How can i hide empty drives?

Hi,

i was reading about this very interesting feature in the Dopus9 preview, but couldn´t find how to activate this. Do i have to apply the "hideempty" attribute to the drives or how can this be done?

Here's the command I use to show removable drives, hiding the ones that are empty:

Go DRIVEBUTTONS=cdrom,removable,ramdisk,labels,lettersbeforelabels,hideempty

[quote="nudel"]Here's the command I use to show removable drives, hiding the ones that are empty:

Go DRIVEBUTTONS=cdrom,removable,ramdisk,labels,lettersbeforelabels,hideempty

Thank you very much! This is another fantastic feature in Dop9. :slight_smile:

Edit: well the hiding after applying the button worked so far, only that after inserting/removing a CD Dopus won´t react in the expected way, the drive won´t show up/disappear. Is there some more action necessary? This is on a Win XP Pro Machine.

Have you disabled autoplay (or autorun, I can never remember which is which)? If so your computer probably doesn't notice that new CDs have been inserted at all. You can tell if it does by inserting a CD while showing My Computer in Explorer. If the label doesn't update after the CD is inserted then disc changes aren't being reported to apps like Explorer and Opus.

I'm not 100% certain that it's autoplay (or autorun) that controls this, that's just a guess. Maybe someone else reading knows for sure?

[quote="Microsoft"]
What's the difference between AutoPlay and autorun?

AutoPlay

AutoPlay is a Windows feature that lets you choose which program to use to start different kinds of media, such as music CDs, or CDs or DVDs containing photos. For example, the first time you try to play a music CD, AutoPlay asks which media player you want to use, if you have more than one installed on your computer. You can change AutoPlay settings for each media type.

Autorun

Autorun is a technology used to start some programs or enhanced content (such as video content on a music CD) automatically when you insert a CD or another media type into your computer. This is different from AutoPlay, but the result is often the same: when inserted, the CD starts automatically, using a particular program. Autorun is incorporated into the media types that use it, and you can't modify it.

When you try to play a CD or another media type that uses autorun, AutoPlay asks you to choose an action to perform (for example, to play the autorun content or to skip it).[/quote]

NOTE: This rest of this post relates mainly to Windows XP, though a few parts may apply to Vista.

I used TweakUI to disable AutoPlay on all my removable drives in Windows XP (which is the most annoying software feature ever conceived). Unfortunately, this will disable all notifications that new media has been inserted or that inserted media has been ejected.

There is a much more tedious way to configure a sort of "happy medium" state, but get a six pack of beer ready to implement it.[ol] [li] If you use virtual CD drive software such as Nero InCD or Daemon Tools, enabled all of your virtual drives.
[/li]
[li] Enable AutoPlay on all your removable drive letters (including the virtual ones), using use TweakUI.
[/li]
[li] Open a lister to My Computer, in details mode.
[/li]
[li] If the Type field is not displayed, add it by right-clicking the column headers and selecting it. Sort by this field.
[/li]
[li] For each drive with removable storage, do the following:[ol][li] Right-click the drive icon.[/li]
[li] Select Properties from the context menu.[/li]
[li] Select the AutoPlay tab from the Properties dialog. This reveals a pull-down with various types of content files: Music, Pictures, Video, Mixed Content, Music CD, DVD Movie.[/li]
[li] Do the following for each type of file content:[ol][li] Select the Content Type in the Pull-down.[/li]
[li] Check the Select an action to perform radio button.[/li]
[li] Select Take No Action.[/li]
[li] After you change that file content type to Take No Action, you must click the Apply button, before changing the pull-down to the next file content type![/li]
[li] Repeat for the next file content type.[/li][/ol][/li][li] Once all file content types have been set to Take No Action, click the OK button to close the Properties dialog.[/li][li] Repeat for the next drive with removable storage.[/li][/ol][/li][/ol]

Vista tames this madness a little bit making it a little easier to set AutoPlay preferences on all the drives in one window. Go to Control Panel\AutoPlay.


[quote="nudel"]Here's the command I use to show removable drives, hiding the ones that are empty:

Go DRIVEBUTTONS=cdrom,removable,ramdisk,labels,lettersbeforelabels,hideempty

Sorry, what? I've looked through the help about raw commands and tried to make a button using that code but all that happens when I click it, is that it jumps to the first CD drive.

I'm guessing now that this "feature" doesn't actually hide empty drives in the folder listing at all does it? I got all excited when I read about it in the preview, but it seems that excitement may have been unwarranted.

Still, a useful button, if you could explain how to actually get it working...

The command Leo posted creates a Drive Icons button on a toolbar. It does not govern which drives will be listed in: My Computer, the Folder Tree, or in a Lister's file display. Notice in the screen grab below that my menu-button only shows drive letter A, which is my floppy drive. However, in My Computer, you see I have three other drives with removable storage (selected).

NOTE: My floppy drive actually contains a disk in the screengrab below. Windows doesn't AutoPlay floppy disks, therefore Opus always shows their floppy drive letters.

I've pasted the button XML I used on my toolbar in the screengrab to display removable drive letters that actually have media inserted.

