Export as .efu (and others)

[meteorquake]

I'm sure I'm not alone in doing a "Compare" and ending with a vast number of items!
I always like to check or troubleshoot what Synchronise will do before I click it, but the current layout is rather limited in ability to do that.
Currently there is an Export File List but it's not in an immediately useful format.
However there is a way to drastically improve this, which is to use the .efu format, used by voidtools Everything, and perhaps there are some popular alternatives which people might mention that could also be covered, all of which would only require a few tweaks to make. So the export File List would ask the format to generate.
With the .efu format I could for example visually preview all photos or videos that are about to be deleted or content-updated, which would be an astonishing improvement, and I could filter however I wished, for example omit empty folder deletions (which for me drown everything else out).
The .efu format is extremely simple when you consider the data that is of interest, so using two photo hypothetical examples it would look like this -

Filename,Size,Date Modified,Date Created,URL
"D:\docs\pic 1.jpg",643739,132967641978666790,132967641978315567,MovB
"D:\docs\pic 2.jpg",425173,132967642029573283,132967642029189731,DelB

For the action column I would anticipate the following values (where A and B are the left and right hand panes or they could be L R) -
MovA
MovB
ChgA (i.e. content change A)
ChgB
AddA
AddB
DelA
DelB
or a combination e.g. MovA-ChgB

In the case of a one-way synchronise the A B could ideally be omitted so e.g. Mov Chg Add Del but no probs if not.

In .efu the action column could be put under the URL heading for practicality unless a better can be suggested.

Since the export dialog is popping up for the format (last settings remembered) it could have tickboxes to filter for which of the action values you actually want to include, and whether you want to include folders, and the format of output (.efu etc) and where to save it (remembering the last) and whether to autolaunch. Filtering the results is useful because realistically I think most will be happy not to be informed of the deletion of empty folders, and in a long list the main interest is usually going to be updated and deleted files, not moves and additions.

Personally I think such a export format feature would truly be a game-changer in terms of previewing what changes are about to occur before clicking Synchronise.

David

[therube]

As it is now, you can easily pull in the filenames into Everything.

take the .csv
delete everything after the comma* (such that all that remains is the name)

(a comma may exist in a filename itself, which if deleted from there would "break" the name, so you need to be sure to delete from the "correct" comma - anyhow, that aside...)
s/,.*// (would take care of it - aside from the aside above)

from there, simply copy all the file names to clipboard
& paste them into a filelist# in Everything

Never mind.
That's not going to work because the file "names" are only "relative" to the folder pairs.
If the full file names were listed, then something like above should work (properly).

(And of course it will only find the files that are indexed in Everything.
As in if something like a non-local shared drive were in FFS's .csv & that drive was not indexed by Everything, then obviously Everything would not be able to display those files.)

Anyhow, what you going to do, review things?
Nah, that's when you're supposed to throw caution to the wind ;-).

[meteorquake]

Indeed :)
In my case it's a backup SSD plugged in via USB - I'm sure that will be many people's cases, or a live SSD in a spare slot in the computer itself which Everything picks up - so all left and right files will be previewable. If someone wanted to preview a network drive I guess they'd index it as you suggest.
I'm not keen on any large-scale commits without assessing it, but more generally it's easy to do accidents and even if you notice at the time and plan to restore from the backup you may forget. At other times you have a change of heart at the time of previewing the commit and decide you want to keep the file after all.
As well as previewing it would address various other shortcomings, for example at the moment on FFS a file that is moved is considered as updated just as a content change is, but in my mind they are quite different - and I would want to see updated-content files not moved ones. I move zillions of image files all the time so that currently quite obliterates seeing genuinely updated ones and it also obscures being able to see deleted files since in FFS delete view mode, folders and files are mixed together and the deleted files are lost amongst a vast sea of folders to delete (due to the file movements). You can sort by size I think but then you lose the structure and without a preview it's very cumbersome. Having an .efu export would solve everything and add so much more ability!