Export a collection?

No sure if this is possible at all, but can a collection be exported in CSV (or other) format at all?

Well, each File Collection is kept in it's own XML file located in the /dopusdata\Collections folder... That will describe what items were added as members to the collection.

If you're looking for a list of all of the files and folders within the collection (not just the members) well then you probably just want to use the Print FOLDER command to output the directory listing to a CSV file in whatever format suits your needs (I.e FlatView to get a recursive view of all the collections directory structure and contents, or not).

Ideally I wanted to run the collection, highlight certain files and then export those as CSV.

In the preliminary release manual there is a description of how to export (& import)
collections:

export [/append] [/utf16be] [/utf16le] [/utf8] [/ansi] [/cp:]

Added a command line interface to dopusrt.exe to manipulate File Collections. This is accessed using
the dopusrt.exe /col command, with the following arguments:
create [/noclear] [/icon:] [/desc:] [/query] <coll-name

...

Exports the contents of a collection to a text file. If the encoding type is not
specified, the file will be exported as UTF16LE if any filenames require Unicode,
otherwise ANSI in the current code-page.

export [/append] [/utf16be] [/utf16le] [/utf8] [/ansi] [/cp:]

/append – appends to an existing text file, otherwise will overwrite if output file
already exists
/utf16be – export in UTF16-BE format
/utf16le - export in UTF16-LE format
/utf8 – export in UTF-8 format
/ansi – export as ANSI
/cp : - codepage to use when exporting as ANSI
coll-name – name of the collection to export the contents of
export-file – name of the output text file

Right! Cheer for that, when time permits I'll see if I can play around and make sense of that :slight_smile:

tekguru, there is an alternative way if you very often want to export custom file listings to csv (or xls, html, txt, pdf, etc.). i am new to Dopus so i am not too familiar with the Print Folder command. there is specialized cataloguing software (~8MB setup.exe) which incorporates the concept of file collections too (so-called "User List/User Lists"). cataloguing software is meant to juggle your catalogued items (files, folders, drives, discs, cds, diskettes,..) in a virtuoso way and produce professional looking exports (so-called reports created by the Report Generator (wizard)).

i love my Dopus and i enjoy using it as 1st rate file manager (for actual file operations). but when it comes to managing catalogued data for that purpose i certainly enjoy my cataloguing software. easy to use too.

You could do something like:

<?xml version="1.0"?> <button backcol="none" display="both" textcol="none"> <label>Test Button</label> <icon1>#pathfield</icon1> <function type="normal"> <instruction>Delete FORCE QUIET coll://print</instruction> <instruction>Copy CREATEFOLDER coll://print</instruction> <instruction>Print FOLDER coll://print AS=csv TO={dlgopen|Select location to save folder list...|{alias|mydocuments}folder_list.csv} QUIET</instruction> </function> </button>
The Print FOLDER function just "prints" a directory listing using the same format system as folder formats. This sample button deletes a second print/temp File Collection if present, copies any selected files to that print/temp collection, then runs Print FOLDER against that temporary file collection to save the output to a CSV file (using the {dlgopen} dialog to prompt for a location to save the output with a default filename of "folder_list.csv"). I'm sure there are other ways... this just an example.

Wow, that is impressive, I'll give that a try at work on Monday! Much thanks!

... and it worked wonderfully well, my thanks!

You have a collection.
You have selected items you're intereted in.
Then run "Invert Selection" command. The uninteresting items will be selected.
Then delete those! (by removing them from the collection).
What is left are the items you are originally interested in.
Now go to Tools >> Print/Export Folder Listing >> Destination: File: *.CSV (comma separated)

:unamused:

Which is what the code from steje does :slight_smile: