Option

 Global? 

Description

clipboard_text_encoding

Specifies the default text encoding to use when pasting text from the clipboard to a file.

config_backup_name

Template used to generate the default name for configuration backups. You can still edit the name manually when doing the backup, but this changes what it is initially.

The template supports D#, T# and A# prefixes for dates and times (as described here) and environment variables. Note that to use date and time codes you must enclose them in {} brackets (e.g. {D#yyyy-MM-dd}).

Local time is used by default, but you can prefix with UTC# to use UTC instead (e.g. {UTC#T#HH-mm}).

description_quick_flush

When storing descriptions in the external descript.ion format, this option makes description changes get flushed to disk immediately rather than being batched up and written "lazily" on a timer.

drag_distance

Distance in pixels that the mouse cursor needs to move to initate a drag and drop. Set this to 0 if you want to disable drag and drop completely.

find_unique_collections

Don't let simultaneous Find operations use the same collection for results. The Find function defaults to presenting its results in the Find Results File Collection. If you have two or more Find operations running in parallel, this option causes the name of the output File Collection for the second and subsequent tasks to be modified to be unique, so that the results are not intermingled.

go_up_always_back

The Go UP command normally re-reads the parent folder, even if you had previously visited it and it is in the history list, and you can add the BACK argument (i.e. Go UP BACK) to cause Opus to use the history if possible (preserving file selections) when going to the parent folder. If you turn on this option then Go UP will always behave as if it had the BACK argument specified as well.

layout_string

This option lets you define the name that is given to Lister Layouts that you drop on your desktop from the Layouts page in Preferences. You must specify a string that contains the code %1 - this code is replaced with the name of the layout in the generated shortcut. If nothing is specified for this option, the default is Layout '%1'.

navlock_warn_verbose

With Navigation Lock on, entering a relative path on one side which the other side cannot mirror causes a warning to appear over the file display. By default, when navlock_warn_verbose is True, this warning is long and explains that you can return to the previous folder to get the two sides back in sync, as well giving options to manually re-sync on the current folder pair or to turn off Navigation Lock entirely. If you set navlock_warn_verbose to False, a shorter, less obtrusive message is displayed. If you already understand how Navigation Lock works and have read the longer message many times already, switch to the shorter message.

powermode_singledrag

Power mode file displays have persistent selection by default - when you click on an unselected item, it selects it but does not automatically deselect any other selected items. Normally when you click on an item and drag it out, all other selected files are also dragged as well. When this option is on, if you click on a single file and drag it to the left or right, only that file will be part of the drag - any other selected files will not be.

rename_default_focus

Selects which field in the Rename dialog gets input focus by default - the Old Name or New Name field. Rename scripts can override this setting.

searchfield_autostart

Lets you control how long after you stop typing a search from the Lister search field will automatically begin. If set to 0 this uses the value configured for the FAYT on the Find-As-You-Type page.

search_warn_nonindexed

When true, if you use Windows Search on a folder which is not indexed, and the search takes more than a few seconds, Opus will display a banner warning you that the search may be slow because the folder is not indexed. If off, the warning will not be displayed. (This has no effect on Opus's built-in Find Files functionality. Find Files is independent from Windows Search indexing and does not display similar banners.)

single_click_rename

If you have single-click mode enabled, and the file display is in Details mode with full-row selection enabled in Preferences, it is normally not possible to initiate inline rename using the mouse, because a click anywhere on the line would open the item. With this option enabled you can however initiate inline rename using the mouse - once the entry is selected by hovering, you can click anywhere on the line other than the filename to begin rename.

status_metadata_trigger

Controls when the status bar, if displaying selected or total media duration (time lengths), may trigger the calculation of that data, if nothing else in the file display has triggered it already.

Calculating media duration involves opening and parsing data from inside each file individually, and this can take some time and tie up the disk or network, particularly when there are a lot of files.

If durations have already been calculated for one of the columns in the file display (e.g. the Duration column), the setting is moot since the status bar will re-use those calculations. The setting only changes whether the status bar on its own can trigger the calculations.

If the status bar definition does not include any of the media duration codes – i.e. {smp3} or {tmp3} – then the setting is also moot, since the status bar won't trigger calculation of data it is not interested in.

The default setting is Never, meaning the status bar never triggers calculations on its own, and only shows duration information when it has been calculated by something else.

Selecting the Always setting means the status bar will trigger duration calculations in all situations.

