On Mar 12, 2008, at 10:10 AM, Christiaan Hofman wrote:

> In BibDesk 1.3.14, when file renaming/autofiling is being used, it
> sometimes may be desirable to link files to references without
> renaming them, particularly when multiple files are being linked to a
> reference. There appear to be several problems with this workflow:
>
> 1. Linking some files without moving or renaming them can be
> accomplished by choosing "Don't move" from the dialog that appears
> when a file is dragged to a reference detail view to create the link.
> For me, this dialog appears only for non-PDF files (PDF files are
> renamed/moved immediately). It's possible that I clicked the checkbox
> option "don't show this dialog again" for PDF files in the distant
> past and it keeps track of the file type for which it's bypassed. In
> any case, it's not clear how make it appear or get it back for PDFs
> that I don't wish to rename.
>
> This dialog can only appear for folders, never for files (and if it  
> does the system is lying to us). It should not be standard,  
> otherwise it would basically make the auto-file feature useless.

Sorry, my fault. The dialog also shows for folders that are  
masquerading as files, such as Pages files and at least one Word doc  
file that I tried. So it only appears to show for files in some cases.

> 3. In cases where there are multiple linked files to a reference, it
> might be useful to offer an option to autofile a file to the folder
> path that is defined in the autofile preference without renaming the
> file (except for possible uniqueness characters at the end), at least
> for files after the initial linked file.
>
> We're not going to make it even more complex by offering different  
> auto-file formats for the different files (that's basically what  
> you're saying). Moreover 'the first linked file' is pretty  
> arbitrary. So, no.

The suggestion was to allow auto-renaming to be turned off for desired  
files (for example, using a modifier-key drag), not to define multiple  
formats. The folder path I mentioned was the folder path for the  
existing autofile option, not a second one. I agree, multiple formats  
would be problematic.

> You should either auto-file manually, or move the files you don't  
> want to be filed in the Finder after it has been auto-filed.


My key issue is auto-renaming, so that multiple file links for  
references can be distinguished. I understand that there is a certain  
amount of linkage between auto-renaming and auto-filing, depending on  
how they're set up, that may make separating the two problematic. So  
I'm OK with turning them off and on together if that needs to be done.  
My interest here is whether it might be reasonable to allow that on a  
link-by-link basis in addition to the global preference.

I understand that a good bit of work has gone into setting up BibDesk  
to manage multiple file links per reference and the result is really  
nice, particularly in the current nightlies. I'm sorry if I'm not  
understanding the desired behavior of the feature for folks who  
autofile...it appears that when they have more than one file link per  
reference, they'll end up with a bunch of little previews that all  
have the same names. It's this case that seemed to me to be a residual  
issue from the multiple link implementation that could perhaps be  
addressed by allowing renaming to be bypassed on demand.

In my particular case, the logical workaround is just to uncheck the  
autofile global preference when I'm working with some libraries and  
stick to links that make sense when named for the reference otherwise  
(ie, one PDF and one online link).

Jim Harrison
UVa

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