Messages

2526

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« on: June 13, 2007, 08:28 PM »

But in a scenario where file renaming is often necessary, scripting could help. I made a AHK script you could try. Use it

-Nod5 (June 13, 2007, 06:45 PM)

Really nice Nod5. Thanks a lot for sharing that.
I'll try it.

@urlwolf  :

well, I almost never print anything except for editing, and sending papers and articles. So I'd say 99% of my pdfs or docs are never printed. In my case it would be a bit of a waste of paper, ink and time : I like having all my reading notes in one place, where they're easy to find : my hard drive. Taking notes on a computer, directly in  pdfs or word docs (or OOo, etc.) is extremely handy and efficient. With the advancement of desktop search tools, it's the way to go... I find.

Edit : wow, this thread is really getting wild.

2527

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR v2.00.100 ALPHA PREVIEW Release - June 07, 2007

« on: June 12, 2007, 11:19 PM »

Very stable here too. And, mouser, I've been trying to fool farr too, sending keystrokes at the speed of light... But farr is quicker than me.
Congratulations! 

2528

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« on: June 12, 2007, 06:53 PM »

That is, create a .txt file with the same name as the file you want tagged (but perhaps with "_tag" at the end) and put the tags and keywords in that .txt. I think any indexing search tool will find those tags and due to the same filename you then find the file you're searching for. If you have a consistent and unique format for your current tags in filenames that a script can isolate (like using [tag1 tag2 tag3] only for tags) then you could probably make a batch script that migrates to the ".txt system".

-Nod5 (June 12, 2007, 02:23 PM)

It definitively is an interesting strategy.

I use a similar one for all the software I download & for some archives – and to help me be consistent, I now use a simple shell extension that was recommended by at least 2 different people here : it allows me to create *.TXT notes on the fly when right clicking on a file ( http://www.moonsoftware.com/freeware.asp : look for FileNote).

I’ve tried to do that for files also in the past and I disliked the fact that every single file was doubled :  always had to make sure that I moved both files when I had to move them around, had to check both files when I renamed them, etc. I guess it’s not as bad as it sounds, but these little irritants stopped me from using this technique. Maybe there could be  a way of doing it in a way that’s much more simple and automated. But… I haven’t thought about it.

Maybe you (or others) would have suggestions?


[edit : forgot to add an answer to Darwin's suggestion!]

@ Darwin :

I use Endnote too, but I never wanted to use its "linking" function for notes since there are so many documents that I just don't want in EndNote but that I still want to tag, write notes in, etc. So it made it a bit complicated to have notes in different places : EndNote + the documents themselves + whatever... I still use it a bit though, but not to link notes or comments. Do you use that strategy a lot?

2529

General Software Discussion / Re: File Names : what should be avoided

« on: June 12, 2007, 12:24 AM »

Thanks. Yup, that'S what F0dder guessed 

2530

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« on: June 11, 2007, 04:39 PM »

Thanks for the update, Darwin.

@Nod5 : I'll have to take a look at File notes too.

Could make things easier to find without putting a lot of tags in a (long) filename.

Yes, couldn't agree more. This is the main drawback of my actual method. If I could find another reliable strategy which is sufficiently portable (I don't want to loose years of tags and annotation by just changing software or OS), I'd give it a try...

Being able to give complete, precise and meaningful names to files has always been important to me. Being able to tag files is another important aspect to transcend the limitations of hierarchical folders structures. For tagging, there are some solutions, like tag2find, tagger, acdsee, and others. But I'm affraid of loosing my time with these...

Anyway, all this is probably starting to be a bit far from this threads theme…

2531

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« on: June 10, 2007, 08:55 PM »

@ Nod5

I think you should also have a look at File Notes :

https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=2712.0

http://www.filenotes.com/

2532

General Software Discussion / Re: File Names : what should be avoided

« on: June 10, 2007, 07:15 PM »

every windows program i used (except for some crappy 8+3 16bit stuff back in the days
was able to handle multiple periods just perfectly fine
/([^\.]+)$/ FTW

-gjehle (June 10, 2007, 07:05 PM)

Good to know.

and while i'm a friend of the "strict US ascii", "no spaces", "all lower case" i have recently switched to unicode/utf8 for all filesystem related stuff
it's kinda nice to be able to browse folders like this without problems:

Nice.
How does one switch to unicode/utf8 in windows? Through the control panel "Regional and Language Options"?  Please forgive my ignorance...

2533

General Software Discussion / Re: File Names : what should be avoided

« on: June 10, 2007, 07:06 PM »

I use national chars (the Danish æøåÆØÅ), spaces, multiple periods, etc. Applications not supporting this really need to be updated, and their lazy authors should receive a good spanking.