Selecting the Always, except Flat View and Collections setting means the status bar can trigger duration calculations, except when Flat View is enabled or when in File Collections. Flat View and Collections often involve a large number of files, making them a worst case.

tab_click_nofocus

Clicking on a folder tab to bring it to the front normally activates that file display and makes it the source. If this option is on then clicking a tab in the destination file display would leave the source/destination status unchanged.

wheel_acceleration

Opus normally applies a small amount of acceleration when scrolling in file displays using the mouse wheel, but you can disable it using this option if desired.

wordbreak_char_paths

This lets you configure additional word break characters in edit fields when editing paths (e.g. in the Breadcrumbs path field). The standard path delimiters  (:/\) are always treated as a word break.

Option

 Global? 

Description

def_func_cd_sourcedir

Use the current source directory as the default current directory when launching programs from buttons that don't specify a current directory. The default for such functions is to set the current directory to the C:\Windows\System32 directory for security reasons.

dlldir_security

This option, enabled by default, prevents Opus from loading DLLs from the current working directory. This reduces the risk of "binary planting" exploits which can trick your computer into running untrusted software when you open things like photos or music from folders in which someone has hidden a malicious DLL.

Turning this option off will reduce your security but may be needed if it causes problems with poorly written shell extensions or other third party software which is installed on your computer. (Such software is typically only tested with Windows Explorer, which does not traditionally used the more secure mode which Opus uses by default.)

This option only affects Opus and, potentially, the software you launch from Opus. It is not a system-wide setting (although there is one if you want to be even more secure; search the web for CWDIllegalInDllSearch for more information).

This option cannot be modified when running from a portable USB install.

flush_com_libraries

By default, Opus is fairly agressive at asking COM libraries (typically shell extension DLLs) to unload when they are no longer needed. This can cause crashes in components which say they can unload incorrectly when they are still running code within the process. Switching this setting to False may reduce problems with those faulty components.

global_explorer_replacement

Global

Explorer Replacement mode is normally a per-user setting, but if you turn this option on then the Explorer Replacement mode setting will be global for all users of the machine. This may improve the ability of Opus to intercept some calls to Explorer, but normally you would leave this turned off.

no_async_icons

File types for which icons should not be retrieved asynchronously. Normally Opus retrieves file icons on a background thread for greater performance, but we have found occasionally that the icons for some file types can not be generated successfully in the background. Multiple file extensions should be separated with a semi-colon. Note that the following extensions are automatically blocked for background icon extraction: .msg;.oft;.xnk

patch_text_apis

When set to True (the default), Opus will patch some of the Windows text rendering and measuring APIs with the aim of making them use consistent font kerning. This should make character spacing look better and more consistent throughout the program. It should also prevent issues where a string of latin characters are spaced differently if a non-latin character is added to or removed from the end, which can cause text to overflow its bounds. However, since this setting modifies operating system APIs (only within dopus.exe), it could cause compatibility issues with third party code which runs inside of Opus. If you see text rendering or layout issues within Opus, see if turning this off helps, and please report your findings via the Directory Opus tech support forum.

zip_large_file_support

Enable support for Large Zip files. Large Zip files support individual items, and archives, that are more than 4 GB in size, and more than 65536 individual items in an archive. Large Zip support is enabled by default but if you need to maintain compatibility with legacy archives you can turn this option off. Opus will always read Large Zip files even if this option is turned off - it merely controls the type of archive that Opus creates.

Option

 Global? 

Description

collection_icon_find

Similar to collection_icon_default, but specific to collections generated for Find Results and Search Queries.

collection_icon_marked

Similar to collection_icon_default, but specific to Marked Pictures collections generated by marking images in the viewer.

context_menu_icon_set

Some context menus contain items which Opus generates automatically, and where you do not have an opportunity to change which size or style of icons are used, other than by moving an icon set to the top of the list and affecting all toolbar and menu icons. Since you may wish to use a smaller icon set in context menus than everywhere else, this setting allows you to specify another set to use instead of the normal one. Opus will use this setting when generating context menu items for adding to and extracting from archives. Note that this only applies when the menu is shown inside of Opus; the similar menu in Explorer does not use icon sets in the first place.

The name should match the icon set's XML “name” attribute, not its “display_name”. For example, if the icon set is defined with <iconset name="flat_small"> ... <display_name>Small Icon Set (Flat)</display_name> then you should type “flat_small” into the setting, and not “Small Icon Set (Flat)”.

glass_status_bar

When set to True, draws the status bar using the Windows "glass" effect for its background. This looks good on Windows 7 but is fairly pointless on newer versions of Windows.

This setting has no effect unless glass is enabled system-wide (i.e. Desktop Window Composition is available), and the Keep status bars at the bottom of the Lister is turned on under Preferences / Display / Status Bar.

grid_lines_first_last

Changes how horizontal grid lines are drawn in the file display. This is primarily to help visually separate the file display column header from the files and folders below it, since some Windows versions draw the header without a bottom edge and with the same background color as everything below it.

