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[JimH]

Suppose for a minute that you didn't care about audio, video, or images.  I know that's a stretch.

Suppose we wanted to explore a new direction with MC or a sister product.

Here are some sample ideas for your consideration.

1.  File management -- we began to do this when we added documents, but we never really finished it.  Expand MC to handle all kinds of files.

2.  Device management -- manage contacts and calendar and sync to cell phones and other devices.

3.  [Insert your idea here]

If you'd rather that we work on something you want for audio, video, or images, please start a new thread or bump an old one.  That's not what this thread is about, and we plan to do that work anyway.

[sherbs]

I've always wanted to use MC to organize my thousands of documents. The main reason I haven't been able to is the inability of MC to create thumbnails, on the fly, of mht, pdf, htm, doc and other files types.
I always hoped that eventually this would be included in MC but if a separate, dedicated program were created, I'd certainly be interested.

Cheers.

[MusicHawk]

File management is intriguing, given that MC 12 does certain aspects of this already with wonderful flexibility and power.

Years ago there were several fabulous file managers, but they all disappeared, likely driven into the ground by the "free" but horribly lame Windows Explorer.

Many valuable features once available in Copy II PC, Norton File Manager, Pcopy, XTree and others are not found in Windows Explorer. For instance, how about dual panes/trees? And when copying or moving a file, if a file of the same name already exists, earlier file managers had the ability to rename either file without aborting the process, AND the ability to specify auto-renaming per a pattern and invoke that as needed.

Among the simple UI improvements that used to exist are pressing Insert to create a new folder. Why does Windows Explorer require clicking File > New > Folder? And even crazier, why does the position of New in the File menu vary, from top to middle of the list, depending on context?

It's frustrating that so many good features vanished; we've forgotten the past and slipped into the dark ages of file management. Users could come up with a long list of desirable improvements, if you choose to pursue such a project.

One of the better current file managers is xplorer2, http://zabkat.com. It does a lot (so I bought it), though not everything (so I'm still frustrated). For instance, it can display three panes -- folder tree, plus two file lists. It has a built-in Preview window that can display a huge range of file types (though not everything). However, I think it is too confusing for average users. Its UI is non-standard (odd hotkeys), and to me, the menus are illogically organized so it's a chore to find and use a feature. Also, some tasks I think are common require that the user do a bunch of clicking each time, OR create and save a custom configuration, For instance, to do a simple backup refresh from time-to-time -- copy new+newer, and overwrite only older existing files -- I had to choose a bunch of options, give the setup a name, then save it for re-use. Nice that I could do this, but many older file managers provided this common task as a built-in tool, with the option to overwrite OR rename existing files. Then again, maybe xplorer2 can rename on-the-fly, I just haven't tripped over it in the complex UI.


Re device management, such as synching between devices, I've worked with a variety of products that do this -- expensive products, often -- and have not found one that really does the job. They either just serve the low-hanging fruit -- Microsoft Outlook + a few phones/devices -- or they treat complex environments too simplistically, such as not handling all the contacts/calendar fields, making them useless for two-way synching. It's a huge territory to cover -- different versions of Outlook and Outlook Express, Lotus Notes/Domino, Thunderbird/Lightning, and non-Windows clients, plus all the device apps and platforms, and the online world of Gmail/Google Apps, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc. IMAP vs POP, SMTP that requires a variety of authentication methods, etc. I use Thunderbird+Lightning with IMAP to access several Gmail and Google Apps (custom domains) mail boxes and calendars, and separately Lotus Notes/Domino mail and calendar that also accesses Yahoo Mail. On my PocketPC Windows Mobile phone I can get the same mail, but not sync contacts or calendars without expensive but limited third-party software. So there's certainly room for improvement, but lots of variables and several companies already providing "solutions".

[Tolga]

1.  File management -- we began to do this when we added documents, but we never really finished it.  Expand MC to handle all kinds of files.

