Can we get support for Opus Collections and support for Opus Collections path drive 'Coll://'

[Ralf_Reddings]

File Collections as it is explained in the Directory Opu user guide:

>A file collection is a virtual folder that acts as a container for other files and folders. The items in a file collection do not need to be stored in the same physical folder

• they can reside in other folders, on other disks, or even in other virtual file systems like FTP. When you add items to a collection they are not actually moved or modified at all - all Opus stores is a reference to the original file.

They work similar to Windows "Libraries" virtual folders but in a much more flexible system. For example in a Windows Library virtual folder you cannot choose to include just files, you can only add folders and even then you cannot execlude child folders. In Opus Collections you can add just the items you want.

Also unlike Libraries, you can also nest a collection folder inside another collection folder.

In this example. I can drag individual files from an Everything Window or from Opus window and drop them to the bottom panel, which is a collection folder called My Collection:



Like windows Libraries path structure Libraries\Videos, Opus Collection also have their own path structure, they start with Col//:, so coll://My Collection or coll://My Collection/Collection 2 for further nested collections but this Col//: drive is only accessible in Opus address bar, not File Explorer.

Like Libraries, the collection folders themselves are nothing more than .Xml stored at .\AppData\Roaming\GPSoftware\Directory Opus\Collections and they are created in real time as the user drags and drops items:

Code: Select all

.\AppData\Roaming\GPSoftware\Directory Opus\Collections\My Collection.col
.\AppData\Roaming\GPSoftware\Directory Opus\Collections\My Collection\Collection 2
.\AppData\Roaming\GPSoftware\Directory Opus\Collections\My Collection\Collection 2.col

The nested collection Collection 2 is stored in its own subfolder that is named after its parent collection My Collection.

The .xml content of the My Collection collection I created in the gif above is:

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<collection dupeflags="0" dupes="no" name="My Collection">
	<item access="+1d9bca4+4004c8fb" attr="32" create="+1d720e5+5f3d13f8" modify="+1d720e5+5f3f2d10" reserved0="0" size="0x1910b">C:\Temp\Red Gun.jpg</item>
	<item access="+1d9bcaa+d91d5ceb" attr="16" create="+1d9bca3+b89b94b5" modify="+1d9bcaa+d91d5ceb" reserved0="0xa000000c" size="0">C:\Temp\Textures</item>
	<item access="+1d9bca4+3ff639e0" attr="32" create="+1d720e5+5f274e10" modify="+1d720e5+5f2a3440" reserved0="0" size="0x20025">C:\Temp\Gattling Gun.jpg</item>
	<item access="+1d9bca4+18a9ca0" attr="32" create="+1d720e5+5ef9d570" modify="+1d720e5+5efb3500" reserved0="0" size="0x12aa2">C:\Temp\Pistol.jpg</item>
	<item access="+1d9bca3+9e85f217" attr="32" create="+1d720e5+5ed5920e" modify="+1d720e5+5ed8e271" reserved0="0" size="0x23d57">C:\Temp\Textures\Metal.jpg</item>
</collection>

The Command Line tool that is bundeled with every Directory Opus installation, C:\Program Files\GPSoftware\Directory Opus\dopusrt.exe, can be used for external reading of file collections. THIS page from the documentation goes into more depth about it.

If you need help with the Directory Opus side of things or want questions put to GPsoftware over at their forum, I am more than happy to help.


A real time indexing for Opus Collections and support for Opus Collections path structure, Coll://. So we can perform searches like the following would be amazing to have:


Cheers!

[void]

I have put on my TODO list to add support for indexing coll://

Thank you for the suggestion.

[Ralf_Reddings]

Amazing! Thank you!
This will make Everything even more varsatile than it already is.

Looking forward to it.