EagleFiler as a Finder Replacement and Database

The following was posted on the EagleFiler blog:

Clay Moore has written some interesting blog posts about how he uses EagleFiler:

I think most EagleFiler users could benefit from using stationery more. You can use it to easily create different kinds of documents, use it as as sort of database (as Moore describes), and you can even write scripts to apply metadata when you create a new record via stationery. For example, a script could assign tags and name the new file based on the current folder or date.

Michael, I’ve already do much of my work inside EF, and I’m determined to do more. I have five kinds of stationery documents so far.
• TableText file
• Scrivener project
• TeXShop document
• NoteTaker notebook
• TextEdit rtfd file
(Nisus Writer Pro is my standard rtf app, but I like TextEdit files because they have a much smaller footprint. Also, I can embed QuickVoice recordings in an rtfd file and annotate the recordings too.)

I have encountered only one serious problem:

TeXShop documents need their own folder, because TS needs some auxiliary files and creates others during each typesetting run. I don’t want to see these extra files.

My solution has been to
• Create an EF library project folder tha contains notes, source documents and references
• Make the TeXShop folder a subfolder of project folder and keep it closed almost all the time.
• Create a Smart Search which shows only the TeXShop subfolder files that I want to see.

This doesn’t work so well in practice, because in the EF Browser window, the Smart Search cannot appear adjacent to the project folder

So I request: a script to “hide” selected items in the browser listing. The script would

• copy those items via a shell script to a temporary location
• “tell” EF to “move” the originals to the EF trash
• copy the items from the temp location back into the original location

I find it easy to reverse the process by hand, although a script might be handy. I keep all the project import folders in Finder sidebar. Therefore I can easily move any “hidden” item to the appropriate import folder and, within EF, move it anywhere I want.

Thanks,

Steve

Maybe it would be simpler to just not import the auxiliary files in the first place? Then TeXShop would still create the files, but they wouldn’t show up in EagleFiler.

You are right that I could have deleted the auxiliary files first, Michael. But in general, I still think that hiding selected files would be a desirable option. I wrote a script to do this, with the hard stuff --copying files to and from a temporary location–lifted from your “Duplicate Files” script](http://c-command.com/scripts/eaglefiler/duplicate-records). I’ve posted the script.

Thanks,

Steve

Thanks, Steve. I do agree that removing the files from EagleFiler while leaving them in the Finder folder is a useful option to have.