Virtual files inside a folder

Help & Support
1

How could I achieve the following: Transparently display the files of other directories in a specific folder. Example:

  1. In the folder F:\MyData\ProjectXY are some project files.

  2. In the folder G:\Resources\Wav\CustomerBC there are files related to ProjectXY. Now for other reasons (backup, usage in multiple projects etc.) I don't want these resource files to be stored directly in the ProjectXY folder, however it would be convenient to have them displayed in the ProjectXY folder as if they would "physically" be there.

Of course I could create a shortcut link to the CustomerBC folder in the ProjectXY folder to quickly jump to the CustomerBC folder, however this is far from being that convenient as it would be having the files from the target folder directly be displayed in the source folder.

Does anybody know a file manager which has this feature?

2

Sounds like a job for Opus Collections...

3

Why not create shortcuts to the files? (Not to the directory that contains the files, but the files themselves.)

4

Shortcuts to the files are not dynamic: When files are added/deleted in the CustomerBC folder these changes are not reflected in the ProjectXY folder. Shortcuts are a one-way solution. The solution I proposed would always display the actual files from the remote folder (opionally controlled by a filter).

5

Collections lack the flexibility of folders: Collections AFAIK can be located only in the Collection Root. I want to have this sort of dynamic folder feature in ANY folder.

6

Have you sent GPSoftware a feature request then?

7

Yes - this is the feature request:

Transparently display the files of other directories in any folder.

Please see this discussion thread:

[Virtual files inside a folder)

In addition, when implementing this feature the following point of view may also be helpful:
When for any reason switching to an other file-manager (maybe temporarily) the relations between the project folder and and the remote folder(s) should not be lost. This makes it indispensable to implement the feature in the most compatible way, for example:

  1. Inside any directory (e.g. F:\MyData\ProjectXY) the user performs the command "Add dynamic folder".
  2. DirOpus presents a dialog to select a folder. (e.g. G:\Resources\Wav)
    2a. Optionally a file-filter can be set.
  3. DirOpus creates an invisible Shortcut-Link named e.g. 'Wav {DODF}' to G:\Resources\Wav\ in F:\MyData\ProjectXY.
  4. When the user opens the folder F:\MyData\ProjectXY\ in DirOpus, the files in G:\Resources\Wav\ (where the shortcut-link is pointing to) are also scanned and transparently displayed in the F:\MyData\ProjectXY\ folder as if they where "physically" located in this folder.
  5. Any command applied to these virtual files would act like on the "real" files in this folder.
  6. Steps 1-3 can be repeated to create addional dynamic links.
  7. To give the user a visual feedback that this folder contains dynamic files the background of this folder could be displayed in a slightly different color. This would be important to remind the user that other programs outside DirOpus will not "see" the dynamic remote files. This is an advantage in most cases (e.g. when restricting a backup to the files located physically in this folder, etc.).
    7a. However, when the user wants the shortcut-links to be visible in Windows Open/Save dialogs (to follow them from there), there could be an option in DirOpus to keep them visible to other programs (file attribute) but to not display them in DirOpus (when the shortcut-name contains a "magic string").

In this way using shortcut-links as the internal method for DirOpus to provide this functionality, when using another file-manager the relations to the remote folders are not completely lost, and the user can still reach the remote files by opening the shortcut-links.