Hi,
What is the one most missing feature in DO 13 according to you?
Imo it's lack of free panel positioning (something like Visual Studio docking system). With all the configurations available, the rigidity of general panel layouting mechanism sticks out badly.
I would like DOpus to have a "docking panel". A panel similar to those that already exist, but that serves only to load a dialog box, done via scripting. What is done or shown inside the panel would be determined by the dialog box itself. Useful to display custom info, perform tasks on selected items, etc.
I scanned the changelog and didn't see, but might have missed...
The ability to create visual filter with rules that works when you change folders
The Filter bar sometimes feels rather limited as to what it can filter. I created a command with a script that filters files that have been created within the past 24 hrs, but it vanishes if I change folders.
Command that repeats the last Copy/Move command
Preferences / Filtering and Sorting / Filter Bar / Clear the filter automatically when changing folders
That's a tough one, I'd have to say it's between the four following:
Virtual Folders - Folders that are populated based on criteria set by the end user. For example, let's say say you have multiple work folders. Well the end user could then create a virtual folder that could bring together all their currently open projects into a single virtual folder for easy management and viewing. They could also have it set to include documentation relevant to those projects as well, even if they are stored in another set of separate folders. All the files would still exist in their original locations, the virtual folder would just make it vastly easier to present relevant folders and files. It essentially allows you to keep the directory structure you like while also having an ideal presentation for productivity.
Dynamic Lister flow - As it stands right now for tile and thumbnail views each thumbnail gets an equal amount of space. When you have images of varying aspect ratios, either you have to accept that the long images will be very small, the fat images will have a lot of space to either side, or that you enable the new resizing and that one of those two aspect ratios will have a lot of the image cropped off. That's where dynamic sizing comes in. Each thumbnail's size is adjusted based on the image aspect ratio, so you can have a tall thin image right next to a very wide image and each thumbnail would take up just the right amount of horizontal space. This enables you to fit many more thumbnails in the same space when there are varying aspect ratios and allows each thumbnail to be displayed without cropping and being made small and hard to see.
Custom Metadata - The ability to create and set custom file and folder metadata fields. You can sort of get this functionality by adding the data to the name and using RegEx to create custom columns but that comes with issues like file name length limitations, the inability to hide the file name (which means you will often have this massive file name taking up space and making it hard to read the data you want to), and the other problems associated with storing multiple values in a single field (a big no-no as any database developer will tell you). The problem is where is this custom metadata stored, other programs would not recognize data stored in an ADS. DOPUS could potentially store custom metadata fields in the comments metadata field and separate the values with a delimiter. DOPUS could even allow the user to still write to the comments field and add delimiters after the comments data.
CSS based interface - Some programs allow for their interface to be defined by a CSS file, which enables incredible levels of customization. For DOPUS it would vastly simplify editing colors and fonts in addition to allowing the end user to customize everything about what's displayed including adding entirely new features to creating new display modes. CSS is also excellent at scaling given it has to work on nearly every device in the world and extremely fast. Depending on the implementation, features 1,2, and 3 could all be done via CSS (they'd just need to be able to access that information). The problem with this feature is it would require a massive rewrite of application code.
Sounds very similar to Libraries.
If Opus became an Electron app, or similarly web-based, I would stop using it let alone working on it. 
I don't see how colors & fonts are difficult to edit in the UI, especially in 13. Certainly less difficult that editing a text file.
They are totally here with Collections.
I don't even browse images in Opus, except for some simplest previews - this being one of the reasons.
Each metadata scheme, EXIF/XMP/av containers/whatever, has its own scheme for custom contents - developer nightmare to support them all. I would turn to specialized tools/own scripts for it (which is exactly what I do).
If there are bad ideas, this is one. Resource hogs with aesthetics of a red light district and responsiveness of an octogenarian.
Libraries are virtual folders but they do not allow the user to specify criteria for their population. Very rarely does optimal folder structure for file storage and optimal presentation of that data for productivity align. Virtual folders allow you to keep that optimal folder storage structure while being able to setup data to be viewed for optimal productivity.
Elements within a single object in DOPUS can have color options dispersed across multiple categories. Just as an example the Location bar toolbar has toolbar, menu, location bar, edit field and more In addition the labels for those options are not always obvious. If you have a CSS toolbar, all the font and color options are presented in a single location.
Really though the user can arrange their configuration in whatever which way they understand best with CSS. The custimizability cannot be understated either, the entire web runs on CSS so it naturally has a wide range potential configurations.
It doesn't necessarily need to be CSS either, you can have a XML file that's able to configure the parameters of toolbars, objects, folders, ect but that would be the hard way to do things given CSS already has all these things defined.
Just an idea of course, not saying DOPUS's approach it without merrit or that CSS is without downsides.
Collections are static, the user has to add items to them by hand. The idea I proposed would add items automatically based on set criteria and would update automatically should files within the specified folder / folders change.
DOPUS already supports the comments metadata for all files / folder AFAIK. The idea I proposed was not to add a new metadata field but to encode new metadata fields in an existing widely supported one. You can do so without even touching people's existing stored comments through the use of delimiters.
