a file browser usable as a PIM, as follows ...

Posted by jimspoon
Jun 6, 2011 at 12:01 AM

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:
>It’s probably not quite what you had in mind, but take a look at this old post of mine:
>http://www.outlinersoftware.com/messages/viewm/4871

Good post, thanks. We have the same basic idea - instead of using a program-specific database, which other programs don’t know how to use - why not use the file system, or at least a very common data format? That way the same data can be viewed and edited in multiple ways by multiple programs.

One possibility - put each note (or “record”) in a separate text file. Each note could be given a meaningful file name. I put the date and time in many of my file names, so that I can use a tool like Voidtools Everything (which searches filenames) - to retrieve files from many different folders and put them in chronological order. Different file extensions could be used for different kinds of data. Perhaps metadata “fields” could be placed somewhere in each file - perhaps at the bottom. For example, you could have something like this at the bottom of each file:

PurchaseDate: 4/29/2011
Manufacturer: Sony
etc etc.

A properly designed program could then gather the notes and metadata fields from many different files into one tabular display - and the data could be edited within that program, too.

Another advantage - it would be an easy matter to keep such a “database” synced across different computers using Dropbox or some such utility. A change to an individual note would be synced as soon as it is saved - you wouldn’t have to close an entire database of notes before the whole thing is synced.

Perhaps an “outliner” could be designed where a subitem is stored in a file system subdirectory associated with a a parent note item.

If a note belongs in several places in the outline, this might be accomplished by using file system “hard links” or “symbolic links”.

Maybe there is something already out there that works along these lines, but I haven’t found it yet.

>I see that the program
>mentioned, Nemo, is under continued development and has almost reached v.1
>http://www.nemo-docs.com/ (a long way ahead of the Linux version)

thanks, I’ve downloaded both Nemo and Gen-9 Noah, and will have a look at them.

>Other than
>that, I know that there is at least one file manager discussed here in the past which
>allows you to enter notes for any file and view them when browsing, but I am uncertain of
>its name—Filenotes ot something similar I think.

Could it be Atlast Filenotes Organizer?
http://www.filenotes.com/

jim