I click OK, and then hit Apply and close the Preferences panel. I then apply the format with the menu option, and it looks good. But it will revert if I switch directories, so I open the Folder Options and click the Save button and apply the format to the current folder, and I check the two boxes below that to apply it to all the subfolders and to replace it in all other windows.
And then suddenly there are two more columns added; Dimensions and Date Taken. I didn't add these and they are not present in the Edit Format panel. I've spent hours trying to get these to not appear, and they will not go away.
Even that's flaky. I had the same folder open in both sides of a split lister, and each gave a different message.
When I click OK on the Folder Options panel to assign the format, the new columns instantly appear. None of the formats that show up in the Format list have those columns in the last two positions.
Further, in one of the subfolders, when I apply the same format to it, it adds the Attributes column at the end. Again, none of the formats have it there.
I found a workaround though. I add those unwanted columns, and then set their width to 1. Now they're gone. But I still had to apply the format to each folder manually.
So the unwanted columns will be in one of those two formats.
If you edit the T:\_Music_ format in Preferences, and go to its Options tab, you should find it has the "Include columns from other matching formats" checkbox turned on. That's why it's getting those extra columns (presumably from the Default Format, at the bottom of the list in Preferences).
They aren't. I just said that NONE of the formats have them. Here's a screen cap of that format, after I put in the fix to get rid of those columns. If I take those last two out, they'll appear when I apply the format.
I was editing the Favorite Formats entry, which doesn't have those magic options. I even copied them to the Content Type Formats entry and still had no luck (because those had the options turned on).
I just applied them to the main folder and all subfolders now have the same format.
Is there any reason the Favorite Formats don't have those options?
Favorite Formats only get applied when you explicitly select them from a menu after changing folders. If you're editing those to alter what happens when you change folders, you're editing the wrong things.
The same thing as anywhere else. I might want two different Music formats, say, one for MP3 and one for WAV since WAV doesn't typically have ID tags. So I would have Music MP3 and Music Wav set up as favorites. That is the point of having Favorites, right?
It's kinda inconvenient to have to reapply the same favorite every time I open a folder. And opening the Folder Options to apply it to the folder so it will stick should use that favorite. Otherwise, it's not much of a favorite and just a temporary format.
Where does the Content Threshold come into this though? That only applies to Content Type formats when changing folders. It has no effect on any other format type, which is why it isn't shown for the others.
I guess the column inheritance checkbox could be useful in Favorite formats purely so you can define what the checkbox is you copy and paste a Favorite over another format in the Preferences list. But there's no other time, at least that I know of, when that checkbox would do anything for a Favorite format; it would never be used directly, because selecting a Favorite format when looking at a folder will load that format as-is without ever inheriting columns from other formats.
From the look of your tooltip screenshots above, neither the Favorite formats nor the Content Type formats were in play, so they shouldn't have been where the Attributes column was coming from. (That must be coming from Default Format > User Default at the bottom of the list, unless something strange is happening.)
It's also sometimes less confusing to test formats by closing the window (or at least the tab) and opening a new one, to ensure nothing done to the previous window is still having any effect. (Mentioned near the bottom of Folder Formats: Quick Guide just before the video.)
I was grouping that whole bottom section under that heading since that's the first of three options that don't show up in Favorites. It was a lot shorter than typing "Include columns from other matching formats" and "Use as the default format for all sub-folders" over & over.
Right now, there is no evident functional difference between the Content Type Format and the Favorites. They both do the same thing. If you pick one from a menu to apply it, it's temporary; changing folders will lose it. When you follow it with the Folder Options to lock it in, then it stays...
But in the case of the Favorites, you don't get those last three options. Those are turned on internally, whether you want them or not, so I don't see the point of the Favorites. They're the same as the Media types, but with three settings locked.
So, picking a Favorite or a Media type from the menu does the exact same thing. It's a temporary format change. You just don't get to specify whether to "Include columns from other matching formats" and "Use as the default format for all sub-folders" if you go the Favorite route, which seems like an oddly random restriction.
Ignore the threshold value. I already said that's not the issue. I'm talking about "Include columns from other matching formats" and "Use as the default format for all sub-folders", which it appears I'll have to copy and paste frequently.
Here's the issue:
I select a format for a folder that has subfolders I want to inherit that same format.
If I pick a format from the Content Type list (Music in this case) that format gets applied. But that's not applied to any subfolders or any other windows. Switching folders will also lose the format.
