Moving web pages saved by IE (HTM file & _FILES folder)

[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):

  1. 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.]

  1. 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.)

  1. 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.

  1. 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.

If you want to raise unrelated issues please start a new thread, as per the FAQ which nobody seems to read. A laundry list of issues will become a mess of interwoven threads which nobody can keep track of.

Still, I'll bite...

(Note: I'm not part of GPSoftware and I'm not talking on their behalf here.)

I don't understand why you think that Opus is alone in not following Explorer's Connected Files system. Virtually other file manager supports it, aside from the very basic file managers which call on Explorer to do everything. Most people consider it a defect not a feature.

What non-conventional colours? The green/red source/destination? Windows doesn't have standard colours to indicate those things so what should Opus use instead? (You're free to change the colours to whatever you want via Preferences.)

I suppose Explorer also uses non-standard colours because it has Green or Blue (depending on OS version) back buttons whose colours do not come from the Display control panel's Appearance page?

I've send a report to GPSoftware to get that changed as it does seem wrong. Mentioning it in the middle of a 1700-word rant is a pretty bad way to get problem reports noticed, though.

Not only its developers but its users, until now, as you are the first person to ever mention it AFAIK. :slight_smile: 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.

(And it's not like Explorer isn't riddled with bugs as well, not that it's any excuse, but bugs and quirks happen in all software. Report them and they should get fixed if everyone agrees the behaviour is wrong.)

I doubt it's intentional behaviour so there's no need to deeply analyse the fact that pushing Ctrl-X when nothing is selected clears the clipboard. (On a technical level, I guess Opus is doing something valid: It's putting the selection -- nothing -- into the clipboard. But obviously nobody really wants that to happen if they accidentally hit Ctrl-X. I doubt it's on purpose; it's just that nobody has noticed or reported it before.)

Arrogance in assuming someone might wan to use the program they're installing, while giving them the option of turning that thing off? Eh? I suppose it's arrogance that when you install a media player it offers to take over the filetypes it can handle? Opus handles folders so it offers to take them over.

How does installing Opus result in anyone losing data? If you're still talking about the IE web page thing, it's hardly destroyed; you just have to move the other half of it to the same place and everything works fine. Calling that "destroyed" is rather melodramatic, don't you think?

Which operations?

If you're taking about copying files be sure to do a fair test. Tell Opus not to copy attributes and dates (as Explorer does not and doing so slows things down) and be sure to copy data that is not cached as a result of copying in the previous program. Lots of people have made the claim that Opus copies slower than Explorer but in every single case that I know of, where we're talking about typical local HDD-to-HDD copies, once their testing methods were made fair, the speeds turn out to be about the same, as you'd expect. (There are some pathological cases where Opus is currently slower but you're unlikely to run into them. Equally there are cases where Opus is faster. No one file-copying method is fastest for every situation.)

Then use the FAQs on tracking down the cause of crashes and report what you find here or to GPSoftware directly. Crashes are almost always caused by interactions with 3rd party components and so people need to bring them to the attention of those who can investigate and add a workaround.

In the long run Opus could move some of that stuff into a separate process so that if 3rd party components crash they don't take out the main process. That has a performance hit and isn't a simple change but it might be wroth it. That's exactly what Explorer has moved to, more and more as it faces the same problems that Opus does (except life is easier for Explorer because everyone tests against it).

I assume you've reported this to GPSoftware and given them an example JPEG. If not how can they fix what they don't now about and have no way to reproduce?

I doubt there's an image viewer in the world which hasn't had crash-bugs with malformed inputs. That's life. Report them and they are very easy to fix.

FWIW Opus shouldn't be using a viewer DLL for JPEG files so if you've seen a crash within a DLL's address range please mention which DLL it was in the report as that could help track it down. You mention PowerDesk so it's possible that the crash is happening in the Stellant viewer DLLs which Opus will hook into if they are there (which used to come with PowerDesk as well, but don't actually come with Opus even though it'll use them if they're there), though it'd be strange for them to be involved with a JPEG.

Explorer can crash in exactly the same way, especially if we're talking movie files and you have a badly written movie codec installed.

If you want to reduce the risk of Opus crashing, disable everything that can interact with 3rd party code. IN particular, disable the ActiveX plugin, the Movie plugin, the MultiView plugin and the Thumbnails: Shell Image Extraction option. You'll find Opus doesn't do as many useful things with media files as a result, though.... Much better to work out which component on your system is crashing when Opus asks it to inspect a particular file and either see if there is a fixed (or alternative) version of that component, or report the crash and send a sample file either to the forum or to GPSoftware in case a workaround can be added.

I honestly feel that the vast majority of people would disagree there, but if you really want that changed then write to GPSoftware via their support page. I suspect you'll be the first to ask, though, as most people I've seen mention that aspect of Explorer hate it.

What is so dangerous here that it requires a warning? It's not like Opus deleted the other half of the saved web page after moving the half you moved acted on. The other half was still there and could be moved as well.

Isn't it more dangerous to do what Explorer does and act on files/folders which the user has not actually selected, just because they have similar names which may be a coincidence?

