Suggestions
Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2014 5:56 pm
Hi
I'm a happy DC Pro customer with a few suggestions (I've checked the first 5 pages of the forums, so hopefully they're unique?)
******
1. RESET AND RUN
Can we have a "reset and run DC" icon? I've had a 500MB duplicatecleanerpro.data file that, even after crashing out, caused the program not to run, until I found your hint on the forum:
"You can reset Duplicate Cleaner (and the cached information) by renaming/deleting the duplicatecleanerpro.data file in your C:\Users\[**Your Username**]\AppData\Roaming\DigitalVolcano\DuplicateCleaner\ folder."
The icon could perhaps remove it for you before running DC, or run DC in "safe mode" to allow you to get to a button to clear the cache (is there one by the way)?
***
2. SEED LOCATION
Can we have a "seed location" selector, whereby you can check for duplicates of one file / folder / drive) against many i.e.
FIRST (SEED) LOCATION: d:\pictures (which contains photo.jpg and snapshot.jpg)
OTHER SCAN LOCATIONS: c: / e: / f:
This won't check to see if c: / e: / f: also have any duplicate files, it will only check to see if photo.jpg and/or snapshot.jpg exists on c: / e: / f:
The "Don't scan against self" is an excellent feature which goes some way towards this, but you'd have to do them in pairs (put the files to check in a folder on their own, and scan against one other place or drive, with "Don't scan against self" enabled). Then repeat that for every drive or location. Otherwise it looks to see if there are *any* files in location c:, e: or f: that match any other files.
I appreciate that I could put in photo.jpg and snapshot.jpg as the filenames, but I'm looking for files with the same hash, but a different filename, so that wouldn't work in this case.
***
3. EXCLUDE INCLUDED PATH (!)
It might seem counter-intuitive, but I'd like a search path to be able to be a sub folder of another path, that you can exclude from the other path, rather than getting the error "<path name> is included, Removing it from the search list". This is in situations more like suggestion 2. above with "Don't scan against self" allowing you to "pair up" one folder against another.
e.g. I'd like to see if e:\music\2014\ (containing track1.m4a and track2.m4a) is duplicated anywhere else on e: - without having to move the 2014 folder to the root and comparing it (one folder at a time) to every other folder in the root.
example folder structure:
e:\music\2014
e:\checkthese
e:\2013
e:\ (various files in the root)
because the e:\music\2014 folder is included in the e:\ tree, it won't let you compare it with e:
I'd have to move the "2014" folder to the root, then compare it with "checkthese", then start again and compare it with "2013", then start again and compare it with "music", then start again and move the loose files from the root to a new folder for comparing.
Otherwise, I suppose I could move everything in the root ("music" / "checkthese" / "2013" / the loose root files) to a "compare" folder and the "2014" folder to the root, so there are only two folders in the root, but with many thousands of files and other programs constantly relying on the folder structure remaining permanently intact, that would be a pain.
***
4. IGNORE METADATA?
I don't know how the metadata in picture (exif?) and audio (id3? not sure what m4a has?) files works as such, but I know that when adding comments to a jpg or changing something in m4a metadata, it actually alters the file, making it different to the original.
I have many photos that at least seem to be 100% identical, pixel for pixel, same resolution, bit rate, everything, and yet they're different - I assume because of the metadata. Is the metadata contained in a specific, fixed offset / first few bytes etc in the file and therefore separate from the actual photo / audio file? If so, can that metadata be ignored by DC Pro, and the actual audio data / picture data compared, so that regardless of comments and things added, you will know if a file is identical in every other sense? The 99% option is great (as are the rotated and other options for jpg) but they'll also falsely identify "burst mode" snapshots that change very little from one shot to the next.
******
MANY thanks for your time! It (as well as this fantastic program) are hugely appreciated, you've saved me many hours (and GB!) over the years!
:o)
I'm a happy DC Pro customer with a few suggestions (I've checked the first 5 pages of the forums, so hopefully they're unique?)
******
1. RESET AND RUN
Can we have a "reset and run DC" icon? I've had a 500MB duplicatecleanerpro.data file that, even after crashing out, caused the program not to run, until I found your hint on the forum:
"You can reset Duplicate Cleaner (and the cached information) by renaming/deleting the duplicatecleanerpro.data file in your C:\Users\[**Your Username**]\AppData\Roaming\DigitalVolcano\DuplicateCleaner\ folder."
The icon could perhaps remove it for you before running DC, or run DC in "safe mode" to allow you to get to a button to clear the cache (is there one by the way)?
***
2. SEED LOCATION
Can we have a "seed location" selector, whereby you can check for duplicates of one file / folder / drive) against many i.e.
FIRST (SEED) LOCATION: d:\pictures (which contains photo.jpg and snapshot.jpg)
OTHER SCAN LOCATIONS: c: / e: / f:
This won't check to see if c: / e: / f: also have any duplicate files, it will only check to see if photo.jpg and/or snapshot.jpg exists on c: / e: / f:
The "Don't scan against self" is an excellent feature which goes some way towards this, but you'd have to do them in pairs (put the files to check in a folder on their own, and scan against one other place or drive, with "Don't scan against self" enabled). Then repeat that for every drive or location. Otherwise it looks to see if there are *any* files in location c:, e: or f: that match any other files.
I appreciate that I could put in photo.jpg and snapshot.jpg as the filenames, but I'm looking for files with the same hash, but a different filename, so that wouldn't work in this case.
***
3. EXCLUDE INCLUDED PATH (!)
It might seem counter-intuitive, but I'd like a search path to be able to be a sub folder of another path, that you can exclude from the other path, rather than getting the error "<path name> is included, Removing it from the search list". This is in situations more like suggestion 2. above with "Don't scan against self" allowing you to "pair up" one folder against another.
e.g. I'd like to see if e:\music\2014\ (containing track1.m4a and track2.m4a) is duplicated anywhere else on e: - without having to move the 2014 folder to the root and comparing it (one folder at a time) to every other folder in the root.
example folder structure:
e:\music\2014
e:\checkthese
e:\2013
e:\ (various files in the root)
because the e:\music\2014 folder is included in the e:\ tree, it won't let you compare it with e:
I'd have to move the "2014" folder to the root, then compare it with "checkthese", then start again and compare it with "2013", then start again and compare it with "music", then start again and move the loose files from the root to a new folder for comparing.
Otherwise, I suppose I could move everything in the root ("music" / "checkthese" / "2013" / the loose root files) to a "compare" folder and the "2014" folder to the root, so there are only two folders in the root, but with many thousands of files and other programs constantly relying on the folder structure remaining permanently intact, that would be a pain.
***
4. IGNORE METADATA?
I don't know how the metadata in picture (exif?) and audio (id3? not sure what m4a has?) files works as such, but I know that when adding comments to a jpg or changing something in m4a metadata, it actually alters the file, making it different to the original.
I have many photos that at least seem to be 100% identical, pixel for pixel, same resolution, bit rate, everything, and yet they're different - I assume because of the metadata. Is the metadata contained in a specific, fixed offset / first few bytes etc in the file and therefore separate from the actual photo / audio file? If so, can that metadata be ignored by DC Pro, and the actual audio data / picture data compared, so that regardless of comments and things added, you will know if a file is identical in every other sense? The 99% option is great (as are the rotated and other options for jpg) but they'll also falsely identify "burst mode" snapshots that change very little from one shot to the next.
******
MANY thanks for your time! It (as well as this fantastic program) are hugely appreciated, you've saved me many hours (and GB!) over the years!
:o)