Sync Tools

[admin]

Don, what things do you envision being in this dialog other than selection modifications?

I'm a bit disappointed in this feature thus far. I've been holding back judgment, but it's beginning to sound like you're planning on moving on to something else, so before I attempt to put my thoughts into some constructive criticism I'd like to know where you plan to eventually take this.

The current plan is to leave the Sync Tools dialog as it is (KISS), and add more functionality to the sync scripting command. Time will show whether any of the additional functionality should be available also through the Sync Tools UI.

[TheQwerty]

The current plan is to leave the Sync Tools dialog as it is (KISS), and add more functionality to the sync scripting command. Time will show whether any of the additional functionality should be available also through the Sync Tools UI.

Okay then, here's my very long post...


My gripes:
1) As this feature revolves solely around selecting items at the moment, I find it misleading to call it Sync Tools. Sure, these are selection methods that can help a user keep two locations in sync but as it stands it has little to do with syncing.

2) To further show this... Of the 85 words on the dialog: 11 select; 2 selected; 2 sync. That's 15% going to select in one of its tenses. Put another way, the wording could use some work.

3) Stop overloading "OK" with semi-hidden features. Looking at this dialog no user is going to figure out that Ctrl/Shift+OK do something special, and if they do I bet they don't remember what each does.

Opening a new dialog is not as simple as a sub-menu, but refusing to actually put useful items in the dialog is even worse. This is far from KISS!


Given that I suggest:
1) Rename the feature to "Select..." or (keeping with Rename) "Select Special...".

2) We've got much larger problems if your users are too stupid to understand how to use a dialog when it appears, so replace "Select a command and click OK to execute it." with some details about what these functions do: "These functions will modify the selection in the active pane based on items in the inactive pane. They are best used for comparing two locations which have similar content."

3) Add an "Invert" check box and a radio group:
"Selection Method:
() Append
() Remove
() Replace"

I think these are pretty self-explanatory. I'm not partial to this being a radio group; it could be a list-box or even replacing "OK" with "Append," "Remove," "Replace". (Though if you go with adding buttons they should probably be named differently to hopefully give them all unique first-letter access keys.)

4) Give the item list a caption: "Select..." so it doesn't need to be repeated in each item.
5) Drop the two line display for the items, use tooltips to provide explanations. This reduces initial clutter and the amount of mouse traversing needed by the user.

6) Items (Tooltip):
----
Matching (Selects items that appear in the inactive pane.)
Selected (Clones the selection of the inactive pane.)
-
Accessed Most Recently (Selects items which were accessed more recently than their matches in the inactive pane.)
Last Modified (Selects items which were modified more recently than their matches in the inactive pane.)
Youngest (Selects items which were created more recently than their matches in the inactive pane.)
-
Bigger (Selects items which are larger in size than their matches in the inactive pane.)
----

Unique can be done via inverting Matching.
Unique & Newer may save the user a little bit of time, but it's not worth junking up the GUI when it can so easily be achieved through scripting or visiting this dialog twice.

Because of #4 this also means the user can just type the letter of the item they want, so it improves keyboard usage of the entire dialog.

I realize the "Selects items ... in the inactive pane" gets old, and perhaps it could be dropped since the explanation (#2) should make this clear, but since this text only appears when the items are hovered over I feel it's not that bad.


Sorry Don, I feel you really dropped the ball on this feature and it sticks out like a sore thumb with this clunky interface. But it should have been expected that after your vacation it might take a bit to return to full form.

[admin]

The current plan is to leave the Sync Tools dialog as it is (KISS), and add more functionality to the sync scripting command. Time will show whether any of the additional functionality should be available also through the Sync Tools UI.

Okay then, here's my very long post...

Thanks, long and inspiring!

But note that I still want to leave the door open for other than Select commands, at least for a while. When it really turns out that this is all only about selection, then I will reevaluate your post. But even then, the selections are based on synchronicity/symmetry, and/or are intended to increase synchronicity/symmetry, so I think Sync Tools is a valid caption. But I see it will be misleading initially. Actually I had called it "Select Special..." in one stage but then turned back to my initial idea of Sync Tools. I'm almost sure that commands other than selection will be added in future.

Nevertheless, I applied some of your ideas, and especially text bits. Always on the hunt for good English...

[TheQwerty]

But note that I still want to leave the door open for other than Select commands, at least for a while. When it really turns out that this is all only about selection, then I will reevaluate your post. But even then, the selections are based on synchronicity/symmetry, and/or are intended to increase synchronicity/symmetry, so I think Sync Tools is a valid caption. But I see it will be misleading initially. Actually I had called it "Select Special..." in one stage but then turned back to my initial idea of Sync Tools. I'm almost sure that commands other than selection will be added in future.

Nevertheless, I applied some of your ideas, and especially text bits. Always on the hunt for good English...

I understand your desire to keep it open ended, and clearly the motivation behind my original question was to get a feel for what non-select commands might be added. With it being so focused on selection today, and with there also being many other possible selection commands that could be added, I'm inclined to believe we'd be better served in the short and long term by making it a Select Special feature today.

When the desire to add something non-selecting arrives we can cross that bridge then, but I have a feeling those commands will likely be more at home in a separate feature anyhow, even if it ends up being essentially a clone of this.

