Good morning, I’d like to know if it’s possible to establish links between files in Directory Opus. For example, I have a customer’s ‘order’ file and I’d like to link it to the ‘invoice’ file. Thank you
If I were to do something like this, I would use a command that would create a side file to the order that would be a shortcut to the invoice.
For instance you have "Order 12345.pdf' and the command could create a "Order 12345 - invoice shortcut.lnk" that would point to the invoice.
To make it easy, you would have to be in dual pane, select order in source pane and invoice in destination pane and activate the command/button.
Other solutions would require reverting to metadata, with the risk that the metadata is lost if you copy/move the files to another file system which does not support these metadata (e.g. network drive for instance).
IMHO, the best solution for this is to use a dedicated piece of software, relying on a database underneath. But solution mentioned in the first place can be a workaround if you need to jump to the invoice quickly (and taking the hypothesis that 1 order has only 1 invoice ... otherwise this would make it a bit more complicated).
What would it imply for files to be linked?
For example, would you expect that if I move a file, its linked files also move automatically?
There would be several rules to define.
But for now, unfortunately, it's not possible AFAIK.
@PassThePeas @errante Your two replies suggest that I had underestimated the complexity of the idea: I liked the idea that, after selecting the file ‘Order 12345’, I could see a list of the other related files, such as ‘Invoice 12345’, but I hadn’t considered the possibility that there might be more than one related file, or the consequences of moving one of these files relative to the others. I probably really should look for specific software that supports relationships between files or a robust tagging structure. I’ll have a look. For now, thank you for your replies.
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A Stored Query would almost do this, but specificity to the file selection is the problem with this idea. I'll think on it some.
I'm wondering if an Evaluator intervention within a Saved Query could solve this.
But I'm probably wrong at this point.
Edit: Perhaps using Everything as the Search Engine ?
The easiest way to handle that relationship would be using Collections.
You can create a collection named "12345" and then put any related files in there.
If you plan to move those related files later, then I'd suggest using either Opus tags or Opus labels. You can use a specially configured Everything v1.5 along with Opus to later instantly find items with a specific label.
Here's a script that lets you find Opus labels with Everything. It also explains how you can configure Everything for instant results.
Let us know if you're interested in making it work with Opus tags, so I or someone else can give a more detailed explanation.
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@Sabre18 I use a menubutton which I think does pretty much what you’re asking for. I use it to tag files that I want to keep together, or at least get them easily together in an overview with one click. However, it has one particular restriction which may make it unuseful for your case:
- It currently only works for files that reside in the same folder. This can be adapted, but finding all related files in a tree structure containing thousands of files will be slow (others may probably know how to solve that).
In any case, below you can find the menubutton to put on an Opus toolbar, plus the script to install. The menu has the following functions:
- “Set selected files to new random tag” (after selecting all relatable files) will give all selected files a unique random tag. (You can also create the unique tag only on one file, and then apply it to others one by one via option 4 below).
- “Display files having same tag as selected” must be executed while you have one particular tagged file selected. It will show this file together with all its related siblings in a collection. (But, as I said: in the current setup, only if they are located in the same folder).
- “Copy selected tag to clipboard“ is an alternative to 1: you select a file from an older set, and this option will copy the file’s uniqe tag to the cllipboard. You can then look up other files and use option 4 to tag them with the same tag.
- “Set selected to last clipped tag“ is the action you do after action 1 or 3, so the tag set in the clipboard can now be applied to other files, adding them to the same file set.
- Finally, “Remove last clipped tag from selected files” is something you can do after step 3, in order to remove that particular tag from other files you select.
To see the tags, you must of course activate the “Tags” column in Opus, or open the metadata panel.
The script, to install via Opus Settings > Install Script:
AltSiblingTagger.opusscriptinstall (3.0 KB)
The menubutton - which you can drag & drop on a toolbar when you are in customize mode:
AltSiblingTagger_menu.dcf (2.0 KB)