If set to First or Both with solid grid lines, the alternating pattern begins on the first item instead of the second. If set to First or Both with thin grid lines, an extra grid line is drawn before the very first item, just under the column header (but only if visual styles are used for the file display, and line spacing is 0 or 1).

Setting this option to Last or Both with thin grid lines adds an additional grid line after the very last item, instead of skipping it. The Last option no effect on solid grid lines.

In all cases, the setting has no effect on items under group headers, since group headers have their own lines already.

progress_smoothing

Smooth progress bar updates on Vista and above. Turn off for lag-free progress bars which jump immediately when updated.

thumb_48x48_icons

Enables the use of 48x48 icons for thumbnails and tiles. This has trade-offs:

• If the setting is off, icons which have neither 256x256 nor 32x32 versions will look bad.
• If the setting is on, icons which have neither 256x256 nor 48x48 versions will look bad. 32x32 icons are far more common than 48x48 icons, so the setting is off by default.

(The exact icon sizes vary with system DPI settings. The sizes used here are for the standard DPI.)

Each icon can contain various versions of itself in different sizes. Regardless of this setting, Opus always prefers the high-quality 256x256 versions of icons which have them. For icons which do not have 256x256 versions, Opus requests a 32x32 version if the setting is off and a 48x48 version if the setting is on.

When an icon contains neither of the requested sizes, one of its other sizes is selected and scaled to fit. This is done by Windows itself and the scaling is not done to a high quality, with resized icons becoming blurry and messy. Windows will not say which sizes of an icon are available without scaling and will not indicate when an icon had to be scaled to fit a requested size, so the quality of the result is determined by the requested size and some icons will look bad either way.

(This option affects the icons for things like .EXE files. It does not affect actual .ICO files because Opus is able to generate thumbnails for them without these problems and compromises.)

Option

 Global? 

Description

copy_buffer_size

Buffer size used by the custom file-copying code. Units can be KB, MB or GB. If no units are specified, defaults to KB.

This specifies the amount of data that Opus will read or write at once when copying files using its own custom code. Although it shouldn't matter, some USB devices or networks appear to be sensitive to the size of the copy buffer. If you find that copies are much slower or less reliable than you would expect, try increasing or decreasing the buffer size.

The Copy BUFSIZE command can be used to override this setting on individual buttons, hotkeys, etc.

This buffer is in addition to any buffering provided by the filesystem, hardware, and so on; it is not connected to the non-buffered IO mode controlled by the copy_nonbufferio_threshold setting.

In the usual case where copy_allow_delegation is True, the copy_buffer_size and copy_nonbufferio_threshold settings have no effect on normal file-to-file copies, but can still affect special situations such as splitting/joining files, copying out of archives, and so on.

dos_automap_unc_paths

Automatically create drive letter mappings for UNC paths in MS-DOS batch commands. This lets you run DOS batch scripts on network drives directly from a UNC path.

network_errors

Global

Specify error codes that indicate network authentication errors. Some network filesystems return undocumented error codes in the case of a username/password authentication error - if you are finding that you simply get an error dialog when attempting to connect to a network drive, you should note the error code and add it to this option. When Opus receives that error code it will treat it as an authentication failure and prompt you for credentials to access the resource. You can specify multiple error codes by separating them with semi-colons (e.g. 50;1003;1245).

remember_net_paths

Opus normally remembers the previous path used in a system File Open or Save dialog (for example, when you use the Preferences Backup or Restore function), but for performance reason it does not remember network paths. Turn this option on if you want Opus to remember network paths as well.

Option

 Global? 

Description

ftp_dblclk_cache_time

Time (in minutes) to cache double-clicked files from FTP sites. When you double-click a file to open it on an FTP site, Opus downloads the file and saves it to a temporary folder. If you double-click the same file again within the specified time, the already-downloaded file will be used to save downloading the file again. This is set to 0 by default, meaning files are not automatically cached for double-click.

ftp_no_case_sensitive

FTP sites are normally case sensitive (e.g. a file called TEST.TXT would be different from a file called test.txt). Set this option to disable case sensitivity for FTP sites.

ftp_ssl_verbose

Causes the FTP log to display extended output during SSL connections.

Option

 Global? 

