File Type Groups

[Leo]

@cityguy

Yes by search I mean find. It sounds odd to me to say find a file because find is the result of a search, you find something after you search for it. IF you lose your keys you don't find them until you search for them.

Find & Search are two different things now, unfortunately. I agree it's confusing, but that's where we've ended up.

[ul][li]Find = the built-in Find functionality that's existed in Opus from day one.[/li]
[li]Search = Windows Search, which Opus 10 can also use.[/li][/ul]

[quote]Here are some of the prior examples I have posted to the board:

Advanced Search Types, Extensions and Groups

Something definitely whacky going on in the advanced search function. [image] I setup a directory with a variety of movie types as you can see from the picture above. Then I went into the advanced search function. There is no option to search b…

https://resource.dopus.com/t/a-little-clarity-on-date-time-columns/10948/1[/quote]

In the first thread, we could not reproduce what you were seeing. Appears to be something about the way some of those filetypes are in your registry (possibly only reproducible if you install certain combinations of tools in particular order, or similar). I don't doubt that you're seeing it, but it is not normal or intentional, and it's difficult to do anything about it without a way to reproduce it.

In the second thread, I explained what the difference was. If the names are unclear at first it's easy to try the different columns to see what they do, IMO.

If you want to suggest better names for them, go for it, although it might confuse people used to the current ones I guess (and either way would probably have to wait until a batch of language translations are done).

If DO is going to maintain them as a single field then why offer columns of extension and extension (dir) when you cannot "search" on them.

Because people wanted to be able to have the extensions all lined up in a separate column, easier to read and compare.

The extension columns add something that could not be done without them.

(You can also sort by the column, although that isn't really adding a feature if you know that you can do the same by shift-clicking the Name column. Not many people know that, though...)

In contrast, having a special Extension clause in Find filters seems redundant. What functionality does that add? It'd just clutter up the list of clauses and make people wonder why it was there.

(which I have no clue what this even represents just more of the confusion)

See this thread.

To me if I see a column then I should be able to search using that column and use that column for whatever function resides within DO.

Many of the columns show the same information in different ways. If a column only exists due to visual differences in how it presents the data, it's redundant when it comes to searching.

And conversely when I don't see a column like the File Type Group which to me I should be able to see it just adds to that confusion as to what's available when and what does it mean within the context I"m currently working under.

There's never going to be a column to display every possible piece of information. Only the columns people have actually asked for and/or that seemed useful to the developers are present. If you think a particular column is missing, just send in a feature request.

For another example just within the lister available columns you have "size", "size (auto)", "size on disk", "size on disk (auto)" and "size on disk (relative)". I know as a former programmer that the actual size of a file is never truly the size it takes on the disk because of how a disk is formatted. But how many other people know that?

What are we supposed to do about that? Not have columns that may confuse people, even though other people have asked for them?

Note that "Size on Disk" is part of the standard Windows property dialogs and has been since Win95, I think.

But even understanding that, what is the difference between all these columns?

Sorry but, with the Size columns, I really don't think the difference is that hard to work out, and if it is you just turn the different Size columns on and see what you get. I honestly don't see what the big deal is here, and you haven't suggested how it could be improved either.

To me you have the amount of space a file actually takes (the physical space) and the actual size of the file which will be somewhat smaller so why are there 5 choices for what really seems to be 2?

Let's see, what could the KB and MB mean in the context of sizes? Maybe "Auto" is confusing, until you turn the column on and see what it does compared to the others. Sorry but it doesn't seem confusing to me. A little playing with the program and it is easily discoverable what the size columns do. If it wasn't we'd have lots of questions at the forum, surely.

What is a "relative" size? Relative to what?

Just turn the column on and it is obvious. What else can we do? ...This is getting ridiculous.

What is "Repeat?" listed under movies

I've never used it myself but I'll take a wild guess and say it tells you whether or not the movie file has a flag that tells movie players to repeat the movie when it reaches the end.

and there are a whole slew of columns that I just can't even make sense of that I think why would anyone have any reason to search or even display such obscure information and yet we can't display the "File Type Group" which has major functionality controlled by it within DO?

Ah! The crux of the issue: Opus displays a bunch of columns other people wanted and asked for a long time ago, but not the column that you asked for recently.

If you want a column for File Type Groups, send GPSoftware a feature request.

Would you be happy with someone who didn't use File Type Groups at all complaining about the existence of a File Type Group column because he didn't use/need/understand the concept and wanted some other column (which nobody had asked for before) instead?

The various size and movie columns (or whatever) were not put there to spite people looking for a File Type Group column...

Finally you say you can use "grp" to search for files based on File Type Group. But how would anyone know that other than reading the manual from cover to cover? You wouldn't even know how to search the manual to find it. This is exactly what I mean that in one place it's called one thing and in another it's called something else.

Sorry but in a powerful, complex, open-ended piece of software, some features are going to be hidden unless you read parts of the manual (or pick them up from a tutorial or forum post, etc.). For people who don't read the page explaining Opus's wildcard syntax, there are plenty of other ways to achieve similar things, so it's not exactly making the program unusable.

And the fact is. most people do not use File Type Groups at all.

The "select clause" is the perfect example of what I'm trying to explain. In SQL you have field names and if you select * from database you get a listing with all the fields (as named in the database) going across the screen. You don't select grp from database and display "File Type Group" across the top without using Select grp AS "File Type Group" from database. Secondly if the column names represent the names from the database and you have those same names within the search function then you eliminate all the confusion. I do know how to code database selects but I don't know where to code them in DO. As far as I'm aware there is no database interface or Unix like terminal where I can do my own coding which would be great assuming that I know the database names and what is stored in them.

You've lost me somewhat there...

You define find filters interactively, using menus of the available things that you can search on. There is no need to know what all the columns are called or how they map to filters; you just pick what you want to search for from the menu and fill in the other details.

I agree that the grp: thing is not discoverable via the UI, but that's an exception, not the rule. (And the grp: thing wasn't really added for find filters anyway. It's just a side-effect of it working in most fields that accept wildcards.)

All I am trying to say is the field choices in the find selection criteria should be the same as column names.

But they're very different things.

Columns are about displaying data in a single column that is non-interactive (apart from the ability to sort them) and which should use minimal space.

Filters are about selecting data based on criteria, with a UI that lets you choose the criteria, then specify things like the units (if it's a size) using further UI elements that take up a whole line...