EF Feature Request: More toolbar options

I would like to see a few more toolbar options for EagleFiler. The ones that specifically come to mind are the commands under Format: Link, Lists, Spacing, Styles, and Table.

chrisw

PS: I’ll admit that I may be interested in EF for slightly different reasons than most. I see it as potentially a viable alternative to VoodooPad or Journler as a way of generating original content within the app, rather than just a nifty file storage system.

Noted—thanks. Meanwhile, have you tried using Format > Text > Show Ruler? The commands other than Table and Link are available in the ruler. You can also assign keyboard shortcuts to the menu items using the Keyboard pane of System Preferences.

Although EagleFiler is not my primary data entry app, I do use it for certain kinds of note-taking and research, so this is definitely a workflow that I’d like to support.

Ruler – and more

I hadn’t noticed that – perfect! And the fact that the setting appears to be persistent means I don’t even need to have a ruler button in the Toolbar! (Although one would be nice…) [grin]

At the risk of sounding too cheeky:

  • Take a look at Journler
  • Copy everything that it does that EF doesn’t, except for the calendar-focus of the app.

As a sidebar, my search for the app for me has been frustrating at times. I want something that will allow me to combine data pulled form other sources with information created by me, in a way that both benefits from but is not limited by the formal hierachy of a traditional file structure. Three apps – EagleFiler, VoodooPad, and Journler – each cover 90-95% of the problem. But each covers a different 90-95%.

VoodooPad is my current choice, despite the fact that it covers the least amount of what I want, because there are no showstoppers. It allows multiple documents, has excellent import and export features, and handles internal linking, but doesn’t have smart folders at all.

Journler is in many ways the closest to what I want, but cannot reliably handle exporting and then importing into itself, and is limited to only one library. These are huge showstoppers.

EagleFiler, despite not being aimed as a data entry app, falls in between. It has multiple libraries, but only has pre-defined smart folders, limits your ability to put entries in more than one folder and doesn’t handle internal linking well (see one of my other posts today). (Note: I understand that I’m comparing apples and oranges to some degree, and faulting EagleFiler for things arguably outside it’s intended area of use.)

Currently, VoodooPad wins by default, but by a slim enough margin that I don’t jump in with both feet, because I see Journler or EagleFiler as being close enough that I might want ot switch after the next rev comes out.

Regardless of whether EF moves in the direction I’d like, it’s a great app – so great that I can’t help looking at it and say “you know, that peg really does have rounded corners, and that hole isn’t really square, maybe if I just took this here hammer…”

If there are particular features that you think are more important, please let me know, as that will help me prioritize.

Customizable smart folders are coming. I know you know this, but it hasn’t been said in this thread yet.

If you want to put entries in more than one folder, you can twist the Library source closed and use tags. Tag sources are kind of like iTunes playlists; the same file can be in more than one at a time.

The linking currently isn’t ideal, but I think it may be more suitable than you originally thought, and I’ll do my best to improve it.

Smart folders (which I know are coming) and smart families (a smart folders which aggregates the results of other smart folders) would be close to the top of the list.

I’ll try to go take a thorough look at Journler in the next day or so. (He says, realizing that he hasn’t done any grad school reading yet today.)

I was going to say that “Tagging is cool, and it is a 90% solution, but it isn’t hierarchical, and sometimes I want to enforce a little hierarchy on my data.” Then I discovered it IS hierarchical. (At least, you can create an empty tag and then another tag underneath it.)

Indeed it is – thanks!

EagleFiler 1.4 adds support for smart folders.