feature request: checkbox for "include subfolders"

Talk, speculate, discuss, pontificate. As long as it pertains to Hazel.

Moderators: Mr_Noodle, Moderators

I know there is a rule for this, but this way would be way more efficient....

Great app BTW!!!
thegerms@comcast.net
 
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Joined: Mon Dec 01, 2008 12:48 am

The original take on this was a checkbox but seeing as it wasn't very flexible, the more general way of doing it by a rule was done. It's unclear if a checkbox is added, how it would interact with any rules also dealing with folders.

I've also thought about renaming the "Run rules on folder contents" to something more clear. Maybe something like "Descend into folder". If you have any thoughts on this, let me know.
Mr_Noodle
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Location: New York City

Its ok, but it doesnt seem to always work for me. I guess I don't really understand how it works. I always put it as the last step, and assume it's going to make the action jump to the beginning of the list and 'replay' the rules again, but on subfolders. but it doesn't seem to work for me. For example, I have one rule, "delete empty folders", which is supposed to clean out itunes' auto generated folders whenever I delete songs. But it won't apply the rule to subfolders.

check out this screenshot:
Image
thegerms@comcast.net
 
Posts: 7
Joined: Mon Dec 01, 2008 12:48 am

My guess here is that this won't do much because if the folder is empty, it won't really have any subfolders that you can go into. I think what you want is to delete empty folders, and the other folders, descend into. In such a case, you'd want to split this into two rules:

"If Kind is Folder, (stuff about date and size as you have it already), then Move to trash, do growl"

"If Kind is Folder, Run rules on folder contents"

Have the more specific rule appear first and any which don't match it will move on to the next one. That means the first rule will handle empty folders while the second rule will handle any non-empty folders (in which case, it will descend into it).

Try that out and let me know how it works.
Mr_Noodle
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