Nimbus Notes

Posted by MadaboutDana
Nov 26, 2014 at 07:27 PM

I kind of see what you’re saying, Hugh, but in fact, I think folder-based info management is going to become more rather than less popular.

For example: I use Documents on iPad to view my Dropbox documents. Documents indexes all documents, so acts as a fairly powerful info repository. Similarly, increasingly I use EagleFiler on the Mac to manage files, because it’s more precise than Spotlight. At the same time, I can use EagleFiler to create libraries in Dropbox which I then synchronise with Documents on the iPad. Both sets are indexed in different ways. A bit weird, perhaps, but very convenient. Neither of these different approaches affects the actual files themselves; they remain accessible from any device. So this approach is very flexible, in a way that a single app, no matter how cross-platform, usually isn’t.

Having said that, I think we’re due to see a huge development in efficient, cross-platform file management in the near future, incorporating stuff like full-search indices, tagging, virtual links/cloning etc. Clearly this isn’t a straightforward proposition (viz. the failure of the Windows File System a few years’ back; that would have been based on SQL Server, but was pulled by Microsoft just before it was released). Apple and Unix have other options, from ZFS upwards, but so far nobody (to my knowledge) has pulled together something that will work across all platforms. But file management services like Google, Dropbox, OneDrive, Box Net and so on may start producing their own clients that offer info management services as a kind of value-added extra. I’m hoping that will be the case! At which point, yes, perhaps apps like EagleFiler/DEVONthink will suffer. On the other hand, it’s a great incentive for them to offer even more value-added features of their own (e.g. DEVONthink’s concordance feature, but on steroids)!

>For me, however, the idea of a special “container” for documents,
>separate from although within the normal folder-hierarchy - as
>DevonThink has - is becoming increasingly outdated. Cloud repositories,
>the widespread desire to view documents on tablets and ‘phones as well
>as on the desktop, and tagging within the main folder system are some of
>the trends that are making it so, at least on the Mac. Because
>DevonThink can index documents as an alternative to importing them into
>its container, the software itself is not in danger of becoming
>obsolete. But some of its competitors may be.