Really Basic Stuff

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November 3, 2007 - 12:57pm

martine

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Really Basic Stuff

This is the first time I have attempted to use any type of backup or synchronizing software. (So far I have only done simple, manual copy>paste type backups.) I'm trying to work in the "Sync" tab, and my goal is to add the 25% of things that are missing in the backup folder from the master folder.

I'm disappointed that the help menu doesn't clearly define these terms:
Copy, Mirror, Update, Equalise

(Equalise, not equalize? Lord Lamerton must be a Brit. Or an Aussie. Cheers!)

So I have admitted my ignorance. I speak and read English reasonably well (northern California variant of the language), and I can guess what those terms mean, but I'm not certain how the Toucan software will handle my files. What if there are different versions (dates) of the same files? Will some get deleted? I can experiment, but I'm one of those strange people who likes to read the documentation first.

Thank you Mr. Lamerton and all who provide portable applications. I greatly appreciate them.

November 3, 2007 - 1:05pm

John T. Haller

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Help File

Why not just read the help file. I don't use Toucan, but decided to find out. I opened the help file and knew the answer in less time than it took you to post this.

Incidentally, go to the help tab. Click Help. In the help file that comes up click Sync. There's a full explanation of all terms on that page.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

November 3, 2007 - 1:27pm

(Reply to #2) #3

martine

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You're right, of course

Thanks, John.

I looked through the help files twice before posting this, but still managed to miss "For help using Toucn please see:" at the very bottom. There it is, with good explanations.

Sorry to waste your time. Maybe I'll start over with a new name in this forum, now that everybody knows what a goofball I am...

The function select box allows you to choose which type of operation to carry out. Copy files simply copies all of the files in the source directory into the destination whereas Update only copies newer files. Mirror creates an exact copy of the source in the destination and equalise is like running update in both directions, giving both of your folders the newest files.
[Moderator RM: The A tag is for links; you're looking for CITE. I fixed for you]

November 4, 2007 - 9:11am

Steve Lamerton

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Hehe

Lord, indeed I am a Brit, but certainly not a lord

November 11, 2007 - 2:04am

(Reply to #4) #5

Danielle

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Help file?

I have to admit... The help file is somewhat hidden, and I often have trouble remembering where to locate it.

Would it be to much trouble to have the help button on the app point to the help file, or at least have an obvious link on the site?

November 25, 2007 - 11:30pm

(Reply to #5) #6

martine

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Thanks, Danielle

I feel 5% less stupid for asking the question now.

November 25, 2007 - 11:29pm

(Reply to #6) #7

martine

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Lamerton - A Brit Indeed

My son is 13, and although he has lived his entire life in northern California, he's a complete Anglophile. All his discretionary reading is set in medieval Britain. (Oops - there's also modern Ireland, now that he reads Eoin Colfer.) He grew up on Brian Jacques' Redwall books, and has never recovered. We'll probably have to send him to university in England or Scotland...

Thanks again.

May 18, 2009 - 10:33am

lwc

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7 basic points

1) The screenshot in the main page is misleading. It doesn't reflect very important features like the help or preview buttons. [link removed by mod JTH. Do NOT link to imagevenue, it hosts porn ads, popups and breaks the browser's back button with redirects], which you may use.

2) There should really be a color box in the Sync menu. It's not comfortable going back and forth to the help, which explanation of colors doesn't even have colors.

3) The help doesn't explain "Mirror" well. I was sure it just means "clear + update", but it clearly doesn't (no pun intended). Instead, I think it means "clear + copy".

4) The help doesn't explain if "update" bases itself on creation dates, modification dates, sizes or all of the above.

5) An empty log is created for successful batch operations. I think it's against the principles of being portable if it's just empty. If it's in principle, then at least write something in it.

Not every command line prompt is part of another script. Sometimes it's merely a shortcut. Which leads me to:

6) Please allow making logs (which aren't empty) open up automatically so we'll know what happened.

