The main control window
Screen shots of parts of the main control window are shown below.

The top three writable fields can have directories dropped into them to provide the filing system paths to be used, or the paths can be typed in by hand. Manual entry may be necessary if you wish to use system variables, such as shown in the image above.
Primary – The 'Primary' is the main directory and is the directory that is to be 'backed up'.
Secondary – The 'Secondary' is the directory which is to be changed, and is to be made the same as the Primary directory.
Scrap – The third field is 'Scrap' - any files which have to be deleted from the Secondary directory are moved here. If the scrap directory is left blank, then scrap files will simply be deleted. It is important to remember that the scrap directory should not be in either of the primary or secondary directories.
All three icons can contain more than one directory, separated by commas. In this case there must be the same number of directories in each. For example, if there are two directories in each, the first primary directory is backed up into the first secondary directory, and the second primary directory is backed up into the second secondary directory. To make this easier, if a directory is dragged into a field with SHIFT held down, a comma will be inserted at the end of the current contents of the field, and the new directory will be appended. If you are using scrap directories, then there must be the same number entered as for the primary and secondary directories, otherwise the scrap directory will be treated as blank and files will simply be deleted from the secondary directory.
Note that each of these fields is limited to a total number of characters of 511. Thus if you try and drop in several directories with long path names, this limit will be reached and unpredictable behaviour will ensue (directory names truncated or missing).
If CONTROL is held down, the directory leaf will have one element removed - this is useful if you want to enter the root directory of a disc.
If CONTROL and SHIFT are both held down when a directory is dropped onto the Secondary field, then the leaf name of the Primary directory will be added to the Secondary path. This can be useful when setting up the backup directories for the first time.
Hint: If you are using a scrap directory, then it is useful to have it on the same device as the secondary directory, especially if it is being accessed over a network. While a copy would normally load the data in to memory as an intermediate step, SyncDiscs tries to be a little more subtle, and attempts a 'delete existing scrap file/rename old secondary file to scrap' as a first step before resorting to a 'copy to scrap with force set'. The former is very much faster of course, but renames are only possible if the two filenames are on the same device.
Path conflicts. There are a number of directory pathname settings that would result in problems.
- Secondary directory inside the primary directory
- Primary directory inside the secondary directory
- Scrap directory in either of the primary or secondary directories
- Making two of the directories the same
Recently used paths – SyncDiscs now keeps a list of the most recently used paths. To the right of the primary, secondary, and scrap file fields are menu buttons (see image above). Clicking on one of these will raise a menu containing up to the last 32 directories dragged to the field. Choosing one of these will automatically insert the path into the field. If the selection is made with the SHIFT key held down, then the path will be added to the current contents, rather than replacing them. Thus you can insert more than one path if needed.
A typical menu is shown below.

The list is maintained on a FIFO basis. The most recently used path will always be at the top, with the oldest used path at the bottom. If a path already in the list is reused, either from the menu, or by direct dragging, it will move back to the top of the list. If the list is full, and a new directory is set, then the bottom entry will be deleted.
The lists are automatically saved when SyncDiscs is quit, and reloaded when next run.