-f0dder (June 10, 2007, 06:55 PM)

I am part of your club as I got into the habit of using all the frenchy chars (éÉèÈêÊëËçÇàÀûÛùÙ) when I moved from windows 3.1 to Windows 95...

I used to think that case-sensitiveness was good in a filesystem (ie., what *U*X tends to do), but I've come to realize that it's really just lazyness from the developers - there's no good reason behind it, imho.

So, in terms of "cases", what do you use for your file names?

PS: the path limit on windows is 260 chars, not 255. And really it's 259 since the last byte is used for the NUL character. Afaik NT and NTFS itself can handle more than this, but the 260-limit is imposed by the win32 layer and just about every application you will find.

Thanks f0dder! I wonder where I got this 255 from...  


So, in your opinion -- apart from portability issues with DOS and legacy FS -- there's not real "danger" to stick to my/your current file-naming habits (using multiple periods, Franch Chars, etc.) ? What issues could you encounter?

2534

General Software Discussion / Re: File Names : what should be avoided

« on: June 10, 2007, 06:56 PM »

I'm generally very conservative with file naming

-Renegade (June 10, 2007, 06:44 PM)

What are your motivations for that ?

but I do have some folders that will only exist on my own disk like, "日本 시장조사 - blah blah - 2007-06-11" which make sense to humans.

I like it.  

Doesn't it strike anyone as completely insane that here the tail is really wagging the dog? I mean that we're serving the computer and not the other way around?

Yes. And yes again?  

2535

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« on: June 10, 2007, 06:02 PM »

Thanks Darwin.
So let's wait for the developper's answer! 

2536

General Software Discussion / Re: Semi-Automated file naming

« on: June 10, 2007, 05:59 PM »

Wow. Thanks for that very complete answer rjbull.

You know what? I'm actually reconsidering <b>abcz</b>. I am in a restructuring phase (see all my other posts or threads on file naming, etc.). So, I'll see... Maybe abcz with the right prefixes might solve some of my recurring problems. But is it worth the trouble? I'll have to think about that... So many files to change or to go through... Computers computers.

About KeePass : I used it a couple days, liked it (might be using it for passwords instead of using my old AXCryptencrypted file to sort all of them...) but I've decided to give AHK another go (in some ways, it's not as sexy -- KeePass' interface is quite nice -- but extremely efficient). So that's what I'm using now and it's working pretty well to automate simple tag or filename writing-inserting (ex. : I'll write ch- and, inspired by hirudin's suggestion, it will insert a template for chapters names : "CH-Nom, Prén_ Dte_ Titr Liv_ ChNo_ Titre chap_ TAG" ; or I'll write "cthée" and ahk will write : "tgsCthée" -- very good to accelerate tag writing, to avoid typing mistakes  and especially to avoid creating similar but different (and useless) tags for the same subject when others already exist... : I’ll know it’s not the right tag if AHK doesn’t autocomplete! And if I need another tag, I'll just add it to the script. Convenient, but maybe a bit archaic.).

The only problem I have with my current usage of AHK is that I need to open my script from time to time to remember what my tags are... Right now, it's not a big issue because my script is not that big, but... it could grow substantially with time. If only I could script something to have a popup menu like the one from CHS to see all my tags categorized, etc. etc. (see my posts and my suggestions for a "tagging helper" in a thread in the CHS section). https://www.donation...05.msg62219#msg62219

about ArsClip : interesting comparison. Thanks for taking the time to do that! I’ve not yet decided which clipboard enhancer I’m going to stick with. CHS works well on my computer and, yes, seems extremely reliable. There are certain things I wish where easier to do, like the sorting of the clips : I was never able to have the clips appear in the order I want in the popup menu (ctrl+alt+q). I might ask mouser if he'd consider adding that feature.


Anyway... I’ll give more feedback as I sort things out... If anyone's interested.
My tagging problem is certainly not entirely resolved!


Thanks again for your input!


PS :And If you feel like giving your opinion on file naming (and your own personal habit concerning file naming), please have a look at this thread! https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=8820.0



[edit : wrong hyperlink]

2537

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« on: June 10, 2007, 02:49 PM »

You say the notes can be searched. Does that include "cross-document" searching? Also, when using an external indexing search tool like google desktop search, are such notes in pdf files also indexed or only the original pdf text?

-Nod5 (June 10, 2007, 03:20 AM)

Actually, I've talked about that with Darwin at some point. I know that neither X1 nor Cpernic will index Acrobat's comments. Although X1 or Copernic will index MS Word's comments, but not perfectly.