7) Please allow a batch-progress dialog hybrid. That is, don't condition usage of a command line prompt with giving up on a progress dialog. Especially considering the lack of points 5) and 6).

Thanks for this great program! I hope you'll consider my points.

May 18, 2009 - 12:05pm

(Reply to #8) #9

Steve Lamerton

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Thanks

for the feedback,

Sure, I hadn't noticed this, I have asked John to update it, is it not an urgent matter though
If you hover over the coloured text a popup should help you understand what is going on
Yes, it is the same as Clean & Copy, it doesnt copy identical files however and the whole operation is done in one pass
It currently uses modification date, I shall update the helpfile to make this clearer
It should output whatever would have been in the progress box had you run it from the gui, are you saying it is completely emtpy?
Not sure what you are saying here, are you saying after you have run something from the command line you want to log automatically opened?
So you are saying you would like to progress box to pop up when you launch from the command line? Is the output to the screen not enough? It should be the same as what would be output on the progress bar

May 19, 2009 - 2:49am

(Reply to #9) #10

lwc

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7 replies + 1 new

1. You could have just deleted it because it was a temp link that just waited for you to download. But why should it matter what other users may choose to upload there? This one was uploaded using a "family safe" option in the upload form.

2. See, I had no way to know that...it's better than before, but I still wish there was a color box.

3. That's just it. It *does* copy identical files. That's why I must resort to doing "clear + update" in two passes.

4. So different sizes don't matter by themselves?

5. I am saying it is completely empty (0 bytes) for *successful* jobs.

6. Yes, I want an option to make it act like that.

7. Yes, that's what I want. It's not just that the output to the screen dissapears without waiting, but that using command line parameters don't have to mean I want a DOS output.

P.S.
There are some text-less icons in the program. Unless you add text to them, can you please give them a pop up text like the colors in 2)?

May 19, 2009 - 10:56am

(Reply to #10) #11

Steve Lamerton

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That wasn't me, one of the other moderators did it
Yeah, I might add a popup box, there isn't really any space if you are usings something like a EEE PC
Hmmm, ok, I shall look into this, it shouldnt do
Nope, although I think there is a check in there that says if they are different sizes then they are obviously different, if not I shall add it
I shall look into this too
The best solution for this and the next point is to run the file X:\PortableApps\Toucan\app\Toucan\toucan.exe when passing command lines, this was the output wont dissapear
See above
They used to be there, they must have got lost at some point, I shall re-add them

Thanks again for all your feedback!

May 19, 2009 - 11:29am

(Reply to #11) #12

lwc

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The app\Toucan\Toucan.exe file gives the same results

It doesn't seem to matter if I run the main EXE or this one. BTW, does the latter do anything unportable like?

Speaking of the help, it neither has a right click menu nor lets you copy text instantly. I only manage to copy text by ctrl+c and only if I click it multiple times.

Also, how come the command line parameters don't have defaults and thus force you to enter each of them, even if you want just some? It really should be just, for example, "Toucan Sync source destination Copy timestamps=true", although I actually think timestamps should be true by default (likewise for the GUI).

May 19, 2009 - 11:33am

(Reply to #12) #13

Steve Lamerton

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I mean

in the command line rather than running the parameters on the top level file called Toucan as that is just a launcher that passes then on.

I shall have a look at this

Because the current command line system is rubbish I have it scheduled in as the next 'big' thing to change!

May 20, 2009 - 4:01pm

#14

dafnis

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Hi, I'm one for the mirror ==

Hi,

I'm one for the mirror == clear + update way, identical files should not be overwritten, no matter if it's copy, mirror, update or equalise; this is the only thing that's keeping me from moving to Toucan, as I often mirror directories that are several gigabytes in size.
In fact, the way it behaves now is slower and generates more data transfer than deleting destination directory and then copying it.

By the way, it would be nice adding a checkbox to hide identical files in the preview, i.e. show only the files that will be copied/deleted/overwritten. Or even four checkboxes to selectively hide black/green/blue/grey files.

Thanks for the hard work, Toucan has gone a long way since I started to follow it.

