Pause folders?

Would it be possible to add a "pause folder" feature in an upcoming release? Sometimes when testing a setup I have a mixture of rules on/off. Would be great to be able to just pause an entire folder instead of having to turn all the checkboxes on or off en masse.

I'd also like an easy way to tell Hazel to temporarily stop monitoring certain folders.

sjk wrote:I'd also like an easy way to tell Hazel to temporarily stop monitoring certain folders.

Yeah this is basically what I was asking about.

Yup, I wanted to rephrase the "me, too" reply to use monitoring in it because monitored is used in the Hazel tooltip for adding/removing folders, e.g.:

My thinking is that pause folder monitoring is more accurate Hazel lingo for your suggestion because you don't want to actually pause a folder, just the monitoring of it.

Yeah your description of the feature is much better than mine. Hope to see this added, would be great to have this ability in the menu item as well (such as holding down the option key while selecting a folder from the list).

A related feature I would like to see is the ability to run a certain folder's rules manually-only. I have some rules I don't need to be constantly run, and they apply to large groups of subfolders. Would be nice to just run it once a day. I thought I figured out how to do this with my rules, but seems to not be working the way I thought.

gcoghill wrote:Yeah your description of the feature is much better than mine.

Just a bit of pedantic refinement to yours.

… ability to run a certain folder's rules manually-only.

Something like pausing/disabling regular monitoring of certain folders, then using Rules > folder from Hazel's menu?

I have some rules I don't need to be constantly run

Same here.

Seems what's lacking is more flexible control over folder monitoring. You originally suggested being able to pause/disable monitoring. That, and your latest suggestion, might be combined into generalized folder monitoring scheduling. Sort of like cron for Hazel folders, though it's easy to see how that could be overly complicated. Maybe there's a subset of certain preset schedules that would be an acceptably useful compromise.

Thanks for the inspiration on this topic.

Something like pausing/disabling regular monitoring of certain folders, then using Rules > folder from Hazel's menu?

Exactly. If paused, they could be in italics or some other indicator. Holding the Option key while selecting any folder in the Hazel menu item "folders" list would toggle the active/inactive state. That way the user could keep it paused, yet still run manually. And be able to control everything from the menu item instead of needing to go into the prefs to change it each time.

Seems what's lacking is more flexible control over folder monitoring. You originally suggested being able to pause/disable monitoring. That, and your latest suggestion, might be combined into generalized folder monitoring scheduling. Sort of like cron for Hazel folders, though it's easy to see how that could be overly complicated. Maybe there's a subset of certain preset schedules that would be an acceptably useful compromise.

I would love to see some scheduling options, but agreed it might get complicated and not sure it's within the scope of the developer's vision for Hazel (at least what I have gathered from the forums).

Seems at least you and I have similar consensus about this so I've nothing more to say, for now.

Thanks for the suggestion. I hesitate to add another level of ways to not have rules run as it adds to one more way for users to forget about when they contact support. Also, it seems to me that if you want folders turned off on a schedule, that that is a different problem with a possibly different solution.

It might be more productive to explain why you want to turn off folders temporarily and if it's time/schedule based. Specific examples are always helpful. I already have thought about having a "current time" type attribute in the conditions (if current time is 12:00AM) but again, I need to know how it would be used. For instance, what kind of schedules are do you want? A certain time each day? A certain time on weekdays only? On Mondays? On the second Thursday of the 4th month and 7th month of every odd year?

Also, right now, if you command-click on the checkbox for a rule, it will toggle all rules for that folder at once.

The main reason I want to pause folder monitoring is for some folder structures I have with lots of subfolders that I also want to run rules on. I have folders which intermittently change (items added to them) and my rules are set up to color code them (via Finder labels) as they "age" (nothing added), as well as color labels if something new is added.

However, this setup has proven to chew up a lot of CPU from both Hazel & the "mds" process if I leave them running all the time. What I want to do is have the rules set up, but only run them manually. So technically, I don't even need a pause feature but rather a manual-only method to run Hazel on these folders. It's more important for me to run the rules than to have the folders (and all the subfolders) monitored constantly throughout the day.

I had thought a "Date Last Matched is not Today" rule would suffice, but then I realized Hazel still needed to analyze all these folders to determine when the Date Last Matched was.

Your suggestion of a time-based feature would be excellent. And your suggestions of how to structure it all sound good (both time and day/date-based).

I knew about the Command-click feature, but then I need to go in and turn on all the rules, go to hazel menu to run, go back and turn them all off. Perhaps some obvious visual indication of paused/manual-only folders (in both the pref pane as well as the menu list) could alleviate the support requests?

Once Hazel goes Leopard-only (in version 3), it should be much less resource intensive as it has access to finer grained notifications. Also, the background processes would need to run less often.

As for the scheduling, again, specific examples of what kinds of schedules you expect. For instance, wanting weekly schedules (every Thursday) adds much more that needs to be addressed in the UI and even more so if you want monthly schedules (2nd Thursday of the month). So again, posting what you want specifically would use would help in forming this feature. If I find that no one needs monthly schedules, then that would save me a boatload of design and implementation time.

Personally, I would like to see pause/resume/manual much more than schedules, but if schedules were the way to go, I would want them more to choose an hour of the day to run. Might be handy to also choose the day, but I think I wouldn't use that as much, and the monthly probably not at all (but hard to say without actually setting things up and using).

I am thinking more like "Every X hours" or "At 6pm". If not too much extra work, perhaps "every X hours/days/weeks"? I suppose the days/weeks options would then require the choice of which day to run, making it more complicated. I guess "every X hours" or a specific time is probably the simplest.

Also, keep in mind that there is a separate feature on the list for 3.0 of a contextual menu for Hazel in Finder. You would be able to set up rules that would appear in that menu only (there's no folder as the rules are applied to whatever file you have selected in Finder). That would cover your "manual-only" request I believe.

Mr_Noodle wrote:specific examples of what kinds of schedules you expect

I haven't really hadn't considered the details, though gcoghill posted a few good examples.

If I find that no one needs monthly schedules, then that would save me a boatload of design and implementation time.

My general thinking is that Hazel scheduling could be limited to relatively short durations, maybe just within a single 24 hour period that would also include absolute times for each day. There are certain folders I'd prefer Hazel to only be monitoring for certain periods within a day. I wouldn't expect support for longer-term scheduling granularity even if I found a use for it.

I have a rule that includes a Reveal in Finder action. Sometimes that becomes intrusive enough that I've wanted a way to limit it so it could only occur either every N hours or possibly at a specific time every day. For this specific case I've been procrastinating suggesting an "in background" option for Reveal in Finder to make it less intrusive, but it also serves as a scheduling example (though perhaps not such a good one).

gcoghill wrote:I would like to see pause/resume/manual much more than schedules

Blame me for complicating your original suggestion by interjecting the scheduling idea.

Mr_Noodle wrote:You would be able to set up rules that would appear in that menu only (there's no folder as the rules are applied to whatever file you have selected in Finder).

Hmm, something more to think about.