[REQ] Filtering Folders before enabling FlatView

[steje]

I think Leo thought we were hijacking Ron's original thread - though after reading it back - I'm still pretty sure I was asking for EXACTLY what Ron wanted. So I'm not sure where the misunderstanding came in - but have decided to start a new thread here, and will only refer to the most relevant snippet of the previous thread here as being the point of this new topic...

Repeating the releveant portion of that older thread:

@leo

[quote="abr"][quote="steje"]+1 for this as well btw, to be able to filter out ~some folders before enabling flatview, and have them remain filtered after enabling flatview.

Yes, that would make a lot of sense. See also [url]Suggestion: partial flat view][/quote]

Turn on Preferences / Miscellaneous / Advanced: flatview_folder_filters and it will work how you want.[/quote]
...I'm not seeing how that accomplishes what we were suggesting, so I think there's still some misunderstanding about what the "ask" here is.

From the Help Manual:

@Opus Manual

Filter folders in Flat view: When the file display you are filtering is in Flat View mode this option appears and lets you control whether the filter applies to folders or only to files. When a folder is filtered out of the display in Flat View mode, all files within that folder (and it's sub-folders) are also filtered out. This behavior may or may not be desirable and it can be confusing to have a whole lot of files suddenly disappear unexpectedly, which is which this option is available (and off by default). The default state of this option can be changed by modifying the flatview_folder_filters option on the Miscellaneous / Advanced page in Preferences.

...this explanation and a quick test makes it clear that withOUT this option, whatever sort of filter string you enter into the filter bar WON'T apply to folders; and that - normally, if you enter a string into the filter bar, you'll still see ALL the folders in flatview that you saw before you entered a filter string - the filter just affects which files you see as a result. I get that and agree that in most cases that's what people will want (myself included). Leo went on to say that the related advanced option isn't enabled by default because it usually confuses people, and I understand that as well.

But this option doesn't do anything like what was asked with:

@I

filter out ~some folders before enabling flatview, and have them remain filtered after enabling flatview

An example use case, very similar to what Ron posited in his previous thread:

Say my current source folder has 30 sub-folders... let's also just say that I know that HALF of those sub-folders contents are of no interest to me. Let's even say that I already know that those 15 sub-folders that I'm NOT interested in contain relatively large numbers of child objects. Enabling flatview in this case is going to show me ALOT of stuff I just don't want to see. I want to be able to filter OUT those folders (my <Alt+H> hotkey runs select nopattern hidesel) when it's easiest to do so - which is BEFORE I enable flatview. If I have to wait until AFTER I enable flatview, then its pretty burdensome to have to do so in a potentially HUGE list in the file display. I want to have been able to have selected 15 out of 30 beforehand instead of now having to navigate amongst THOUSANDS of items in the list to nuke those same 15 items.

The existing options have nothing to do with this sort of behavior. Whether the flatview_folder_filters option is enabled or not, if I filter some folders out FIRST - say by selecting them, and then running my select nopattern hidesel hotkey... after I enable flatview, the folders I had just filtered out (and naturally, their contents) get un-filtered and they and there contents are shown in the flatview.

So, am I missing some other method of filtering out the unwanted folders than the command I'm using BEFORE enabling flatview, that will persist AFTER enabling flatview? Related... even if I enable flatview first, and THEN go and try to filter out specific folders using the command above, the result is not sensible. The folder I filter out disappears from the list - but all of its contents remains in the list. They just get SHIFTED to the bottom of the file display list. I'll post screenshots if necessary, or - even though related to this ask - perhaps start yet another thread for it since technically, this behavioral quirk is a result of doing something AFTER enabling flatview while the main "ask" here in this topic is about folder filtering being persistent when enabled BEFORE turning flatview on; though I'd still like to see filtering using this method AFTER enabling flatview work as one might expect as well.

[steje]

For clarity... abr and I were indeed looking for VERY similar capability, but from slightly different directions. My ask here is about filtering OUT certain folders before turning on flatview - and having those folders AND THEIR CONTENTS remain filtered out after turning on flatview.

In the thread he linked to - abr was asking for a different method to achieve the same goal. Whereas my "ask" was essentially about EXCLUDING certain folders in the current source path from being shown before then enabling flatview... abr was looking for a way of enabling flatview in a more INCLUSIVE fashion... say, against only the selected folders. I think we'd probably each agree that BOTH capabilities make sense depending on the situation. In my example above, if I only wanted 3 out of the 30 sub-folders to be shown when enabling flatview... I'd probably go abr's route... because it's easier to select the 3 that I want than the 27 I don't want...

[Leo]

The flatview folder filtering I was talking about was using the filter bar. Nothing else. (I don't know if other types of filtering work in flatview, so they might be worth trying, but I wouldn't expect them to.)

[steje]

Right, but I don't think that's what anyone was really asking about. Hence this topic to clarify what abr and I were asking in the other thread - which I still think was what Ron was asking for as well from his original description as well as his follow on responses, but I figured a new thread would clear some of the air in case I was wrong.

[Leo]

Well, you can filter out folders using the filter bar before going in to flat view, and then have them still filtered out after you go into flat view.

I don't know if it works with things like select nopattern hidesel as well. Probably not.

[steje]

Using the filter bar first isn't ideal at all because you might (and I "do") have a variety of folders with common names that would be quite burdensome to get ~just the ones you want. And in the other case if you have a large number of folders with wildly different names, that alot of typing into the filter bar as opposed to point and click followed by something like a 'select nopattern hidesel' maneuver.

Even if it weren't so cumbersome, it still doesn't work anyway unless you do indeed enable the flatview_folder_filters option... or, check in the 'Filter folders' checkbox after turning on flatview, which then seems to re-enforce the previously applied filter bar filter.

And no, using something like 'select nopattern hidesel' does NOT work for this... thats the contention and the reason for the "ask" here... this is a feature request since there appears to be no way I haven't tried already that gives the same behavior and benefit.

[steje]

Modified the subject to a bit more accurate a description of this feature request...