Re: PDF storage software recommendations?
Hi all, Polytropon wrote: On Fri, 18 Jun 2010 19:24:52 -0700 (PDT), Bill Tillmanbtillma...@yahoo.com wrote: But put me down for a vote on this method using simple text files and awk. It JUST WORKS - that's the goal. It can be developed and configured very fast, can easily be extended (or limited), and data is stored in a STANDARD (!!!) format which allows you to do ANYTHING with it. You can even provide a web-driven interface for the database, even that is possible. I use for my work a solution matching Polytopon's suggestion, it sounds very to natural to the UNIX user in me :) I am a scientist and have to daily deal with an increasing amount of electronic papers, made available in PDF, DJVU, PostScript or even Tiff. I organised my library so that each document get its own directory. Each directory then contains the document file(s) per itself and meta information, stored along in files whose names are fixed (for instance +INDEX for general information, +BIBTEX for BibTeX fata, etc.). I only need a couple of hours to write a program easing the addition of a document to the library and another one generating a HTML index out of the meta informations, and while my system is far from perfect, it exists, and helps me every day. I also had to help colleagues in various ways with their computer, sometimes giving them some (seemingly) very unfriendly scripts I wrote. My experience with this, is that, provided I show these people how it works and supervise their first steps with the program, they can actually use it and like it, despite the fact that the experience offered by the program is at first not as nice to them as the one offered by a GUI. However, being a scientist, I would not consider my working environment as `standard', whatever it means! We have a Windows based system at my current job which uses FileMaker Pro. It's amazing what we can do with this and it's like having a gigantic electronic filing cabinet. Oh, the paperless office... an utopia - at least in Germany, bureaucracy's home country. :-) I thought France was that :) Rules are sometimes changing so often that administrative staff does not always has time to catch up them all! Nevertheless all of this bureaucracy is sometimes very useful too---but it is always a bit annoying ;) Cheers, Michael ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: PDF storage software recommendations?
On Fri, 18 Jun 2010 19:24:52 -0700 (PDT), Bill Tillman btillma...@yahoo.com wrote: Date: Thu, 17 Jun 2010 23:31:15 -0700 From: Charlie Kester corky1...@comcast.net Subject: Re: PDF storage software recommendations? To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Message-ID: 20100618063115.ga57...@comcast.net Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed On Thu 17 Jun 2010 at 19:57:03 PDT Polytropon wrote: Maybe my answer will sound low level, but it works - REALLY works - and works with mostly every kind of data. It's good to see someone recommending a true Unix-style solution. :) Here, here. I too love simple text files. With the speed of today's computers it's not impractical to use text files. That's basically what you have computer for - to make work faster, not slower. :-) And something like you suggest with awk I think would workexcept for one major thing. When building a database like this you usually have to build an interface that normal users will work with. That's why I suggested building a shell + Tcl/Tk script around it for the various database operations you can perform with it. The idea is that it is customizable ad infinitum, because everything is programmable into deepest details. And something that I could use versus something the other people in the office could use are often worlds apart. I once wrote a program to do linear optimization for cutting metal parts from stock lengths. For me it was a simple block of code about 30-40 lines as I recall. The other guys in the warehouse saw it and told the boss they wanted it too. He then instructed me to expand it so the common users could work with it. Well 2 months later and about another 400 lines of code to make it user friendly we finally had something. So as I see it the interface for other not so tech-savvy users will be the trouble with this approach. This sounds familiar. :-) I've also walked this way for average users, at this time, by choice was to create a GUI control program using C with Gtk. Today, I would consider that totally overhead. My average users were psychiatrists, so any assumption about intelligency would not match the reality. :-) You wonder how people got their work done on 80x25 in a wrong language 30 years ago... But put me down for a vote on this method using simple text files and awk. It JUST WORKS - that's the goal. It can be developed and configured very fast, can easily be extended (or limited), and data is stored in a STANDARD (!!!) format which allows you to do ANYTHING with it. You can even provide a web-driven interface for the database, even that is possible. We have a Windows based system at my current job which uses FileMaker Pro. It's amazing what we can do with this and it's like having a gigantic electronic filing cabinet. Oh, the paperless office... an utopia - at least in Germany, bureaucracy's home country. :-) Anyway, relying on a Windows program is, in my opinion, not the best choice for a long-term project such as document filing. With the constant transitions in the underlyíng OS, and the immense costs, as well as the lock-in driven by closed (non-standard) formats, and finally through the limitation of what the original program developers did provide, makes me wonder if this can really be useful for longer times (let's say, +20 years - where the low level solution does still work). It's pricey and it took the IT guys some time to build it but it does do some fantastic things in keeping tons of files organized, indexed and searchable. But I'd like to try my hand at building something with text files and awk. Just imagine about 20 years in the future, and you'll see what's the better solution. :-) -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ... ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: PDF storage software recommendations?
