by KO Approach, also great!];
3.) Dopus shows a floating thumbnail of almost any file on mouseover [bloody amazing feature created after my respective feature request in 2003 :D]
4.) on switching to thumbnail mode in Dopus, I get thumbnails for almost every file type [ditto;]
5.) lastly, here comes the Dopus Preview Pane into play.

Would you be happy waiting the extra second or so (whatever the double-click time is) for the preview pane to update after single-clicking? I think it'd be annoying, at least for image file types which load instantly. Maybe on a per-filetype basis or something. [/quote]

I find it annoying sometimes with large PDF files. I double-click on the file, and Adobe Reader must open the file twice -- one copy inside the preview pane, and another one in Adobe Reader. What’s more, if I work on a PDF file in Adobe Acrobat, every time I save the file, Dopus updates the file also in the preview pane -- which sometimes even makes Dopus jump in the foreground and back, which can be somewhat disrupting for my concentration. Well, and double-click times are like in the range of about 300 milliseconds, so the delay for updating the preview pane would not be a problem.

I agree with you however that this feature would be just perfect on a per-filetype basis.

Which ones does it not work for? Which plugins handle them? [/quote]

Ctrl+C for "Copy" inside the preview pane seems not to work for html, mht and eml files, all handled by the ActiveX viewer.

If you've added the .tif extension to the ActiveX viewer then it's probably an incompatibility between my ActiveX plugin and AlternaTIFF. I've been working towards a native multipage-TIFF plugin; there's still a bit more work to do on it but I hope it will fill that feature hole.[/quote]

Yes, I've added the .tif extension to the ActiveX viewer, however AlternaTIFF still does not launch when a TIFF file is clicked on.

Anyway, lastly I’d like to remind once more my currently „most wanted“ feature: The persistent custom file sort for simple but efficient project management / paperless office --- e.g. have the files of a folder in a persistent custom sort order, like in an attorney’s paper file folder.

Cheers,
David.P

19

Hello all,
I've been trying to arrange the files in a custom order in D.O., and to be honest, I was surprized such an advanced program, doesnt offer this option.
For years, I've been using ACDSEE do to so (which does it not only in TN mode but also in detail mode) and then batch rename files numbering them according to my custom sort order.
Is there any way I can do this in D.O.?

20

Not at the moment, no.

Opus always sorts the files according to a criteria (name, size, date, etc.). It doesn't let you move things around, except by changing the attribute(s) which you're sorting by (e.g. renaming a file).

21

+1 for this feature

22

Below is one example for a rather robust implementation of custom file sort.

1.) Define an initial sort order by clicking on the appropriate column header.

2.) Rearrange files by drag and drop.

3.) Initialize Custom Sort e.g. by pushing the respective toolbar button.

4.) As a result, all files in the folder get re-named using a numbered prefix.

See here for an implementation example of this principle.

However, I'd rather prefer if files would NOT have to be renamed for custom sort. I think that this is rather awkward, plus you loose the ability to actually sort by the original file names.

I would not mind if directories that have been custom sorted in Dopus would not retain the custom sort in other file managers - as long as the custom sort is safely retained within Dopus.

Let me repeat that this would be THE killer feature for anyone working with "paperless project folders".

Otherwise it's really difficult (for me) to keep track and overview what happened at what stage of a certain project or case, because often I have like 50 to 100 documents of different file types inside a projects folder (see example below).

If I could start off with" sort by date" and then drag files up or down to perfect my sort order, it would be SO much easier to overlook which letter, draft or document came into play at what stage of my current case…

Thanks already for implementing that killer feature at the earliest possible time,

David.P

576×1024

23

I'm not against this idea. It also seems to be present in Vista's explorer (although, much to my annoyance, I can't see a way to turn it off and whenever I drop a file in a random place within a folder (to copy it there) it turns off Name sorting and the folder is a mess from then until I manually re-sort... wonderful). But...

In your example, do all of the files have to be in a single directory? Is there a reason you can't group them into a few subdirectories? If not then you could use flat-view mode to see all of the files at once, ordered and/or grouped by subdirectory.

24

Hi Leo, thanks for the quick response.

That's interesting. No one ever seems to have mentioned this new feature.

I could certainly do that. However, to me every case folder (and there is lots of them) also has the function of a project time line (at least, if the custom sort feature finally is there).

Therefore, I'd really like to see at a glance at what point of the case I received a certain letter, what were the documents I worked on after that clients letter, which was my answer letter, what happened next and so on -- all that without having to use complicated project management software.

Simply put, the custom sort feature plainly resembles the function of a traditional paper folder -- albeit without the limitations of paper of course.

Thanks,
David.P

PS: Will I have to re-submit that request to the developers? (I think I did that already at some stage, however, without the examples).

25

Nah, having the idea in the database is the main thing. That avoids it being forgotten about.

Your scenario sounds a lot like sorting by Creation Date/Time, but I guess there will be documents created later which you want to group with earlier ones sometimes, without having to manually fiddle with setting the dates attributes.

26

Exactly.

Thanks,
David

27

I'll add my 2 cents saying that I'd really like this drag-n-drop sort feature as well. I use Fastone for my images but now I find that I'd like to burn a cd with songs in a certain order (according to my mood, not the filename) and it'd be great if DO supported this.

28

In your above said problme davidP, id suggest another route that is used by a lot of programmers :stuck_out_tongue: ... cvs or svn these systems provide a strict history of everything EVER done in a project :wink: ...

SVN is what i currently use as a tool, when programming (its the "new" CVS, i.e. not a direct upgrade, but rather a sidegrade but with new features, that are very welcome).

You can incorporate the SVN features in dopus, by using its commands, so, that when you create a file, you have a svn create button, and a commit button, so that you can commit changes to your files.

SVN is actually much more than just a "date-first-sort", by 1st creation date. It stores ALL changes and WHICH changes every file undergoes in an entire project. You can list all these changes for every file by a few simple commands, and im sure, that with your wish to be able to access creation and etc. for your project, it will prove very viable, and id think it would go very well with dopus.

Hope you can use it :wink:

and good luck.

Best regards : Jacob Eskildsen.

29

Sorry, my programming experience is a couple of decades back already -- what might be the reason why I don't seem to understand one word of what you wrote :frowning:

Anyway, if you have a look at my lister screenshot a little way up this thread, all I need to do really is CUSTOM SORT all those files by mouse-drag-and-drop into some (persistent) custom order that is easy to change at any time.

I absolutely do not need a system for tracking changes of files or something like that.

David.P