Labels

The Labels system lets you assign your own labels to files and folders. A label has a name, and can define colors and font styles that modify the appearance of labeled files. Labels can also be used to override the default icon image for a file or folder, or define a status icon that can be shown in a separate column to flag important files. They can also cause a file or folder to become "pinned" to the top of the file list.

By default Opus defines five labels - Blue, Green, Orange, Purple and Red, and four status icons - Checked, Flagged, < em>and Pinned.  You can use these labels (what you interpret them to mean is up to you) or define your own. For example, you could define a label called Really Important that displays files in red italics.
 

Labels are defined through the Favorites and Recent / Labels page in Preferences.

You can apply labels to files and folders on an ad-hoc basis, using the Properties drop-down menu on the default toolbar. The Set Label and Status sub-menus display a list of your defined labels and status icons, and lets you apply them automatically to selected files and folders.
 

To label a file, select it, and then choose the appropriate label from this drop-down. Depending on the label definition, the file will change color instantly to match the assigned label.

You can apply more than one label at a time to a file - that is, they can “stack” on top of each other. For example, you could have one label that colors the names of all JPEG files green, and another that bolds the filenames of all images that are 1920x1080 pixels or larger. Any 1920x1080 JPEG files would have their filenames shown as bolded green. Each label definition now has a “stop on match” flag which lets you prevent this behaviour on a per-label basis.

The Label Assignments page in Preferences lets you apply labels to files and folders using wildcard patterns. For example, you could cause all Word documents to be labeled Green by creating a wildcard label assignment for *.doc files. Labels can also use filters to perform tests based on attributes other than file name or path.

By default explicitly applied labels override wildcard labels, but the Preferences setting Favorites and Recent / Labels / Apply wildcard and label filters to explicitly labeled files and folder lets wildcard labels stack on top of explicitly-assigned ones.

In the image below, you can see an example of a label filter that is used to override icons for particular files. A label has been created (called HD Image) that defines a custom icon. A label filter has also been created that matches JPG files (it could be used to match more filetypes if desired) with a height of at least 1080 pixels. You can see in the Lister image at the bottom that the high resolution images are displayed with the custom icon, whereas the smaller images have the standard JPG icon.

There are two ways that Opus can store labels that are assigned to a specific file or folder (as opposed to a wildcard or filter-based label). 

• On an NTFS-formatted drive (which is the most common type of file system these days) the label information is stored in an alternate data stream with the actual file itself. The advantage of this is that when you copy, move or rename the file, the label goes with it (if enabled on the File Operations / Copy Attributes page in Preferences).
   
• On other file systems, or if the option to store labels in the file system is turned off (on the Labels page in Preferences), Opus stores a list of the full filename and path of labeled files. That means that if you move a labeled file, the label will not go with it. You can view a list of all files labeled in this way from the Label Assignments page in Preferences, and use the controls there to clean up the labeled file list.

TortoiseSVN status

For developers using the free TortoiseSVN source code control utility, Opus can optionally display a file’s SVN status as an icon in the Status column. This is controlled by the Folders / Folder Display / Show TortoiseSVN status icons in the Status column option in Preferences. If turned on, Opus will automatically add the appropriate SVN status icon to any other label icons displayed in the Status column.

Other than the status icon appearing larger and more distinctive than the usual icon overlay that Tortoise uses, this can help with the problem of limited icon overlays. Windows only allows a maximum of 15 icon overlays in the system, and Tortoise normally uses 8 or more of these for itself, crowding out other shell extensions. Using this option in Opus gets around the limit as the status is taken directly from Tortoise rather than via the icon overlay.

In Preferences there’s also an option to disable the Tortoise icon overlay handler in Opus completely (as shown above – no point showing the same status icon twice), and an option to choose the SVN status icon set.

Note that this feature requires TortoiseSVN version 1.9.3 or greater.