On Thu 17 Jun 2010 at 19:57:03 PDT Polytropon wrote: Maybe my answer will sound low level, but it works - REALLY works - and works with mostly every kind of data. It's good to see someone recommending a true Unix-style solution. :) ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: PDF storage software recommendations?
On 06/17/10 22:54, Dale Scott wrote: I'm experimenting with OpenDocMan (PHP/MySQL, http://www.opendocman.com/) We evaluated OpenDocMan (not me personally) and ended up choosing KnowledgeTree. YMMV. bye av. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: PDF storage software recommendations?
Date: Thu, 17 Jun 2010 23:31:15 -0700 From: Charlie Kester corky1...@comcast.net Subject: Re: PDF storage software recommendations? To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Message-ID: 20100618063115.ga57...@comcast.net Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed On Thu 17 Jun 2010 at 19:57:03 PDT Polytropon wrote: Maybe my answer will sound low level, but it works - REALLY works - and works with mostly every kind of data. It's good to see someone recommending a true Unix-style solution. :) Here, here. I too love simple text files. With the speed of today's computers it's not impractical to use text files. And something like you suggest with awk I think would workexcept for one major thing. When building a database like this you usually have to build an interface that normal users will work with. And something that I could use versus something the other people in the office could use are often worlds apart. I once wrote a program to do linear optimization for cutting metal parts from stock lengths. For me it was a simple block of code about 30-40 lines as I recall. The other guys in the warehouse saw it and told the boss they wanted it too. He then instructed me to expand it so the common users could work with it. Well 2 months later and about another 400 lines of code to make it user friendly we finally had something. So as I see it the interface for other not so tech-savvy users will be the trouble with this approach. But put me down for a vote on this method using simple text files and awk. We have a Windows based system at my current job which uses FileMaker Pro. It's amazing what we can do with this and it's like having a gigantic electronic filing cabinet. It's pricey and it took the IT guys some time to build it but it does do some fantastic things in keeping tons of files organized, indexed and searchable. But I'd like to try my hand at building something with text files and awk. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
PDF storage software recommendations?
Hi, I have to store a bunch of PDFs of orders. I'd like to be able to tag these by customer, date, and a couple of other characteristics, and then search and/or sort by these tags. I'm certain that we have something in ports that will do this, but danged if I can find a good candidate. While I'm sure I could build a database/PHP app that would work, surely someone's already done this? Any recommendations? Thanks, ==ml -- Michael W. Lucasmwlu...@blackhelicopters.org http://www.MichaelWLucas.com/, http://blather.MichaelWLucas.com/ New book: Network Flow Analysis pre-order now! http://www.networkflowanalysis.com/ ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: PDF storage software recommendations?
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Michael W. Lucas wrote: Hi, I have to store a bunch of PDFs of orders. I'd like to be able to tag these by customer, date, and a couple of other characteristics, and then search and/or sort by these tags. I'm certain that we have something in ports that will do this, but danged if I can find a good candidate. While I'm sure I could build a database/PHP app that would work, surely someone's already done this? Any recommendations? Thanks, ==ml Hi Michael, I maintain print/pdftk, and you can edit document metadata with it. The updateinfo subcommand should do what you want. I found this page describing that and some other functions of the tool: http://scottnesbitt.net/ubuntublog/?p=269. The only issue with pdftk right now is that it doesn't install on 6.x due to problems with the underlying gcc Java toolchain. Hope that helps, Greg - -- Greg Larkin http://www.FreeBSD.org/ - The Power To Serve http://www.sourcehosting.net/ - Ready. Set. Code. http://twitter.com/sourcehosting/ - Follow me, follow you -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iD8DBQFMGldt0sRouByUApARAlB+AJ9SJoUpImsBVht8p2vAtjdDEk3BXQCgvtt+ 9gFIox7mxi6i6s/hCSAs9oo= =6Ll/ -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: PDF storage software recommendations?
