Suggestions for File Checksum

[Isabelxxx]

Hi Mathias, I appreciate all the work you did with that extension within MC in the last months fixing the remaining bugs and adding unicode support, all working as expected.

Recently I got some corruption in my HDDs and used the file checksums to analyze which files got corrupted... in the process I found I missed some things to make it that system totally reliable.

Corrupted Checksum files (*.md5, *.sfv, ...) are not loaded by the extension nor can be identified. I found this to be a problem because apart from having my files (to be checked) corrupted, some of the sfv files themselves were also corrupted. If I try to check them nothing happens since the info stored is not readable BUT the program also does not warn you about it.
Is not important when you just check one file but it does if you are checking 10000 sfv files without user attention, just loading the entire batch from folders and subfolders. You have no way to know if a small numbers of all your sfv files is not being loaded at all.

1. Add total number of checksum files analyzed/loaded at the bottom of the file checksum window.

Result: WWWW checksum files analyzed, xxxx files OK, yyyy files failed, zzzz files missing

This lets the user to compare the number of checksum successfully loaded against the total checksum files. At least gives some clue about some of them failing to be read or missing files. If you have X folders and you expect to have the same number X of checksum files, it becomes really helpful.

2. Warn about checksum files not being as expected. For ex... 0 byte checksum files, checksum files without any CRC stored, etc. Corruption is easily identifiable no need to make complex analysis. If you load a sfv file but it can not be checked as sfv then I expect the program to warn me about it, not just omitting it.
Show them the same failed checksum files or missing files are also shown in the result window, and maintain them after clearing successful from list.

3. Delete individual entries, something simple, just "supr". There is a clear all and clear successful from list options, but can not remove an specific checksum file from the list, independently of its status. Really useful when you are working with the final failed results to recover the wrong files or have to recreate the checksum file (since it is not reloaded from disk but memory once it's on the list).

[Isabelxxx]

Playing a bit more with the extension have a few more suggestions:

*Checksum file named as the path name which the files are stored in (when selecting multiple files):

.../My files/
xxxx.txt
yyyy.txt

If selecting both:
checksum is created as --->xxxx.sfv
Suggestion, change to  --->My files.sfv

A more logical approach than just naming the SFV for multiple files like the first file found in the folder.

*A direct command/menu option to create the checksum file without opening the file checksum panel, then starting the process, finally selecting the code page...
In that option, code page support would not be asked every-time but once and saved as default preference for future use.

Selected files and pressing the option would created the MD5\SFV checksum without more questions. Name convention following the first suggestion, folder name for multiple files or file name for 1.

The new options should also be integrated into the user commands/internal commands, that way we can assign this direct approach to a hotkey.


Have thought about 2 ways to do it in the UI

• *Adding 2 more menu entries to do it and adding a note about the existing ones being processed via file checksum panel and the second.
  
  See attach 1
  
• *Merging the 2 existing entries into one and adding the 2 new ones. Old one merged would open the panel, and then you ask at the same time the codepage and checksum format before doing anything.
  
  See attach 2 & 3

[Isabelxxx]

Bumping; I know you have been busy Mathias but just to be sure if at least the 1st part would be implemented some day to make checksum a more reliable system.

[Mathias (Author)]

I have it on my list.. But got some other stuff to do first..
Btw selecting codepage will not be added. Codepage are so unmodern and messy, Unicode and UTF8 is supported. and if you have lots of none standard characters and want to be safe.. Use Unicode. (or UTF8)

[Isabelxxx]

No! Maybe I explained it wrong.

Currently it always ask to select ASCI or UTF8; I mean to skip that step and only ask once. Remember the selection for the future so it don't keep asking everytime I create a checksum file. And merge that window with a selection for SFV/MD5.

That's what I meant with "selecting code page", sorry.

Instead of having 2 separete menu entries for SFV and MD5, one would do the same. You are currently creating a Popup for the ASCI/UTF8 selection, so you can use that same window for the SFV/MD5 selection, thus cleaning a bit the menu entries.
(see attach 2&3)

And the other 2 options would create the CRC files directly without asking the  ASCI/UTF8 thing, remembering the selection you did last time. That way you have the possibility to process things directly (using shortcuts for ex.) maintaining your "preferred" settings while also the current way of setting things before processing. But cleaner in both cases.