descript.ion file in Synchronize Dir

[gaspare]

I use frequently Synchronize dir for regularly back-up all my files.
I also use descript.ion file with a lot of my files and/or Directories.
However when I use Sinchronize Dir (just to quantify: about 30000 files in about 3000 Directories), I do not back-up the descript.ion files.
The only way to back-up also descript.ion files is to temporarely mark "no-descript.ion" file on the configuration.
However, this is dangerous: more than one time happened to me to forget to return back to ordinary configuration and to lose some descript.ion (e.g. later when copying a file with descript.ion on the original - when you forget, you realize only after days).
My suggestion is to have a "check box" in the Synchronize Dir menu that ask descript.ion copy for a singe synchronize operation.

Thanks Gaspare

[ghisler(Author)]

TC copies comments with files also in synchronize dirs - just copying just the descript.ion files will not merge comments correctly. Of course this doesn't help when only the comment was changed, but not the file itself.

[gaspare]

My comment was relevant to the specific case of back-up.
In Synchronize Dir, there is the check box "asymmetric" which is specific for the case of back-up. In this case the final scope should be to have the right side become 'identical' to the left side, no matter if the user has (in the configuration) the option of use descript.ion files.

TC-Help say (text from Synchronize Dir: asymmetric): "If this option is checked (asymmetric),it is assumed that a copy of the left side should be created on the right side". I would say that TC does not meet its commitment, in this case. For this case, its commitment is a back-up; it does not promise a file coping with its description copying and relative comment merging.
Gaspare

P.S. I do not want to give the impression that I critize the program, which for me is, by far, the best that I have ever seen.

[ghisler(Author)]

You are right, TC could just copy the comment files in asymmetric mode - but it would be strange if it would be handled differently from symmetric mode. What do other users think?

[Horst.Epp]

Even in asymmetric mode TC should not simply copy the descript.ion.
This will produce wrong content if some files were filtered out and therefore not copied.

[gaspare]

According to me what is confusing is the word 'asymmetric'. I do not know if the word has a specific meaning in computer science.
When I read the word in the TC screen I felt the need to read the help file. The help file instructed me to interpret the word 'asymmetric' as a back-up.
But if the meaning is a back-up, I expect a back-up.
I understand that you could say: I make a back-up only of all the files that are listed in the left pannel. If there 34567 files are listed, I make a back-up of those 34567 files: no descript.ion file (they are not listed because the configuration specifies 'copy comment with files').
My point is that the user more probably expects a back-up of all the path that is shown in the upper part of the screen. I think that no user will notice that no descript.ion file is listed among those 34567 files. Should he notice, he will probably ask 'Why?'
I will try to express my comment in other words. TC foresee two option bits: a first bit in configuration pannel instructs TC to copy descript.ion file with the file itself. The second bit in Synchronize Dir instructs TC to operate in 'asymmetric' mode. These two bits however are incompatible each other, and there is not a clear behaviour to satisfy both bits.
Today TC works accordly the second bit and ignore the first one only because (my iphotesys) the second one is on the same pannel in which the operator is working. But it ignore the first bit in a strange way: it simply skip the comment copying. My point is that it should ignore the first bit in a different way. It should ignore the bit and act accordingly, i.e. insert the descript.ion file in the left file list: this is what happen if you reset the bit.
At this point I will try to express better what is my suggestion; I do not know whether it was hunderstood correctly (or explained correctly by me).
My suggestion is: if the bit "copy comment with files" is set in the configuration, the Synchronize Dir should work in the following manner:
1)the 'asymmetric' option should be disabled (dimed), 2) a separate check box in the same pannel (Synchronize Dir) allows to temporarely (for one command alone) disable the "copy comment with files" bit, and only if you check this added check box the 'asymmetric' check box become enabled.
The name of the new check box could be "temporarly disable copy comment with files".

Gaspare

[karlchen]

Hello, Gaspare.

However much you may try, you will not get around Horst.Epp's valid argument

Even in asymmetric mode TC should not simply copy the descript.ion.
This will produce wrong content if some files were filtered out and therefore not copied.