On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 01:12:13PM -0400, Greg Larkin wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Michael W. Lucas wrote: Hi, I have to store a bunch of PDFs of orders. I'd like to be able to tag these by customer, date, and a couple of other characteristics, and then search and/or sort by these tags. I'm certain that we have something in ports that will do this, but danged if I can find a good candidate. While I'm sure I could build a database/PHP app that would work, surely someone's already done this? Any recommendations? Thanks, ==ml Hi Michael, I maintain print/pdftk, and you can edit document metadata with it. The updateinfo subcommand should do what you want. I found this page describing that and some other functions of the tool: http://scottnesbitt.net/ubuntublog/?p=269. That looks like a fabulous tool, actually. I've wanted that functionality for years. But it's not quite what I want. We get orders for services via PDF. We need to keep them, and call them up months or years later. We'd need to find things like all of the PDFs for Customer X or all of the PDFs for circuit ID such-and-such. Surely other people have had this problem, for generic documents/files if not PDFs in particular... ==ml -- Michael W. Lucasmwlu...@blackhelicopters.org http://www.MichaelWLucas.com/, http://blather.MichaelWLucas.com/ New book: Network Flow Analysis pre-order now! http://www.networkflowanalysis.com/ ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: PDF storage software recommendations?
On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 01:12:13PM -0400, Greg Larkin wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Michael W. Lucas wrote: Hi, I have to store a bunch of PDFs of orders. I'd like to be able to tag these by customer, date, and a couple of other characteristics, and then search and/or sort by these tags. I'm certain that we have something in ports that will do this, but danged if I can find a good candidate. While I'm sure I could build a database/PHP app that would work, surely someone's already done this? Any recommendations? Keep it simple. Rename the pdf files so that their names encode the data you want. Then find(1) will do most of what you want. If the pdf files contain text instead of scanned images, you could probably do the renaming automatically with the help of pdftotext(1) from the 'poppler-utils' port and your favorite scripting language. Put them in sub-directories e.g. by year or even year/month if you've got lots. Roland -- R.F.Smith http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsmith/ [plain text _non-HTML_ PGP/GnuPG encrypted/signed email much appreciated] pgp: 1A2B 477F 9970 BA3C 2914 B7CE 1277 EFB0 C321 A725 (KeyID: C321A725) pgpZtuqtfdnun.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: PDF storage software recommendations?
On 17.06.2010 20:55, Michael W. Lucas wrote: We get orders for services via PDF. We need to keep them, and call them up months or years later. We'd need to find things like all of the PDFs for Customer X or all of the PDFs for circuit ID such-and-such. Surely other people have had this problem, for generic documents/files if not PDFs in particular... Sounds pretty much like a database and a filestore. Database to store all the metadata, with pointers to some machine-readable filenames for the filestore. I seem to remember that one of my previous employers hired some code-for-hire guys from UK setting that up (and alas bringing Oracle salespeople inside the premises. I swear, those guys are harder to remove than cockroaches...), but I'm sure some of the more SQL-friendly guys than me could codify something for Postgres and give it a nice frontend. ;) //Svein -- +---+--- /\ |Svein Skogen | sv...@d80.iso100.no \ / |Solberg Østli 9| PGP Key: 0xE5E76831 X|2020 Skedsmokorset | sv...@jernhuset.no / \ |Norway | PGP Key: 0xCE96CE13 | | sv...@stillbilde.net ascii | | PGP Key: 0x58CD33B6 ribbon |System Admin | svein-listm...@stillbilde.net Campaign|stillbilde.net | PGP Key: 0x22D494A4 +---+--- |msn messenger: | Mobile Phone: +47 907 03 575 |sv...@jernhuset.no | RIPE handle:SS16503-RIPE +---+--- If you really are in a hurry, mail me at svein-mob...@stillbilde.net This mailbox goes directly to my cellphone and is checked even when I'm not in front of my computer. Picture Gallery: https://gallery.stillbilde.net/v/svein/ signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: PDF storage software recommendations?
