Folder size for Junctions

[kyle]

I'm not sure if this is technically a bug or expected behavior, so I have tagged this post with both bug-report and feature-request. I've seen a couple similar posts about this, but they appear to be pretty old, so I'm creating this new post. Apologies if I missed something.

I believe the behavior surrounding folder sizes for Junctions is either broken or misleading. If I tick the boxes (in Preferences) to NOT calculate folder size for Junctions, I expect that to be honored. I spent a long time fighting with this until I stumbled upon this post, Calculate Folder Sizes Automatically, that indicates the folder sizes will ALWAYS be calculated just because I have a column for total file count (among others).

Directory Opus should either honor the options in Preferences or provide yet another option like "No, really, I mean it, do NOT calculate the folder size for Junctions... for real".

I want to have columns for total files/folders (awesome feature, btw), but when sorting by total size (trying to see largest folders on C: for example), I do not want to consider the size of a folder on an entirely different disk (or in another location on the same disk).

If I have something misconfigured then please help me sort that out, or please fix this bug (if my configuration is correct and it still works this way, I'd classify it as a bug).

Love Directory Opus - it's awesome - but this functionality is just wrong.

Thanks!
Kyle

[Leo]

The Preferences checkbox to ignore junctions when calculating folder sizes makes Opus ignore junctions below the things it is calculating the size of.

If the thing itself is a junction, the size of its contents will still be calculated (rather than showing zero for that item). The option only affects what happens to things below each folder.

If you want to exclude junctions when sorting by folders size, group by the Type column. Then all the junctions/symlinks will be separated from the normal folders. (Another option would be to make a Get Sizes button/hotkey which first deselects all the junctions before calculating only the sizes of everything else, although that won't work if you have the file count columns on.)

We're thinking about adding more options for this but there's no one right or wrong way to do it. If we showed zero for the size of junctions directly below the current folder, that would force people to go into those folders to calculate their sizes.

Similarly, would you want the file count columns to show zero for junctions? I think most people would expect them to show non-zero counts unless there's nothing under them.

[kyle]

Thanks for the reply and explanation Leo.

The Folder Behavior preferences (see screenshot) don't align with your explanation, and neither does the documentation.

Foder Behavior.

The Skip junctions and softlinks option can be used to stop Opus automatically calculating the size of any links or junctions that point to folders - only "real" folders would have their size calculated automatically.

When calculating the size of a folder (either due to the automatic option above, or when triggered manually via the GetSizes command), this option causes Opus to ignore and junctions or softlinks within the folder.

In my example, the lister is in the C: drive/folder, which has several subfolders, some of which are Junctions (e.g., Source and Sandbox).

The documentation and the Preferences (as displayed in the app) indicate that the Source and Sandbox folders should not have their sizes calculated.

Am I interpreting your explanation correctly, that those Preferences actually mean that a Junction in the current folder will have its size calculated, but if there are other Junctions within the folder pointed to by this Junction, then those Junctions will not have their sizes calculated? If so, then I am really struggling to wrap my head around the logic there - it seems inconsistent. Either do it for all Junctions or don't do it for any Junctions.

I'm hoping that this is just a misunderstanding and that this concrete example (with screenshot and explanation) will better help convey my issue and you'll tell me I just have some setting wrong, because I believe this isn't working as described in the documentation or the Preferences themselves.

If not, then I very much hope the Directory Opus team will provide these extra options soon - I'm a software developer, too and this seems like a relatively straightforward feature to implement once it is agreed upon - often the hardest part!

I appreciate you offering workarounds, but that reduces the user experience and slows down a very common use case. I agree that there are different use cases and I don't want to trade one bad experience for another, so if it does indeed work this way, then another Preference sounds like the best of both worlds. In fact, it would be really nice if there was a quick toggle to show/hide the size of Junctions in the current folder. With respect to your question about file count columns, I would expect the behavior to be consistent - either don't show the size / file count / etc. for any of those Junction columns, or show all of them depending on the Preference / toggle. You could get more fine-grained, but this would at least be a very positive step in the right direction.

Giving the user choice and flexibility is the reason folks choose to purchase Directory Opus - locking them into a behavior like this runs counter to that.

Please don't take this request / critique as reflective of Directory Opus as a whole. I have been a very happy customer for about a year now (wish I had discovered it sooner). And I've seen countless occasions of you, Leo, providing support and answering questions on these forums - very cool! Keep up the good work! ... and please implement this requested functionality! ha ha

[kyle]

Confirmation @Leo?

[Leo]

It works the way I said it works in my previous reply.

[kyle]

In that case, it would be nice if the documentation better reflected the actual behavior.

[Jon]

It does, I think.

When calculating the size of a folder (either due to the automatic option above, or when triggered manually via the GetSizes command)

That is actually true. What's happening here though is the Files (total) and Folders (total) columns are causing the junction contents to be evaluated (in order to... count the files and folders). Since it's evaluating the contents anyway, it can show the total size for no additional work and so does so even though the Skip junctions and softlinks option is on.

We could add an additional option to stop the Files/Folders columns from applying to junctions, which would stop you getting the Size as well. But I'm not sure if that's what you'd want in this situation or not.

[kyle]

I can see both sides - some people will want to see details about the Junction (file count, size, etc.) without navigating to it, and other people will not. Most of the time, I find it a useful feature. But at other times it is really frustrating. Fortunately, it's not a dichotomy, and I don't believe Directory Opus should treat it that way. Please add an option allowing users to toggle it on/off. If a user wants it, then great - check the box. If another user doesn't want it, also great - uncheck the box. Everybody's happy and Directory Opus is a better product because of it! Is there a technical reason to not do this? Depending on the contents of the Junction target, it can result in noticeable performance degradation.

Anyhow, I've done my best to present my case and believe the proposed option is a net-positive compromise. I can't think of a reason why anyone would object to this, because if they don't want it, they can simply turn it off. Hopefully you can prioritize this feature request from one of your paying customers who cares enough about your product to try to make it better for everyone.

[Jon]

We'll add an option for this in the future. Additionally we'll make it possible to filter out junctions so another option will be to hide them completely.

I can't say when these features will make it to release but they're now on the list!