Formatting symbolic links?

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aml
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Formatting symbolic links?

Post by aml »

I've got formatted my files (or more precisely, their list entries as they appear in x2) according to some rules, with the very powerful "Custom color coding" function (which also does bolding, italicizing, not only coloring list entries).

I wanted to refine this, by "formatting" (in this case, italicising, independently of other formats, which needs a certain order of those "formats": no problem here) symbolic links (files, not necessarily also folders), independently of their file.suffix (which is not .lnk); those symbolic links can be identified by the little arrow in the icon, so the system "knows" that those files are symbolic links; as said, I want to "format" them with italics, too.

So I tried to look that up within "Custom color for filetype - Additional Rules - Property & description", but I only found an entry "Links [S]" there, with the comment "Number of hard links" and "Number settings min/max / Units" - this is obviously NOT it.

Thus, did I overlook the thing I should use for this, or is this technically not possible, or could you consider to add this?

(To perfectly clarify, I'm not searching for a way to "format" original ("link target") files which have got symbolic links - I suppose that would not be possible -, but just to "format" the symbolic link files, the "links".)

Thank you very much for your kind help / for considering this!
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nikos
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Re: Formatting symbolic links?

Post by nikos »

to detect symbolic links you need a rule on ATTRIBUTES column, and you are looking for the letter J (junction)
aml
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Re: Formatting symbolic links?

Post by aml »

Fantastic, thank you so much!

I hadn't been aware of that attribute, for symbolic links, obviously. Works fine, and since it's an additional entry formatting - preserving other, "main", formattings -, it's to be put at the end of the "formats" list.

Think that I got a - perfect! - answer in 66 minutes, on a Sunday morning: incredible!


P.S. If you ever introduce a comment column which would be able to be accessed by third-party tools (e.g. AutoHotkey AHK) to update, etc., you will find out that I'll make TREMENDOUS advertising for x2. "Directory Opus" just has a certain "image" - it may be a question of optics/"looks" (cf. Speed Commander, so much inferior in most ways, but so simple & beautiful!) and especially pricing, too!!! -, and whenever I go into the real specifics, x2's ***WAY*** BETTER (than "DO", not even speaking of "SC" here).

But in order to present people (i.e. "users") a PERFECT file ordering system, I absolutely NEED at least ONE additional "comment" (or whatever it'll be called) column (i.e. regular ADS = alternative data stream) which'd be accessible by the "system" (i.e. external tools, e.g. AHK, etc).

Of course, you could just implement it into the "Ultimate" version; on the other hand, it would be so much more "accessible" to the general public if it was included into the "base" paid version.

I'm very serious here; I would have to pay developers to develop another of those innumerable "file managers", in order to present some quite perfect file management system, and at the end of the day, all it'd need would be another regular, externally-readable/-writeable, regular, plain-text (i.e. not-binary) ADS column in x2.

Again and in the meanwhile, thank you so much for your brilliant help here!
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nikos
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Re: Formatting symbolic links?

Post by nikos »

I am not sure how I could convince AHK or other external tools to edit columns, if THESE programs cannot change first

however you may already be able to do such manipulations, e.g. pressing CTRL+P exports the information of the selected file in the clipboard, which you can process with your script. Then you can "press" ALT+Z from your AHK and what have you to change the comment -- or use the in-line editing mode explained here
www.zabkat.com/blog/xls-folders.htm
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