You want to be asked to confirm individual checkbox changes in Preferences, via pop-up dialogs that appear the moment you touch the checkboxes? That would be so annoying. Sorry but if someone goes clicking random checkboxes in Preferences without thinking about what they mean then I think a few file-copies timestamps being bumped is the least of their worries. Meanwhile everyone else would be really irritated by being asked if they were sure they wanted to turn on the thing they just turned on.

You can create buttons, menu items or hotkeys which run versions of the Opus's Copy command that override the settings in Preferences. That's generally a better way to do it than changing the settings before and after doing the copy.

I don't get this at all. If the user doesn't want timestamps to be copied then they can turn them off. How is that unreasonable?

It's funny that you praise Opus for deviating from Explorer's defaults where it coincides with what you personally want, but condemn Opus for doing the same when it isn't. With that attitude Opus can't win. Opus isn't Explorer, it's an alternative to Explorer which does the things that its makers think make the most sense. You'll never get two people to agree 100% which things make sense to change and keep the same. Luckily Opus has a huge amount of options which keep its users happy, in general, but if an option is missing then by all means write to GPSoftware and request it.

[quote="leo"]The folder and HTML file are separate.

Explorer treats them as a joined pair because it's been specially coded to do so. In Explorer if you do something to a .HTML file it'll look for a directory called the same thing with "_files" on the end and do the same to that. (Described here in more detail, under Connected Files.)

It's not an inherent feature of the OS, though. If you do the same thing via the Windows command prompt, for example, then the file and folder are treated as two separate things, because that's what they really are.

Things only have this behaviour if it's either been explicitly programmed into them or if they use Explorer (the Shell API) to perform file operations rather than doing the operations themselves.

People seem quite divided on whether the Connected Files concept is a good idea or not. Perhaps it should be optional in Opus (maybe it is already but probably not as I can't find the option), but it's not for everyone. [/quote]

You're right about this, it's a damn nuisance, and at times when a wanted file goes AWOL it's a pain in the A. I've trained myself into doing a few tricks such as copying everything to a backup to temporarily deleting the underscore in the "_files" part. Clearly this schema was never fully thought through in the early days of the Net. At best it's a messy kluge.

Again, I come back to my main point about D.O. missing functionality within Explorer's function set (as opposed to its superset of functions). This begs the question about what else is it missing in the Explorer subset.

That this function is missing from where it ought to be considered an essential part is disconcerting, not specifically for its own sake, but rather because of the woolly thinking on the part of the developers or alternatively, their failure to explain why it is missing. Whatever the reason there's a significant (and unexplained) data integrity issue at stake.

For my own part, I'd have thought the best solution would have been to leave the feature in and add an option to decouple the '_files' from the copy if necessary.

[i]"The feature in Explorer also means if you unintentionally create a file/folder pair matching the pattern then you can accidentally delete/move/rename both when you only intended to change one of them. When IE saves a web page there is no magic indicator written anywhere which tells programs the two items are related; it's all done based on the file/folder names and thus can cause problems."

[/i]
Very true, this is another case of where Microsoft has only half done the job, how many others would you like me to mention?

"(FWIW, while searching on this I found this thread of people complaining about the feature when Total Commander deletes to the recycle bin. AFAIK TC is now like Opus and does not carry over Explorer's feature, although I haven't double-checked that.)"

Right, I'll check that reference. Total Commander is something else again (but upfront it makes no pretence at ever being like Explorer.

[i]"If you want to request that the feature be added to Opus the best thing to do is write to them here:

gpsoft.com.au/Support.html"

[/i]I've done that on a related matter and only had the most perfunctory reply.

"Alternatively, if you are using Internet Explorer to save the page, set the type drop-down to Web archive, single file (*.mht) (exact name may vary with IE versions) so that IE saves the page into something that really is just one file, instead of a file and a folder. You can double-click the resultant .mht file to view it in the same way as one saved via the other method.

Right, I'm familiar with the MHTML standard and I did mention it at the bottom of my post. Moreover, it's now been around since 1999--a full decade- but has received scant attention. It's dear to my heart, I use it all the time among with MAFF. I call them the Internet zippers..

In the meantime, the very best MHTML utility is Firefox's UnMHT plug in. There's nothing to touch it.

Got to go but I'd be happy to discuss it further later.

I don't think Opus is intended to be a strict superset of Explorer's functionality. Some of Explorer's functionality is pretty dumb and should be left out. :slight_smile: It's a matter of opinion as to exactly which things that is, though, of course.

BTW, any idea about that javascript stuff? I've seen it a couple of times before and have wondered where it comes from, or whether people just type it by hand after being used to different forum software.

[quote="leo"]If you want to raise unrelated issues please start a new thread, as per the FAQ which nobody seems to read. A laundry list of issues will become a mess of interwoven threads which nobody can keep track of.

Still, I'll bite...
[/quote]

You've made a lot strong comments, and it not being in my nature to run away from arguments, I shall reply the moment I can.

:sunglasses:

[quote="leo"]I don't think Opus is intended to be a strict superset of Explorer's functionality. Some of Explorer's functionality is pretty dumb and should be left out. :slight_smile: It's a matter of opinion as to exactly which things that is, though, of course.

