Working with hierachical structure

For a number of reasons I have all my files stored in a hierarchical folder structure and things are not going to change at least for my work-related library.

I understand that EF is not optimized to work with “heavy” folder and sub-folder structure nevertheless I think that, with a few modifications, life will become much easier for people still using folders.

  1. When moving a file, importing to a folder or select a folder to search (creating a smart folder), EF pops up a pane with the library folder structure completely expanded. It would be of great help to have it in collapsed view with small triangles to expand folders only where needed.

  2. Now the title bar shows the total number of records in the library (or in a folder if you select it). I would be useful to have a separate counts for files and folder.

  3. When selecting a folder, you should have the possibility to have EF display (and count, see point 2) only the records inside that folder or all the records including sub-folders.

Point 1 is the more critical; for points 2 and 3 I’m using a workaround setting smart-folders but having built-in functionalities would be quicker.

I might as well get rid of 90% of my folders provided that:
a. EF includes a special property for each file storing the original path of the record
b. an “Export rebuilding folder structure” is made available

This way I can continue exchange files with people not using EF (most of the times using Windows).

Thanks,
PR

Yes, I agree that this would be useful as an option. Although, please note that for certain use cases the current system is very efficient for lots of folders because you can type to select the one that you want in the pop-up menu.

Could you explain a bit more about how this would be useful for you?

Agreed.

Hi,
thanks for your reply.

As for point 2 (separate counting for files and forlders) I discovered that if you make a multiple selection you have a useful summary displayed in the preview pane.

Anyway, I was asking that because after importing a huge amount of files the first thing I do is to check if import operation was performed correctly checking from within EF and directly inside “Files” folder in the library structure.

The most simple check, to me, is to see if the total number of items is consistent and here I am a little bit confused.

Let’s consider one of my Libraries (my personal data one):

  • EF says 34,268 records (in preview pane: 2,152 folders + 32,116 files)

  • Finder: 34,267 items

  • Pathfinder: 36,699 items

  • FileXaminer: 36,699 items - 34,502 files - 2,197 folders - 2,321 hidden files

  • Shell script (based on find command)
    36,699 items
    34,502 total files (they’re all standard files)
    2,321 total hidden files (11 .DS_Store files + 2,153 EagleFiler Metadata.plist files + others)
    2,197 total folders (no hidden ones)
    0 simlinks

I should find 32,181 files in EF preview pane (34,502 minus 2,321) and all 2,197 folders.

Am I missing somenthing?

Two potential sources of confusion are:

  1. EagleFiler’s Trash folder is inside the Files folder, but the contents of the trash are not included in the Records display.
  2. Some document packages (e.g. .rtfd and older iWork files) are considered folders at the filesystem level, but EagleFiler counts them as files.