Basic Concepts
There are a number of concepts in Opus that may be different from other file
managers you have used. While we try to avoid the use of jargon or geeky
terminology there are some terms used in this help file that you may not be that
familiar with; we suggest having a quick flip through the Basic Concepts section
to familiarize yourself with some of these concepts.
- The Lister:
Listers are what you might call the Opus "main window" - in a traditional file
manager, they would be the main window. Listers (the name is historic) contain
file displays (where the contents of directories are shown), folder trees
(presents your file system as a tree structure for easy navigation), toolbars,
and various optional "panes" like the viewer pane, the metadata pane, etc. You
can open as many Listers as you like.
- Explorer
Replacement: Opus has the option to operate in Explorer
Replacement mode. In this mode, most actions that normally result in the
opening of an Explorer window (pressing the Windows+E key, double-clicking on
an icon on the desktop, etc.) will instead open an Opus Lister. This is the
mode we recommend you run in.
- Source and
Destination: As well as the traditional copy/cut/paste method of
file management you're probably used to, Opus provides an alternative method
that uses the concept of "source" and "destination" folders. Instead of
browsing to the files you want to copy, copying them to the clipboard, then
browsing to the destination folder and pasting them in, this alternate method
lets you display both the source and destination folders at the same time
(either using two separate Listers, or with a single Lister in dual file
display mode) and copy files from one to the other in a single action.
- Selecting
Files: There are a number of ways to select files for operations;
other than the standard methods using the keyboard or mouse, you can select
using a wildcard match on the filename, or use a filter to select files by
attributes or metadata. Opus also supports a checkbox mode which lets you
manipulate files (by double-clicking or drag-and-drop) without affecting their
selection state.
- Searching
and Filtering: Searching is the process of locating files or
folders that may not be in the currently viewed location - Opus supports
Windows Search for indexed search, as well as its own powerful search engine
that lets you build complex queries to find files based on attributes and
metadata as well as filenames. Filtering is the process of hiding, or masking
out, files and folders from the currently viewed location. Opus provides a
number of ways to do this - the easiest to use is the Filter Bar, which lets
you quickly show a sub-set of files by simply typing a wildcard pattern into
the file display.
- Sorting and
Grouping: The file list can be sorted by a single field or by
multiple fields, and you can also group the file list by any field
with collapsible groups.
- Folder
Options: This is a powerful system that lets you control exactly
how your folders will appear - you can define the view mode, sorting and
grouping options, etc, and permanently assign them to a folder, a folder
and its children, a "type" of folder (based either on the disk type or
the contents of the folder), or multiple folders using wildcards.
- Flat View:
The Flat View system lets you "collapse" the contents of all the child folders
of the current location, and make them appear as if they are all in the same
physical location. Flat View can show a truely flat list of all sub-folders,
or it can display the contents of sub-folders in a hierarchical structure.
- Virtual File
System: The real file-system is where you store your files and
folders - generally contained on your hard drives, USB drives, etc. The
virtual file-system is a concept that Opus uses to describe file-systems that
aren't stored in this traditional manner. For example, File
Collections are a virtual file-system because they are a collection of
files stored on traditional media, rather than the underlying folders
themselves. There are a number of concepts that are specific to particular
virtual file systems - File Collections, Libraries, Archives and FTP are all
described in this section.