Use current location when adding new file
Hypertext-infused philosophy personal database software
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I added a new file to a database. In step 8, I see three choices: move to new location, copy to new location, use current location.
Moving the file to the new location will make it harder to look for files in my machine. Copying the file to the new locaton will end upt taking too much space. The best solution is to use the current location.
However, the last option (use current location) cannot be selected. How can I enable that feature?
It is only enabled if the file was already in one of the subfolders of the database. I'd like to know more about how you search for files and why having it in the Hypernomicon folder will make it more difficult; maybe we can find a solution.
Hi Jason, thanks for the software! I'm really interested to try it out.
I haven't installed it yet but expect that I will encounter a similar problem as Matteo above. I already have all of my pdf articles/files in one 'Readings' folder on my computer and do not want to have to create copies of them elsewhere to use the software. Does this mean that I will need to install Hypernomicon in such a way that my Readings folder is a subfolder of the database?
Thank you for your help.
What about moving the PDFs into the Hypernomicon folder as you import them to work records? This would mean that some PDFs (at least temporarily) will be in the old folder and some in the new (Books or Papers) folder. To make sure you can search for all of the files at once, you can just move your Readings folder so that it is a subfolder of the Hypernomicon root folder (maybe under "Works not entered yet"). That should make it easier to be able to search all of the PDFs by file name if you are using something like Windows Explorer or Finder.
The reason why Hypernomicon wants PDFs to be in the database subfolders will become clearer from the second video I will release very soon (and I am going to hurry up and get it done because it will answers a lot of questions that are coming up!). Basically it is so that you can use the File Manager within Hypernomicon to manage your files (move, rename, organize into folders however you want, etc.) while keeping relations to database records intact.
I think moving the files as I go as well as making a subfolder of 'works not entered yet' can be a good work around, so long as I can install Hypernomicon's database in Dropbox (from the FAQ it looks like I can).
As for the renaming feature, that sounds very handy. However, if we want to rename our files outside of Hypernomicon for whatever reason (eg, sometimes I use 'Bulk Rename Utility' to fix up multiple filename infelicities efficiently) is it easy to re-link such files again in Hypernomicon? Does Hypernomicon scan for the files checksum or something to make the process automatic? or would it require a manual re-linking of each file after any external renaming to keep relations to database records intact?
I use 'Bulk Rename Utility' myself; it is very handy. However, once a file has become associated with a work record, you should only use Hypernomicon to rename it. In the Settings window (accessed from Tools -> Settings -> Work File Naming) you can setup how files will be renamed; hopefully the settings are sufficiently flexible to meet your needs (and let me know if they aren't). Even after a file is associated with a record, you can rename it to whatever you want within Hypernomicon, e.g. in the File Manager window, but only one file at a time. When you start using the application, if there are situations where you find yourself needing to do bulk renaming of PDF filenames, I'd like to know more about that.
Ok, thank you for the explanation. Part of the mess of downloading pdfs for me is getting the filenames uniform, because sometimes I just want to browse them in the folder (I just have one big folder). But I'm not always interested in cleaning up the names straight away (and my formatting preferences have changed over the years), so I imagine putting that task off until later. Perhaps my using Hypernomicon will just force me to clean filenames up as I load them in to the database!
One scenario I can imagine where I would go for a bulk rename is when I want to add more information to many filenames at once (such as expanding many 'Quine, WVO' to 'Quine, Willard van Orman'), or to differentiate authors multiple times because I wasn't yet aware of others with the same last name when I first named a file. Eg, something like 'Parsons 1987. Set Theory.pdf' became 'Parsons, Charles 1987. Set Theory.pdf' after including readings from Terence Parsons and Josh Parsons.
I hope to try out the software over the weekend so will let you know if anything comes up. Cheers.
Got it. In the future I could implement a feature allowing multiple filenames to be regenerated and already imported PDF files to be renamed in bulk; the coding for that wouldn't be too difficult. But in general, as long as you get the autonaming options set the way you like, it shouldn't slow you down at all to use Hypernomicon to immediately import and rename downloaded files; that is how I've done things for years (and I know exactly what it's like when you're tracking down lots of references and downloading a lot of stuff and don't want to get distracted with menial details like messing with file names!). Sometimes I download a bunch of PDFs that I might want to do a full-text search on, and I might not even want to keep them around after that; I just download them to a subfolder of the "Works not entered folder" and if there are any I want to have for a longer time I go ahead and import them to work records
Another thing to keep in mind, though, is that once works are in Hypernomicon as records, the file name becomes much less important. You will already be able to search based on the first name Terence or Josh regardless of whether they are in the file names (because they will be in the Person records, and these are also searched in the search field at the bottom of the main window). This is probably why I haven't personally felt the need for a bulk renaming feature in 6 years of using it.