[quote="JohnZeman"]I haven't had much time to give it a proper test, but the following commands in a button seems to do what you want in regards to selecting the folders that go with the selected saved files. Once you have the filename.htm file(s) selected as well as the associated folder(s), you can move, delete, copy, or whatever with them.
@nodeselect
Select TYPE=dirs PATTERN="{o|noext}_files"
As far as why Opus is the way it is, I'll leave it to those better qualified than I to explain it. All I can tell you is once I got onto the way Opus works, I've come to the conclusion that it's the best GUI file manager I've ever found bar none.[/quote]
[My apologies for this reply turning into a saga, it's just the issues keep arising.]
Thanks very much for your suggestion I'll give it a try and let you know. (I've looked hard in the menus and was pretty certain it wasn't there.)
I'm not denying that Directory Opus is an excellent file manager, it is or I wouldn't persist with it.
However, there are some issues with D.O. which relate to standards or accepted practice that I find annoying (and which makes it difficult to deploy in an enterprise environment), essentially it throws many conventions to the wind by ignoring them. When small software houses insist on individuality by ignoring usability conventions then they usually remain small (I've seen far too many examples of this over the years to almost consider it an axiom).
The fact is that Windows Explorer has 100% usage amongst Windows users--delete explorer.exe and see what happens; essentially, you're only left with the command prompt. Anyone who has used Explorer for more than a few days knows that it is a half-baked and very inadequate program, however this is beside the point which is that Explorer uses certain conventions that almost every Windows user knows in his sleep.
This issue is key and one ignores ignore it at one’s peril; like it or not, Explorer is the de facto standard by a long shot, something we're very mindful of in IT administration as Explorer compatibility often impinges what software we buy.
Sure, I don't know D.O. very well because I'm new to it, but this very fact is why I'm qualified to make the comment that I have. When learning D.O’s new features one has to first unlearn Explorer's conventions, such as is D.O's lack of Explorer compatibility (and something which should be unnecessary).
I'll qualify what I've said. Here's a few Directory Opus issues (there are more):
- For starters, its use of non-conventional Windows colors. When we were evaluating it several weeks ago (and we've been sporadically doing so on and off for about a year or so), I had some non-technical users have a look at it and they found the non-standard colors confusing. They never seemed to get the hang of which screen was in focus and the orange/green arrangement flummoxed them completely not to mention the use of the common directory tree amongst other things--all of which arise from the default install settings being different to those of Explorer.
[In the above, I must point out that I'm not referring to Explorer's silly arrangement of defaulting to a display of icons and the trivial changes in the settings which are necessary to make it at least minimally functional (such as changing icons to 'Details' mode)'. These were experienced and seasoned Windows users who usually use and know how to put Explorer into 'Details' mode and keep it there. Moreover, I'm not criticising D.O's surfeit of options, rather my concern is with its lack of compatibility with Explorer in its default mode.]
- When I first used D.O. I initially couldn't figure out why CTRL-X and CTRL-V wouldn't work but that cutting-and-pasting with the mouse always would. Eventually, it dawned on me that if you repeat hitting CTRL-X it simply toggles on and off.
Now, theoretically hitting a key once makes both logical and intuitive sense, that is until you realize or learn that Explorer has an unusual bug which is that it doesn't always pick up CTRL-X from the keyboard (seemingly it's a problematic issue with certain types of context menu stuff and the matter still hasn't been satisfactorily resolved). Consequently, I (and other users I've seen over time) have gotten into the habit of repeating the CTRL-X. This is fine and sometimes necessary with Explorer but it's a shambles when, out of habit, you start doing the same with Directory Opus (incidentally, a point about which the onscreen Help is mute).
2.1 Clearly, D.O’s developers are unaware of this problem or they would have relegated this 'feature' to an option and made the Explorer defaults the norm (as do most other Explorer-replacements). Had D.O., in it's default installation, followed Explorer's conventions then it'd have been irrelevant whether or not the developers knew about Explorer's quirk and/or of the workaround that some users employ to avoid it.
2.2 That this ‘toggle’ only goes through half an on-off cycle makes things worse from an operational standpoint, as one can't simply recover out of the repeat with another repeated keystroke--one has to again select the object from the beginning. Not only is this very tedious and annoying but one has to break a long-standing habit when using D.O. only to have to pick it up again within seconds on the same desktop when one switches back to Explorer for whatever reason (and there are many). By any stretch of the imagination, you can't say that there was much consideration of ergonomic issues here; more likely it was just the whim of the programmer, and now it's set in concrete.