Description

amiga_icon_palette

Palette to use when displaying legacy Amiga icons.

clipboard_image_paste_dpi

When turned on, pasting clipboard image data to a file (by pressing Ctrl+V in a Lister) will automatically scale it to compensate for the system DPI.

psd_image_preference

Photoshop PSD files can have up to three embedded images: A small (164x164) thumbnail with very lossy compression and no opacity/alpha data; a full-size, flattened preview image, stored in a lossless format, which can include opacity/alpha data; and finally the full, layered image data in Photoshop's internal format. (The layered data is not decoded by Opus, and few things other than Photoshop itself will render it.)

By default, Opus uses the small thumbnail image for thumbnails and the full-size preview image for the viewer. The setting allows you to override this so that one image or the other is used for both thumbnails and the viewer.

If you want Opus to show PSD thumbnails larger than 164x164, or with opacity/alpha data, select the option to use the preview image for both the viewer and thumbnails.

However, some PSD files do not have valid preview images, so there is also the option of never using the preview images and always using the small thumbnails, even in the viewer. Whether a PSD contains a flat preview image depends on how it was saved from Photoshop. The "maximize compatibility" or similar option should be turned on to include a preview image. In Photoshop CC 2015.5.0, the option is under Preferences / File Handling. In some cases, where there is no 'real' preview image there will be a black and white placeholder with text, written by Photoshop, telling you there is no preview image. Unfortunately, some versions of Photoshop write a corrupt placeholder image in some cases. (The data is well-formed, but the image it represents is not. In either case, it is difficult for Opus to detect if a 'real' preview image is there, or just a placeholder, as both are simply different pixel data encoded into exactly the same part of the file as a real preview image.) If your workflow cannot be changed and results in PSD files with missing or corrupt preview images, you can tell Opus to always use the small thumbnails, even in the viewer, so you can at least get a rough idea of what each file looks like.

tiff_max_doc_metadata

Maximum size (in megabytes) of TIFF images that Opus will attempt to extract document metadata from. This prevents problems with very large TIFFs, for example those saved by Photoshop.

viewer_disable_internal

Allows you to disable built-in image formats in the viewer and preview pane. Does not affect viewer plugins (which can already be disabled directly); in fact, the purpose is to allow you to override internal viewers with plugins and third-party components in situations where they cannot do so themselves (generally, Preview Handlers and ActiveX controls which don't know anything about Opus). For example, you may wish to divert the TIFF viewer to a third-party ActiveX control which handles multi-page TIFFs. The setting is a string listing the image types you wish to disable. Setting it to tiff would disable the internal TIFF viewer. Setting it to JPG,PNG would disable the internal JPG and PNG viewers.

Option

 Global? 

Description

custom_date_format_long

Similar to custom_date_format but used in places where a long (more verbose) date format is used. The long date format is not used in many places, so custom_date_format is more likely what you want if you are not sure.

deffmt_cloud_availability

If changed to False, prevents the Availability column being added to the Cloud Storage folder format automatically.

When you save a new default folder format and choose the option to replace all existing formats, a few formats get extra columns added automatically. In most cases these columns are important, but some can be overridden via options like this.

desc_show_info

For each file, the Description column normally shows:

• A metadata summary. (e.g. Picture type and dimensions, Audio codec and bitrate.)
• The user-defined description, if any. (This may be set via the Properties, Description command on the default toolbars. Some file types also allow user-defined descriptions/comments within their tags.)
• The target path, if the file is a shortcut or link. This option lets you remove the user-defined descriptions and/or targets from the Description column. For example, if you have added the separate User description and Target columns then you may want only the metadata summary to be left in the Description column.

file_size_units

Specifies the units to use when displaying file sizes and disk space. The traditional form is to use binary units (2^10-based) with "decimal" prefixes (1 KB = 1024 bytes). You can also choose to use decimal (10^3-based) units (1 KB = 1000 bytes) or binary units (1 KiB = 1024 bytes). See this Wikipedia page for more information.

group_column_maxwidth

Specifies the maximum width of the Group column. When file display columns are set to auto-size, this option prevents the Group column from growing larger than the specified number of pixels.

image_size_units

Units to use for columns relating to image size (Physical Width, Physical Height, Physical Size). If not set, each image file itself specifies the units, and so you may have a mix of inches and centimetres in any one directory - setting this option overrides the images and always displays consistent units.

name_group_high_pri_chars

When grouping the file list by filename, files beginning with these characters will be put in a "high-priority" group at the top of the list. Normally files beginning with a non-alphabetical character or number will be placed in the Unspecified group, but you could use this option to, for example, place files beginning with ! or # in a separate group.

Option

 Global? 