Provided in asymmetric mode the user did not have any choice of filtering out any objects, in this user-unfriendly situation it would be all right if T.C. simply copied each descript.ion file found on the left side to the appropriate location on the right side.
Yet, as Horst.Epp rightly says, the user may have filtered out objects. These objects may have comments assigned to them. Following your approach the filtered out comments would be copied over to the target side nonetheless. But the comments of the filtered out objects must not be copied to the target side. <As simple as that. Period.>

So the way which Total Commander handles comments during asymmetric synchronization is perfectly all right, as long as source folder and target folder are real folders.

Synchronizing comments is less than satisfying in symmetric and in asymmetric mode whenever one side is an archive and not a real folder. Yet, this is a different story. It has been discussed before. And Christian has explained in other threads why synchronizing comments from or to an archive is not feasible with reasonable efforts.

My suggestion is to have a "check box" in the Synchronize Dir menu that ask descript.ion copy for a singe synchronize operation.

Although I do not follow your argumentation about "asymmetric synchronization" at all, I tend to support your suggestion to have the suggested check box which has to be activated before a synchronization operation (default off, activation not sticky) and which tells T.C. to treat descript.ion files as normal files this time (as if CopyComments were off).
There should be a note warning the user that by activating this option any existing descript.tion files in the target folders will be overwritten and that there is the chance of losing comments.

Reason:
It is the only way of synchronizing comments from a real folder to an archive and vice versa. - I am aware of the potential downsides. See above.

Kind regards,
Karl

[gaspare]

Hi karlchen

your sentence:
"the way which Total Commander handles comments during asymmetric synchronization is perfectly all right, as long as source folder and target folder are real folders."
is not correct.
I can give you cases in which TC does not copy comments also when both source and target are real folder.
The trivial case is when the user have update only the comment without changing the file.

The truth is that the handling of 'asymetric' together comments is simply an impossible mission. The today behaviour of TC can produce lose of comments. The behaviour I suggest can produce copying of unwanted comment (in case the user filtered out some file).
Does not exist a behaviour that is safe in any case.

However I think that you have not yet understood my point.
I will try to explain better.

I am not corcerned about the correct/not correct working of the process for handling asymmetric synchronization.
I found hard to figure out a possible use of 'asymmetric' synchronization.
The only practical use that I find is for doing incremental back-up.
For doing this job I found that TC is fantastic.
I regularly back up all my dynamic directory in an external hard disk. The problem is that to copy about 70 GB of data I need to block the PC for a long time.
With TC the job is very easy. I do the job almost every day, because I can back-up only the file that was changed during that day.

The problem is that I have the risk to lose some comment (may be I have updated only the comment). The situation is not so unusual: suppose I have dowloaded a pdf file and that I find only two week later the time to read the document, at that time I insert the comment for the document which have the risk not to be backuped.

So my suggestion is to introduce in TC an option fo handling incremental back-up.
In my view is crazy to have in our hand a fantastic tool to handle the incremental back up and leave it at 99%.

Consider also that back-up are useful to cover emergency case in which you have lost your data. In that case is better to have some not wanted comment in the back-up than to have some data missing in the backup.


By the way I use TC for doing incremental back-up since about 6 year.
The last time I lost some comment was about 4 year ago, when I realized the problem I have tried to explain.
At that time I found a work-aroud, and I have not lost anything since then.
The work-around is this:
I have copied totalcmd directory in a second folder. I have so two copies of TC in my computer. In this second TC I have removed the "copy comment with files" option.
When I have to do a back up I activate the second TC. I have selected a different color scheme for the second copy of TC to make impossible make confusion.
My comment was only to avoid this work-around. I am a fan of TC and I suggest to all my collegues to use it. Need for incremental backup is very common in my environment. But sometime I have got a few complain about comment loosing. Comment are very used for example with photos and I know a few cases of loosing comments. Comments in photos are by definition modified without changing the photo, so they are almost never backuped by TC.
A typical situation that come up is when you have to give your photo to your friend. You do not give your PC, it is easier to give the external hard disk with the back up. You give the photo and say to the friend "these are the photo with all my comments", and your friend answer "beautiful photo" but I did not found any comment".
These happened to some friend of mine and always only to friends that I convinced to use TC.

Gaspare

[karlchen]

Hello, Gaspare.

