automagic file sorting and such would be handy.
doc/xls/ppt/odt/etc could be considered “editable” documents, where as pdf’s would be documents to keep/file. The suck thing about pdf’s is they can have embedded text or be basically just jpegs of the original docuument, so they’d have to be ocr’d for easier sorting. something like gpdfreader works but its finnicky for getting the settings dialed so it isn’t trying to ocr a company logo or some shit. password protected archives could be considered backups. images/music/videos all have metadata that make them easy to sort/categorize. Musicbrainz can be used to organize/clean up tags on audio files fairly easily and accurately.
should the sorting be automatic or a cron job or something the user should have a button/right click option (in folder, right click, “sort this shit out”, automagically sorts files into appropriate folder structure.
Desktop search utilities have been done a million times, and i’ve never really found anything that works exactly how i want it. indexing/sorting/etc, documents with searchable snippets as metadata are sort of useful, but not all filetypes have those capabilities.
Also naming conventions can be another spaghetti bowl to untangle.
I remember several years ago google had made some sort of magical tool that can clean up massive data sets and correct minor differences (initial case, camel case, abbreviations (road vs rd) typo/trasposition) to have things in neater piles.
also in mixed platform setups (windows/linux) even stuff like backups can be a bitch because of file permissions and fs differences.
I don’t think there are enough fingers in a full football stadium to count all the times i’ve used linux to copy stuff to and from NTFS volumes to avoid permissions and hours of setting/changing permissions just to move shit from one drive to another, root said move, files fucking move.
There needs to be a standardized server base, and modular plugins bolted onto it for each functionality. NAS module, Backup module, Audio/video server, mobile sync module that handles ping things out to pants computers, book server, home automation system, firewall/vpn, maybe even something cool like a chat/federated file exchange thing.
The problem with having every module “containerized” is it sidesteps the common base and allows for breakage. The whole reason the google/microsoft/apple ecosystems are so damned useful and hard to avoid is the integrations from being on a common base. Gmail can see/do things involving your calendar, it can see the stuff you’ve bought on google pay, if you want to attach a file in an email it can just grab it from google drive instead of having to find out which drive it is saved on and upload it, instead of having to sneakernet a file over to someone or fuck with bluetooth/adhoc wifi transfer (and finding a program both people have on their phones) you just send them the link from google drive.
Convenience through integration.
the wheel doesn’t have to be reinvented. Not long ago i basically had a FTP server at home, because pretty much everything from my phone to my laptop, and probably even a toaster if connected to the internet can interact with FTP… Massively insecure, old as fuck, but the reason you can still get computers with serial ports/serial port cards/usb to serial adapters is because it works.
fugly isn’t always a dealbreaker, but broken/inconvenient always is.
idk, brain dumping ideas here.
also, on notes… i feel your pain.
I almost want something like terry davis had in temple OS. he had some sort of weird thing where you could have like images and 3d models directly in text files. i know terry was insane, but there were some nuggets in temple OS that were genuinely cool ideas.
I think in pictures and objects… Having a document format where you could have text/images/3d models/etc in one document would be handy for fleshing out ideas.
an interface somewhat like Mspaint/gimp drawing & measuring, simple 3d modeling, handwriting recognition, a graphing calculator, and an embedded python console or some sort of basic language to step through/automate things within your notes, excel-esque functionality baked in as well, some flowcharting capability would be nice, able to import images to trace or annotate. the ability to file away links/snippets of text and images from anywhere for later use. also being able to embed or link to files and manipulate them from within that interface (sifting through a csv file full of data thats analyzed and can be used as an object in the document) would be super handy.
google keep is barebones, but is easy enough to dump things into and do minor edits, but still super lacking. onenote is really nice and fairly close, but its still somewhat off and being tied to office kind of makes it an afterthought.
a proper notebook/brain dumping tool utility should be its own thing and not just a freebie tacked onto another suite.
onenotes on mega steroids…
Along with Lawrence Systems & Craft Computing.