www.aiscl.co.uk

Bear with me, this might ramble some.

I don't like the way file inclusions work. I think, somehow, it should work more like how file exclusions work. Instead of dictating only the files that should be backed up, I think it should specify the type of files that should be automatically selected. Optionally, the selection of files could be done manually through a right-click action on a folder, something like right-click/Apply Inclusions.

I emulate this today by sorting the file list by file type in order to group, say, all the .ini files together for easier selection. A lot of file extensions don't show a type, though, so providing a sort by file extension option would also be handy.

Kevin

How about:

Right Click / Select all files of this type?

I guess you will also want to backup the files of type that do not yet exist?

Has anybody else got an opinion?

Barry

I like that idea - right click a file and say 'select files of this type'. That'd be handy. As far as automatically selecting all files of that type, even if they don't yet exist, that would also be handy, if it's controllable. Maybe give it as an option, i.e. 'select all file of this type in current folder' versus 'select all files of this type' versus 'select current files of this type in this folder' versus 'select current files of this type in all folders'. It would still have to honor the exclusion rules and excluded folders.

You da man Barry.

This had been thought of before but we took the easy option: The files of type backup. This may be a pain but you could set-up an auto run job (desktop icon or MS Scheduled) to run more than one style of backup after each other. The run lne will look like this:

“C:\Program Files\Aquarius IS Consultancy\AISBackup\AISBackup.exe” Script1 Script2

The ‘Files of Type’ backup is all or nothing so if you create a script to backup say, *.doc, *.xl*, *.wk* and *.ini from selected folders you cannot then select ‘and everything from this folder’. The other problem with our files of type option is that you must know the file extension and some people have ‘file extensions of know file types’ turned off (the default view behaviour).

We will look at introducing the select files of type option but it will not be in the next version.

Here, for our proper backups, we backup everything (that is all new and changed files) to a FireWire drive which is put in a fireproof safe, our off-site backup is to CD although we may switch this to DVD+RW.

This subject of files selection can get quite complicated because different people want different things. For instance, to simplify my backups, I may decide that in almost all circumstances I don't want to back up .exe files. Then, I find that with one particular new folder added to the backup, I need to back up one particular .exe file, but because I have .exe files set as a global exclusion, I cannot override it. I therefore have to either remove the global setting and check all the remaining folders to make sure no .exe files are included for backup, or create a fresh backup to deal with the one-off situation described above.

The above scenario actually happened to me, although I cannot remember the file type. I would therefore like some form of option to be able to override (on a file by file basis), any global settings.

Hi Brian

Now that the major changes made in version 1.9 have been released we will look at this option. We did not want to make too many changes to the select file interface following the unicode file name changes.

We will probably implement this as a left click toggle between Selected and Excluded, which may sound easy but .......

Barry

Barry wrote:Hi Brian

Now that the major changes made in version 1.9 have been released we will look at this option. We did not want to make too many changes to the select file interface following the unicode file name changes.

We will probably implement this as a left click toggle between Selected and Excluded, which may sound easy but .......

Barry

Thanks Barry. That will be a really useful feature.

Hi

Release 1.9.1 enables excluded files to be selected for backup. This is implemented for global exclusions and job based exclusions. There is no pictorial indication of these exceptions in the folder view as this would require a lot more time. The filenames may be viewed, however, from the View / Job Properties menu option.

This option has not been implemented for excluded folders.

Clicking the state box toggles the files between backup and excluded.

Barry.

Barry wrote:Hi

Release 1.9.1 enables excluded files to be selected for backup. This is implemented for global exclusions and job based exclusions. There is no pictorial indication of these exceptions in the folder view as this would require a lot more time. The filenames may be viewed, however, from the View / Job Properties menu option.

This option has not been implemented for excluded folders.

Clicking the state box toggles the files between backup and excluded.

Barry.

This sounds good to me Barry. I've never looked at the Job Properties screen before but I can see that it contains a lot of useful information. When will 1.9.1 be available for download (approx)?

Version 1.9.1 has just been uploaded.

Barry

Thanks for letting me know Barry.

I've just tried the new feature. It's exactly what I was looking for. Great!