EagleFiler vs. Together

Hello,

I’m a shovebox user who is looking for advanced alternatives as it getting too limiting.

I have come to the conclusion that I like to options: Eaglefiler and Together. They seem very similar, so its hard to say for now which would be the better option.

Eaglefiler seems really cool, but there is one feature of Together which is impressive is the ability to edit saved webarchives. Is something like this planned for EagleFiler?

Anyone care to compare the two in terms of speed, stability, features? This would be very helpful.

Thanx

Markus

Yes, that’s a feature I’m planning to add. (I actually implemented it a couple years ago but had to remove it due to bugs in Web Kit.) Meanwhile, EagleFiler does have a Convert for Editing command to make a Web archive into an editable RTF file. In general, the OS has much better support for editing RTF than Web archives, although RTF doesn’t support all the Web layout features. You can also drag a Web archive onto TextEdit to edit it directly.

I’ve compared EagleFiler and Together from time to time. The overall functionality is very similar. Here are some of the differences that I’ve noticed.

  1. Users interface – Some web reviews have mentioned a prettier user interface on Together. Some of the difference is in the design philosophy. The user choice may come down to personal taste. Together has some default collections (images, sounds, movies, etc.). These can be defined in EagleFiler, but EagleFiler will not have the pretty icons Together supplies. Another difference is the use of palettes vs. panes. EagleFiler tends to use panes for things like the inspector, tag cloud, etc. These functions are implemented as panes in Together. I tend to prefer panes, but it’s not a deal breaker either way.

  2. Tag management – I tag my files using Leap, and tag emails using MailTags. Both use the OpenMeta standard or methodology. Together does not recognize the OpenMeta tags, so tagged files need to be re-tagged. EagleFiler does recognize OpenMeta tags, so imported files retain their tags in EagleFiler. (Tag-a-Mac recommends only using EagleFiler to manage tags once imported into the library due to some differences in the way EagleFiler interacts with OpenMeta tags. I don’t understand the details.) Recognizing and importing OpenMeta tags is a deal breaker for me.

  3. Import by reference – Together has the ability to track files by reference, meaning that it creates a link to imported files, rather than copying them. To my knowledge, EagleFiler does not have this capability. This would occasionally be useful, but it’s not a huge deal to me.

  4. Multiple libries – Both applications support multiple libraries. However, only EagleFiler can keep multiple libraries open at the same time.

  5. Document previews – EagleFiler and Together display the contents of documents. I have encountered one document type where there is a difference. (There may be others.) EagleFiler only displays an icon for OmniOutliner documents. Together displays the contents.

–Jim

I should have said, “Not recognizing and importing OpenMeta tags is a deal breaker for me.” Recognizing OpenMeta tags saves me a huge amount of time.

–Jim

The EagleFiler feature list might also be useful to you, as many of the listed features are unique to EagleFiler. Some of the ones I’d single out are efficient mail handling (with full metadata retention), stationery (and stationery scripts), verifying the integrity of your files for safe long-term archival, and faster and more flexible searching.

Thanx guys!

I’m leaning now to EagleFiler as UI issues are absolutely non-essential, but stability and the commitment of the developer is. It looks like EagleFiler is progressing more rapidly than Togehter, which is important.

Markus

multiple libraries
This thread may be dead, but the feature difference that leaps out at me is the inability of Together to have multiple libraries open at once.

I typically have two, sometimes three, EF libraries open at once, if I’m working on a major project. (My workflow is to have one large library for 90 percent of what I do, and separate libraries for especially large projects.)

The absence of multiple libraries would be a dealbreaker for me, and I expect an annoyance to many people. (It was a frequent complaint of people who used the previous version of DevonThink.)

DevonThink might be worth a look, but that company can’t seem to get its act together. The much-vaunted version 2 of the program was endlessly delayed and is still in beta.

Import by reference
In my opinion, importing by reference is a very interesting feature that is missing in Eaglefinder.
Note that Together is not perfect on that point, since it doesn’t work when importing a complete file (in that case items in the file are copyied)

But Eaglefiler is more powerful to detect when a file has already been imported.