Future Safe Virtual Folder Syntax

[ale]

If I understood correctly, the idea so far is to have a Tags and a Stacks root node in the tree, then we would have a child of Tags for each one of the tags "Blue", "Red", ... seven children if we follow the default configuration. For Stacks instead we have a child for each .dat file in <xydata>\stacks\ folder and then a corresponding files (and folders) list for each of those two kind of children

If so we won't have nested stacks in the tree, is it right? I mean for example something like Stacks\Documents\MyPDF\ and Stacks\Documents\MyCHM\ each one with a cached list of elements from a .dat file

I see as now we can assign tags to files and folders and maybe it's too early to ask, but how are we going to populate a stack? what's the idea behind this?

[admin]

If I understood correctly, the idea so far is to have a Tags and a Stacks root node in the tree, then we would have a child of Tags for each one of the tags "Blue", "Red", ... seven children if we follow the default configuration. For Stacks instead we have a child for each .dat file in <xydata>\stacks\ folder and then a corresponding files (and folders) list for each of those two kind of children

If so we won't have nested stacks in the tree, is it right? I mean for example something like Stacks\Documents\MyPDF\ and Stacks\Documents\MyCHM\ each one with a cached list of elements from a .dat file

I see as now we can assign tags to files and folders and maybe it's too early to ask, but how are we going to populate a stack? what's the idea behind this?

Exactly, you understood correctly.

Good question. I'm not yet finished with planning. I guess one could have an option "Add Stack..." which would create a file in <xydata>\stacks\ behind the scenes, and a folder of the same name in Stacks\.

However, it's all still volatile in my head. Currently I'm thinking about a slightly different make up in the Tree:

Code: Select all

+ "Virtual Folders" (or simply "Virtual")
  - tag:blue
  - tag:red
  - dat:myfiles (or stack:myfiles, or stk:myfiles)  

"tag:blue" would be the folder name, the top folder "Virtual Folders" would be located right under MyComputer, before Desktop. Of course, it can be hidden if you are not interested.

[graham]

would this be appropriate:

I am not interested in the syntax as that is the glue so this is about use of a VF.

to create a virtual folder you emulate the process as you do for creating a normal (real) new folder (ctl-N) however, being a VF it then, after naming, presents a window to set the initial content. This could be nothing or refer to tag files or a standard folder. Once the VF is named and in the tree you could then drag and drop folders, files to it which would update the VF data list to maintain the content list and links.

Deletion of content is either by expanding the VF on the tree and deleting the entry or editing the VF dat list.

I see it that you could have any number of VF's and as a future expansion the initial window of presets could include sorts etc.

The ability to drag folders or files makes this VF more useful and easy to populate, in practice the drop is a link to the location.

[j_c_hallgren]

Saw this article today about "Libraries" in Win 7 http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2341721,00.asp and it looks a lot like Virtual Folder to me at first reading!

[admin]

Saw this article today about "Libraries" in Win 7 http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2341721,00.asp and it looks a lot like Virtual Folder to me at first reading!

Indeed! Good find.