http://www.google.com/search?hl=enq=open+source+document+management+systemaq=faqi=aql=oq=gs_rfai= On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 12:55 PM, Michael W. Lucas mwlu...@blackhelicopters.org wrote: On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 01:12:13PM -0400, Greg Larkin wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Michael W. Lucas wrote: Hi, I have to store a bunch of PDFs of orders. I'd like to be able to tag these by customer, date, and a couple of other characteristics, and then search and/or sort by these tags. I'm certain that we have something in ports that will do this, but danged if I can find a good candidate. While I'm sure I could build a database/PHP app that would work, surely someone's already done this? Any recommendations? Thanks, ==ml Hi Michael, I maintain print/pdftk, and you can edit document metadata with it. The updateinfo subcommand should do what you want. I found this page describing that and some other functions of the tool: http://scottnesbitt.net/ubuntublog/?p=269. That looks like a fabulous tool, actually. I've wanted that functionality for years. But it's not quite what I want. We get orders for services via PDF. We need to keep them, and call them up months or years later. We'd need to find things like all of the PDFs for Customer X or all of the PDFs for circuit ID such-and-such. Surely other people have had this problem, for generic documents/files if not PDFs in particular... ==ml -- Michael W. Lucasmwlu...@blackhelicopters.org http://www.MichaelWLucas.com/, http://blather.MichaelWLucas.com/ New book: Network Flow Analysis pre-order now! http://www.networkflowanalysis.com/ ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: PDF storage software recommendations?
I'm certain that we have something in ports that will do this, but danged if I can find a good candidate. While I'm sure I could build a database/PHP app that would work, surely someone's already done this? Any recommendations? I'm experimenting with OpenDocMan (PHP/MySQL, http://www.opendocman.com/) for storing ad hoc documents associated with part numbers in a WebERP system (http://www.weberp.org). system. OpenDocMan has been around for a while and didn't see a lot of activity after release, but seems to be pretty active again. We added a menu item in the WebERP ItemMaster page for a user to submit an associated document, which is just a link to the submit document page in OpenDocMan (also added a Search for Associated Documents menu item which is a link to a search in OpenDocMan for documents associated with that part number). If there are multiple documents associated with part number, the user would have to zip the documents and then check-in the zip archive. This concept can be applied to other documents, such as a received purchase order which is then associated with a new internal sales order and production order. I'm also investigating using Mercurial and the Windows TortoiseHg client (or a simplfied custom management-and-incoming-inspection-clerk friendly client) to check-in an arbitrary directory structure. Users could create a local directory on their Windows box for mini-project work (e.g., datasheets for a commercial-off-the-shelf part, Word doc and graphics for a user manual, sales analysis spreadsheet and PowerPoint presentation, custom part drawings and work instruction, etc.), and when they're finished, check-in the directory. I think the folder check-in might be a simpler concept for casual users, but need to finish the strawman and get some critique. Dale == Dale Scott, P.Eng. e-mail: dalesc...@shaw.ca http://dalescott.shawwebspace.ca ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: PDF storage software recommendations?
On Thu, 17 Jun 2010 11:22:37 -0400, Michael W. Lucas mwlu...@blackhelicopters.org wrote: Hi, I have to store a bunch of PDFs of orders. I'd like to be able to tag these by customer, date, and a couple of other characteristics, and then search and/or sort by these tags. I'm certain that we have something in ports that will do this, but danged if I can find a good candidate. While I'm sure I could build a database/PHP app that would work, surely someone's already done this? Any recommendations? Maybe my answer will sound low level, but it works - REALLY works - and works with mostly every kind of data. Basically, you need to keep two things in mind: 1. PDF file filenames 2. a CSV database with a known format. Let's say you don't care much for the PDF file names. It's okay, as you don't have to. YOu have just to make sure that there aren't two files with the same name (but IF they are, different path prefixes / subdirs make it possible). Let's furthermore say you maintain a file of a format like this: # $1: $2: $3: $4 # filename : Customer Name : Date : Keywords # --:---:---: 0477763.pdf : Sixpack J. Q. : 2010-05-12: paper, plastics 76248873aT.pdf : Meow C. : 2009-03-18: fish, chips, beer UF/5u7r3jh.pdf : Woof D. : 2010-01-05: explosives rrw85673.pdf: Monk A. : 2010-04-23: tissues, water Now you can easily search it (as it is pure text), and you can use scripts (e. g. written in awk) to obtain specific information and perform certain actions (like calling a PDF viewer program with one or more files you want to view, or print files that match a certain criteria you can query for). You can use a script to compact the database (remove the pretty printing that helps when manually editing the file), or even sort it. The file name can then point to a specific subtree with all the tricks you can do on file system level. You can also easily (!) write your own GUI wrapper for a shell script that does - create new entries - edit entries - remove entries - search for entries - perform actions (open in viewer, print to printer) - add new / remove unneeded data columns I'd even recommend using Tcl/Tk for that. Oh, and did I mention that you can not only use this for PDF files, but for ALL files? It's very versatile and extendible. It doesn't tie you to a specific program. Additionally, it can be used on many platforms this way. You even don't need PHP or databases for that. :-) -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ... ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
