Hi, first of all I want to thank you for a really amazing peace of software.
We tested now several synchronization tools, both free and commercial
programs, and imho yours is the best.
If fits our needs almost perfectly. Almost, because there are two "nice to
have" features we would appreciate to have it in one of the next versions.
1. Exclude of empty folders together with the "Date" filter.
I read in a other thread that you have implement this feature already in
V3.19, so my question is:
When this version will be released? Are we talking about days/weeks/months...?
2. Enhancement of the "Date" filter option if possible.
For us it would be very helpful if you can implement some more options, not
only how many days back.
As there are: *) enter a specific date (e.g. time too)
*) enter a range from .... to ....
*) since last sync
I hope I could explain clearly what we want/need :)
Again, thank you for the great job you've done in the past. I hope you still
enjoy it, so that this great software will last forever.
Greetings from Austria
Hari
Ovations, Question and Request
- Posts: 6
- Joined: 14 Jul 2011
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- Site Admin
- Posts: 7198
- Joined: 9 Dec 2007
>1. Exclude of empty folders together with the "Date" filter. When this
version will be released?
Shouldn't take too long this time. There is yet another feature I want to
implement, then the release will be ready for shipping. No translation update
this time, this will speed things up.
Unfortunatly while implementing "skip empty folders" I realized another edge
in the design: current implementation simply excludes ALL folders as soon as
the date filter is set. Files in subfolders then implicitly create only the
folders required and everything will work nicely on a first synchronization
with an empty target folder. However subsequent syncs will not be able to
fulfill this requirement anymore: Existing empty folders are not deleted!
Here we are dealing with a more fundamental problem that is unrelated to time
filtering. It is the same like excluding all "*.tmp" files and then start a
mirror sync, expecting that all existing *.tmp files in target folder will be
deleted.
This also, is currently not possible with FFS. "Exclusion", be it temporary or
via filters means "do not touch during this sync". Consequently this design
does not allow to simply delete items that are excluded.
So the challenge here is to find a generalization of the design that allows
for this possibility, solving both "delete excluded elements" and "delete
empty target folders". One first idea I had for mirror sync is to give all
items that are excluded their own category. For this category then the usual
three directions "left, none, right" would be available, whereas "left" means
delete left, "right" means delete right". One obvious drawback is that
category is then dependent on the include/exclude status. This status is
variable and can be changed by the user, thous this new category is also
variable. This is in contrast to the old and proven design to assign a
category at the time of comparison and have it fixed. Additionally it seems
there is some fundamental difference in semantics between "not relveant for
sync" and "delete non-relevant items". This will have to be modelled clearly.
So this innocuous requrement of "delete empty target folders" for "sync'ing a
time range" seems to entail some medium/larger changes for some fundamentals
of FreeFileSync's design. This needs to be done with great care.
> 2. Enhancement of the "Date" filter option if possible.
I see the usage of the date range to allow for a repeated synchronization
covering the "latest" elements. Selecting specific dates and/or specific
ranges is naturally not reusable. Thous there is no fundamental benefit to
doing this task manually by sorting by date on main grid and selecting the
required items.
-Zenju
version will be released?
Shouldn't take too long this time. There is yet another feature I want to
implement, then the release will be ready for shipping. No translation update
this time, this will speed things up.
Unfortunatly while implementing "skip empty folders" I realized another edge
in the design: current implementation simply excludes ALL folders as soon as
the date filter is set. Files in subfolders then implicitly create only the
folders required and everything will work nicely on a first synchronization
with an empty target folder. However subsequent syncs will not be able to
fulfill this requirement anymore: Existing empty folders are not deleted!
Here we are dealing with a more fundamental problem that is unrelated to time
filtering. It is the same like excluding all "*.tmp" files and then start a
mirror sync, expecting that all existing *.tmp files in target folder will be
deleted.
This also, is currently not possible with FFS. "Exclusion", be it temporary or
via filters means "do not touch during this sync". Consequently this design
does not allow to simply delete items that are excluded.
So the challenge here is to find a generalization of the design that allows
for this possibility, solving both "delete excluded elements" and "delete
empty target folders". One first idea I had for mirror sync is to give all
items that are excluded their own category. For this category then the usual
three directions "left, none, right" would be available, whereas "left" means
delete left, "right" means delete right". One obvious drawback is that
category is then dependent on the include/exclude status. This status is
variable and can be changed by the user, thous this new category is also
variable. This is in contrast to the old and proven design to assign a
category at the time of comparison and have it fixed. Additionally it seems
there is some fundamental difference in semantics between "not relveant for
sync" and "delete non-relevant items". This will have to be modelled clearly.
So this innocuous requrement of "delete empty target folders" for "sync'ing a
time range" seems to entail some medium/larger changes for some fundamentals
of FreeFileSync's design. This needs to be done with great care.
> 2. Enhancement of the "Date" filter option if possible.
I see the usage of the date range to allow for a repeated synchronization
covering the "latest" elements. Selecting specific dates and/or specific
ranges is naturally not reusable. Thous there is no fundamental benefit to
doing this task manually by sorting by date on main grid and selecting the
required items.
-Zenju
- Posts: 4
- Joined: 18 Jul 2011
ad >1: What about a simple button: "delete empty folders on right side after
sync'ing"?
ad >2: A fixed date would be helpful to automatically produce an incremental
backup (after a full backup is made on this date). The problem is: Say,
someone copies or moves files, say one week old, into the folder which has to
be "backupped". An e.g. daily backup of the last one day will not backup these
files!
sync'ing"?
ad >2: A fixed date would be helpful to automatically produce an incremental
backup (after a full backup is made on this date). The problem is: Say,
someone copies or moves files, say one week old, into the folder which has to
be "backupped". An e.g. daily backup of the last one day will not backup these
files!
