Nested Conditions Explanation

Sorry, complete rookie here. I'm trying to get my Hazel all set up, and then I discovered nested conditions. I read this (https://www.noodlesoft.com/kb/how-to-cr ... onditions/) about how to create them, and it helped me understand a bit better, but I'm still pretty foggy.

Can someone enlighten me, and explain some benefits to using them over just having multiple rules for one watched folder? Thanks in advance!

You can mix all/any logic for one. For instance, you can have a rule match red-tagged files that either have one extension or another. Also, by setting the target on the nested condition, you can have the conditions underneath apply to a folder's contents or the enclosing folder.

Search the forums here as you'll find numerous posts about it.

To my embarrassment I also find the whole subject of nested folders hard to understand and it would be great if a kind soul could give a clear step by step example of how to set one up. I am sure that this would help many of us

It might be more productive if you describe what you are trying to achieve. It may be the case that nested conditions aren't the answer.

Mr_Noodle wrote:It might be more productive if you describe what you are trying to achieve. It may be the case that nested conditions aren't the answer.

I am sure it would! I think, however, that the OP was thinking about nested conditions in general, i.e. the general principal and how to set them up, this is certainly what I was thinking as I do not understand the concept or the application. Personally I think that Hazel is crying out for an easily understandable manual perhaps on the lines of how the the Dummies series is laid out. I find the help file a little user-unfriendly and if, for example, you do a search for "nested conditions" there are no results. Hazel is very good but I do feel that it could be put to better use if I only knew what its possibilities were and how to use it. I don't mean to be negative in this and hope that this is a constructive criticism, it would be fantastic if someone could write a manual on the lines of "Dummies" or the "Take Control" series.

A manual is being worked on. Also, searching on the site does give me a result.

Again, though, I think it makes more sense to ask about whether you can do certain things or not. It's usually best to start with the problem instead of the solution.

Looking forward to the manual—any projected date of completion?

Can't really say with any accuracy. Hopefully by the fall.

This is super late but to answer your question nested conditions are necessary when you need to match complex conditions. Notice when you select (if) your only options are all, any, none for however many conditions you put.

I will use an example of moving wallpapers from downloads to a wallpaper folder. My main condition would be Kind is image. Seeing as a wallpaper would undoubtedly be an image. Obviously I need more matches to ensure it is actually a wallpaper. So I identify keywords that would be in a typical wallpaper download such as (wallpaper, 3840, 1920, 4k, etc, etc...). Well I cannot use (all) because then it would need to be an image and name must contain all the keywords. I also cannot use any because then it would match if it was a pdf that contained any of the keywords.

This is where the nested condition comes in. I still set my main condition to all which we recall is Kind is image. Then I use a nested condition for name contains my keywords and set that to any. That way it will match the image and then look to match the nested conditions. So basically I went from having only two options for matching (any and all) to having many options. As far as I know you can nest deeper than one level.

Hope that makes sense.