Filtering import

Hi everyone here

after testing Yojimbo and some others, i guess my choice will be Eaglefiler which is more clear, logical and with libraries easy to share with others computers.

But actually my wish is to import a lot of files which are on external medias (HDs, CDs, DVDs) by sort. For example, i need all the PDF copied in a local folder. I can use a search by " .pdf " with Spotlight or EasyFind and then dragndrop them in the Drop Pad, ok. But i think it would be a great feature to have filters in the Import Files menu, like Import PDF only, import TXT only, DOC only, etc etc

Am i wrong ? does it exists yet ?

thank you

No, this is not currently a feature of EagleFiler. Are the files that you’re trying to import part of a folder hierarchy that you want to preserve? Is that why you think it would be harder to filter out the non-PDFs before importing?

yes, for example, on CDs or LAN. i can do it with “import files” and typing " .pdf " in the Spotlight window, but this is not possible if Spotlight is not active for some distant or other slow supports too long to index. so, i dont know if it would be difficult for you to implement commands like “import only” (.TXT or .PDF or .XLS) ?

thank you

It probably wouldn’t be that difficult to implement, but there’s a question of how generally useful this feature would be in return for the programming time and the increased clutter of the user interface. Have you considered importing all the files, then sorting the library by Kind and deleting the ones that you don’t want?

You are the boss ! I was thinking Eagle Filer could be a Yojimbo AND Yep killer with PDF selection…

Anyway thank you for the answers and the quality of your softs !

Bibi (France)

I still wish you could explain why you only want one kind of file in your library, and why you don’t want to simply delete the unwanted ones after the fact. Perhaps there’s a core issue here that’s more generally applicable. But, as currently stated, the requested feature is so narrow that I can’t imagine using it myself, and I don’t even really understand what it would do for you.

I want more than one library of course, but i need a PDF library for copying and archiving all PDF i have in many supports, and classify them in subfolders like “personal”, “e-commerce”, “bank”, “factures”, “important mails”, “notices” and so on. Everytime i want to kep important documents, i use “print to pdf” since years, and now i have a lot of “important documents” in several computers and CDs/DVDs that i need to copy and classify in only one database. Yep can do this, but EagleFiler can also archive web pages and other formats i have on disks and i need to keep, like for example pictures contact sheets in jpeg or rtf files. That’s all… But as you said i can do manually all this, and then delete unwanted docs…

I was only dreaming of a menu like : “import documents –> .PDF only” or “import documents –> and a window where you type “contact&sheet&.jpg” only”, like in the search function of this forum.

Sorry for my poor english, i hope you understand wy whishes !

Are those files already organized into folders and subfolders?

No. They are not organized, but in separate folders, with images, texts, and other documents.

Then it sounds like your request can be addressed via AppleScript. This script asks you for a folder and then imports only the files in it that are PDFs.

oooops. i don’t know how to use this. i tried some configurations but it does not work on my (french) system… script does not appear on the menu bar or elsewhere else. sorry.
thank you anyway, i will use spotlight and he drop window.

You can either use Script Editor to save the script as an application and then double-click it, or install the script in the recommended location and use AppleScript Utility to enable the Script menu in the menu bar.

thanks, i forgot this process. it works, but only for a folder level. is it possible to modify easly the script for analysing a whole disk with subfolders ?

This is why I asked if you had nested folders. I don’t think there’s a good way to modify it to do that while still preserving the hierarchy. It would be easier to write a script to delete non-PDF files from the library after they’ve been imported.