Add notes/description to a sync job

[philipW99]

Is it possible to add text notes to a sync job? I would like to describe the job (e.g. backup of all photos) as well as describe the filters (e.g. no previews, current catalog, plus archive).

[xCSxXenon]

You can add details to files in the properties of the file, through File Explorer. Naming them of course is a big start.

[tlindsay]

I also would like the ability to add notes to a job configuration - perhaps another tab in the Synchronization settings window, a note field for each folder pair line. It would help to remember the rationale for the pair and especially the filtering. I've not been able to see where/how to add details or comments in the config file properties.

[Plerry]

Never tried this, but the *.ffs_gui and *.ffs_batch files are XML files.
After saving those, you should be able to edit these with any suitable
text or XML editor and add comments. See e.g. here how.
Such comments are obviously not visible nor editable in the FFS GUI,
and are likely not even preserved after modifying and saving the
configuration in the FFS GUI.
But I agree that an ability to add (and preserve) comments,
editable in the FFS GUI, would be a nice enhancement.

[tlindsay]

Plerry, I've been trying your idea as a work-around. It appears to be working. I've been able to add comments as their own lines or add them inline after a specific command with a space in between. However, I have no experience with XML - is the inline method supported? I've read some articles suggesting that it is allowed.

Anyone know if there are there special characters that would allow adding comments within the GUI's filter window, either inline or generally?

[tlindsay]

Just noticed, that if I made and saved a change within the GUI, the comments I added outside of the GUI (using Notepad++) were removed.

[xCSxXenon]

Such comments are obviously not visible nor editable in the FFS GUI,
and are likely not even preserved after modifying and saving the
configuration in the FFS GUI.

[tlindsay]

Oops, sorry I missed that before.

[Plerry]

And you also missed my reference on how to properly insert comments in XML files.
Although still, I don't expect even proper XML comments to be preserved after a (re)save in FFS (presently).

But, if XML is out of your league, why not simply add a txt-file (*.txt) with your comments, in the same location as and identically named as the FFS configuration file (e.g. sync123.ffs_gui and sync123.txt). Such txt-file will obviously even be preserved after (re)saving its corresponding *ffs_gui or *.ffs_batch configuration file.

[JustAnotherUser]

I would also like to have the possibility to add some notes to a job. These could be very informative and displayed when hovering over a job in the job list.

Sometimes it's just too hard to fit all the descriptive information into the job name.

[tlindsay]

A perhaps silly but effective (for me) way I'm doing this is to add a line of comment text as a folder or filename in the filter section(s). As long as its text is not an actual file or folder name, FFS will ignore it.

[Zenju]

Implemented for FreeFileSync 12.3: Add custom notes to sync configurations

[JustAnotherUser]

Thank you very much Zenju for implementing this and for listening to the wishes of your users/customers. I really appreciate that.