user multi backup

[graham]

This wish is, as Don Knows, a topic close to my heart, and needs.

Could it be possible, with the introduction of the UDC, to provide a catalog header as an argument thus providing the ability to backup the contents of the catalog header chosen to a specified destination (option entry).

Likewise, the copy all items in category could work in the same way.

No doubt you are miles ahead with exploitation of this new feature but this could integrate the category and udc quite simply.

[admin]

I think, for starters a new entry in the Catalog Category's context menu, should do pretty well. Or, maybe even more easy and powerful: add the Catalog as possible source to the Move/Copy/Backup To commands (right now they only work from Tree and List! So: if a catalog item is selected, take the item, if a catalog category is selected, take all items in the category! Hmmm, not bad!

BTW, if you look at the roadmap, "integrated backup management" is the next point. For the others: this is an idea me and graham developed via email some weeks ago. It's very simple: Each item that's ever backupped remembers it's last backup destination! Which means: you get a single-click-"back-me-up-again" command for all items that have already been backup once. Optionally, this backup will not overwrite the previous one, but create a versioned copy (by suffix date or number).

[graham]

admin wrote:

Or, maybe even more easy and powerful: add the Catalog as possible source to the Move/Copy/Backup To commands (right now they only work from Tree and List! So: if a catalog item is selected, take the item, if a catalog category is selected, take all items in the category! Hmmm, not bad!

Yes, as usual I have jumped in without thinking it out in detail but I do think there is some merit in doing this using the catalog and UDC combined. There is a possibility of the catalog controls and UDC duplicating features and the UDC does seem a more logical place. As soon as I saw your implementation of UDC I could see loads of new possibilities. It really is a super addition to XYplorer. Added to which, once Jacky gets to work on the wiki things I never realised were possible come to light. Great stuff!

[j_c_hallgren]

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Note further that the combination Move-To-from-Catalog is probably not very useful since after it the Catalog items will point into       nothingness... I'll probably take that out... what do you think? 

Unusual to find a question on the History log! Anyway, I'd agree that Move doesn't really make sense for reason stated.

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I don't know yet how to handle the completely distributed source locations that are possible within a Catalog Category. How much of the source path should I recreate in the destination...? 

Well, maybe something like WinZip, in that it has a user checkbox on extract to determine if stored folder names are to be used or output just goes into the one output folder...because I can see using it either way...taking all the various scattered inputs and putting output in one folder, or cloning folder setup within it.

[admin]

Code: Select all

I don't know yet how to handle the completely distributed source locations that are possible within a Catalog Category. How much of the source path should I recreate in the destination...? 

Well, maybe something like WinZip, in that it has a user checkbox on extract to determine if stored folder names are to be used or output just goes into the one output folder...because I can see using it either way...taking all the various scattered inputs and putting output in one folder, or cloning folder setup within it.

The problem here is unwanted merging (aka collision). Can happen when you Move/Copy/Backup a catalog category. Example:
Catalog Category contains 2 folders
- C:\code
- D:\code
You Move/Copy/Backup this catalog category to E:\ using "Copy To". They both want to go to E:\code. Problem. Unwanted overwriting will happen. How to solve this? Create subfolders representing the source drives?
E:\C\code
E:\D\code
I'd like that but I don't know how common this practice is...

[admin]

By the way: there's currently a bug: you can't copy paths from catalog that have a trailing backslash (C:\folder\). You get a shell error message saying the file could not be read. It's already fixed here. Workaround in the meantime: remove the last slash from the catalog item (-> C:\folder). It's superfluous anyway.

[graham]

admin wrote:

The problem here is unwanted merging (aka collision). Can happen when you Move/Copy/Backup a catalog category. Example:
Catalog Category contains 2 folders
- C:\code
- D:\code
You Move/Copy/Backup this catalog category to E:\ using "Copy To". They both want to go to E:\code. Problem. Unwanted overwriting will happen. How to solve this? Create subfolders representing the source drives?
E:\C\code
E:\D\code
I'd like that but I don't know how common this practice is...

I am not sure if creating subfolders is common general practice or that useful in the context of XYp and probably best avoided though it gets round the problem. I think a possible answer is to do a check before to see if a collision will exist and notify the user and stop. You do a similar thing with re-name where conflicts exist. It then becomes the responsibility of the user to decide the content of the catagory and ensures it does not conflict.
I guess a user would want to process a category to include a mixture of files/folders in order to provide a simple and speedy, one click, operation which would most probably be a task often repeated. They definitely would not want overwriting and possibly find the addition of a prefix folder a restriction to further processing.

[j_c_hallgren]

I think a possible answer is to do a check before to see if a collision will exist and notify the user and stop. You do a similar thing with re-name where conflicts exist. It then becomes the responsibility of the user to decide the content of the catagory and ensures it does not conflict.

...possibly find the addition of a prefix folder a restriction to further processing.

I think having a collision check would be good, but than what? Suppose I did have the scenario that Don presented...The solution proposed makes sense to me, but that behavior would likely have to be user selectable, as some may not like it...I wouldn't feel the prefix folder addition to be a problem, as it's similar to what I have done manually already.

[lukescammell]

The problem here is unwanted merging (aka collision). Can happen when you Move/Copy/Backup a catalog category. Example:
Catalog Category contains 2 folders
- C:\code
- D:\code
You Move/Copy/Backup this catalog category to E:\ using "Copy To". They both want to go to E:\code. Problem. Unwanted overwriting will happen. How to solve this? Create subfolders representing the source drives?
E:\C\code
E:\D\code
I'd like that but I don't know how common this practice is...

This makes perfect sense to me. Then you can decide if you want to overwrite one or the other yourself.

I dunno, I "go away" for a month or 5 and XY moves on about 3 sub versions. UDC looks FUN And the new preferences layout is just so much better it actually feels like there are less options. Strange how something so relatively simple can make such a huge difference.