I'm posting this question here because you guys know a lot more than just outliners. My current administrative role has me receiving a lot of documents (mostly Word) from various department chairs. I then have to figure out what the document pertains to, and drag it to an appropriate folder and subfolder. My question is this. Is there a convenient app that will allow me to organize and annotate these with some comments (like "still awaiting a few corrections from James"). I know I can drag them and organize them in DevonThink, but would prefer something a bit smaller and less complicated. I'm going to re-install Eaglefiler to see if it will do the trick, but thought I'd get a few comments from this group.

Jeffery

My first thought was Unclutter:

https://unclutterapp.com/

Possibly DropZone?

https://aptonic.com/

Oh yes, if you think Unclutter might work for you it's 50% off for Black Friday, selling for €10.99 (US $12.54), around the current (unchanged) price of DropZone

https://unclutterapp.com/?irgwc=1&purchase=1&ccode=BLACKFRIDAY2018

Thanks much! I’ll download it in the morning!

I'm not sure what "smaller" means, but for "less complicated" you might want to check out Keep It.

https://reinventedsoftware.com/keepit/

Jeffery Smith wrote:

I know I can drag
them and organize them in DevonThink, but would prefer something a bit
smaller and less complicated.

This may not seem "smaller and less complicated," but TheBrain would handle this very well. You can drag documents into the Plex under the "thoughts" (read folders) they belong to. You can attach any document to multiple thoughts, if that helps (i.e. you're not restricted to one folder). You can classify each document with multiple tags. You can use the notes tool to annotate the documents. When you click on the documents, they open in their native application.

This short tutorial demonstrates many of these functions:

https://youtu.be/FwZmesy5toQ

Of course, TheBrain may not work well if others need to access the files from other computers.

Steve Z.

You could try Hazel from https://www.noodlesoft.com .

It just so happens that I have a copy of TheBrain 8 but it has basically been untouched for the most part. I'll give it a go as well.

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

This may not seem "smaller and less complicated," but TheBrain would
handle this very well. You can drag documents into the Plex under the
"thoughts" (read folders) they belong to. You can attach any document to
multiple thoughts, if that helps (i.e. you're not restricted to one
folder). You can classify each document with multiple tags. You can use
the notes tool to annotate the documents. When you click on the
documents, they open in their native application.

This short tutorial demonstrates many of these functions:

https://youtu.be/FwZmesy5toQ

Of course, TheBrain may not work well if others need to access the files
from other computers.

Steve Z.

Stephen,

Can I contact you offlist? I'm going to try out TheBrain 10, which I actually had purchased when they updated it about 10 months ago. I just had a few questions about file storage and TheBrain.

Jeffery

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

This may not seem "smaller and less complicated," but TheBrain would
handle this very well. You can drag documents into the Plex under the
"thoughts" (read folders) they belong to. You can attach any document to
multiple thoughts, if that helps (i.e. you're not restricted to one
folder). You can classify each document with multiple tags. You can use
the notes tool to annotate the documents. When you click on the
documents, they open in their native application.

This short tutorial demonstrates many of these functions:

https://youtu.be/FwZmesy5toQ

Of course, TheBrain may not work well if others need to access the files
from other computers.

Steve Z.

Is this in a shared drive? One mapped to your computer, e.g. as F:, but located in a file server in your local network?

In such case, I assume you'd want them to stay there available for others, so you would have to _link_ to them rather than actually attach (import) them in whichever tool you choose.

Jeffery Smith wrote:

I then have to
figure out what the document pertains to, and drag it to an appropriate
folder and subfolder.

Where to put the files was the exact question that popped into my head. I'll need to use the app both at home and at work. The first thought was to make a folder in iCloud with the relevant files. But should I then make a "TheBrain" folder on iCloud and make subfolders for spreadsheets, PDF files, and word processing files?

I don't know if iCloud requires one to store word processor files separate from spreadsheets, but if it doesn't, I wouldn't see a reason to do it.

The reason I asked about where the files would be located is that their path should be the same wherever you access TheBrain or other organising software of your choice. Otherwise the links will not work.

An alternative would be to link to the cloud version of each file, assuming that iCloud provides a specific and permanent URL for each such file. In Dropbox, this is possible, but you have to ask it to create a link for each file.

The advantage of the latter method is that the cloud link would be the same for all locations (home and work). The main disadvantage would be that, each time you would want to access a file, you would have to download it--unless iCloud allows one to view and edit files online directly.

But then, if you store the files on the cloud, the storage service itself might be all you need; e.g., Dropbox supports commenting on files, which I understand is what you need.

Curio 12 is another possibility. And through Monday new and upgrade licenses are 30% off with the BLACKFRIDAY2018 coupon code.

https://www.zengobi.com/curio/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROMdGGEMhi4

I think that is the best idea. I can put the files on iCloud and then link them to the Brain. That way, if the Brain doesn't play nice with iCloud, there should be no issues with just links connecting the two.

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

Is this in a shared drive? One mapped to your computer, e.g. as F:, but
located in a file server in your local network?

In such case, I assume you'd want them to stay there available for
others, so you would have to _link_ to them rather than actually attach
(import) them in whichever tool you choose.

Jeffery Smith wrote:
>I then have to
>figure out what the document pertains to, and drag it to an appropriate
>folder and subfolder.

Curio is another one of those apps that I really wanted to like because there are others who are finding it to be indispensable. I have two more days before the college opens. I'm going to use tomorrow to play with TheBrain, Curio, and the other two apps that were suggested earlier here. Now that using links instead of files will be the way I'm going, some of these apps I never thought about (like TheBrain and Curio) suddenly seem like very good choices as I can use them for other tasks than just document organization.

Jeff

Jeff,

If you still want to contact me directly about TheBrain, my email is my full name -- with a J between first and last names -- at Gmail. I am not sure I can help you with technical questions regarding TheBrain, but I will be happy to answer what I can.

Steve Z.

Thanks Stephen. I'll try to make it concise.