A CLI tool to manage selective syncing with Syncthing using the stignore file.
stselect [PATH]open an interactive editor for which sub folders to sync (NOT YET IMPLEMENTED)stselect list [PATH]list the sub folders currently selected to syncstselect include [PATH] [SUB_FOLDER]enable syncing of SUB_FOLDERstselect exclude [PATH] [SUB_FOLDER]disable syncing of SUB_FOLDERstselect all [PATH]enable syncing of all sub foldersstselect none [PATH]disable syncing of all sub folders
PATH must be a valid path to the root directory (absolute or relative to current directory) of the Syncthing share, and must therefore contain the hidden .stfolder directory.
SUB_FOLDER must be the name or path of a direct sub directory of the supplied root directory.
In all instances, PATH can be omitted to use the current directory as PATH, or both PATH and SUB_FOLDER can be omitted to use the current directory as SUB_FOLDER and its parent as PATH.
Using this tool will rewrite the .stignore file in the PATH supplied so that:
- the first line is a comment saying when the file was last modified by stselect
- any sub folders selected for syncing will have a line like
!/FOLDER, meaning don't ignore this folder - any sub folders not selected for syncing will have a line like
#!/FOLDER, which is only a comment - the last line will be
/*/**, meaning ignore all files/directories within any sub folders (except those specifically marked not to ignore above) - any existing entries (which don't match the above) are maintained in the order they were previously, but at the top of the file to give them first priority
This will cause Syncthing to:
- sync all files and sub folders in the root directory (so that you can see a full list of sub folders which are available to be synced)
- not sync files within those sub folders by default
- sync files within any sub folders which are selected to be synced
- put an empty file called
WARNING_SUB_FOLDER_NOT_SYNCEDin any sub folders which are not synced so there is a visible difference between a non-synced sub folder and an empty sub folder
If the .stignore file is modified during execution of stselect, or the program malfunctions, your changes to .stignore could be lost. To mitigate this, when the new .stignore file is written, the old one is first moved into the .stversions folder and renamed to include the date and time it was moved.
If files exist in a non-synced sub folder, the user could think they are being synced when in fact they are not. The WARNING_SUB_FOLDER_NOT_SYNCED file is added as a visual indication of this, so it is important that it is not deleted. In addition to this, whenever stselect performs an operation that modifies the .stignore file, it will move any files in non-synced sub folders into .stversions and tell the user it has done so. This avoids data loss because the files still exist in .stversions and will hopefully make the user realise that sub folder is not synced when they see the files are gone. If the stselect list command is run files will NOT be moved, but the user will be warned of their existance.
When checking if a non-synced sub folder is empty (or has files which should be moved to .stversions), the existing lines of .stignore are not considered, so all files will be moved (or listed as needing moving) even if the files would otherwise be ignored by Syncthing anyway.
The existing lines of .stignore are also not taken into account when listing the sub folders of the root directory which are available for syncing, so you may see extra folders listed which wouldn't sync even if they were selected to. It is generally advisable to not have additional lines in .stignore which weren't written by stselect, however if there are, you should know exactly what you are doing and fully understand how Syncthing's ignore file works.
Behaviour with symlinks is not tested and may or may not work correctly. If you plan to use symlinks with stselect I suggest thoroughly testing the outcomes and raising a PR to update this documentation and/or raise issues and make code changes to fix them.
