Filter - showing all files which are NOT typed in the filter

Help & Support
1

Using version 10.0.1.0.

I would like to list all the files which did not contain a certain word in the filename, and which are located in a particular folder and all of that folder's sub-folders.

For example, if I have a series of files which have file names such as:

[quote]2011_049 - complete notarised document.pdf
2011_049 - notarised covering certificate.pdf
2011_049 - signed document.pdf
etc[/quote]

In this example I would wish to list all the files other than "2011_049 - complete notarised document.pdf".

Ideally I would to do this "on-the-fly" filter:

Help with this would be gratefully appreciated.

2

Use this as the pattern:

~(2011_049 - complete notarised document.pdf)

3

I have always struggled with on-the-fly negative (NOT) filters, other than in trivial cases. For example, it's simple to positively filter all PDF or DOC with.. b[/b] but how do you achieve the reverse? Certainly not with ~(.PDF|.DOC) since the enclosed conditions are OR not AND.

There may, of course, be an easy way that I have missed. :confused:

Regards, AB

4

Try:

*.(pdf|doc)

and

~(*.(pdf|doc))

5

[quote="MrC"]Try:

*.(pdf|doc)

and

~(*.(pdf|doc))[/quote]
Thanks MrC. Obvious enough, on reflection. When I first tried it, the negative option did not work but then I twigged that the Partial Match option has to be switched off.


Regards, AB

6

Thank you for the responses.

First point
I tried the following:

Use this as the pattern:

~(2011_049 - complete notarised document.pdf)[/quote]

But this did not work. All the files where still shown including the quoted file.

Also I wish to use the filter with just the word "complete" which can appear anywhere in the filename (not necessarily in what Leo shows.

Second point

Where can I find the menu that aussieboykie shows in his post?:

[quote="aussieboykie"][quote="MrC"]Try:

*.(pdf|doc)

and

~(*.(pdf|doc))[/quote]
Thanks MrC. Obvious enough, on reflection. When I first tried it, the negative option did not work but then I twigged that the Partial Match option has to be switched off.

[attachment=0]RTFilter.png[/attachment]Regards, AB[/quote]

7

Victor, just click on the indicated icon in the filter box.


For what you want to do, you should switch Partial Match on, then typing complete should do what you want..

Regards, AB

8

Thank you, but I am missing something.

I have set up the filter options as follows:

But when I type

all the files show:

Also when I try

only the files which contain "complete" are shown:

9

Victor, the problem is that NOT (~ prefix) can logically never work in conjunction with Partial Match. If you search for the string complete (positive match) and set the filter option to Hide instead of Show, that should work.

Regards, AB

10

Thank you for your continuing help, but... Doing what you suggest results in all files being shown. I would like to be able to see all the files which do not contain the word "complete" in the filename.

Here is how I now set up the filter menu:

But typing in

*complete*

seems to work. But I am getting confused...

11

Sorry for not thinking of partial matching before.

The reason you need to disable partial matching, when using negative wildcards, is due to what partial matching does. It effectively puts a * before and after whatever you search for.

So, with partial matching on:

[ul][li]Searching for complete is like searching for complete

[/li]
[li]Searching for ~(complete) is like searching for ~(complete)

Problem is, ~(complete) will match almost everything because it matches:

1) Anything
2) Anything that isn't the word "complete"
3) Anything

Since 1 and 3 accept anything that including things with "complete" in them. So you can have "hello complete there.txt" and that might be matched as:

1) "hello complete "
2) "there"
3) ".txt"[/li][/ul]

So partial matching needs to be turned off to use negatives. Having done that, you can search for ~(complete) and that will find any file that doesn't have "complete" in its name.

If you've only switched to using a the file-filter on your toolbar because it lets you disable partial matching, note that you can also disable partial matching on the filter bar (the thing that appears at the bottom of the lister when you push *) via Preferences:


Footnote:

I've glossed over some details in the wildcard explanation above, in an attempt not to further complicate things with unnecessary detail. A * will really match anything or nothing, and there's no reason the matches will be neatly aligned on different words in the filename, but neither of those are important right now.

12

[quote="VictorWarner"]But typing in

*complete*

seems to work. But I am getting confused...[/quote]

That works now because you've switched the filter into Hide mode (as shown in your screenshot).

So now you're telling Opus to hide any file matching complete (which is a much easier way of doing what you want, but not currently available in the filter bar we were talking about originally).