Sohodox Review

Posted by 22111
Sep 10, 2013 at 08:26 PM

I am very much interested in DMS, and it has been mentioned here today or yesterday in another thread. I don’t think Sohodox is a serious contender, and here is why.

Today on bits, my question:

Would you like to comment on this aspect on your program:

The database (db) is just for the index, the files stay within the file system (I think that’s very good; I lost thousands of photos by Adobe Lightroom, for its way of storing your files under new names, I never understood where and how, and I cannot bear to happen the same thing with my other files, so I must know what’s going behind the scenes before buying.)

1 In your screenshots, I see “Public folders / private folders”; may I assume these are virtual folders within the db, and do not correspond to the file system and to the names of the physical folders?

2 So what about the folders and files in the file system? Does your software check for moves/renames of the physical folders and/or files, made outside your program (within any file commander)?

3 In both cases, is there a way to rename/move physical folder and/or files within your program? By what commands? Can we see a screenshot for the dialog doing this? Is moving files only possible by drag and drop, or do you have some file commander gui for doing this, with two panes, source and target?

4 Is the “Document title” within the pane “Documents”, right to the pane “Workspace”, the original title of physical file, or is it something other? In other words, can this “Document title” be changed, within your program, and then appears as a renamed physical file within the file system, just like you renamed it in “Douments”? Or is it possible that the title here is / becomes something else then the name of the physical file represented by this “document title”?

5 With respect to 1, can one virtual sub-folder appear in more than one virtual parent folder?

6 Ditto for files, can one file (“document”) appear in more than one virtual folder?

7 If “yes” for questions 5 and / or 6, does a “delete” just delete the reference, or the physical folder/file? Even for the last instance of that physical file? Is there a warning for this delete, when it comes to the last instance/reference, and thus it would delete the physical file, instead of just a reference?

I am sorry I am so technical, but serious buyers will need to know the answers to these questions before going to administer their files with such a system where a db is an overlay to the physical file system.

and the “answer” of the developer:

Yes, you can move a document in Sohodox from one folder to another. You can also import your existing folder structure that is on your drive to Sohodox by simply dragging and dropping it.
Yes, the indexing information is added to database and the documents are added to normal Windows folder. The files names are not changed in Sohodox unless there are two documents of the same name, in this case a suffix is added to the file name.

This is ridiculous for an answer, and this part here, “You can also import your existing folder structure that is on your drive to Sohodox by simply dragging and dropping it.” looks good as first sight but seems to indicate LOTS of trouble, since it indicates that there is no real concept in this tool, for the interaction between the file system and the overlaid “virtual folder system” by database.

From what I understand, this “DMS” is a database tool that does two things, and two things only:

1) It has your comments stored in a database, instead of in the file names or in the “comment” part of the “additional data stream” of the files, making easier access to these than by the Windows dialogs, BUT several file commanders give easy, instant access to these, too, both for viewing and for entering/changing; xplorer2 is especially good for this.

Of course, a “data stream” comment system is not “exportable” to FAT32-formatted usb sticks, but then, most file managers will warn you whenever you try to copy/move to one, so risk of data loss by inadvertancy is inexistant, and the Sohodox system is even less “exportable”, since you would have to export the whole database, together even with only parts of all your data, and you will quickly become inconsistent databases and create chaos for yourself.

2) It puts your files into any virtual folder you might it to be; this could be done by a file commander, just using real, additional folders in your file structure, and Windows links. Of course, doing this this way means either lots of manual work, or then, some macros within the file manager, but those macros would be very easy (“create link file, then rename the link file (to your standards; any file commander names those links created there in some other way, when you will want to have it named by your own standards), then (different macros for each) put the new link file into one of several “ToDo” (or delegation or some other standard) folders” - done! Then, deleting the link file there is even simpler.

Of course, in such a “file system” system, you will work within your preferred file manager all the time, but then, in a system like Sohodox, you will work in Sohodox all the time… and you will quickly run into trouble, having to distinguish between your file system and the virtual Sohodox folder system at any moment… you will quickly create chaos here, too.

Have it file-system-based, or have it database-based, but for any hybrid system, as Sohodox is one, be more specific about its interaction between file system and your tool. And answer serious questions serious buyers have. (I had indeed been very interested in this thing, before getting my “answer”.)