Folder Filters Fail to expose subfolders

[Michael Bulgrien]

I compared two folder trees that contained hundreds of subfolders. I wanted to see all folders having one of three names, so I edited the session settings and created folder filters. The folders I specified were not displayed. In fact, the only files that did appear were in the root folder. See screencast.

I tried using the same folder filters with flattened folders, but it did not work either. Please folder filters are not useful to me unless I can view subfolders by a given name regardless of the names of their parent folders. It will take me hours to work through all these folders...where a folder filter that can expose subfolders would reduce the effort to minutes (literally).

[Zoë]

Use filters in the form ".\...\<FolderName>" as the include filter. That will tell BC to visit all of the folders to look for that one even if they don't match another include name.

Unfortunately it looks like that's only working in BC2 right now; I'll see if I can get it fixed in BC3 soon.

[Lutz]

Hello!

...

Unfortunately it looks like that's only working in BC2 right now; I'll see if I can get it fixed in BC3 soon.

'...' works fine with BC3, even without the base './':



BUT:

Excluding files hides some folders:



Removing the exclusion doesn't show the folders again:



until full refresh.

Greetings Lutz

(BC3 453)

[Michael Bulgrien]

Thanks. I used the following folder filters and could see the files I wanted:

.\*\*\*\LogFiles
.\*\*\*\Reports
.\*\*\*\TestTools
.\*\*\Interim

The other problem is that files in the root folder are displayed. If I remove the * and replace it with another folder filter, then the files in the root folder should not be displayed since they do not match the new folder filter. To see the files the my root folder, the filter should include * somewhere in the list as follows:

*
.\*\*\*\LogFiles
.\*\*\*\Reports
.\*\*\*\TestTools
.\*\*\Interim

In my case, I was prepping to delete all of the files in the filtered folders...but when I issued a "Select All Files" it selected the files in my root folder as well (see screencast) which would have been disasterous if I had actually deleted the files!

[Lutz]

To exclude root files use './*' in the filters dialog exclude files field or '-./*' in the combo box.
I think it's a bug that BC shows root files if there are include folders (implicit '.\' folder filter).

[Zoë]

The current behavior is not a bug. You two are talking about folder filters and it isn't possible using the current syntax to not have an "implicit" .\ folder filter. The other way to have the behavior you want is to replace the "*.*" for the "Include files" edit with ".\...\folder\...\*.*".

[Michael Bulgrien]

The current behavior is not a bug. You two are talking about folder filters and it isn't possible using the current syntax to not have an "implicit" .\ folder filter.

Please explain. I know that BC2 does the same thing...but I don't understand why there would/should be an implicit .\ folder filter when I've specified a different folder filter to be used. If not a bug, it is certainly undesireable functionality.

The other way to have the behavior you want is to replace the "*.*" for the "Include files" edit with ".\...\folder\...\*.*".

I really don't understand this. Are you saying that I should specify the path in the file filter and leave the folder filter unchanged as follows:

File Filter:

.\*\*\*\LogFiles\...\*.*
.\*\*\*\Reports\...\*.*
.\*\*\*\TestTools\...\*.*
.\*\*\Interim\...\*.*

Folder Filter:

*

This seems overly complicated. I would rather the folder filters limit the viewable files to the folders I've specified. That would make the most sense logically.

[Zoë]

Please explain. I know that BC2 does the same thing...but I don't understand why there would/should be an implicit .\ folder filter when I've specified a different folder filter to be used. If not a bug, it is certainly undesireable functionality.

Just because it wasn't what you want doesn't mean it's generally undesirable behavior. I believe that not having an implicit .\ filter would be just as confusing, and would be harder to explain to people. Once you see that the files in the root folder are included it's very easy to explain how to exclude them. I don't believe that explaining that someone has to add a ".\" filter just to include their base folders is somehow simpler.

There's also the fact that the current behavior has existed for 6 years, and we have no idea how many people are depending on it, so there's virtually no chance it's going to change.

I really don't understand this. Are you saying that I should specify the path in the file filter and leave the folder filter unchanged as follows

Yes, that's what I was suggesting.

This seems overly complicated. I would rather the folder filters limit the viewable files to the folders I've specified. That would make the most sense logically.

The folder filters limit which subfolders are included. I can't see an alternative being less complicated.

[Michael Bulgrien]

The folder filters limit which subfolders are included.

I guess what you are saying is that you cannot exclude the root folder or all content under the root folder (files and folders) will be excluded. If any level of a folder filter path is excluded (imlicitly or explicitly) then it would negate the folder filter itself. Thank you. I understand that now. This means that exclude rules override include rules.

I can't see an alternative being less complicated.

I would request (wishlist for a future version of BC) a session settings option that allows a user to reverse the logic. It would be nice if the user could specify whether the exclude filter rules override the include filter rules (current functionality) or whether the include filter rules override the exclude filter rules. Choosing the latter would allow one to exclude everything except for what is implicityly included. It would allow the simplicity of what I originally tried to do:

-.\
.\*\*\*\LogFiles\
.\*\*\*\Reports\
.\*\*\*\TestTools\

Exclude the root except for paths that include a folder called "LogFiles", "Reports", or "TestTools" four levels deep. The explicit include filter would override the exclude filter.