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Program Whose Time Has Come: virtual folders, collections, file baskets...

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Nod5:
Great post Tranglos! I agree that there is a strong need for virtual folder type programs on Windows. I think the most important challenge is to find a way to make the virtual folders usable from many/all programs.

Re the need for a database: I am really impressed by the speed of Everything. So impressed that I'm more and more thinking that a separate database might not be necessary for some virtual folder usage. It might be enough to have a link to a (complex, regexp) Everything search phrase which, when run, immediately does the search and display the results as a virtual folder + files.

kartal:
There is also this one but it has not been updated for long time. I am guessing that it is dead software

http://www.filenotes.com/

joiwind:
Thanks Tranglos for the TaskTracker link - I didn't know this one, it's good. In fact I was just about to post a coding IDEA/request for an improved "recent files list" app which would be very similar to TaskTrack - I might still do so !

Edvard:
xPlorer2 has such functionality called scrap containers.
From the x2 manual:
A scrap pane has several powerful uses:

* Collect items from various places (including NN PCs) and optionally save these lists.
* Flatten a complex folder system (contents of the folder and all its subfolders are recursively shown in a single, flat list)
* Hold results of search operations. Save the results if necessary.
* Search within previous search results.
* Re-organize your collection (copy/move your files and folders to new locations)
* Check for duplicates (and optionally delete the duplicates)...
Scrap container is a virtual container—when you put any item in it, it does not actually create a separate copy of the original item, but only shows you an “image” of that item. When you rename, move or delete that image, x2 renames, moves or deletes the original item. Because a scrap container contains only images (and not full replicas of the real items), it occupies only a fraction of the disk space as compared to the original items it points at.
--- End quote ---

So, instead of memorizing selections of items, you ask x2 to remember collections of items: After copying items into a Scrap Container, save it with a suggestive name that reminds you of its purpose.
Tips:
    1. Include the subject (and also the date-stamp for time-bound tasks) in the filename itself (for example, Meet_2Jul.cida will remember your collection for the meeting on 2nd July.)
    2. Organize your office work and personal work into major areas. If you are more organized person, create subfolders to reflect subtopics.
Create a folder system that reflects this organization. Always store your collections in the appropriate folders; so you will know where to search. See chapter-8 for a detailed discussion about this.
    3. Using Scrap Containers, you can define and remember unlimited number of collections. As discussed, when you copy an item into a scrap container, x2 does not occupy double the disk space. Therefore, you can copy the same item into multiple scrap containers without really bothering about disk space.
--- End quote ---

MrCrispy:
Great ideas and great post. I've said this before, WinFS was supposed to accomplish much of this, esp the part about having having a database backed file store, rich metadata and programmatic access to it. Its a real pity MS decided to scrap it.

I think this could be done more efficiently by writing a file system driver which would hook into NTFS as well as a windows service that would work at organising tags, collections etc in the background. Obviously this is not a trivial task and I'm guessing it would need OS integration to really work well.

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