Unintuitive button labels! "Override" vs. "Overwrite"

[MrEthernet]

The function of the "Override" button is to replace (i.e. overWRITE) an original file with another one of the same name. Surely, this is an act of overWRITing, rather than of overRIDing? These words sound similar but they're not interchangeable!

As a new FileBot user who is looking at FileBot with a fresh set of eyes, this feels like it's perhaps not the best choice of words for this option. When I first saw these buttons a few days ago, it was only through research and experimentation that I realized that this is an "Overwrite" button. The label "Override" when the function is "Overwrite" totally threw me off!

What's being "overridden" here? Am I missing something?

Sure, I know what that option does now, but only because of my experimentation and reading documentation - no thanks to the label on the button itself.

The current (ambiguous) labels: Override vs Continue:



My suggestion would be for more intuitive labels: Overwrite vs Skip:



What's wrong with "Continue" anyway? Good question!

As the other option is labelled "override" instead of "overwrite", someone looking at it for the first time (such as me last week) would be unclear what "Continue" does too. "Continue" doesn't actually make it clear that the conflict is being skipped.

Does it mean "Continue but don't replace the original file" or "Continue and do replace the original file"? A (new) user can't really be sure.

On the other hand, "Skip" would unequivocally tell the user that no action will be taken for a given conflict. "Continue" in this context just leaves the user needing to experiment with it to see what it does!

In my opinion, if you view these two buttons through the eyes of a completely new FileBot user, their labels are quite ambiguous.

Microsoft went with "Replace" vs "Skip":



Apple went with "Overwrite" and "Replace:", vs "Cancel"





Just my two cents.

[rednoah]

What's being "overridden" here? Am I missing something?

Well, I guess the idea is that FileBot will ignore / skip conflicts by default, and you can "override" that decision, and continue, which then may lead to files getting "overwritten" as files are moved from source to destination one by one.


Notably, there are different kinds of conflicts. For example, if your format yields file paths without extensions, that would be a "Missing Extension" conflict, to be ignored by default, but with an option to "override" to force FileBot to do exactly as instructed, even though FileBot has reason to believe that you're making a mistake. In this case, no file would be overwritten.


Bottomline, we've been using --conflict override on the command-line for more than a decade, so that can't be changed now without breaking 3rd party scripts:

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--conflict [skip, override, auto, index, fail] : Conflict resolution

I don't mind changing Continue to Skip though. I suppose it says Continue simply because all dialogs say Continue.

[MrEthernet]

I see where you're coming from with those labels now.

Fortunately, the option that overwrites the original file has a red circle , while the one that doesn't potentially cause a loss of data by replacing a file has a green circle. In my opinion, those colours are helpful and intuitive. I'm a big fan of the red/green circles!



I honestly mostly go by the red/green circles on the buttons at this point now anyway.

IMO, the labels are were just a tiny friction point for me the first couple of times I had conflicts but, after that, it was a non-issue.

I do still think "Skip" would be better than "Continue", especially for first-time users, who would be 100% sure what it does.

You could ask 10 random people on the street (who'd never used FileBot before) what they thought "Continue" does, then ask them what they think "Skip" would do, and I think the only times they'd either get it wrong or not know would be with "Continue". At least, that's my theory anyway!

I just noticed something interesting: subtitle conflicts are handled with "replace/skip" options:



Incidentally, I'm using the subtitle tab for the first time today and I find it works amazingly well!

[PinzerSaver]

At the risk of bringing this topic back from the dead...

Like the OP, I eventually figured out what "overwrite" and "skip" do. My main complaint is that when I have duplicates, I want to save the larger file and the accessory files that go with it. even being able to save both would work out - then I could easily use other software to remove all but the largest/smallest/most compressed/etc version of the file.

Sometimes there are ways to be inviting to newcomers while accommodating the preferences of the long-term users.

-Evan

[rednoah]

My main complaint is that when I have duplicates, I want to save the larger file and the accessory files that go with it. even being able to save both would work out - then I could easily use other software to remove all but the largest/smallest/most compressed/etc version of the file.

You'll want to add things like {resolution} {vf} {af} etc to your custom format to ensure unique destination file paths for unique input files:
https://www.filebot.net/naming.html

That way you won't get duplicates (i.e. input files that get assigned the same destination path) in the first place.

[PinzerSaver]

Thank you for the advice. It looks like:

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//10.11.12.14/mp/Movies/{n} ({y}){bytes}/{n} ({y}){' CD'+pi}{'.'+lang}

does what I need.