Filtered folders in flattned view?

[Zoë]

The current release (457) now respects folder filters, but they're applied after the flatten is complete so it still visits filtered folders. The next release will apply Include/Exclude folder filters before the flatten and everything else after the flatten.

As I said in my first response to this topic, this does mean that items in filtered folders will not appear if you use the "Suppress Filters" command.

[jdmarch]

urge that it were possible to apply filtering before flattening.

Strongly agree. It's very common for me to want to flatten only certain subfolders.

[gwynevans]

Ah - just downloaded the public beta & was looking to report it as a bug, that the folder compare wasn't honouring my folder exclusion, then realised I was using a flatterned folder...

I'm fortunate enough to be able to work around by moving the folders I don't want out in my current example, but would urge that it were possible to apply filtering before flattening.

[jdmarch]

First reaction to flattened view

Not sure how this discussion has been resolved. Just used flattened view for the first time (have been yearning for it for years but had not clicked that Cirrus has it.) Very happy to have it!

I may be mistaken, but there does not now seem to be any way to compare one folder (excluding its subfolders) with another flattened folder. I see two ways to address this:

* Respect existing filters (e.g. excluded folders) when flattening.

* Have flatten be a per-side option. For my purposes, this would be ideal at present because it is easiest (no need to exclude all subfolders before flattening) but because it is less flexible it might prove less useful in the long run.

Thanks!

[ron]

Just stumbled on this feature the other day. Nice! I can make use of this occasionally.

I wouldn't need a toolbar button for it because I don't use it that often. Instead I'd just use the Rules button to quickly get to the checkbox.

As for Filter Before or Filter After, I'd choose Filter Before. If it's easy enough to make it configurable though, then do that too.

[Lutz]

Hi Craig,

in tree view a rebuild is required also if I change path filters. So if this is in flattened view, this won't confuse me more than in tree view.

For Example I loaded D:\websites with only .\generic included.
Suppress filters shows, that .\custum wasn't read.
Adding .\custum as include folder changes nothing until full refresh.

(Folders are: D:\websites\custom
D:\websites\custom\custom1
D:\websites\custom\custom2
D:\websites\custom\custom3
D:\websites\generic)

Greetings Lutz

[DEinspanjer]

To put some things in context, the "Flatten Folders" mode completely rebuilds the comparison from a flat list of the all of the files. It doesn't just flatten the existing tree like some other products do.


We haven't settled on the behavior for this yet, but I agree that some sort of filtering would be good. We have two options for filtering the flattened view:

1. Filter before performing the flatten.
   This has the advantage of not visiting folders that have been excluded. The disadvantage of that approach is that the items won't be included in the alignment at all, so "Suppress Filters" won't work.
   
   
2. Filter after performing the flatten.
   This has the opposite strengths and weaknesses. "Suppress Filters" will work, and filtered items can line up with non-filtered ones. We could weight the alignment so it would line up all the included items before trying to line them up with the excluded ones. The disadvantage, of course, is that it has to visit the filtered folders, which can significantly slow down the comparison.

We're leaning towards the first option, but we're interested in hearing everyone's thoughts on it.

I just attempted to perform a flattened comparison using filtered folders and I was unable to get it to display anything. I was trying to compare an SFTP site's root drive to a subfolder of a local drive. In normal nested view, I set up filters that displayed only the two folders I was interested in, I then turned on flattened view, but no folders appeared after the comparison was rebuilt.

[Zoë]

Would it be possible to filter before flattening, but still allow the user to change the filter after flattening

Yes, but it would require rebuilding the comparison.

We could make the filtering more sophisticated by applying some filters before hand (eg, folder filters and filename filters with paths), and some afterwards (simple filename filters, size & date filters). If that were done the post-flatten filter changes wouldn't require a rebuild. That might be confusing though, since some filter changes would require a rebuild and some wouldn't, and some filtered items would show up if "Suppress Filters" were used and some wouldn't.

[Michael Bulgrien]

Would it be possible to filter before flattening, but still allow the user to change the filter after flattening (i.e. ignore additional files once the flattened list appears)? It will be a pain if the user has to unflatten and re-flatten everytime they want to change the filter.

[Lutz]

I prefer Filter before performing the flatten.

Why?:
I set up a session with (clearcase) base folder M: (\\view) and the include folders './view1/.../source', './view2/.../source', ... and the Source control status=Checked out to view all checked out files in all of my views.
Changing to flattend mode fails because without filtering before there are billions of files!

(I added M: directly to Preferences.xml/TSccManager/Associations to override clearcase view-check).

Maybe a session-related option can be implemented to change the behaviour 'filter before/after performing the flatten'.

[Michael Bulgrien]

We actually had it implemented that way originally, but we think it's enough of a milestone that making it that easy to change might be a bad idea...We're not completely against the idea though, so if the consensus from beta testers is that a toolbar button would be better we can add it.

I understand your concern...but I agree with Christoph. Rarely is it a bad thing to make something this visible "easy to change". It took me quite some time to figure out how to turn on the flattened folders feature. The logical place to look for it (in my opinion) is under the View dropdown menu...right below the "Always Show Folders" option. When I didn't find it there, I looked for it under Tools\Options. Eventually I found it under session rules. The amount of time and effort it took me to find it is indicative that it is not intuitive, and that it is too hard to find.

I recommend that you add "Flatten Folders" to the "Customize Commands" dialog so that it can be added to the View menu and/or the toolbar. No need to ship the product that way, but certainly make it available to users that want it.

Users may have to learn the hard way a time or two that folder expansion state will not be preserved...but once they know how it works, they will appreciate having the feature readily available when they need it.

[Zoë]

Hi Christoph,

Thanks!

To put some things in context, the "Flatten Folders" mode completely rebuilds the comparison from a flat list of the all of the files. It doesn't just flatten the existing tree like some other products do.

When this option is used, the folder filters seem to be ignored.

We haven't settled on the behavior for this yet, but I agree that some sort of filtering would be good. We have two options for filtering the flattened view:

1. Filter before performing the flatten.
   This has the advantage of not visiting folders that have been excluded. The disadvantage of that approach is that the items won't be included in the alignment at all, so "Suppress Filters" won't work.
   
   
2. Filter after performing the flatten.
   This has the opposite strengths and weaknesses. "Suppress Filters" will work, and filtered items can line up with non-filtered ones. We could weight the alignment so it would line up all the included items before trying to line them up with the excluded ones. The disadvantage, of course, is that it has to visit the filtered folders, which can significantly slow down the comparison.

We're leaning towards the first option, but we're interested in hearing everyone's thoughts on it.

Is there a possibility to have a quick-access icon in the toolbar to switch between normal and flattened view?

We actually had it implemented that way originally, but we think it's enough of a milestone that making it that easy to change might be a bad idea. Since it has to rebuild the comparison it will throw out any content comparisons that have been done, and the expansion state of your folders will be lost when you go back to the non-filtered mode.

We're not completely against the idea though, so if the consensus from beta testers is that a toolbar button would be better we can add it.

[chrroe]

Hi!

Nice new feature in build 441: "Flatten Folders" directory handling option.
Having played around with it a bit two questions come into my mind:

1. When this option is used, the folder filters seem to be ignored. That means for example that you see all files in .svn folders in a checked-out subversion-copy. Is that intended by design or a technical limitation with that view?
2. Is there a possibility to have a quick-access icon in the toolbar to switch between normal and flattened view?

As always, nice work guys!


Bye
Christoph