FFS 7.9 Behavior Change Makes It Unusable for Me

Discuss new features and functions
Posts: 4
Joined: 26 Jan 2014

Lion

Because 7.9 broke a feature that I use extensively, I'll have to stay on 7.8 until it's fixed. In short, after doing certain mirror-mode compares, I heavily depend on visually examining the proposed changes; sometimes there are one or two that need to go the other way from the rest. It's always been easy: exclude the ones that need to reverse, do the sync, reverse the direction, select those that need to go that way and sync again.
Alas, 7.9 broke that feature by immediately clearing the excluded items that I will need to handle later. Please do either of two things:
1. Restore the previous behavior of leaving everything not yet sync'd on the screen or
2. If that clearing is deemed a desirable action for some users, provide a configuration option to select which behavior best suits the user's needs.
Thanks for this excellent product; I've used it ever since I discovered it. I've tried many freeware offerings over the years (retired with a hobby of looking for goodies in that haystack) and found it to be one of the few "keepers" that was worth adding to my toolbox and donating to.
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Posts: 7052
Joined: 9 Dec 2007

Zenju

I'm not aware of any change in this area. Can you provide specific steps how to reproduce the problem? From your description above I'm not able to reproduce a problem of excluded files being removed after sync.
Posts: 4
Joined: 26 Jan 2014

Lion

This gets odder. Starting when I installed 7.9 over 7.8, when viewing the compare results, clicking an item to exclude it from the sync I'm about to do immediately removes it from the list. Likewise, if I right-click the center column and click "exclude all" with the intention of then clicking the specific items I want to include, it now clears the entire display. In the past, what I excluded remained in the list greyed out. I had assumed that uninstalling FFS and then reinstalling 7.8 would reverse any changes and revert to the past behavior. To my surprise, after writing the above, I found that 7.8 now did the same thing instead of behaving as it did before. Is there some configuration option affecting this behavior? I couldn't find one, in either the menus or the help, but perhaps I overlooked something.
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Posts: 7052
Joined: 9 Dec 2007

Zenju

The reason for the changes you see is that excluded files are hidden by default now. However you can change the default values for the view filter buttons: https://freefilesync.org/manual.php?topic=tips-and-tricks#save-view-filter
Posts: 4
Joined: 26 Jan 2014

Lion

When I complained, I'd thought that the exclusions were gone for good until I re-scanned. But now that I know the rather obscure method of alternately hiding and restoring the excluded files, I find the feature very useful. However, option settings are scattered about; it would be helpful if, in a future version, Tools -> Options gave a pull-down list of links to all FFS's various options/settings menus.

Many thanks for your help in discovering a useful feature and my apologies for the delay in responding.