All right, you caught me:

Total Commander does not handle the case correctly when files have not been changed, but their comments have. This is true for "Synchronize Dirs" in symmetric mode as well as for "Synchronize Dirs" in asymmetric mode. - Christian himself admitted so.

The truth is that the handling of 'asymetric' together comments is simply an impossible mission

Correctly handling cases where only comments have been changed, but not the files/folders which the changed comments belong to, is the same task whether you are using "Synchronize Dirs" in symmetric mode or "Synchronize Dirs" in asymmetric mode.
You are assuming a difference between "Synchronize Dirs" in symmetric mode and "Synchronize Dirs" in asymmetric mode which simply does not exist.

Correctly handling cases where only comments have been changed, but not the files/folders which the changed comments belong to, is not implossible. It has not been implemented so far. It may or may not be a p.i.t.a. to implement, but it is not impossible.

However I think that you have not yet understood my point.

Maybe. But more important, it seems as if you have not yet reailzed that "Synchronize Dirs" in symmetric mode and "Synchronize Dirs" in asymmetric mode have got much more in common than you are trying to tell us.

"Synchronize Dirs" in symmetric mode

Basic goal:
Make content of source folder and target folder the same.
(1) copy everything from the source folder to the target folder which either does not exist in the target folder or which is older in the target folder.
(2) copy everything from the target folder to the source folder which either does not exist in the source folder or which is older in the source folder.

Result:
In the end both folders will hold exactly the same content.


"Synchronize Dirs" in asymmetric mode

Basic goal:
Make content of target folder (always right panel) the same as content of the source folder (always left panel)
(1) copy everything from the source folder to the target folder which either does not exist in the target folder or which is older in the target folder.
(2) remove everything from the target folder which no longer exists in the source folder.

Result:
In the end both folders will hold exactly the same content, and this is the content of the source folder only.

As can be told easily the difference is step (2).
Symmetric mode applies changes from left folder to right folder and from right folder to left folder. The result is cumulative.
Asymmetric mode applies changes from left to right only. The left foldr will not be modified.


Factor of confusion:

On user request, Christian has implemented quite a few filters and other possiblities for the users to modify the basic rules of "Synchronize Dirs" in symmetric mode and "Synchronize Dirs" in asymmetric mode in order to enable them to handle cases where the basic rules explained above were not fine grained enough.

This may be confusing and make users fail to see what symmetric mode and asymmetric mode really are, what they have got in common and what is different.

I am not corcerned about the correct/not correct working of the process for handling asymmetric synchronization.

I can assure you that I am concerned about it and everybody using asymmetric synchronization should be, too.

I found hard to figure out a possible use of 'asymmetric' synchronization.

I use it everyday for exactly the basic usage which has been explained above.
In my case this is making daily backups of the current content of particular folders. And the backups should, no, must reflect the content of the source folder exactly.

The only practical use that I find is for doing incremental back-up.

I agree to the term backup.
Yet, you can create a full backup if you feel like doing so with the help of "Synchronize Dirs" in asymmetric mode. You do not have to do incremental backups. Full versus incremental backup is not dependant on "Synchronize Dirs" in asymmetric mode. It depends on your backup strategy.

So my suggestion is to introduce in TC an option fo handling incremental back-up.

Suggesting this is a totally different story and unrelated to the missing feature of handling cases correctly where only comments have been modified, not the objects to which the comments belong to.
Total Commander is not a dedicated backup software as such. It does offer features which can be used for full or for incremental backups already. Therefore your suggestion to fix the partially incorrect handling of updated comments is unrelated to the question of full backup or incremental backup.

Adding the missing feature of correctly handling modified comments affects "Synchronize Dirs" in symmetric mode as well as "Synchronize Dirs" in asymmetric mode. And here we are back at the beginning of my post.

This missing feature can be implemented, the question is at which price? How much effort and time will Christian have to invest? What will be the penalty in terms of runtime? Is it worth it? These questions need to be considered and a decision needs to be made. And in the end the missing feature will be implemented or maybe not. Whatever the decision will be, it will affect both "Synchronize Dirs" in symmetric mode as well as "Synchronize Dirs" in asymmetric mode.

Kind regards,
Karl