BTW, any idea about that javascript stuff? I've seen it a couple of times before and have wondered where it comes from, or whether people just type it by hand after being used to different forum software.[/quote]

See other post (will reply later re D.O.)

Not sure about the JS. Experienced it when the text includes an emoticon. Next time, look at the incoming source for clues, I'll do the same.

I had the problem on my first post to this forum, then the server came back accusing me of hacking the site and blocked my post. This happened several times. I cleared my cache stated again and didn't use any emoticons in the post and it worked. Later, after the site ceased blocking me, I tried the emoticon again and it worked but that's when I got the .js msg. BTW, the .js reference just followed the emoticon (sorry I can't remember the wording).

I'm glad I found this thread as it answers the same question in my mind: why doesn't DO delete the folders associated with .html files?

It's now 2011 and we're up to DO 10. I can't see anything in the DO 9 manual, nor anything in Preferences to indicate that DO users have an option to enable/disable Connected Files. Has anything been done about this and if not, is it on the to-do list?

Leo said earlier in this thread:

This doesn't make sense to me. I too often download web pages in order to extract images from the connected folder, as it's often impossible to accomplish this any other way. When I finish, I'm left with the same, unwanted .html file and its associated folder. Why would I be upset when deleting the .html file also deletes its companion folder? That's exactly what I wanted - one click and they're both gone. If I wanted to save the entire page I would have done so as a MHT file, which is my preferred format and this also avoids the worry of moving a companion folder at the same time as moving the primary .html file.so moving a web page with its folder doesn't happen very often (I only need to move a single .MHT file). The only alternative when moving is to bundle both into a zip archive.

I agree that, even though Explorer is a half-baked app, we are all so used to its ways that, like Irritated User, I suddenly feel confused, not to mention discouraged, when I find DO not able to behave like Explorer if the user wants it, even if it means having to tick a check box in Preferences. Please may we have this feature?

Because the way Explorer handles html_files is an irritation, not a feature. :slight_smile:

If you want to request that it be added to Opus the best thing to do is write to GPSoftware, here:

gpsoft.com.au/Support.html

thanks leo, I think I will do that, for my own convenience and that of others who are used to the ways of Windows Explorer.

hello,

is there any idea whether or when there will be an option to connect a html file and it's folder?
Would be nice , consider the cases you want to copy, move or delete a bundle of such files, eg 50+.
To mark 50 or 100 is a "slight" difference.

You could select the 50 .HTM files, then run a button/hotkey which does this to select the related folders in one extra click:

@nofilenamequoting
@nodeselect
Select "{file|noext}_files"

Or use a button which copies using the Windows shell.

Or store the web pages in .MHT files instead, of course. :slight_smile: For some reason people often overlook that possibility.

i would use mht files, BUT there is not in all cases the information saved as in html files. If there were a 1-1 correspondence -- hasta no vista html.
Back to html case : in most cases i use drag n' drop, therefore my interest for an option.

Opus lets you modify the drag & drop actions per filetype so you could probably change things there, on the .HTM type.

If i happen to select the html files' folders first, is there a respective way to select the htm(l) files, something like

Select {file|remove _files}.htm* (the * is meant as a wildcard, to get htm and html extensions)

I don't think there's a simple way to do that, although it could be done with a little VBScript.

If your aim is just to copy/move the files to somewhere else, using the shell copy command I gave earlier should be all you need, and is as easy to trigger as a button which selects the extra files/folders. (Or could be put on one of the drag & drop events.)

Thx for the quick answer. It's ok first to select the htm files and then to mark the respective folders with one extra click and then to delete, copy, or whatever.
I just wanted to know whether there is a SHORT way to change the order.

I suggested to change the sort order to have files and folders together with this command:

Set SORTORDER=mixed

However, going this way you can have a working button that selects the associated file when a folder is selected without actually changing the sort order:

Set SORTORDER=mixed Select PREV Select {file} EXACT Set SORTORDER=folders

[quote]@nofilenamequoting
@nodeselect
Select "{file|noext}_files"[/quote]
This should be changed because it will not work when {file|noext} contains brackets or other characters with a special meaning in wildcards. The argument EXACT tells DOPus that no wildcards are used:

@nofilenamequoting @nodeselect Select "{file|noext}_files" EXACT

@nofilenamequoting
@nodeselect
Select "{file|noext}_files" EXACT

This works in win 64, vista 32, but not in vista 64.
There i get the message

It's very unlikely that there would be a difference in how the code behaves on Vista 64 if it's behaving correctly on both Win7 64 and Vista 32.

Are you sure you're using the same version of Opus on all three machines? (i.e. The same version number, like 10.0.5.3, ignoring 32-bit vs 64-bit.)

Is the problem caused by something unusual in the filenames or paths used on one of the machines, rather than something to do with the version of Windows?

I used the same files, same result. Then i updated on vista 64 from 10.0.4.0 to 10.0.5.0 (on the other systems 10.0.5.0 already has been)
----- now it works as desired. Thanks