CSS runs on nearly every device on the earth including ultra-low power devices. which means it's inherently not going to be resource intensive. Aesthetics of a red light district? CSS interfaces can look like whatever a developer wants, it's not limited to a specific style as you are implying. CSS is responsive. Modern compilers do a very good job of scaling CSS performance from low to high end devices.
Just because a feature isn't relevant to you doesn't mean it shouldn't be implemented.
So keep your files organized for optimal productivity, what's the hassle? Regarding "materialized views" - good luck with reasonable performance and refresh strategy. Maybe feasible with specialized filesystem imo.
So what configuration element do you miss, exactly?
Just add all the data you need there, format it and process however you want - what's the obstacle to it? Otherwise, we can add these fields forever.
So you say these IoT thingies can display CSS interfaces? Interesting. The compilers? Sass/Less etc you mean? They merely try to rescue performance downed by all the new stuff added to CSS in attempt to make it, I don't know, programming language I suppose. And renderers still suck.
It is. That's why I am using specialized tools for a specialized purpose. Not hoping all my needs tangential to file management are going to be stuffed into, well, file manager.
It would be really better if you could keep to ONE feature here.
As far as I can tell, you can't filter by time in the Filter bar. I don't know if there is a better way, but I had to create the following to visually filter one folder.
Filter In Preferences: Time Match Created Within 24 hrs
Then created a button with...
Select "Created past 24 hrs" FILTER
Select INVERT HIDESEL
I have found the complex filters seem to be SELECTION filters that select files, while the Filter bar is VISUAL filters that screen the Lister view but are limited.
Thank you for your time with version 13 coming I imagine you are busy. BTW. I'm amused you have added the ability to create buttons that open folders with drag and drop. When I first switched to Dopus last Nov I kept trying to do it with v 12, figuring it was obvious. I've been rather confused that just creating a toolbar button that opened a single folder seemed more complicated than it needed to be and seemed to require PATH scripts.
You can actually. You have to make your own FAYT script or use the built-in Opus FAYT Search (who can use Evaluator for filter definitions).
As an aside, if you actually want us to consider any feature requests, a thread like this is about the worst place to put them, as we can't keep track of jumbles like what this thread has already become.
(Ask one question per thread, basically.)
You can only ever view your files and folders as they are arranged on the disk. You can change the folder structure but that's time consuming and doesn't change the fact that you can only arrange them in one way at a time. In other words you only optimize it for a single specific thing or you can make it more general at the cost of productivity. For example, if you are a game dev you can arrange your project files like Work > Game Dev > Year > Project > (many subfolders). This file structure is logical and works for finding files and for a specific task but what happens if you want to arrange your files by Game Studio the project was for, separated into subfolders by the manager completed files were sent to? You could execute a search but a search is static and doesn't allow you to re-arrange the directory structure. It just presents you a list of files and folders without the folder structure based on the search criteria. Key part there being the structure.
CSS allows you to configure Z position (whether something is behind something or not), precise scaling options based on the resolution (including options like switching between pixel and percentage based scaling), ability to position UI elements anywhere on a per pixel or % basis, the ability to dynamically control the viability of any element based on a huge number of things (window size, what the user is doing, ect), Precise spacing and sizing control of every element including element size, margins, and padding including the flexibility to automatically adjust those values based on the size of other elements (hence how you can get dynamic sizing of elements) that scales from extremely granular (per element) to global (all elements) and everything in between, and last but not least the ability to configure how folders and files are displayed. I'm aware there are some that want miter columns, that'd be possible via CSS. What a thumbnail view but with float tile like descriptions? Possible via CSS. You can even have the descriptions only show and expand under mouse hover, because you can do some pretty interactive things via CSS.
That's what I do currently for a portion of my files and it's a huge PITA. Have you tried putting a thousand character in the metadata editor comments field and then navigating to a portion in the middle? It takes ages. It also isn't accessible to DOPUS for columns. In order to get that to work I have to put the data into the name and use RegEx to make custom columns, which comes with it's own set of drawbacks as described earlier.
Although I suppose if file names were hide-able it wouldn't be an issue so maybe that's the easiest way to go about adding custom metadata (although filename size limits would still be restricting, especially with longer file paths).
Any device that can view a webpage uses CSS based interfaces for those webpages. Your tablet, phone, computer, ect. IoT devices like smart doorbells usually not as they run on proprietary operating systems or a stripped down OS only designed to do a few things but they do have the hardware power. CSS was created in 1996 but it become the defacto web standard in 2004 (as in, it was widely used). You could run it on hardware as low end as a calculator.
Excuse my use of the word compiler, that was incorrect. I meant the engine that's responsible for parsing the CSS. You can optimize CSS code but that's not what I was referencing so my mistake.
Appreciate it Leo! I wouldn't impose upon the DOPUS staff as to actually request that all these features be added for a single person, that's too much to ask. Just wanted to get people thinking, different ideas can sometimes lead to a strengthening of an existing approach.