Four questions from an Opus newbie

I've just started using Opus and have a few questions that I haven't been able to resolve myself.

  1. Is it possible to customise the folder name and navigation icons at the top of each folder pane? I would really like to have the icons (for back, forward, up, etc.) on the left and the folder name on the right.

  2. Is there a special procedure for duplicating a file within a folder? I assume copy and paste works but I thought Opus might have a clever way of doing it.

  3. When a file is duplicated within a folder, is there a way to specify the format of the name of the duplicated file, like there is for shortcuts? I can't bear the 'Copy of' format because the alphabetic sort doesn't allow the duplicate to sit next to the original.

  4. When a file is deleted the file representation (icon and filename) remains in place. Same thing when a file is renamed, the object remains in place with its original name. I know I can use F5 to update the view but is there an automatic way to have the view updated for deletions and renames?

Thanks

There's no way to do that.

You can change the colours, whether/when hot-paths are enabled, and turn off some of the buttons but you can't swap the path and buttons around.

Opus has a Duplicate command which, if you're using the default toolbars, is the right-click action of the Rename button.

When you run the Duplicate command you'll see a dialog with the old and new filename. If you type over the new filename then what you enter will be used for just the first file that is being duplicated; however, you can also type a wildcard into the old name, and a different wildcard into the new name, to tell Opus how to name all of the files being duplicated. For example:

Old Name: .
New Name _copy.

would Duplicate these files

Blah.txt
Moo.jpg
Zuma.png

to these new files

Blah_copy.txt
Moo_copy.jpg
Zuma_copy.png

If you want a button that you can press to duplicate the selected files in a particular way without any prompts or typing then you can sort-of do that now, although there's a restriction that means the new names can only add text to the start of end of the filename. (I noticed this recently and have filed a feature request asking for it to be made more flexible.)

You can make a button which runs this command

Copy DUPLICATE AS *_copy

and it will duplicate the files by appending "_copy" to their names. Unfortunately that will mess up their extensions, but if you just want a way to quickly create a backup file then it does a good job. If you do want to duplicate to create backups then even better, perhaps, is to include the current date in the new name, like this:

Copy DUPLICATE AS *backup{date|yyyy-MM-dd}

This shouldn't happen but does sometimes. Have a look at this FAQ to troubleshoot the problem and let us know if you find anything:

[Changes to folders are not being detected)

Hi and welcome to Dopus :slight_smile:

if I can help, here are my answers :

1/ imo you can't change this, it's hard coded.... maybe in a next release.

2/ yes there is, you select the file you want to duplicate, and you right click on the 9th icon (near the Create folder icon).
Dopus will then ask for a name for the duplicated file.

3/ I don't think there is an option to set this... but if you use the button like in the question 2/, you can easily add a number at the end of the filename.

4/ You can try this : in Preferences\Files operations\options
try to check the "Automatically sort new and modified files"

Have a nice day with Dopus :slight_smile:

oups, nudel is too fast for me... :slight_smile:

Thanks Nudel and Megusu. Your answers are very helpful. I'll contribute to finding the 'notification after delete' problem by running the debugger.