Description

everything_max_results

Sets a limit to the number of search results that an Everything search can return.

max_folder_thumb_time

Specifies the maximum time (in milliseconds) that Opus will spend when generating the thumbnail for a folder.

max_thumbnail_mem_size

The maximum memory (in megabytes) per file display for in-memory thumbnails. Opus will discard out-of-view thumbnails to keep the memory usage for each file display's thumbnails below the specified size. If set to 0 there is no limit.

suggestion_popup_lines

Configures how many lines are shown at once in popup suggestion lists.

Option

 Global? 

Description

collection_change_delay

Delay (in milliseconds) before processing external delete/rename operations in File Collections. You might want to increase this if you find that files are disappearing from your file collections when you edit them in other programs (e.g. Word).

crash_debug_button

When turned on, adds a "Debug" button to the Opus crash dialog, allowing you to invoke the normal Windows crash behavior. If a Just-In-Time debugger is installed, this will allow you to debug the process in its current state. This option should only be turned on if you are a developer working on a plugin or shell extension; it is not likely to be useful to anyone else.

crash_log_memory

When turned on, automatically generated crash logs (also known as "crash dumps") will include all memory within the process. This can make them more useful when diagnosing problems, but also greatly increases their file size and the chance they will include private data. You should not turn on this this setting unless asked to by technical support.

mixed_dpi_mitigations

Windows has a large number of bugs which are triggered by using multiple monitors with different DPIs (not just high-DPI monitors, but where there is more than one screen and they are not all set to the same scaling factor). Some of these Windows bugs can also be triggered by changing the DPI and not rebooting.

The mixed_dpi_mitigations setting controls certain workarounds which Opus uses to try to make Windows behave properly when using displays with multiple DPIs. Unfortunately, the mitigations themselves can cause problems on some machines, while solving them on others. If the mitigations are turned off, the main symptom of the Windows bug is pop-up menus and tooltips opening in the wrong place and being very large or small. When the mitigations are turned on, there is a very small performance hit and, if something goes wrong, the potential for the screen to flicker when pop-up menus or tooltips open, or other unexpected visual glitches.

When set to Automatic, Opus will detect if the system is in a mixed-DPI mode and turn on the mitigations when it is, while avoiding them when it is not.

This setting is only visible on Windows 8.1 and above; ealier OS versions did not support multiple monitors at different DPIs.

no_external_change_notify

Don't monitor for external file changes. This lets you disable the detection of file changes that occur outside of Opus - only file operations that Opus itself performs will be noticed and reflected in the Lister.

notify_debug_exclude

A regular expression which filters the notify_debug output by path. If this regex is defined, a path will only be reported if it (or a substring) matches the regex.

notify_max_time

Global

The maximum amount of time, in milliseconds, each file display will spend processing change notifications from the filesystem before considering other inputs and events.

Defaults to 50 milliseconds. In rare situations, you may need to raise this from its default value if events are being generated faster than they are consumed. You can also specify 0 (zero) to process change events indefinitely, although you would probably only want to do so as a test, not as a permanent setting. If this is set to zero, or set too high, file displays could become less responsive to user input when a lot of filesystem events are being generated.

This is a global setting. If you change it for one user on a machine then it will affect all other users, as is most likely required. On a multi-user system, if the setting is changed by one user, the others will not see the change until they restart Opus.

notify_poll_paths

A list of paths (one per line) which should be polled for changes rather than relying on the operating system's change notification mechanism.

If Opus is monitoring a folder in or below one of the specified paths, that folder will be polled every few seconds to see if anything within it has changed. This involves reading the folder's complete directory listing (recursively, in some cases) every few seconds and comparing it to the previous listing.

Use with caution! This can cause severe slowdowns and high resource usage if applied to a folder with a lot of files in or below it, or where listing the contents is slow or times out. Tracking of moves and renames can also be less reliable in affected folders.

You should only use this in special circumstances where a folder has broken change notification and you don't want to have to refresh it manually. For example, if a Linux-based NAS runs a service inside a Docker container which makes changes to a mounted volume, changes made inside Docker can be seen remotely when listing the folder but will not generate change events, as Docker/Linux fail to pass the events to the outside world.

script_output_throttle

When on, diagnostic output shown in the Script Log (Utility Panel / Other Logs) will suppress identical messages which repeat too frequently.

This should normally be left on to prevent performance issues if a diagnostic message is triggered too often. Turning it off can be useful if you are working on a plugin DLL and need to log repetitive events without any of them being dropped.

This affects diagnostics that come from Opus itself and plugin DLLs. Output sent to the log from scripts calling the DOpus.Output method is always shown.

sync_debug

This should normally be left off, but you may be asked to turn it on to debug decisions made by the Synchronize tool. If you use the Synchronize tool while this option is on, a file with debugging information will be created on your desktop.