Needs A Proper "selective Sync" Option

[mrmachine]

The "on demand" mode (with .bts links) is a great option, but not always ideal.

 

For example, I don't always want to even SEE all the files in a share. If someone has shared a folder with me and I'm only interested in one subdirectory, all those .bts files are just added and unnecessary noise.

 

It's also kinda confusing that when you delete a synced file, it is replaced with a .bts file, instead of actually deleting the file. To delete a file, you have to delete it twice.

 

I haven't tested, but I can imagine that this might confuse some apps where you delete a file from within the app, the app deletes it from the file system, but the file is still shared to all other devices and a .bts file is still on my share.

 

A traditional "selective sync" option (like Dropbox) would be an excellent option in addition to "on demand". It should behave just like "always/full/auto" sync mode, but with some exclusions. Anything that is excluded (either specifically or by glob pattern or regex pattern) simply wouldn't show up in the local share. But everything that does show up behaves just like any other file.

 

[Moe]

It's also kinda confusing that when you delete a synced file, it is replaced with a .bts file, instead of actually deleting the file. To delete a file, you have to delete it twice.

 

I haven't tested, but I can imagine that this might confuse some apps where you delete a file from within the app, the app deletes it from the file system, but the file is still shared to all other devices and a .bts file is still on my share.

 

The .bts file is just a placeholder for the actual file. If you delete the actual file a placeholder with the exact same name + .bts as the extention is placed and is ~ 100 - 200kb in file size.

Or if you mean something else, can you maybe try to explain it a bit more?

 

The "on demand" mode (with .bts links) is a great option, but not always ideal.

 

For example, I don't always want to even SEE all the files in a share. If someone has shared a folder with me and I'm only interested in one subdirectory, all those .bts files are just added and unnecessary noise.

 

A traditional "selective sync" option (like Dropbox) would be an excellent option in addition to "on demand". It should behave just like "always/full/auto" sync mode, but with some exclusions. Anything that is excluded (either specifically or by glob pattern or regex pattern) simply wouldn't show up in the local share. But everything that does show up behaves just like any other file.

See http://forum.bittorrent.com/topic/33718-selective-file-sync/?p=98010

[mrmachine]

The .bts file is just a placeholder for the actual file. If you delete the actual file a placeholder with the exact same name + .bts as the extention is placed and is ~ 100 - 200kb in file size.

Or if you mean something else, can you maybe try to explain it a bit more?

 

See http://forum.bittorrent.com/topic/33718-selective-file-sync/?p=98010

 

Yes, that's what I said. If you delete a file, it is replaced with a placeholder. It doesn't actually delete the file (from other devices that are syncing that folder). This is confusing, especially if the delete operation is not made interactively by the user in Finder or Windows Explorer, etc.

 

Deleting a file should delete the file. BTS should not overload the operating system's delete operation with "stop syncing this file". To convert a file or a folder that is currently synced back to a .bts link should be a right click option.

 

I suspect that apps that access files in an "on demand" synced share like this might make it easy to produce unexpected results. E.g. if I delete a song from iTunes and tell iTunes to move the file to the trash instead of keeping the file, as far as iTunes on that device is concerned the file will be gone (actually replaced with a .bts link) but for all other devices, it will still be either synced or available (as a .bts link).

 

What I want is "selective sync" (where I can choose which paths or patterns are NOT synced from a dialog, just like Dropbox), and then everything else IS full synced. So if I delete a file, it is removed from all synced devices. If another device adds a new file, it is fully synced as long as it doesn't match an unchecked path or pattern in the selective sync options for the share.

 

"Selective Sync" might just be a GUI for SyncIgnore, that shows all file paths that are available on remote devices as checked by default. Anything that is unchecked gets added to SyncIgnore.