I am using the very nice "file description" facility afforded by Opus to classify the contacts in my "Contacts" folder.
There are three computers on our home network, and I am using Opus to synchronize these contacts, because other synchronization programmes, like Goodsync that I otherwise use, do not copy the "file description".
Here is my problem. If I change ONLY THE FILE DESCRIPTION of a contact, then Opus does not identify that change when I synchronize. This makes it impossible to synchronize any changes that I might want to make to the "file descriptions" that I am using to classify my contacts.
Can this be overcome, or is it a fault in Opus' synchronization routine?
Since you can choose "description" in the filter function, & can use filters in the synchronisation, it should be possible. Maybe the updating is not "on the fly", but after each Opus start or initialization.
Using a filter with Synchronize can only reduce the number of files synchronized, by filtering them out; it will never increase the number of files.
The problem you're having syncing the description changes is that the sync tool does not compare descriptions when deciding if files have changed.
(Also, while it's not important for .contact files, for filenames you should use * to match all files because . will only match files that have an extension. It's also not necessary to include a Name Match * line in filters as they will implicitly match all names unless told otherwise.)
The file descriptions are stored in a hidden text file called descript.ion. If you want to do a two-way sync of the descriptions then you could use a diff tool such as Beyond Compare or WinMerge to identify the changes in the file and select the lines to keep/copy/update.
If it's a one-way sync, you could simply copy the descript.ion file from one place to the other.
Thanks for that, and particularly thank you for the tip about the . code. I had quite misunderstood its meaning.
It's a 2-way sync that I am doing. I did try syncing the "descript.ion" file as well, but it changes too often, which can cause problems with a 2-way sync.
I expect this is part of the reason why you did not implement syncing when the "description" was the only difference between the two files - you wouldn't be able to tell which "description" was the more recent. (If the "description" field were associated just with the one file instead of with the folder, then of course this would not be a problem, but this seems to be a Microsoft constraint.)
My workaround, on the few occasions I have been altering "descriptions", has been to sync the contacts folders first. Then when if delete the files from the target directory and copy or sync them back from the source directory, the "descriptions" are updated.
By the way, I really appreciate this software, because I can configure it just about any way I want, instead of being told by the programmer what I am and am not allowed to do, as is the case with most software.