Archivarius might be your best bet, but I haven't found time to seriously try it.


@Darwin : do you know if Archivarius will index comments in acrobat?

When googling I found this post on a feature for summarizing notes in freestanding pdf files. That sounds very useful. Have anyone tried it and have comments?  http://blogs.adobe.c...for_summarizing.html

I’ve tried it. As it says, it will create a new PDF with the highlighted text listed page-by-page. I guess it can be useful, as you you’ll be less distracted by the text that’s normally around your comments and highlighting and you’ll be able to see the comments dates and author much more easily.
 

2538

General Software Discussion / Re: Making the Switch-03: First impressions and first problems after installation

« on: June 10, 2007, 02:30 PM »

With Ubuntu Feisty Fawn, I found that there are not that many applications that automatix will install that is not already installed or can't be installed via synaptic. No?

2539

General Software Discussion / Re: File Names : what should be avoided

« on: June 10, 2007, 02:01 PM »

Thanks for your input!
 
1- UPPER CASE and lower case
 
@Eòwin and mouser: I understand that one should not assume that a program or OS is case sensitive or not. But, even if 2 file names can't be differentiated by their "case" in windows, would the case formatting be preserved from one FS to another? the link I provided tells an interesting file transfer story (vfat to ext2, and fat32 to HFS+, or something like that) about lower case words being converted into upper case (and also the contrary), but CamelCase being preserved.
 

In each case, when the file or directory name was mixed-case it survived without mangling. This led me to my next filesystem portability decision: from now on, I’m going to use InternalCapitalLetters to name files. I typically like lowercase with dashes because it’s easier to type, but I’ll do a little extra work to save myself these types of troubles in the future.

            Q: Anybody has something to add about upper case / lower case conversion during file transfer?
 



2- CamelCase, underscore and "searchability" or accessibility
 
You see, apart from the problem of portability and "durability", for me it's also a problem of data searchability and accessibility...
 
So I have to take into account my searching tools and needs if I'm going to rename my files...
 
 
For instance, if I convert this file name
 
 
Smith, A. P. The Intersubjective Meditator - A Critical Look at Ken Wiber's Integral Spirituality.doc
 
 
following these conventions (I've decided to keep using the hyphen for now, as it seems that it's only with ISO-9660 level 1 that it could cause problems) :
 
 
   -A-
 
   a) spaces are erased, CamelCase is used instead
   b) [,] = [_]
   c) [.] = [__]
   d) [']  = [_]
   e) [:]  or  [;] or [ - ] = [_-_]
   f) [-] =  [-] 
 
OR
 
   -B-
 
   a) spaces = [_]
   b) [,] = [__]
   c) [.] = [___]
   d) ['] =  [_]
   e) [:]  or [;]  =  [_-_]
   f) [-] = [-]
   g) and each word starts with an upper case
 
 
 
With -A-, I get something like:
 
Smith_A__P__TheIntersubjectiveMeditator_-_ACriticalLookAtKenWiber_sIntegralSpirituality.doc
 
 
If I then try to find Intersubjective Meditator :
 
- X1 won't be able to find the file (it doesn't look for patterns inside words)
- Copernic will show it
- Farr will show it
 
 
With -B-, I get something like:
 
 
Ar-Smith__A___P___The_Intersubjective_Meditator_-_A_Critical_Look_At_Ken_Wiber_s_Integral_Spirituality.doc
 
Trying to find Intersubjective Meditator :
 
- X1 will find it (treats punctuation marks and other special characters as spaces, except when the punctuation is used as part of a search term)
- Copernic will find it
- Farr will find it too
 
 
So, after this very small experiment, it definitely seems that using [_] to separate words (instead of using CamelCase) is the safest bet...
 
      Q2 : any comments ?

2540

General Software Discussion / Re: File Names : what should be avoided

« on: June 10, 2007, 03:42 AM »

Not as rigorous, in some ways, but interesting nevertheless.

http://www.xaprb.com...lesystem-portability

I wonder about the Upper case / Lower case differences in file names (can be valuable when you're removing spaces), and if they're preserved from one fs to another... But I'll let you guys digest a bit before I start again. 

2541

General Software Discussion / Re: File Names : what should be avoided

« on: June 10, 2007, 01:49 AM »

I know it's not exactly the same subject, but, hey, it talks about characters... A pretty good article, i believe, on character encodings and characters sets :

http://www.joelonsof...rticles/Unicode.html

2542

General Software Discussion / Re: File Names : what should be avoided

« on: June 10, 2007, 12:52 AM »

Everybody : thank you for your input.