May 22, 2009 - 10:46am

(Reply to #14) #15

metalboy

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I agree +1

Yeah, mirror almost seems broken to me in 2.1.0. I went back to 2.0.7. What was wrong with the old Mirror(Update). As it is setup now you have to run Update and then Clean. Not to mention running 2 process it takes longer too.

Also, I created a text document ran Update and then deleted text document and ran clean and it didn't get removed.

May 22, 2009 - 2:49pm

(Reply to #15) #16

Steve Lamerton

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See

my post below for more info on this.

With the clean problem which folder did you create the text file in, the source or the destination?

May 22, 2009 - 2:48pm

(Reply to #16) #17

Steve Lamerton

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should not be overwriting identical files unless you have tuned on the DisableStrams option in the INI. I just did a quick test of this by copying a folder to a new folder and then doing a mirror of the same two folders, it worked fine, not copying anything on the mirror.

The problem I have with the whole issue is that to make sure the it does not copy files it reads them in in 1MB chunks and compares them, as soon as a chunk differs it immediately stops comparing and copies the file, in the future I hope to only copy changed chunks, so it does the minimum amount of work possible, however this should still be better than the previous version as it used to MD5 hash files, and thus would have to read the whole file in, no early quitting at all.

If you do wish to disable the checking and for it just to copy, you can do that, take a quite look in the help file, under the Sync section.

As for your suggestion, yes, I definitely plan on adding this, the new way that the sync code is structured makes it far easier.

EDIT: I did find a bug in the preview, but it does not affect the actual copying, I have fixed it in the code.

May 23, 2009 - 5:29am

(Reply to #17) #18

lwc

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What can I say?

I have DisableStreams=0 and Mirror does copy identical files (HD2USB). That's why I must have those two passes.

May 23, 2009 - 1:18pm

(Reply to #18) #19

Steve Lamerton

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I shall look into it, I cannot currently reproduce it though What operating system are you using and how are the drives formatted?

May 24, 2009 - 5:13am

(Reply to #19) #20

lwc

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The HD is XP SP3 NTFS

The USB is just USB.

June 1, 2009 - 4:39pm

(Reply to #20) #21

Steve Lamerton

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this any better in the latest pre-release?

June 2, 2009 - 3:28pm

(Reply to #21) #22

metalboy

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Somewhat

It did seem somewhat better. When running Mirror it did not copy all the files that had not changed and it did remove (or clean) files. But, it took about 3 times longer than it takes in 2.0.7. My setup was taking about 20 minutes to run and this took me 1 hour and 7 minutes. Only needed to update a minimum amount of files. Seems like it spent all it's time comparing the files.

June 3, 2009 - 12:10pm

(Reply to #22) #23

Steve Lamerton

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That

isn't good at all I shall take a look as soon as I can.

June 3, 2009 - 12:15pm

(Reply to #23) #24

John T. Haller

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Check for Errors

Have you checked the drive for errors thoroughly? Sometimes erratic behavior like this can be caused by a drive that's dying.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

June 3, 2009 - 12:20pm

(Reply to #24) #25

metalboy

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Just to

Clariry myself. It did exactly what is was supposed to do. It just took 3x times longer.

June 6, 2009 - 7:51pm

(Reply to #25) #26

lwc

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Works, but the preview gets stuck!

The beta seems to have fixed it. Alas, it not only seems slow like the other poster says, but the preview takes minutes to complete and then shuts down the program if you start browsing its sub folders too much!

Thanks for also fixing 8) (the "P.S." point). But the "Enable tooltips" option isn't mentioned in the help. It also doesn't say it requires a program restart.

Also, why does it remember what I wrote even when I turn off "Remember Entered Information"?

June 9, 2009 - 4:02pm

(Reply to #26) #27

Steve Lamerton

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am looking into the speed problems, the preview crashing is a new issue though as far as I am aware, were you browsing especially large folders?

I shall add this to the help file, thanks, and all of the settings require a restart At the moment anyway!

It shouldn't do, I shall look at this too.

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