Advice please -- managing edits

I understand that EF makes copies of docs, and the reasons for that. I tried it out with a couple of docs and a .pdf. I emailed them and they came back with amends. I saved the edited versions to EF.

How do I manage the edits on the original docs? Couldn’t find a way to sync them. It defeats the object if I have to drill through all the folders to save everything back in the original location.

What is the wisdom for handling amends and different version with EF?

Also, I noticed the EF came up with some strange ideas for who sent the doc, and its title.

What is your goal? Do you want to replace the old version with the edited version? Or do you want both of them in the same folder?

I don’t really understand how syncing would enter into it. If you have two seemingly unrelated files, one in EagleFiler and one in a Mail attachment, what is there to sync?

EagleFiler gets the title and author from those fields in the document. So the real question is why your colleagues put strange information in those fields. :slight_smile:

My documents folder has a lot of sub folders and sub sub sub folders etc for different categories of work. I have been keeping the ones I am working on in EF as a ready-use resource.

As it happens these two docs went out via Mail and came back with suggested amends. I needed to make sure the rewrites in EF and in the original folder were the same – so I looked for a way to sync them.

I don’t need to sync the mail attachments because they will be the originals, unamended.

I am attempting to use EF for more than just managing Mail, which may be going beyond what you had intended. I saw it as a way of managing a complex doc system and keeping things to hand – Spotlight is pretty useless, really.

I still think a sync facility would be very helpful. The alternative – I guess – is to use a system that works with aliases and not copies of documents.

Or not to push the boundaries of EF beyond its intended use . . .

Are you saying that you have duplicate copies of files and folders, some in EagleFiler and some in your Documents folder? That’s the part I don’t understand. Why bother syncing two folders when you could have just a single copy of the folder, in EagleFiler?

I’m working on adding support for aliases, but I don’t really see how that would help in this case. Aliases would be useful if you wanted to organize the same files one way in EagleFiler and a different way elsewhere. But syncing implies that the folder structures match, so that comes back to my question of why you want to have copies instead of letting EagleFiler manage the originals.

Multiple copies
Greiggy, I think what you’re not geting is that EagleFiler keeps copies of the documents in its own Finder-based folder. Once you import a doc, there’s no need to keep a version elsewhere: EagleFiler does automatically what you are trying to do manually: It keeps, say, a copy of a Word document in the Finder folder or subfolder, while also making use of the EF Library. As long as you make your changes via the EagleFiler library/software, the library and the original docs will be synced.

That answers my question. When I tried it, the original docs in their own finder folder were not brought up to date with the amends – that is why I asked the question. I made the amends from the EF listing.

I am happy to accept I probably did something wrong and I’ll try further. Thanks for explaining it to me.

syncing
No problem; I think the relationship between EF’s Finder folder and the library confused me at first, too.

I think I’m still not getting it. I understand – or at least, I think I understand – the above. EF keeps a copy in the EF library.

You said, above: “As long as you make your changes via the EagleFiler library/software, the library and the original docs will be synced.”

I tried amending a doc via EF to see what would happen.

The original (of identical name) remains in its finder folder, resolutely un-amended.

How do I get EF to bring the doc in the finder folder up to date without making multiple versions or dragging files across? That was my point about being able to sync them.

syncing
Is it the case that you have TWO folders, one created when you first created and named the EF library, and maybe a different, original one, from which you imported files?

Files will be changed in the former, not the latter.

You can tell the difference by looking in the folder to see if there’s a “eflibrary” file inside it (and also a “to be imported” file). That’s the one that stays synced.

I have the original, quite structured, docs under Finder. Cannot do away with this because it is all in categories.

When I started the EF trial, I imported a few files that I am working on into EF.

Didn’t want to go in too deep until I could see what EF would/wouldn’t do.

What you’re not getting is that there are not meant to be multiple copies of files. Normally, after importing a file into EagleFiler you should delete the original. Thereafter, you’ll create new files within EagleFiler. So there will only be one copy of each file. It will show up in EagleFiler and also in the Finder, and you can access it from either place. Your folder structure in the Finder can be the same as before installing EagleFiler. At all times you are working with the one copy of the file, so there is nothing to sync.