Rule Limitations

Hazel seems like a great product, but after using it for a week or so, I've started to notice a few minor things that feel a little bit limiting.

First, some qualifiers don't have a negation. For example "Starts With" and "Ends With". There have been a few times when it would have been very useful to have a "Does Not Start With" and "Does Not End With". I know I could add a positive rule and say "Ignore File", but I might want that file to match another rule further down. It would make the ordering of rules much more sane if I could simply exclude the file from the current rule rather than having a positive match that doesn't do anything.

Also, I have no idea how complex it would be, but there are a couple of times when it would have been cool to be able to envoke a custom applescript or application on the matched files as an action. Most applications or applescripts can take files as arguments on the command line, so perhaps they could be passed that way? Like I said, I have no idea how hard that would be, but it would be cool!

Well, thanks for the great app and the forum to submit new ideas!

-dbingham

I've added the "Does Not Start With" and "Does Not End With" to the feature database. I'll see if I can add it in the next maintenance release (1.0.3).

Applescript and a general "open file" action are both slated for 1.1. Check the "Open Discussion" forum as that's where most discussions of new features takes place. Also, check the announcement forums as I will be announcing beta testing for 1.1 sometime in the next couple weeks.

Thanks for the feedback.

Awesome. Thanks!