|
Personal Backup Version 5.2 |
| © 2012, J. Rathlev, IEAP, Kiel University |
All settings described below can be applied individually to each directory selected for backup. There are three basic options for confining the selection of files to be backed up, all of which can be combined in any way:
There are two main subdirectory-selection options:
will be backed up. This option is selected by default so that directories added later
will always be backed up. As soon as at least one subordinate directory is selected
to be excluded from a backup, its parent directory will be marked with
.
Clicking the 
symbol
will open the branch to display its subdirectories.
will be backed up.
Subdirectories added later will not be backed up unless intentionally manually tagged.
As soon as at least one subordinate directory is selected to be included in a backup,
its parent directory will be marked with
.
Clicking the symbol
will open the branch to display its subdirectories.Right-clicking a subdirectory will display a context menu in which its files and folders can be previewed subject to a choice of options.
On directory trees with fewer than 5000 files, the status display (file count and volume)
above the Directory filters window is refreshed automatically. To save time
with larger trees, a refresh will not be performed until the
button on the left is clicked.
On the right of the dialog box under Directory filters you can define dynamic filters for subdirectory names. Each time before starting a backup, the program checks whether there are subdirectory names that fall under the given filter conditions. These subdirectories will then be included in or excluded from the backup depending on the selection mode. In the pictured example, all directories with the names "backups" and "__history" including also their subdirectories will be excluded.
This filter list applies for the whole of each backup task. You can select one or more items from the list to apply them to any subdirectory in the current directory tree.
Select the desired filters in the Directory filters window and apply them to your tree by clicking the Apply button. You can similarly undo this selection by clicking the Remove button.
Clicking the Edit button will open a dialog box for creating and changing filters (see screenshot on the right). A filter must use the syntax described below or may be a regular expression:
Clicking the Settings button will call a dialog box in which you can specify
certain filter conditions see below)
and select whether filenames (optionally including their extension) matching this
filter or several filters are to be backed up or not. Optionally, you can use
regular expressions.
Filters only for file extensions can be set separately.
Additionally, you can restrict the backup to files with a modification date/time
within certain limits and/or to files of a size within certain limits and/or to
files with selected attributes. Conversely, you can exclude from the backup files
with specific attributes. By default all files will be included.
The required date can be set manually or by selection via the calendar.
Note: It is also possible to specify these settings using the
command line option.
The values for file sizes may contain suffixes: e.g. 1 kB, 2.5 MB, 1.8 GB
A valid file filter mask consists of literal characters (e.g. letters or digits), sets and wildcard characters.
Each literal character must match a single character in the string. The comparison to literal characters is case-insensitive.
Each set begins with an opening square bracket ([) and ends with a closing square bracket (]). Between the brackets are the elements of the set. Each element is a literal character or a range. Ranges are specified by an initial value and a final value separated by a hyphen (e.g. [A-D]). Do not use spaces or commas to separate the elements of the set. A set must match a single character in the string. The character matches the set if it is the same as one of the literal characters in the set, or if it is in one of the ranges in the set. A character is in a range if it matches the initial value, the final value, or falls between the two values. All comparisons are case-insensitive. If the first character after the opening bracket of a set is an exclamation mark (!), then the set definition will be inverted, that is to say a character not in the set will be accepted as matching.
Wildcard characters are asterisks (*) or question marks (?). An asterisk matches any number of characters. A question mark matches a single arbitrary character.
Examples:
backups - the name matches exactly
backup* - all names starting with "backup" will match
[abc]* - all names starting with "a", "b" or "c" will match
?[ab]* - all names that have "a" or "b" as the second
letter will match
[a-m]* - all names having "a", "b", "c",
.. , "m" as the first letter will match
While their syntax is relatively complex, regular expressions can on the other hand be a very powerful tool. A brief description is included in the documentation of this program. For further information, search for literature on the subject. An overview can be found at Wikipedia.
Clicking the 
button
will open a window displaying all the files selected for backup. This is particularly
useful for checking the correct functioning of regular expressions,
for example.
This preview can also be called via a context menu displayed on right-clicking a directory in the Directories to be backed up window and selecting the option Show all selected files. In this context menu there is also the option to Show all excluded files.
The indicator for file types is the file extension. When configuring your backup, you can select which file types you wish to include and which to exclude from the backup. Initially, with the All except radio button checked, all file types found in the currently-selected directory and in all its subdirectories are displayed with their extensions in the list on the left. This means that no files will be excluded from the backup. Each row of the list shows the number and the total size of all files of this type found in the current directory and its subdirectories. The size of each file type is visualized as a small bar. Green means low values (< 1 kb), red large values (> 1 MB). Clicking the Only these or All except radio button establishes what the program is to do during a later backup with files appearing in the lists:
On selecting a directory from the list in the Directories to be backed up window, all file types found in that directory and all its subdirectories will be displayed in the lower windows. Depending on the selected mode they are sorted to the list on the left or that on the right (see above). File types can be moved at will between the two lists:
It is possible to select the file types to be backed up using a filter condition. The rules for setting the mask are the same as those described for filenames (standard filter and regular expressions). You can decide whether the filtered types shall be included or excluded from the backup. If you choose this option, manual file-type selection will be disabled.
A list of file types can be stored under a unique name for possible later use
with other backup tasks. By means of the following buttons one of several functions
can be performed (see screenshot on right):