<?xml version="1.0"?> <button display="both" label_pos="right" separate="yes"> <label>Removable Volumes</label> <tip>Automatically adds buttons for each removable drive in the system</tip> <icon1>116</icon1> <function type="normal"> <instruction>Go DRIVEBUTTONS=cdrom,removable,multifunc,hideempty</instruction> </function> </button>[ol][li] Copy the code above.[/li]
[li] Right-click a toolbar.[/li]
[li] Select Customize from the context menu.[/li]
[li] Right-click an unused portion of a toolbar.[/li]
[li] Select Paste from the context menu.[/li]
[li] Click the OK button on the Customize dialog.[/li][/ol]


@Leo Can you copy the information out of your post, and my two posts, and create an FAQ with them? I think we've pretty much nailed all the details on this topic. It would be nice to be able to just link people to it in the future.

[quote="kenalcock"]The command Leo posted creates a Drive Icons button on a toolbar. It does not govern which drives will be listed in: My Computer, the Folder Tree, or in a Lister's file display. Notice in the screen grab below that my menu-button only shows drive letter A, which is my floppy drive. However, in My Computer, you see I have three other drives with removable storage (selected).

NOTE: My floppy drive actually contains a disk in the screengrab below. Windows doesn't AutoPlay floppy disks, therefore Opus always shows their floppy drive letters.

I've pasted the button XML I used on my toolbar in the screengrab to display removable drive letters that actually have media inserted.

<?xml version="1.0"?> <button display="both" label_pos="right" separate="yes"> <label>Removable Volumes</label> <tip>Automatically adds buttons for each removable drive in the system</tip> <icon1>116</icon1> <function type="normal"> <instruction>Go DRIVEBUTTONS=cdrom,removable,multifunc,hideempty</instruction> </function> </button>[ol][li] Copy the code above.[/li]
[li] Right-click a toolbar.[/li]
[li] Select Customize from the context menu.[/li]
[li] Right-click an unused portion of a toolbar.[/li]
[li] Select Paste from the context menu.[/li]
[li] Click the OK button on the Customize dialog.[/li][/ol][/quote]

Thank you, that works, although I still don't get the drop down list like in your screenshot; just a separate button for each removable drive.

So is it correct that you can't set DOpus to hide empty drives from the folder tree entirely?

[quote="kenalcock"][quote="Microsoft"]
I used TweakUI to disable AutoPlay on all my removable drives in Windows XP (which is the most annoying software feature ever conceived). Unfortunately, this will disable all notifications that new media has been inserted or that inserted media has been ejected.
[/quote][/quote]

OMG, Kenneth, you described it just the way I would. Autoplay is one of the first things I switch off when I am fiddling with a fresh install of windows.

Now we're screwed because it disables the notification to the system for hiding the drive icons as well.

And that's not all. While Microsoft made it a real pain in the ass to disable all those autoplay options, you can screw up and click Restore Defaults to re-enable the pain the ass all in one click.

They're good. :slight_smile:

The drop down list is actually a Menu-Button (half-button, half-menu). I basically copied all the buttons from my DriveBar to the Menu-Button's drop-down menu. I only posted the button that displayed my removable drives above.

Yes, that is my understanding. You could file a feature request for this with GPSoftware (see link in my signature). But I have no idea of knowing if it is feasible or not.

While in Customize mode, right-click an empty space on the toolbar and select New > Menu, then move the DriveButtons button into the menu and exit customise mode. Viola. :slight_smile:

Correct. My guess is it will be reasonably easy to add the feature to the folder tree, but less easy to add it to the My Computer view (if you care about that) since that view is provided by Explorer.

The drivebuttons-hideempty idea only came about very recently, and shortly before the 9.0 features were locked down, so obvious things like doing the same thing for the folder tree just didn't get thought of until now.

Awesome, that worked! Thanks again.

Here's hoping they add this functionality to the folder tree in the near future too. After all, it's what made me upgrade to version 9 in the first place. :slight_smile:

I can't seem to get this working with my Daemon Tools virtual drives on WinXP. Here's my command:
Go DRIVEBUTTONS=cdrom,network,removable,labels,lettersbeforelabels,hideempty

No virtual drives show up on the toolbar. I can see different ISO files being mounted and unmounted as drives in the lister when the location is set to My Computer but the toolbar never changes.

[quote="NeilN"]I can't seem to get this working with my Daemon Tools virtual drives on WinXP. Here's my command:
Go DRIVEBUTTONS=cdrom,network,removable,labels,lettersbeforelabels,hideempty

No virtual drives show up on the toolbar. I can see different ISO files being mounted and unmounted as drives in the lister when the location is set to My Computer but the toolbar never changes.[/quote]
I don't know if it makes a difference, or if you're already running the latest version of DT, but a DT update a couple of weeks ago featured this change:

Fixed some minor issues with image autorun, autostart option etc.

That could well affect whether Opus detects new discs being mounted. It might be a red herring, though.

I haven't had a change to try DT myself to see what happens. Don't have it installed at the moment due to some annoyance I had with it on Vista/UAC. (Changes to settings wouldn't save or something? I keep meaning to check if that's fixed yet but haven't needed DT lately so keep putting it off.)

I was going to ask if there's any way to enable the "hide empty drives" for the tree view, but with the discussion about autoplay being turned off (Which all sane people choose to do...) I'm not so sure it would be a good idea.

That aside, is it actually possible?

Not possible for the tree yet but a feature request has already been filed.