 he Synchronize utility is used to synchronize
two directories so that they contain the same files. I use it myself for
keeping a synchronized version of the various home pages I maintain on both
my hard disk and on my external ZIP drive.
It can also be used for backup purposes to make sure that your backup is
updated with all the changes you have made since the last time you ran
Synchronize.
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 hen you start up Synchronize, you are
presented with a screen like the one to the right. The two directory trees
are the source directory (on the left) and the target directory (on the
right), also known as "local" and "remote". You select the directories
in the usual manner by clicking on the drop-down list of drives to select
a drive, and double-clicking on a directory in the directory list box to
select the directory. You can also select multiple directories in the usual
way (ctrl-clicking on them).The box on the right side of the window is a list of file masks that should be ignored when synchronizing the directories. Normally, you would put files like *.BAK etc. in there to prevent Synchronize from taking these files into consideration. You can add a new file mask to the list by entering it in the edit box below the list and press the "Add" button. To remove a file mask, click on it to highlight it and then press the "Remove" button. The two check boxes in the lower right corner of the window modify the behaviour of how Synchronize synchronizes the two directories. The top one ("Backup mode") will - if selected - make Synchronize only copy from local directory to remote directory and ignore any files that might exist on the remote side but not on the local. This corresponds to the CopyNew functionality with the /ALL switch. The bottom one ("Copy new files") instructs Synchronize to also consider copying any files that exists on the one side but not on the other. If unchecked, Synchronize will only update files that already exists on both sides - local and remote, like CopyNew without the /ALL switch. |
 nce you have selected the two
directories and specified which file masks should be ignored, press the OK
button, and you will be presented with a screen much like the one to the right. In
the first column you will see the names of the files which are found to
be different on the local and remote sides. The data for the local side
is listed in the 2nd column, whereas the 3rd column lists the
data for the remote side. A data specification of "*** N/A ***" means that
the file doesn't exist at the appropriate side. If you want to know what
directory the file is located in (relative to the local/remote directory),
just place the mouse cursor over the file name in question and keep it
there for a couple of seconds. The full, relative path will then appear in
a yellow box below the file name.Next to the file lists are radio buttons for each file, where you can specify what you want done with the file at that line. You can either copy the file Local->Remote, Remote->Local or you can ignore the file (ie. don't copy it either way). When the window is first created, the radio buttons are set as to correspond with the default selction (see the section on command line switches further down). Normally this will mean that the direction of copy is set to copy the newest file on top of the older file, ie. an update of both sides so that both local and remote will be as up-to-date as possible. You can select the action for each file by clicking the appropriate radio button and scrolling the file list is accomplished with the use of the scroll bar just right of the radio buttons. If no scroll bar is visible, then all the files are listed on the current screen. Further on to the right are several buttons. They are a sort of macro buttons, in that they set the radio button on all files according to specific algorithms, as follows: Once you have set the radio buttons on all the files to the option you want for that file, press the OK button to start the copy. If - during the copying process - you decide to abort the copying, just press the Cancel button. |
 ommand line syntax:SYNCHRO [<LocDir> <RemDir> [<ExclMask>...] [<Switches>]] By specifying two directories on the command line, you instruct Synchronize to immediately compare the two directories and proceed to the file list window, ie. it is excactly the same as if you pressed the OK button on the directory list window. By specifying additional switches, you can specify which selection should be performed on the file list window, and whether or not you want Synchronize to start the copying procedure immediately. The 3rd, 4th, and so on, parameter is the exclude file masks. If no exclude file masks are specified, the default ones will be used. If any file masks are used, the default ones are not included, and only the file masks you specify will be excluded. The following switches are only valid if you have specified two directories on the command line:
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