Thoughs on Temporary Excludes

Discussion related to "Everything" 1.5 Alpha.
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Maseron
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Mar 27, 2022 4:32 pm

Thoughs on Temporary Excludes

Post by Maseron »

Hi David, I just wanted to give a couple of notes about the Temporary Excludes feature in hopes that you'll find some of the feedback useful.


I use Temporary Excludes in a somewhat different manner than the name suggests. I prefer to have these items always excluded and only occasionally include them in the search results when I need them. So it's "Temporary Includes" of the usually excluded files for me that briefly list those rarely used files I generally prefer to keep omitted from my regular searches.

In my case, the hidden files are copies of the installation files in C:\Installed\, thousands of identically named backups in various ..\BACKUPS\ subfolders, and a handful of specific file filters, but I assume a lot of people use the Exclude feature in order to avoid accidentally flaunting the names of their various private files (not to mention their X-rated collections) to everyone in their family or workplace. The problem with permanent excludes, however, is that until 1.5 you couldn't search them easily, and I'm sure that most people would want to be able to temporarily search the unlisted files on their system before "hiding" them again.

The reason I'm telling it is because I have a suggestion that I'd find very useful but that seems a bit counterintuitive to the feature's name. Under all the scenarios I mentioned, you'd ideally want the "Enable Temporary Excludes" toggle to always reset to its default "ON" value with the program's start, to make sure that the temporarily listed files would return to their regular "hidden" excluded state even if you forget to switch it on manually. The easiest way for this would be an additional "Enable Temporary Excludes in New Windows" setting that, if enabled, would auto-toggle "Enable Temporary Excludes" in every new search window opened.



Back to the name question, perhaps it would make sense to consider renaming the whole thing while it's still in alpha. Again, I only use it in the scenario described above and prefer to use boolean NOT (!) to exclude something temporarily, so it's possible I miss the intended uses of the feature altogether. I'll still throw this out here in case it gives you or somebody else a better idea.

So, under my usage, I'd probably tweak things to something like this:

1) Merge the Temporary Excludes list with the main one. I'm including a hastily produced prototype of how it could be done below.
2) Rename "Enable Temporary Excludes" to "Show Excluded" (or "List Exclusions", "Override Exclude List", or something in this vein)
3) Remove "Clear Temporary Excludes" or tweak it to set the "Disable" flag (see the screenshot below) for all the items on the list that don't have the "Always Hidden" flag.
4) Remove "Make Temporary Excludes Permanent" or tweak it to set the "Always Hidden" flag (see the screenshot below) for all the items on the list.
5) Rename "Show All Temporary Excludes" to "Manage Excludes" (or "Manage Exclusions") but keep the convenient pop-up for managing the Exclude tab's entries on the fly.
6) Per above suggestion, add "Always Hide Excludes in New Windows" (or "Hide All Exclusions on Start Up", etc.), to have an easy option to automatically toggle off "Show Excluded" in each new window. Between doing it on the program's start and between each new Everything window, the latter probably makes more sense).
Everything_Exclude.png
Everything_Exclude.png (49.47 KiB) Viewed 1174 times

The main idea is to consolidate both features under one tab and simplify things for everyone involved, also while making the terminology a little bit more intuitive.

Hope any of this feedback has any value, and thanks again for keeping this already invaluable software in active development.
void
Developer
Posts: 16735
Joined: Fri Oct 16, 2009 11:31 pm

Re: Thoughs on Temporary Excludes

Post by void »

Thank you for your feedback Maseron,
In my case, the hidden files are copies of the installation files in C:\Installed\, thousands of identically named backups in various ..\BACKUPS\ subfolders, and a handful of specific file filters, but I assume a lot of people use the Exclude feature in order to avoid accidentally flaunting the names of their various private files (not to mention their X-rated collections) to everyone in their family or workplace. The problem with permanent excludes, however, is that until 1.5 you couldn't search them easily, and I'm sure that most people would want to be able to temporarily search the unlisted files on their system before "hiding" them again.
For Everything 1.4, I recommend either:

Changing your Everything filter.

-or-

multiple instances to avoid toggling index excludes.


The reason I'm telling it is because I have a suggestion that I'd find very useful but that seems a bit counterintuitive to the feature's name. Under all the scenarios I mentioned, you'd ideally want the "Enable Temporary Excludes" toggle to always reset to its default "ON" value with the program's start, to make sure that the temporarily listed files would return to their regular "hidden" excluded state even if you forget to switch it on manually. The easiest way for this would be an additional "Enable Temporary Excludes in New Windows" setting that, if enabled, would auto-toggle "Enable Temporary Excludes" in every new search window opened.
I will consider an option to always enable temporary excludes.

Consider changing your Everything filter as mentioned above.
Change the Everything filter to exclude your desired folders and create a new filter to really show all files/folders.


Back to the name question, perhaps it would make sense to consider renaming the whole thing while it's still in alpha. Again, I only use it in the scenario described above and prefer to use boolean NOT (!) to exclude something temporarily, so it's possible I miss the intended uses of the feature altogether. I'll still throw this out here in case it gives you or somebody else a better idea.
I would like to remove "Temporary" in the name.
I used temporary to imply 'fast toggling'.
I should have gone with Quick Excludes.
I am leaning towards "Result Exclude List", since this option will primarily be used to exclude results.


1) Merge the Temporary Excludes list with the main one.

I would like to keep the two options:
Exclude from results.
and
Exclude from index.

It is important users be able to completely exclude files/folders from their index.


Please try changing the Everything filter.
I think filters will be more beneficial for your use case.

Thank you for your suggestions.
void
Developer
Posts: 16735
Joined: Fri Oct 16, 2009 11:31 pm

Re: Thoughs on Temporary Excludes

Post by void »

Everything 1.5.0.1306 renames Temporary Excludes to Omit Results.


To always enable Omit results for new windows:
  • In Everything, type in the following search and press ENTER:
    /home_omit_results=1
  • If successful, home_omit_results=1 is shown in the status bar for a few seconds.
  • Type in the following search and press ENTER:
    /omit_results=1
  • If successful, omit_results=1 is shown in the status bar for a few seconds.
To restore the default and have Everything remember the last Omit results setting:
  • In Everything, type in the following search and press ENTER:
    /home_omit_results=0
  • If successful, home_omit_results=0 is shown in the status bar for a few seconds.
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