Anyhow, I think I've exhausted my 2-cents.

[admin]

But note that I still want to leave the door open for other than Select commands, at least for a while. When it really turns out that this is all only about selection, then I will reevaluate your post. But even then, the selections are based on synchronicity/symmetry, and/or are intended to increase synchronicity/symmetry, so I think Sync Tools is a valid caption. But I see it will be misleading initially. Actually I had called it "Select Special..." in one stage but then turned back to my initial idea of Sync Tools. I'm almost sure that commands other than selection will be added in future.

Nevertheless, I applied some of your ideas, and especially text bits. Always on the hunt for good English...

I understand your desire to keep it open ended, and clearly the motivation behind my original question was to get a feel for what non-select commands might be added. With it being so focused on selection today, and with there also being many other possible selection commands that could be added, I'm inclined to believe we'd be better served in the short and long term by making it a Select Special feature today.

When the desire to add something non-selecting arrives we can cross that bridge then, but I have a feeling those commands will likely be more at home in a separate feature anyhow, even if it ends up being essentially a clone of this.

Anyhow, I think I've exhausted my 2-cents.

You speak with reason. These 2-cents were well spent. I might in fact do as you say...

[admin]

6) Items (Tooltip):
----
Matching (Selects items that appear in the inactive pane.)
Selected (Clones the selection of the inactive pane.)
-
Accessed Most Recently (Selects items which were accessed more recently than their matches in the inactive pane.)
Last Modified (Selects items which were modified more recently than their matches in the inactive pane.)
Youngest (Selects items which were created more recently than their matches in the inactive pane.)
-
Bigger (Selects items which are larger in size than their matches in the inactive pane.)
----

Unique can be done via inverting Matching.
Unique & Newer may save the user a little bit of time, but it's not worth junking up the GUI when it can so easily be achieved through scripting or visiting this dialog twice.

Because of #4 this also means the user can just type the letter of the item they want, so it improves keyboard usage of the entire dialog.

I still think the current collection of 5 commands is a good choice for starters, and Unique & Newer is justified to break the symmetry. Let's see how the feedback on 9.60 goes...

[Stefan]

Today i had an real use for SyncTool and
i got many items selected as Newer only because the files i had copied yesterday
on my USB-Stick are 1 second younger then the items on the hard drive.

So i want to bring back to mind the time-difference setting:
ignore till seconds=2
ignore hour=1;2


And what's about the "act at both panes the same time" idea ?
Mostly i want to compare both panes whats here and there newer (or bigger )

All over all I would not hide that many features and refer to scripting
because the average user would not consider to learn scripting to use XYplorer.
(Including me downloading XYplorer at an clients host (i had just 3 days the possibility to spread the word)
to show the power of XY, which ends often in : "XY can aid you, but you have to learn scripting to use more features then the author provides you in the GUI...")

Scripting is very fine, but such basics should be there and understandable for all users,
and that at first view after download (or at an screen shot).

So i would say too, your SyncTool is currently an SelectionTool.
If i would download XYplorer to see how "Sync" is implemented i wouldn't
consider that as an well implemented sync feature, but as selection feature it would be ok.

sorry if i didn't found the right english words.
.

[admin]

Today i had an real use for SyncTool and
i got many items selected as Newer only because the files i had copied yesterday
on my USB-Stick are 1 second younger then the items on the hard drive.

So i want to bring back to mind the time-difference setting:
ignore till seconds=2
ignore hour=1;2

Aha. Is that a common thing that USB-stick files are 1 second younger?

And what's about the "act at both panes the same time" idea ?
Mostly i want to compare both panes whats here and there newer (or bigger )

Yep, I might add that.

All over all I would not hide that many features and refer to scripting
because the average user would not consider to learn scripting to use XYplorer.
(Including me downloading XYplorer at an clients host (i had just 3 days the possibility to spread the word)
to show the power of XY, which ends often in : "XY can aid you, but you have to learn scripting to use more features then the author provides you in the GUI...")

Scripting is very fine, but such basics should be there and understandable for all users,
and that at first view after download (or at an screen shot).

Depends. I simply have to draw the line at some point. It will always be too much for some users, and not enough for others. No decision can change this. However, scripting is a fine way around this problem IMO. If you need more than what's offered in the GUI, you can get it, but you have to do something for it. It's not true that you have to learn scripting: you just have to find a script. Using the snippet command (not official yet, but soon), it's extremely easy to add scripts of any size and number to the toolbar.

[Stefan]

Today i had an real use for SyncTool and
i got many items selected as Newer only because the files i had copied yesterday
on my USB-Stick are 1 second younger then the items on the hard drive.

Aha. Is that a common thing that USB-stick files are 1 second younger?

I read this here and there, and i saw this options with other sync tools.
The 1 second difference i saw only yesterday, because i had the need to sync
and so i downloaded XYplorer to do this and was wondering why are that much items 'newer'?
At "normal" sync-work i didn't see this before because mostly i do this not every day,
but on fridays only, so i didn't notice this 1s behavior.
That i have differences of exactly one or two hours is common, i have this often.
So other experiences are welcome.

It's not true that you have to learn scripting: you just have to find a script. Using the snippet command (not official yet, but soon),
it's extremely easy to add scripts of any size and number to the toolbar.

So i will do my best to aid this.