Filters
Filters allow you to control what files or folders will be included in the comparison result file list. In Compare Advance there are three different filters:
- The Load Filter. This is used to control what files or folders to include when loading the contents of the two root folders.
- The Archive Folder Filter. This controls what files or folders to filter from Archive Folders.
- The View Filter. This controls what files or folders to include in the file list display.
For simple purposes, you will only need to use the View Filter. This is also the filter that is set in the View Filter dialog, which can be opened quickly by clicking on the "Show View Filter" toolbar button. The other two filters give you more control over the filtering process when required.
Files that are filtered by the Load Filter, will not be included in the statistics pane. Files that are filtered by the View Filter, are included in the statistics pane, even when they are hidden from view!
The Load Filter can be used to filter out folders that you don't want to be included in the folder comparison. These folders will be skipped entirely, so the load process will be faster.
The Archive Folder Filter allows you to apply specific filter settings to Archive Folders. Often you will want these to be different to the other filter settings. If you are a programmer, then a common example would be to exclude all compiled files (*.obj, *.class, *.dcu or *.exe files), as these can be generated from the files that already exist in the corresponding archive file.
All three filters are set in the Project Settings->Filters page. To make things easy, the filters page has a "main" tab, which shows a summary of all filter settings.
Each filter consists of three tabs.
- The first tab lets you set files to include or exlcude.
- The second tab lets you set folders to include or exclude.
- The third tab lets you set file size and file date filters.
Filtering files:
If you want to filter a file type (e.g. all ".txt" files) then you can use a dos file mask.
A dos file mask accepts the * or ? characters, which mean:
- * - zero or more of any character
- ? - any single character.
If you want to filter a specific file, then include the relative path as well as the name of the file you want to filter.
Filtering folders:
Each folder filter string must start with a preceding backslash. If omitted, it will be added automatically.
The folder filter also accepts dos file masks, so for example to exclude the folder "\compare", type in "\compare" (without quotes), but to exclude any folder that contains the text "compare", type in "*compare*" (without quotes), the asterisks meaning "anything before, and anything after".
Folderprints
A folderprint is a file containing all the file information of a folder, sometimes referred to as a snapshot or catalog.
Currently folderprint's store the filename, size and timestamp of each file in a given folder. You can save a folderprint of a folder and then load it to be used in a folder comparison, or just to see the contents of this folder that may no longer exist on the local hard drive or may have been the picture of a CD or DVD that is no longer in the CD/DVD drive.
Multi-Folder Select Auto-Filter
When selecting one of the root folders with the Select Folders dialog (which is opened by pressing the "Select Folders" button), you have the option of selecting multiple folders to make up each root folder:
(Using the multi-folder select option in the Select Folders dialog)
This allows you to include and exclude specific folders from the selected root folder. Compare Advance automatically calculates the root folder from the checked folders. In the following example, initially "C:\_1\Book" is checked and so the root path is also "C:\_1\Book".
(Only "C:\_1\Book" is checked)
Now, if the folder "Apache" is also checked, the root folder will automatically change to "C:\_1". The root folder automatically goes up (the directory tree) as many steps as required to include all checked directories.
(Root folder becomes "C:\_1" after folder "Apache" is checked)
The advantage of the Multi-Folder Auto-filter feature is that you don't have to initially decide on a root folder and then exclude sub folders. You simply choose the folders you want to include in the comparison, and Compare Advance will automatically calculate the root folder as well as the sub folders to exclude.
The auto-filter operates independently from the other standard filters and can only be changed from the Select Folder dialog. You can see a list of which sub-folders have been included by the auto-filter in the Project Settings->Folders page.
When folders have been included/excluded by the auto-filter the edit box for that folder will turn blue. This indicates that sub folders have been excluded by the auto- filter. As soon as any text is typed in the edit box, the color will go back to white, indicating that the auto-filter has been cleared and that no auto-filter applies to this folder.
NOTE: When using the multi-folder select option, the "include root files" option is enabled. If you don't want to include files of the root folder, uncheck this option.
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