I have a (complex) outline that I need to translate into a folder structure on disk. Doing so by hand is quite out of the question, but I am currently unable to find a tool that can do this automatically. I'm sure I've done this before in the past, so this might be an indication that I'm getting old. I can have my model outline in either tab delimited or OPML format.

I would expect UltraRecall to be able to do it but (a) it can't import tab delimited and (b) it finds no fields in my OPML. I imported the OPML to Notecase, which suggests it is valid. Yet, Notecase can't export to a folder structure.

Any suggestions?

(Yes, I know it's rather obvious that this is why I wrote but that doesn't mean that my postings should be left incomplete.)

I've never tried this but DOpus seems to offer a solution. This might involve some reorganisation of your list (to display commas and forward slashes) and then copying and pasting it into DOpus:

http://www.gpsoft.com.au/help/opus10/default.htm#!Documents/Creating_Folders.htm

* sorry, backward slashes

Thanks, this is useful to know. Unfortunately I don't have a license for recent versions of DOpus. The CRIMPer in me would love this occasion to upgrade, but the amount of copy/paste still seems considerable.

I can afford to postpone the activity for a couple of days more, so I'll look around for alternatives.

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

Thanks, this is useful to know. Unfortunately I don't have a license for recent
versions of DOpus. The CRIMPer in me would love this occasion to upgrade, but the
amount of copy/paste still seems considerable.

I wonder if "find and replace" in NoteTab or CT could replace your tabs and spaces with commas and backward slashes and reduce it to just one copy/paste. But you'd still need DOpus... Though I see there is now a DOpus Lite around as well. Or even just use it for free during the trial...

I can afford to postpone the
activity for a couple of days more, so I'll look around for alternatives.

Let us know what you find. This is an interesting problem.

Perhaps little Powershell scripting, like this example


http://blogs.technet.com/b/heyscriptingguy/archive/2011/11/05/use-powershell-to-read-csv-files-and-create-files-and-folders.aspx

just a couple of ideas

Quick Tip: Create Folders and Subfolders in Bulk Using a Text File - How-To Geek - http://tmpl.at/RFRXn2

http://brettterpstra.com/planter-tree-planting-for-your-filesystem/

Jim, many thanks!

I'll try the first one out later today and report back.

Actually, the second looks even more ideal, but I have no idea how to do the stuff it describes even in contemporary BASIC, let alone Ruby...

Thanks for all the suggestions. $Bill, for some reason I did not see your post earlier; not sure whether I missed it or it was hidden due to the notorius forum bug. Either way, thanks!

The Text2Folders application mentioned in Jim's first link worked fine, and it's all that I need. Some reformatting of my text outline was necessary, but this was easy with the help of EmEditor's column edit functions. The whole job (mostly reformatting) took me 35-40' for about 250 directories; the folder creation itself took about 1".

I've got a couple more such jobs coming up, so the exercise was worth it. I might see if other export formats need less tinkering to be read by Text2Folders. In any case, I would have to review the structure which was proposed by a colleague, so the reformatting itself is not a big issue.