How do you test rules?

[anothersmurf]

OK, I've gone through the absurdly byzantine process of creating Rules (nee Selectors) in Retrospect 8. How do I test the rules I've created to make sure they do what I'm trying to do? (I'm looking for an equivalent to the "Check Selector" menu item from Retrospect 6.) There doesn't seem to be anything about this in the Rules section of the manual.

 

Thanks.

[Maser]

You run through the Backup Wizard and do a "Preview" -- that should show you what would be backed up if you continued on to do the backup

[anothersmurf]

Someone suggested that in another thread, but I cannot get it to work.

 

When I click Preview, it shows me just the source. The checkbox beside it is neither checked nor partially checked. (I would expect it to be partially checked, because some but not all of the volume should be backed up according to the rule I am testing.) Nor is any enclosed folder checked or partially checked. If I expand successive folders until I reach one which contains some files that are to be backed up, that folder and its parent folders will *only then* show their checkboxes as partially checked. Thus the only way to know, in this Preview, whether a folder contains something that will be backed up is to manually expand it and all of its subfolders and all of theirs, etc. That is impractical.

 

What am I missing/doing wrong?

[Maser]

You aren't doing anything wrong -- that's how they designed it.

 

 

That doesn't make it *good* -- it's not, and they know it.

 

A revamped way of browsing things is supposedly on the list for future revisions of the program.

[Daniels]

I can also confirm that you are doing nothing wrong. It would be nice if the browsing mimiced the Windows versions where it will actually put a dimmed check mark if one or more enclosing items are backed up and a non-dimmed check mark for all enclosed items. Even with this I believe you have to expand each folder to see the contents however you can skip the ones without check marks saving time when selecting files.