Hazel does more than it's set to do

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Hazel does more than it's set to do Thu Sep 07, 2006 4:01 pm • by verma
Hi,

I saw the announcement on TUAW and am very much interested in the idea.

Anyway, I did a small test, and found that Hazel does more than I want it to do.

I made a rule for the desktop, filtering files and sending them off to specific folders - based on Finder Comments.

A couple of remarks:
a) if there's an unmarked file (no Finder comments yet) on the desktop, nothing happens. So far so good.
b) when I tag the file with a FinderComment ... nothing happens (file stays put).
c) when I open that file, save it, and close it again, then Hazel does what its rule told it to do.
d) But then: after moving the file, all my findercomments have been erased... That really wasn't part of the plan.

Any ideas - am I doing something wrong?

Thanks a bunch!
verma
 
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Thu Sep 07, 2006 5:25 pm • by Mr_Noodle
Hi,

I think there's a disconnect between the Finder comments that are actually set and the ones that are shown in Finder's "Get Info".

A couple things to try:
- Do a spotlight search on words in the comment. Does your file show up?
- If you are comfortable using Terminal, do the following:
- Type "mdls " (without the quotes and with a space after)
- Drag the file in question into the Terminal window.
- Hit the return key.
- Look at the value of "kMDItemFinderComment".

There's a chance the comment is there but Finder is not displaying it.

I'll have to delve deeper to figure out how to keep the two in sync.

Let me know what you turn up.
Mr_Noodle
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Thu Sep 07, 2006 11:16 pm • by verma
Thanks for the feedback - problem now is that I can't reproduce the behaviour anymore: Hazel doesn't move the file (or a new one). Weird... I think I'm going to re-install and try again.
verma
 
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Re: Hazel does more than it's set to do Wed Feb 14, 2007 6:14 pm • by joelbrock
I am also having this issue.

I use the comments field to store my file tags and Hazel seemed like the PERFECT addition to my personal "tagging/folder hybrid" system of organization. Except that after hazel processes my files the comments are stripped! I tried adding a rule in Hazel to add the comments back in and that sorta works. But is less than ideal.

I tried your suggestion using mdls in the terminal and the comments ARE indeed GONE!

Any plans to address this soon? I bought and LOVE your software and i WANT to be able to use it in my workflow, it truly is a missing link!

Thanks for all you do!
~joel

verma wrote:Hi,
I made a rule for the desktop, filtering files and sending them off to specific folders - based on Finder Comments.

A couple of remarks:
a) if there's an unmarked file (no Finder comments yet) on the desktop, nothing happens. So far so good.
b) when I tag the file with a FinderComment ... nothing happens (file stays put).
c) when I open that file, save it, and close it again, then Hazel does what its rule told it to do.
d) But then: after moving the file, all my findercomments have been erased... That really wasn't part of the plan.
joelbrock
 
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Location: Portland, OR

Thu Feb 15, 2007 12:27 pm • by Mr_Noodle
Hi Joel,

A couple questions:

- Have you checked the file after saving it? Disable Hazel's rule and make sure the comments are intact after a save. Some programs save by writing to a temporary file then moving that over the old one. It may end up being a "new" file, in a sense.
- Are you having Hazel move the file across drives?

Also, another test is to simulate what Hazel does manually via the Finder. Move the file yourself and see if you get the same results.

Let me know.
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Thu Feb 15, 2007 5:15 pm • by joelbrock
Mr_Noodle wrote:Hi Joel,
- Have you checked the file after saving it? Disable Hazel's rule and make sure the comments are intact after a save. Some programs save by writing to a temporary file then moving that over the old one. It may end up being a "new" file, in a sense.


I checked. The spotlight comments are GONE.

Mr_Noodle wrote:- Are you having Hazel move the file across drives?


Nope.

Mr_Noodle wrote:Also, another test is to simulate what Hazel does manually via the Finder. Move the file yourself and see if you get the same results.


When i simply move files with comments across folders in the finder everything stays intact.

BTW; I am using Mac OS X 10.4.8 on a MacBook Pro 17" Core 2 Duo and Hazel v1.1.4 (v195)

Thanks!!
~joel
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Fri Feb 16, 2007 10:32 am • by IDontDoWindows
Wow. I didn't believe it, but I just reproduced this error. I took a .webloc file which had comments in it and placed it on my desktop. Hazel killed the comments!
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Sat Feb 17, 2007 1:36 pm • by Mr_Noodle
Yup, able to replicate it here as well. I'm looking into it.
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Sat Feb 17, 2007 5:32 pm • by Mr_Noodle
Ok, from what I can tell, the comment is usually intact in Spotlight (meaning you can still search for it) but it won't appear in Finder. This is part of the weird schizophrenic nature of Finder comments.

To see some weirdness, create a file and add a comment. Go into Terminal and move the file with the 'mv' command. Look at the file at its new location in Finder. It will have lost its comment. Now use 'mv' again to move the file back to its original location. Once again, do a "Get Info" in Finder. You'll see that the comment is back.

In any case, I'll work on a fix/workaround for the next version. Let me know if this issue is particularly pressing for you.
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Wed Feb 21, 2007 12:47 am • by Mr_Noodle
Ok, I'm going to issue a patch to deal with this next week. If anyone here is interested in testing, drop me a line as I'll have a version ready for testing in the next day or two.

Thanks.
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Wed Feb 28, 2007 1:52 pm • by Mr_Noodle
Just a note in case you missed the announcement. The latest (1.1.5) patch fixes this. Special thanks to joelbrock for helping test it.
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Thu Mar 01, 2007 10:00 pm • by IDontDoWindows
Saw the fix in the feature list. Thanks for fixing that.
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