Question about Super Flexible File Synchronizer

[J-Mac]

I purchased SFFS, based of course on the great recommendations here at DC.  But I have run into a stupid issue that's driving me a little crazier than I already am!  It doesn't affect functionality, but it is annoying me just the same.

SFFS takes whatever profiles I create and tries to group them as it sees fit.  I would prefer to group my profiles as I desire; not as the program decides.  THe first example I ran into is naming some sync folders starting with the word "My", as in My Important Docs, My Pics, My Music, etc.  SFFS insists on then creating a group named "My" and then listing profiles under that group.  For example, the folders I named in the previous sentence show up as follows:

--My
-----Important Docs
-----Pics
-----Music

How do I stop it from grouping my profiles as it sees fit?  I can rename folders but not groups.

Thanks.

Jim

[superboyac]

I'm not sure if it's possible to do what you're asking.  As you can see, the way SFFS is programed, it will automatically group into folders whatever begins with the same characters.  Since you prefix all of those folders with "My" then they will all be grouped under a "My" directory.  It's an interesting implementation by the author, but I agree that it would be more intuitive and flexible if the user can just organize the groups based on the normal folder/object way.  Perhaps you should send your suggestion to him as a feature request.  He is very responsive to suggestions from what I can tell.

[J-Mac]

Thank you.  Interesting - to say the least!  I love programs that work well; I am usually annoyed with programs that force you into hierarchies or structures that the developer apparently favors.  Requires you to change the basic ways you think.

I won't bother writing the developer about it. Doesn't usually help for preferences like this.

Thanks again!

Jim

[cranioscopical]

J-Mac: I won't bother writing the developer about it.

It just might be worth asking, in order to see what comes back.

Like you, I was a little startled by this behaviour and it annoyed me.
(Curmudgeon that I am, any thing or person that demands that I zig immediately causes me to zag.)

After a while I found that the grouping often turned out to be useful.  I'd still prefer an 'override' for specific circumstances.
I think I'll send an e-mail and see what transpires -- I'll post the gist of any reponse.

[tinjaw]

It may be a simple configuration option that you can change, but a workaround would  be to use an underscore. My_Documents, My_Pictures, etc.

[tomos]

That's funny I havent seen this behaviour -
but I do use an underscore for those profiles starting with the same name,
maybe I'll get rid of it see -
could be helpful to me cause I've named the profiles after the destination...

Edit: the author does respond very quickly                                                                                                     

[cranioscopical]

An impressively fast response from the developer says:

Tobias Giesen:
currently you need to add another word as the first word in order to
group them for example,
Backup My Documents
Backup My Pics
Backup My Music

That will create a group called Backup.

Currently it's not any more flexible.
I will consider making it more flexible in a future version.

Nice to encounter someone who's open minded about this kind of thing.

I think tinjaw's solution is good for now.

[superboyac]

Yeah, he's very responsive and open-minded.  One of the best developers I've seen.

Myself, I don't think this feature is entirely restrictive, and it is useful.  The point is, i can work with it and there are some good points to it.  So it doesn't bother me so much, although it was a little weird in the beginning.

[J-Mac]

Thank you for all the replies, folks.

I didn't mean to imply that the developer would not respond, or respond in a timely fashion.  It's just my experience that good developers usually respond favorably to requests about functional issues, and even innovative feature requests.  But I'm not seeing anything functionally wrong with the application; it's really just a personal UI preference.  I get a file/folder naming structure set in my mind and I can get a little frustrated if I am forced into someone else's idea for a naming convention.  When a developer imprints his or her own naming conventions on a program, it is usually not going to change.

I was just hoping that there was actually a work-around for this in SFFS and that with all the SFFS users here that someone might have found it and could share it.  Appears that's not the case, though.  It is certainly not going to stop me from using the program just as effectively.  I'm just set in my ways and like most animals, if I am knocked out of my planned scheme of things - in this case, profile-naming - it slows me down a bit.  Takes me a while to adjust to someone else's scheme.

Thanks again!

Jim