Folder Formats

This page lets you configure the Folder Formats system, which lets you define folder formats (display parameters) for specific folders, folders containing certain types of files, or defaults for certain types of folders. For example, you can make it so that Opus automatically sorts a particular folder by date in reverse, or switches into thumbnails mode in any folder containing mostly images.

The Folder Formats system is powerful but rather complex. There's an FAQ on it at the Resource Centre that we recommend you have a read of as it may explain things in a bit more detail than this help file does.

The Formats list is grouped into different sections:

• Path Formats: This group contains formats that have been defined for specific folders. You can also define a format for a path using a wildcard string - in the screenshot above, a format has been defined for any path below a folder called Visual Studio Projects, as well as for the folder C:\Test.
• System folders: Contains formats that can be defined for certain special locations. There are currently only two formats in this group - the Computer folder, which is used when Opus displays My Computer itself rather than hosting Explorer, and the Portable Devices folder, which is used when viewing the root of the mtp:// namespace.
• Content Type Formats: The Content Type section contains formats that are defined for file type groups. When the Content Types system is enabled, these formats will be used automatically when a folder containing enough of those types of files is read. For example, the Content Type format for the Images group can be set to switch the display into thumbnails mode. If you navigated to a folder that contained mostly images, this format would be applied automatically.
• Default Formats: This section defines the default formats that are used for certain types of folder when a specific format hasn't been defined. The default types are:
  • Collection: The default format for File Collection folders.
  • Custom: This is the over-all default format that is used if no other format has been defined (see below).
  • Flat View: This specifies a format that is applied whenever a file display is put into Flat View mode.
  • FTP: The default format for FTP sites.
  • Local Drives: The default format for folders located on local drives (fixed hard drives like C:).
  • Network Drives: The default format for folders located on network drives.
  • Portable Devices: The default format for folders located on portable devices (like phones and cameras).
  • Removable Drives: The default format for removable drives like USB flash drives.
  • Search Results: The default format for a File Collection that is used to present search results. This will override the Collection format for these collections.
  • Synchronize: This is a format that is applied whenever the Synchronize tool is used.
  • ZIP: The default format for ZIP files.
• Favorite Formats: These are formats that aren't linked to a specific folder, but instead can be applied quickly to any folder through a drop-down list in the Lister's Folder Options menu.

You'll notice that some formats in the list have checkboxes - this lets you turn a format on or off (in the case of Path Formats, it lets you temporarily disable a format without deleting it from the list).

Whenever you navigate to a new folder, Opus consults the Formats list to work out what format to display it with. The list is searched from top-to-bottom:

1. First, if a Path Format has been configured for that specific folder, or the folder matches a configured wildcard format, it will be used.
2. Secondly, the Content Types system is checked if enabled. If the folder contains enough files to meet the requirements of one of the Content Type formats, that format will be used.
3. Next, if no other format has matched, the Default Format for that type of folder or drive is used. In the screenshot above, however, all the Default Formats are turned off, and so...
4. Finally, if a Default Format hasn't been configured (or is turned off), the Custom format is used. This is a "catch-all" format that can never be turned off and represents the underlying default format for all folders.

(As a side note: There are some cases when the above doesn't happen when you navigate to a new folder. If you have edited the format in the current file display with the Folder Options dialog, step 4 does not take place - your manually edited format will be maintained until you navigate to a folder with its own specific format defined. And if you have the format lock turned on, the format will never automatically change).

To edit the formats, use the toolbar buttons at the top of the page:  (add a new format),  (edit an existing format),  (rename a Favorite format) and  (delete a format). Clicking the Add button displays a drop-down menu that lets you select the type of format to add:

• Path Format: a format for a specific path.
• Wildcard Path Format: a format for any path that matches the specified wildcard pattern. You can define the pattern using the standard Opus wildcard system, or using regular expressions.
• Content Type Formats: Actually this option doesn't do anything except open the File Types dialog for you. Content Type formats are based on File Type Groups, and so to add a new Content Type you have to use the File Type editor to add a new group. Once you add the group through the File Type editor, it will appear in the Content Types section in the Formats list and you can then define the format for it.
• Favorite Format: You will be prompted for the name of the new format.

As well as using the toolbar buttons, you can also:

• Double-click a format to quickly edit it
• Right-click a format to copy its definition and paste it into another, an existing format to your favorites list, or copy the definition of a favorite format into another format.

When you edit a format Opus displays the Edit Format dialog. This dialog contains several tabs with options that control various aspects of the folder display. Each tab contains several sections and these sections can be enabled or disabled separately. When a section is disabled the options within that section are not applied to the display even when the format itself is used. This means that "more specific" formats (like a Path Format for a certain folder) can inherit settings from "more general" formats like one of the Defaults. For example, the wildcard format for Visual Studio Projects in the screenshot above does nothing except set the file display to be grouped by Date modified. The rest of the display parameters will come from the applicable default format.

The Columns tab lets you configure which information fields (columns) are displayed for the folder when the file display is in Details or Power mode. The selection of columns also has an impact on other display modes like Thumbnails - even if the columns aren't displayed, you can only sort or group by columns that have been enabled. The drop-down list at the top-right lets you select from a number of different categories of fields (if you select All you'll see there are actually quite a lot of fields, so dividing them into categories makes it a lot easier to find the one you're looking for). The fields in the chosen category that aren't currently enabled appear in the list on the left, and the enabled fields are shown on the right. To move a field from one list to another you can double-click it, drag and drop it, or use the left and right arrow buttons between the two lists.

