19 April 2009

How to add comments/descriptions to files and folders

  1. In Settings / Preferences / Folders / Options, make sure the Support 'descript.ion' file comments system option is on.

  2. To actually add a comment, use the Set Description command which by default is on the File / File Commands menu (you can move this to your toolbar or assign a hotkey if you like).

  3. To see the comments in the Listers, make sure you have the Description column displayed.
You could add the notes to the Info Tip that is displayed when you hover the mouse over a file, if you like.

For example, go to Settings / File Types, select All files from the list and click Edit. Then, on the Info Tip tab, add {desc} to the Info Tip definition.

Note that you will also need to do this separately for any file types that have an Info Tip defined -- although by default nothing does except the items listed in File Type Groups. For example, under File Type Groups, locate the Documents entry and do the same thing for that to add descriptions to document Info Tips.

See also: List of FAQs by topic

18 April 2009

CSV Chart Plugin (32-bit only)

User tomkupitz has posted an alternative CSV viewer plugin over at the forums.

This one displays numeric CSV data as a graph.

See his post for the download and screenshot links.

(This plugin is actually a few weeks old. I forgot to mention it here before.)

How to refer to things on the same portable drive

USB drive letters

People who run Opus from a USB drive often carry other programs on the same drive and want to run them from Opus buttons.

The USB drive won't always be assigned the same letter, so how do you create buttons which refer to other programs on the USB drive when you don't know what the path will be?

The home alias

You can do it using the home alias. This built-in alias always points to where Opus is installed (where you will find dopuslib.dll and so on).

To see where the home alias points, type /home into the location field in Opus.

Let's look at how you can use the home alias in your buttons...

  1. Relative to home:

    If your USB drive has Opus installed in X:\DOPUS\ and you want to run X:\UTILS\HANDY.EXE then put this in your button:

    {alias|home}..\UTILS\HANDY.EXE

    As is standard on Windows, adding .. after a folder will take you to its parent. So in this example, {alias|home}..\ is the same as X:\ but without having the drive letter hard-coded.

  2. Via the drive letter:

    You can also use the {alias} code to get just the drive letter that Opus is running from. In this particular example the parent of the home folder is the same as the root of the drive so it doesn't make much difference. Here is the button code anyway:

    {alias|home|\}UTILS\HANDY.EXE

  3. Alternative:

    If you are [i]not[/i] creating an MS-DOS Batch type of button then Opus will automatically expand /home without you having to use the {alias} code:

    /home\..\UTILS\HANDY.EXE

    Just remember that it doesn't work with MS-DOS Batch buttons. It's probably best to get into the habit of always using one of the other methods since they work in all situations.


Not just for USB installs

All of this works when Opus is installed normally as well. If you have Opus and Windows installed to the default locations then all of the follow examples will launch the windows Calculator:

{alias|home|\}Windows\system32\calc.exe


{alias|home}..\..\..\..\Windows\system32\calc.exe


/home\..\..\..\..\Windows\system32\calc.exe

Of course, it would be much easier to run C:\Windows\system32\calc.exe directly if you know that's where it will always be.

Don't forget the quotes

If there are spaces in your paths then don't forget to put quotes around them. For example:

"{alias|home|\}Program Files\Beyond Compare 3\BComp.exe"

See also: List of FAQs by topic

PS: You can grab an almost-finished version of the new Raw Digital Camera plugin from here or wait for the next version of Opus which should contain the finished version. (Some features of the final version required changes in Opus itself.)