Is it possible to use the evaluator to populate a custom column with a ADS stream content?

Help & Support
1

I am considering moving to Opus 13 for the Evaluator feature but I am not sure if it can do this.

Lets say inside c:\temp, I have a mix of directories and files and they have a NTFS Alternative Data Stream that has text content.

Is it possible to use the Evaluator, the get this ADS text content and populate into a custom column? So that in a Lister, when I navigate to this directory, it will be displayed just like any other column data?

I have been doing this already with a Opus 12 script but

  • It appears to be abandoned
  • Its slow and with the more streams per file, it scales up badly
  • Its very convoluted, so I have no hope of optimising it or even picking up the pieces in a timely manner

I am considering moving to Opus 13 for the Evaluator feature but I am not sure if it can do this.

Lets say inside c:\temp, I have a mix of directories and files and they have a NTFS Alternative Data Stream that has text content.

Is it possible to use the Evaluator, the get this ADS text content and populate into a custom column? So that in a Lister, when I navigate to this directory, it will be displayed just like any other column data?

I have been doing this already with a Opus 12 script but

  • It appears to be abandoned
  • Its slow and with the more streams per file, it scales up badly
  • Its very convoluted, so I have no hope of optimising it or even picking up the pieces in a timely manner

I understand the above points to be the reason why the evaluator was introduced in the first place.

Also is there place a where one can get a good overview of what the evaluator is capable achieving?

Thanks!

- W.D Adams

2

The Evaluator doesn't really get involved with custom ADS, but it sounds like you're re-creating the built-in User Comment functionality?

Or is the aim to have multiple different comments all stored in ADS?

It may be possible to improve the script you're using. (If you tell us which one it is.)

3

I maybe wrong but is "User Comment" not a column found only in Opus? I discovered files can have their own "comment" value already assigned by another person or even a system. I believe its for this reason Directory Opus has a "User description" and a "comment" column, but I discovered Search Everything does not make this distinction, resulting in unreliable data and search results outside of Opus.

Furthermore, I would like 3 columns, at the very least.

The script in question is Add multiple filters and tags to files using ADS, but to be honest I would like to get past it and move on, as I want to use this as a opportunity to learn Jscript/Evaluator.

I will start looking into Jscript and see if I can come up with something on my own, that I will be able to maintain and add to later on. Cheers.

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