In the list on the right, you can change the order the columns will appear in the file display by drag and drop or using the up and down arrow buttons. You can also re-order columns in the file display itself by dragging the column headers around.

The Width column in the fields list lets you specify the width for individual fields - move the mouse cursor over the column and click to edit the width setting (which is given in pixels). If no width is specified, a default width (or automatic width) is used.

The Sort column indicates which field the list will be sorted by. If a single checkmark is shown, there is only one sort field (in the screenshot above, we're sorting by Filename). If a number with an arrow symbol is shown it indicates multiple sort fields. To change the sort field, single click in column on the desired field. To assign multiple sort fields, click on the first field as normal, then hold either the Control or Shift keys and click on the second field, then the third, and so on. If you Control/Shift-click a field that is already sorted, the direction of the sort for that field only is changed - so you can for example sort by size in one direction and date in the other.

The Group column lets you choose which field (if any) the list is grouped by. To group by a particular field, click on it in this column - click again to reverse the group direction, and click a third time to turn the grouping off.

On the Display tab, the View section contains options relating to the view mode of the file display.

• View as: you can have the file display automatically switch to thumbnails, or details, for example.
• Auto-size columns: This option causes column widths in details and power mode to be automatically sized to fit their contents.
• Hide file extension in Filename column: This does just what it says - you might want to enable this if you have added the separate Extension column (or if you just hate file extensions!)

Also on the Display tab, the Sorting Options section contains options that affect the sorting of the file list (other than the actual field or fields the list is sorted by - this is specified on the Columns tab).

• Ignore prefix: This lets you specify one or more filename prefixes that Opus will ignore when sorting the file list. The screenshot above shows that The |A |An has been given, which means a leading The, A or An (all three are followed by a space) at the beginning of a filename will be ignored when sorting. If you specify more than one prefix you must separate them with a vertical bar character as shown above.
• Mixing: This option lets you choose how files and folders are to be sorted with respect to each other. You can choose to list all the files before the folders, all the folders before the files, or to have files and folders interspersed.
• Keep folders sorted alphabetically: With this option on, folders will always be sorted alphabetically even when the list is sorted by another field. This doesn't apply if you have chosen Mix files and folders together for the Mixing option.
• Numeric order filename sorting: This option changes the way files and folders that begin or end with a number are sorted by name. When off, digits in names are treated like any other character when sorting. When turned on, digits at the beginning or end of a name are sorted based on their numerical value. 
      
  The image on the left shows an example of sort order when numeric order sorting is off; the image on the right is with it on.
• Reverse sort order: This option reverses the order of the sort - for example, if the sort is normally from A to Z, it would instead be from Z to A.
• Word sort: This option enables special handling for punctuation characters in filenames. In a word sort, all punctuation marks and other non-alphanumeric characters, except for the hyphen and the apostrophe, come before any alphanumeric character. The hyphen and the apostrophe are treated differently than the other nonalphanumeric symbols, in order to ensure that words such as "coop" and "co-op" stay together within a sorted list.
      
  In the image on the left, word sort is turned off; it is turned on in the image on the right.

On the Filters tab are two similar sections; Show Filter and Hide Filter. They can be used to control which files and folders are shown and which are hidden when the format is applied to a folder. The Show Filter causes files to be hidden if they don't match the filter, and the Hide Filter causes files to be hidden if they do match.

The Filename and Folders field both take a wildcard string expressed using standard pattern matching. The Attributes field lets you filter files and folders based on their attributes - if any of the checked attributes are set on the item, it will match the filter and be shown or hidden as applicable. The attributes checkboxes correspond to Read-only, Archived, Hidden, System, Encrypted and Compressed.

In the screenshot above you can see that nothing has been defined for the Show Filter, but the Hide Filter is set to hide any files that end in .ini or .bak, any folder called .svn (no wildcards were used so the folder name must match exactly), and for no reason in particular, any files with the E (encrypted) attribute set.

The first section on the Options tab lets you define a background image that the format will apply whenever it is active. This can be nice to use with the Content Types system; for example, you could have a background image of a music note that appears whenever the Music Content Type format is in use, as a visual cue that you are in a music folder. The Image drop-down lets you define the image to use - the images in this list are added to Opus using the Display / Images Preferences page. You can control the position of the image in the file display with the Type drop-down. The Color field lets you assign a background color for the file display that will override the color set in the Display / Colors and Fonts section. In the above screenshot, no color has been specified - this is indicated by the "transparent" checkerboard pattern.

The final section contains general Options for the format. Note that unlike the others, this section can not be turned off.

• Get folder sizes: Use this to specify whether folder sizes are calculated automatically for sub-folders when this format is applied. If set to Default the setting in Folders / Folder Behavior will apply instead.
• Show compatibility files: If this is turned on, Opus will automatically display the contents of the compatibility folder along with the current folder, if applicable. If set to Default, the setting in Folders / Folder Display will apply.
• Include columns from other matching formats: This option affects which columns are displayed when this format is in use. If turned off (and the checkbox for the Columns page is enabled), the only columns displayed in details or power mode will be the columns defined by this format. If this option is turned on, then the columns defined by this format will be displayed, as well as the columns for any other formats that match the current folder. In this case, the method used to find a folder format described above is modified slightly. The first matching format is still used, but the search doesn't stop immediately - Opus will continue down the order of priority looking for other formats that match, and apply any columns (and only columns - no other settings) that those formats define. This process stops as soon as a matching format is encountered that doesn't set the Include columns from other matching formats option.
• Use as the default format for all sub-folders: This option is used with path formats - if turned on, the format defined for a path will also be used for any sub-folders under that path, unless they have their own specific path format defined as well.