On Fri, 6 Mar 2015, Victor wrote: > On 03/03/2015 18:13, Hendrik Boom wrote: > > What free software is there in the way of organizing lots of documents? > > > > To be more precise, the ones I *need* to organize are the files on hard > > drives, though if I could include documents I have elsewhere (bookshelves > > and photocopy files) I wouldn't mind. They are text documents in a > > variety of file formats and languages, source code for current and > > obsolete systems, jpeg images, film clips, drawings, SVG files, files, > > object code, shared libraries, fragments of drafts of books, ragged > > software documentation, works in progress ... > > > > And I'm not looking for one single solution that will do everything I'd > > like. Indeed, I suspect that's impossible without building an entirely > > new OS. Which I'm not likely to find off the shelf, nor am I likely to > > be able to do it myself in the few decades I may have left in my life. > > And even if it were feasible, there's probably a lot of research to be > > done before we even know what such a thing should actually do. > > > > Of course the files are already semi-organized in directories. But I > > haven't yet managed to find a suitable collection of directory names. > > Hierarchical classification isn't ideal -- there are files that fit in > > several categories, and there are a lot files that have to be in a > > particular location because of the way they are used (executables in a > > bin directory, for example) or the way they are updated or maintained. > > > > Of course the taxonomists would advise setting up a controlled vocabulary > > of tags and attaching tags to the various files. I'd end up with > > triples store or some other database describing files. > > > > But how to identify the files being tagged? A file-system pathname isn't > > enough. Files get moved, and sometimes entire directory trees full of > > files get moved from one place to another for various pragmatic reasons. > > And a hashcode isn't enough. files get edited, upgraded, recompiled, > > reformatted, converted from JIS code to UTF-8, and so forth. Images get > > cropped and colour-corrected. And under these changes they should keep > > their assigned classification tags. > > > > Now a number of file formats can accommodate metadata. And some software > > that manipulates files can preserve metadata and even allow user editing > > of the metadata. But more doesn't. > > > > Much of it could perhaps be done by auttomatic content analysis. Other > > material may require labour-intensive manual classification. > > > > No I don't expect to see any off-the-shelf solution for all of this. > > > > But does anyone have ideas as to how to accomplish even some of this? > > Even poorly? > > > > Does anyone know of relevant practical tools? Or have ideas towards > > tools that *should* exist but currently don't? > > > > I'm ready to experiment. > > > > -- hendrik > > > > > For tagging your files, have you seen tmsu (http://tmsu.org/)? The homepage > says: > > TMSU is a tool for tagging your files. It provides a simple > command-line tool for applying tags and a virtual filesystem so that > you can get a tag-based view of your files from within any other > program. > > TMSU does not alter your files in any way: they remain unchanged on > disk, or on the network, wherever you put them. TMSU maintains its > own database and you simply gain an additional view, which you can > mount, based upon the tags you set up. The only commitment required > is your time and there's absolutely no lock-in. > > Never used it myself. I?m not sure how it handles moving/renames of files, > which is one of your concerns. Maybe there?s something planned in it for > that. At least it makes the tagged filesystem available in any program, which
http://org-mode.org/ may also be helpful for mind-mapping purposes if nothing else. > is quite convenient I think. > jude <jdash...@shellworld.net> Twitter: @JudeDaShiell -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/alpine.bsf.2.01.1503062310100.92...@freire1.furyyjbeyq.arg