@Eóin : an informative and interesting read. Thanks a lot for the link!

@mouser : it’s interesting you mention the “space” character since the “Path Name Portability Guide” omits to  mention it. I wonder why. edit : actually, the space is clearly not mentionned in the allowed characters... For a good reason.

@Ehtyar : are you suggesting that I shouldn’t worry about the "." character in files and folders names ?


Wow. I find it interesting, to say the least, that Windows allows all kinds of characters that could eventually cause problems (or could they?). Shouldn't there be some kind of message each time one uses “unorthodox” characters??? (I know there's already a partially complete message -- which is better than none, I guess. Linux will not say a word, except for the /, I think. Mac OS X never says a thing, if I remember well.)

Anyway. Since there are soooo many files to rename in one’s computer, I'm just wondering : is it worth the effort? (I'm sweating just thinking of all the work involved in changing all my pdf, doc, rtf, txt, etc. file names.)

Which leads me to the following questions :


Q1- In your opinion, what are the specific contexts one would run into problems and What kind of specific problem one might run into if :

1) one uses special characters like é à è â, etc. (I mean : what do Germans, Norwegians, Chinese, Japanese, etc. -- all non-English speakers -- do?) ?

2) one uses periods, commas, spaces and hyphens?


Q2- Would these problems be relatively easily solvable? (Ahem : is it worth it to break the rules...??)

Q3- AND… What are your file and folder naming habits like?



(If you think I should break this post in multiple threads, please tell me… I actually have more questions, but I'll wait...)

2543

General Software Discussion / Re: File Names : what should be avoided

« on: June 09, 2007, 06:36 PM »

thanks mouser.

I guess I’ll be using Bulk Rename Utility tonight…

Apart from DOS apps, do some windows apps actually interpret the first period to be the extension separator?

I know that the absolute limit for the path length is 255 characters, but I wonder if you (or anybody here at DC) use another maximum “relative” upper limit for file names (to avoid known potential problems)?

2544

General Software Discussion / File Names : what should be avoided

« on: June 09, 2007, 05:11 PM »

I've been using a lot of  "periods" (and also commas) in my file naming lately, and, reading this http://msdn2.microso...ibrary/aa365247.aspx, this http://support.microsoft.com/kb/115827, and other stuff, I'm now wondering if that could cause problems, eventually.

So, here are my questions :

a- If one wants to use (create) long file names (to avoid elusive descriptions or complex abbréviations), what would be the characters that should be avoided at all costs to 1- allow better compatibility in the long term, 2- and to insure seamless interoperability between 3 of most popular oS (Linux, Mac OSX and... Windows)? (of course, I'm not talking about the well known < > : " * ? / \ |)

b- should I avoid using periods ? 

I'll welcome any good references too!

Thanks!

2545

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« on: June 08, 2007, 01:20 AM »

Thanks for the valuable infos cnewtonne.

At some point in your critique you mention a

more powerful product.

May I ask what you're referring to?

2546

General Software Discussion / Re: General brainstorming for Note-taking software

« on: June 07, 2007, 11:06 PM »

Thank you very much for the info, Darwin.
cnewtonne convinced me to try Ultra Recall... I don't know if I should, but... I will... 

By the way, cnewtone, are there specific things you don't like about Ultra Recall (apart from the little stability issues i believe you mentionned at some point in this thread...)?

Thanks!

2547

General Software Discussion / Re: how to reduce pagefile usage?

« on: June 07, 2007, 01:23 PM »

if your RAM usage is often near the max...

-Armando (June 06, 2007, 12:51 AM)

Of course, I was not talking about PF Usage here.

2548

Find And Run Robot / Re: Latest FARR v2.00.82 ALPHA PREVIEW Release - APRIL 26, 2007

« on: June 07, 2007, 01:12 PM »

armando, you have changed your avatar! am i the 1st to notice?

-lanux128 (June 07, 2007, 05:07 AM)

Actually, you might be the 2nd. 

check this thread, you'll understand : https://www.donation...87.new;topicseen#new

2549

Post New Requests Here / Re: Remove App Button From Taskbar without Minimizing it

« on: June 07, 2007, 12:33 AM »

HAh! It feels better now. I knew I needed a slap in the face to finally find myself.

Now let's see if they think you're me.

Careful... I have a bad reputation.

2550

Post New Requests Here / Re: Remove App Button From Taskbar without Minimizing it

« on: June 07, 2007, 12:24 AM »

Hey! you stole my face!