2.3 In the installation it is recommended that D.O. be installed to replace Explorer by default (this would overcome my last point in 1.2), however there is considerable arrogance in adopting this approach, here's a few reasons:
(i) It presupposes that every user of the PC is familiar with D.O. Failure to warn other users that D.O. is installed could result in them losing data.
(ii) In some operations D.O is considerably slower than Explorer, thus a once-confined effect is now commonplace across all file operations.
(iii) As replacement, Directory Opus has to be at least as reliable as Explorer. From experience, I can attest that most Explorer-replacements are not (and here I'm not defending Explorer's questionable record either but it's more reliable than most replacements). The fact is that Explorer-replacements are usually larger utilities written in high level languages without hindsight (of having access to Windows source code), which often makes them slower (alas, gone are the Assembler days); also, programmers do not have knowledge of all of Windows' internal hooks as does Microsoft (for some remain unpublished). All up, it's a reliability issue, better to be free-standing than integrated into Windows.
(iv) This reliability issue became obvious in the early days of Explorer-replacements when programs like the then-popular Mijenix--later OnTrack program, PowerDesk, would crash whilst acting as an Explorer surrogate. Even with my very limited experience of Directory Opus, I've found that it isn't as crash proof as Explorer, I've had it crash repeatedly under certain conditions when in identical circumstances, Explorer repeatedly does not.
(v) For example, D.O. will crash repeatedly whenever it encounters say an image file (JPG etc.) that's damaged in a certain way and will do so even without the user viewing it--selecting it is just sufficient. Seems D.O. caches the file and the viewer DLL goes belly-up, however Explorer does not crash in the same circumstances. (BTW, this is the same problem as the PowerDesk had years ago).
(vi) It is simply not acceptable for an Explorer-replacement to crash when it encounters a wayward file, therefore in the interests of useability, stability etc., users should be warned against using the program in this way rather than being encouraged to do so (although I accept the realities of marketing where techies opinions are usually overruled in favor of marketing hype and increased sales.)
- Except for trivial issues, users usually expect that an Explorer-replacement will have all the same basic or core features as does Explorer then they look for superset features over and above that. Usually, it's the superset features which individually differentiates these products. However, the subject of my initial post about saved Internet page files not automatically following the page is clearly an omission from Explorer's basic feature set. Moreover, no matter how you view or consider its worth, the omission of this feature from D.O. cannot be considered trivial as vast swathes of PC users have become dependent on it working as it does in Windows Explorer.
3.1 Your suggested patch, whilst being most welcome, is nonetheless a kluge which ought not be necessary as the feature should never have been omitted.
- In Windows, where words like verification, authentication, encapsulation and data integrity checking are essentially foreign notions without meaning, one expects to be diligent with one's data. Nevertheless, there's no excuse for D.O. not having extra verification checking on dangerous options, which if selected in error, would be disastrous.
4.1 For example, in File Operations/Copying Files/[tick] Preserve the timestamps of copied files, it would be easy to accidentally deselect this option and be none the wiser until it's too late. At the very minimum, attempting to 'untick' this box ought to automatically invoke an instant 'Are you sure?' response. Even then, subsidiary options are needed such as a fall back to the 'on' position after a single copy or a session of copies--leaving this box 'unticked' ought to be very difficult (although I certainly would not like to see the feature removed).
4.2 There is no reasonable excuse for this option being the way it is, it is either sloppy programming or a failure to grasp the full implications that unticking this box might have, or both. I've seen the outcome of where hundreds of megabytes of data have been backed up without their original time and date stamps and it can be disastrous when there's only the backup to rely upon, especially so in industries or operations where these parameters are assumed to be necessary auditable features.
I've also issues with the default Window operation but that'll have to wait until another time.
By now, you probably think I've not a good word to say about the program, but in fact I do have many. IMHO, the most important aspect of D.O is in its copy function, it properly overcomes the most incredible and inexplicable of all Explorer's omissions--that of where overwriting one directory with another of the same name invokes a confirmation response for the directory but which does not do so for the files and directory contained within. If for nothing else, that's good enough reason for owning the program.
Nevertheless, the lack of compatibility with Explorer's defaults has almost certainly excluded it from widespread deployment in my workplace. Instead of multiple sales, there'll be only one copy--that being on my machine.
Once someone mentions things and files a report it'll probably get fixed. Until then there are bound to be things that fall through the cracks. The developers can't notice everything by themselves.
It's a matter of opinion as to exactly which things that is, though, of course.