Absurdly Long List of Suggestions

Here’s a laundry list of issues/suggestions I’ve found with EagleFiler over the last couple of weeks. Some may have been already covered in these forums, and if so, I apologize for duplicating them. EagleFiler seems like the best of all the OS X organizers, so I imagine I’ll end up using it a lot, and would like it to get even better. So here’s some stuff to chew on.

Items are in order of priority:

  • Star Ratings. I know we already have tags and labels, but star ratings would actually be a very useful addition as an organizational tool. And given that everyone using OS X is well accustomed to star ratings, they would be used by many. iTunes shows the way forward here.

  • Esoteric Pref to hide file extension display in EagleFiler. (I prefer to view the records list by “File” rather than by “Title” so that if I edit the name in the records list, I’m actually editing the name of the file in the file system.) I can already see the file icons to know what kind of file I’m dealing with, and can even enable the “Kind” column if I wish, so having the extensions visible is just a distraction.

  • Every Folder and/or Smart Folder should be able to have its own sort and column selections, rather than just having one global sort and column selection. iTunes shows the way forward here.

  • Esoteric Pref to have EagleFiler hide file extensions in the Finder for files it creates. In other words, if I create a new RTF doc or import a web PDF, I’d like to have them created with file extensions hidden in the file system.

  • A smart folder criteria to see documents by relative date. aka, I’d like to be able to see all documents modified (or added) within the past 4 days, which doesn’t seem currently possible.

  • There should be some way of actually turning OFF the record viewer pane, not just making it zero pixels high. Even though you can’t see it, as you arrow up and down through your list, EF is taking up bandwidth, memory, and cycles to display the docs. (I could be wrong about this…)

  • Startup is just too slow. I understand many will keep the app open all the time, but some folks won’t, for reasons both bad and good. If there is some magic to display the interface quicker and do the necessary sanity checks while the user begins to work, that might some kind of solution. The only other apps that have startup this slow come from Adobe and Microsoft.

  • Item selection should persist through restarts. If I’m viewing document “test” in the record viewer and quit EagleFiler, the next time I launch the app, I should be viewing document “test” in the record viewer.

  • It’d be nice to be able to open a record viewer window without a source list and record list - aka just the document alone. I know most viewing/editing is designed to be done in other apps, but sometimes it’d be nice to see your document in a clean window inside EF.


And finally, since I’m making endless requests, I’ll add another request that I managed to solve myself via AppleScript that I can share with the community.

I like to be able to navigate via the keyboard, and so I want to be able to shift focus from the source list to the records list via keyboard, and then be able to up and down arrow through the list, and then shift focus back. Since the Tab key doesn’t work this way in EF, I created an AppleScript to toggle the focus. Trigger the AS through any of the various keyboard AS trigger apps available for OS X. I assigned it to the Tab key. (I’d suggest actually having menu commands to do this in the View menu for folks who don’t want to deal with AS, but in the meantime, the following should take care of the problem.)

activate application “EagleFiler”
tell application “System Events”
tell process “EagleFiler”

	set x to title of every window whose description is "standard window"
	set x to item 1 of x
	
	if focused of outline 1 of scroll area 1 of window x then
		set focused of table 1 of scroll area 2 of window x to true
	else
		set focused of outline 1 of scroll area 1 of window x to true
	end if
	
end tell

end tell

Thanks! I do appreciate your putting them in priority order.

This is on my to-do list.

Also on the to-do list.

This is a common request, which I’m considering. I think it would need a preference, since lots of people prefer global display options.

How about just tying this to the display preference (above)?

This is on the to-do list.

How do you imagine that the interface for that would work?

I’m working on it.

On the to-do list.

Agreed. How should you tell EagleFiler which kind of new window you want?

You can press Control-Tab to go from the source list to the records list and Shift-Control-Tab to go from the records list to the source list. Tab moves through the panes in order; Shift-Tab goes backwards. The Control key is necessary when Tab would have another meaning (e.g. inserting a character in a text view or entering edit mode in an outline or table view).

[quote=“Michael_Tsai,post:2,topic:9239”]

I’m working on it.[/quote]
One thing that I would find useful in this regard is to separate the capture function from (most of) the gui function. The capture function could run as a login daemon. Later, should the user want to read, search or otherwise work with the imported documents, the gui could be opened. I have several libraries open at once, so startup is quite slow. I could add EagleFiler to my Login Items, but I already have so many that I have to take a walk while things get started.

The reason I say “most of” the gui function is that it would be nice to have the Capture with Options available.

Speaking of which, it would also be nice to have the Capture with Options available from the Services menu.

For a variety of technical reasons, this would probably not work.

That’s on the to-do list.

Have you tried utilising the “To Import (LibraryName)” folders? These essentially accomplish what you are asking for: The ability to file stuff away without the interface being open. Indeed, EF need not even be running at all. As an additional bonus, these folders work while EF is running with the library open, too. I use them quite a bit even though I generally have EF open constantly. Sometimes when creating new files, it is just easier to press Cmd-N in the app you are already in and worry about a name later. When done I’ll save it into the appropriate folder and forget about it. I put shortcuts to these folders in the Finder sidebar, that way they are always available.

Good suggestion, AmberV. I have a trashed desktop most of the day because I find it is easy to save file after file after file to it. At the end of the day/week/month, I try to go through and clean through my desktop (and folder called “To be sorted” where I throw Desktop items when things get too cluttered) and sort things into my various EagleFiler libraries.

Your hint may have saved me some time.

I’ve added this in EagleFiler 1.5.