If I want to keep it permanently, I have to save the format through the Save Format options in Folder Options, and use "Replace this folder's format in any layouts and saved folder tabs" and "Save for all sub-folders" to get it to stick and affect the sub-folders.
Compare that with this:
If I pick a format from the Favorites list (Music in this case, which is a copy of the Media Types Music) that format gets applied. But that's not applied to any subfolders or any other windows. Switching folders will also lose the format.
If I want to keep it permanently, I have to save the format through the Save Format options in Folder Options, and use "Replace this folder's format in any layouts and saved folder tabs" and "Save for all sub-folders" to get it to stick and affect the sub-folders.
These are both exactly the same steps and results, except for the second case, where extra columns are added immediately because "Include columns from other matching formats" is turned on internally, even if the favorite is a copy of a Media type that has this off.
So two Media Types and Favorites are two identical features, with just a couple hidden settings that are ways turned on internally for the Favorite. So why have Favorites at all if I can just turn those settings on and off in the Media Type as I wish? The Music Favorite is exactly the same as the Music Media Type with those options turned on. Am I missing something here?
I'm finding it hard to follow your questions because you seem to keep changing what it is you're asking about. Hopefully I'm answering the right thing.
Favorite formats are self-contained formats that can be applied to the current file display at any time. They don't use other formats, refer to other formats, or affect other formats. It's a one-time operation - "apply the settings from this favorite to this file display". That's all they do.
Like all format changes in a file display, they aren't saved automatically. If you save the format of a folder after applying a favorite, the folder doesn't remain linked to the favorite - it has its own set of options, which just happen to have been set by applying a favorite.
Favorites don't have the "including columns from other matching formats" argument because no format matching is going on at the time they're applied.
So is applying a Media Type. Without locking it in with Folder Options, they are essentially the same thing.
And yet, that is exactly what is being turned on by Favorites that was causing my problem. "Include columns from other matching formats" and "Use as the default format for all sub-folders" are both turned on automatically when a Favorite is applied and locked in.
I have two formats that are identical. One is a Media Type and the other is a Favorite that was copied from it. The Media Type has "Include columns from other matching formats" turned on. I can apply either by selecting its menu item and they both work identically. No new columns are added, and they do not affect subfolders. When I lock them in with Folder Options, they both add the new columns and apply to the subfolders. There is no difference between them.
Now, if I turn off "Include columns from other matching formats" and "Use as the default format for all sub-folders" in the Media Type, there's still no difference between them, until I lock them in with Folder Options. Then the Media Type has those options turned off and no new columns appear, but the Favorite always turns that on and the new columns will appear.
Now I think I found a bug.
I would copy the settings to my Favorite. Then when I went back to the Media Tye and turned off "Include columns from other matching formats" and "Use as the default format for all sub-folders", and then picked "Set from Favorites" and picked the Music format, those two options would turn on. Every time.
But, if I select the Music Media Type (with those options off), and select Set as Favorite with a new name and then copy that back with Set from Favorite, those options remain off. It seem that those are locked in the Favorite based on what they were set to when the favorite was originally created. Those are stored, but not editable after.
The new favorite behaves correctly, just like the Media Type with "Include columns from other matching formats" and "Use as the default format for all sub-folders" turned off. So now I have one Favorite with those turned on and one with those turned off. So Favorites do support these options, but they can only be set by the user when the Favorite is created (this includes the Threshold setting). Now that I know about this, I know how to fix the problem at the root.
Maybe the easiest thing would be to send us your config with a description of what to do to see the problem. We can probably work out what's wrong from there.
To make a config backup, use Settings > Backup & Restore.
That will make a .ocb file but it's really a zip archive, if you rename the extension. You can look inside it and delete things like the FTP folder that might contain passwords, since we don't need any of those details.
If you want to do that, please send the config file via private message or to crashdumps@gpsoft.com.au (although the mail system has been holding up attachments that contain scripts lately, as it thinks they are potentially dangerous, so private message is most reliable).
Note the changed Threshold value, among other differences.
Other Favorites I created this way are named "M3" and "Music - Works", each has different settings stored when they were created, but can't be modified.
A quick way to see the difference is to open the Manage Folder Options and then open the Content Type for Music. Go to the Options tab on that and then click on the REset Page button in the lower right and select Set from Favorites. Pick "Music", "Music (Works)", "M3", and "Music - Works" and notice that the bottom three options ("Content Threshold", "Consider Subfolders ...", and "Include Columns...") all change, indicating that all three are stored in the Favorites, and they get applied.
