4 ms·

Proposal for a database-less, general purpose, name-based file management app

6 points by fiatjaf 12y ago

PaulHoule 12y ago
This is interesting. One of my current pain points with metadata is that I have hundreds of PDF files on my android tablet that I read at the gym. If they are e-books I got from Oreilly, the titles are obvious, but I have lots of documents where the titles are some meaningless number. An obvious answer is to extract metadata from the files and rename them, although unfortunately only the files from Oreilly have consistently good embedded metadata. I have my own needs for a "bloated" system with a database, but that is not mutually exclusive with filename discipline.
- fiatjaf 12y ago
  You don't even try to rename them manually? In fact, a very nice way of starting this would be a command-line tool that renamed files according to file metadata and some heuristics with the file inner content.
fiatjaf 12y ago
For a long time I've been naming pictures with some combination of - the names of all people appearing on it, - the date, - the place where the picture was took and - what were everybody doing Something like: "me, bob and anna running to get a bus on the christmas eve 2005.jpg"
- j_s 12y ago
  Start the filename with a sortable date (and maybe time), eg. 20150220-whatever.jpg
walterbell 12y ago
With deep directory trees, long names can reach the limit for operating system paths. Calibre stores a Dublin Core metadata file (plaintext) in the same directory as the target file. We need a public metadata registry that includes file hashes and license status, along with a hash of the license file. This will decentralize the manual effort of naming and tagging PDF, epub, video, etc. It will also make it easier to identify files to which malware has been added.
- fiatjaf 12y ago
  The public metadata registry seems insanely good. Hasn't it been tried? What else do know about the subject? Please share.
  - walterbell 12y ago
    Haven't seen a general file registry. There are "open metadata" efforts for music and books: https://musicbrainz.org https://musicbrainz.org & http://alternativeto.net/software/mp3tag/ http://alternativeto.net/software/mp3tag/ http://openlibrary.org http://openlibrary.org & http://alternativeto.net/software/metax/ http://alternativeto.net/software/metax/

6 points by fiatjaf 12y ago

This is interesting. One of my current pain points with metadata is that I have hundreds of PDF files on my android tablet that I read at the gym. If they are e-books I got from Oreilly, the titles are obvious, but I have lots of documents where the titles are some meaningless number. An obvious answer is to extract metadata from the files and rename them, although unfortunately only the files from Oreilly have consistently good embedded metadata. I have my own needs for a "bloated" system with a database, but that is not mutually exclusive with filename discipline.

fiatjaf 12y ago
You don't even try to rename them manually? In fact, a very nice way of starting this would be a command-line tool that renamed files according to file metadata and some heuristics with the file inner content.

fiatjaf 12y ago

For a long time I've been naming pictures with some combination of - the names of all people appearing on it, - the date, - the place where the picture was took and - what were everybody doing Something like: "me, bob and anna running to get a bus on the christmas eve 2005.jpg"

j_s 12y ago
Start the filename with a sortable date (and maybe time), eg. 20150220-whatever.jpg

walterbell 12y ago

With deep directory trees, long names can reach the limit for operating system paths. Calibre stores a Dublin Core metadata file (plaintext) in the same directory as the target file. We need a public metadata registry that includes file hashes and license status, along with a hash of the license file. This will decentralize the manual effort of naming and tagging PDF, epub, video, etc. It will also make it easier to identify files to which malware has been added.

fiatjaf 12y ago
The public metadata registry seems insanely good. Hasn't it been tried? What else do know about the subject? Please share.
- walterbell 12y ago
  Haven't seen a general file registry. There are "open metadata" efforts for music and books: https://musicbrainz.org https://musicbrainz.org & http://alternativeto.net/software/mp3tag/ http://alternativeto.net/software/mp3tag/ http://openlibrary.org http://openlibrary.org & http://alternativeto.net/software/metax/ http://alternativeto.net/software/metax/