Browsing or Searching. That was a big fight at the early days of internet. Search kind of won, but the fight is not over.

MC is unique in its ability to combine browsing with search.


Imagine an explorer replacement. In fact MC already has ideas close to that.
Create a location view in MC, enter a search term, it filters outs folders that don't contain this. You can still browse clicking on the remaining folders. Hence unified browsing an search experience (c).
Note that, although it is similar to search functionality of vista, it is much more powerful since it integrates search with browsing.

Of course, currently, you cannot rename, move or copy in this view (and I am not sure when it makes sense to allow that). Also, you can't do that for all files on a disk but, hey that is what MC 13 Explorer is for.

[Tolga]

A special case of file management is document management, where document tags are synched with MC.

[Tolga]

3.  [Insert your idea here]

Here is a radical idea, relatively easy to implement on top of existing MC.
MC has been organizing my music etc for year, but can it also organize my thoughts !!! (i.e. say shopping list or research agenda)


Ok, please take a look at kbase. It is a tool for taking notes and organizing thoughts. Scientists love it for simplicity. Basically, it contains a set of notes that are organized relationally (as oppose to hierarchically). Now, imagine to add MCs browsing power on top of that!

Is this the same idea with organizing documents ? No, browsing is very similar, but what is different is that you can create new entries/edit within the database.

I want to emphasis this: Creating new entries within the database, entries that don't correspond to actual files.

If you will, the proposal works like OneNote, a set of notes, but the files are organized relational rather than hierarchical and browsing and tagging is done with MC, in style. Boom! All my thoughts are suddenly organized.

[Tolga]

How about favorites / bookmarks manager plugin. I mean, MC can already store links. Fine, maybe using MC for that would be overkill. (note that Firefox 3 beta moved to that direction but of course not completely).

[jgreen]

I think file management, for starters.  Also, glynor mentioned some very high-end programs that keep track of things on networks, including changes and such.

I've always thought you ought to breakout the "documents" category into several sub-categories, and apply your world-class browsing tools to them.

[johnnyboy]

How about books.

I've started to get a lot more electronic books and this is an area I only see expanding with time.
I already have 30+ books on my computer and growing. Tor.com sends me a free digital book every week as well.

There are a few e-book readers out there right now but they are all lacking in one way or another.
Books just fit in perfectly with other forms of entertainment / recreation which is what MC does best.

It would have to support multiple formats (pdf. microsoft reader, html, etc)

[BullishDad]

How about a program that backs up your computer to an image file that can be easily restored?  It doesn't have to include many features-just a solid backup and restore of the hard drives.

I purchased Acronis True Image 11 and I couldn't even get the thing installed on my machine.  I was hoping that a new build would help, but there hasn't been one in almost six months! That would be impossible if Jim and Co. were running the show. 

From reading the Acronis forums, many people are fed up.  There seems to be plenty of demand for an easy to use image backup program, but it doesn't appear to exist right now.

Lots of external drives are being sold these days.  Let's put them to good use with JRiver Backup.

[ThoBar]

MC has been organizing my music etc for year, but can it also organize my thoughts !!! (i.e. say shopping list or research agenda)


Ok, please take a look at kbase. It is a tool for taking notes and organizing thoughts. Scientists love it for simplicity. Basically, it contains a set of notes that are organized relationally (as oppose to hierarchically). Now, imagine to add MCs browsing power on top of that!

Is this the same idea with organizing documents ? No, browsing is very similar, but what is different is that you can create new entries/edit within the database.

I want to emphasis this: Creating new entries within the database, entries that don't correspond to actual files.

If you will, the proposal works like OneNote, a set of notes, but the files are organized relational rather than hierarchical and browsing and tagging is done with MC, in style. Boom! All my thoughts are suddenly organized.

I Kinda like this idea.... I was thinking of a manual system using MC along these lines for wine tasting notes... and recipes (the wife would love that!) Being able to interface this note-organising ability with something like outlook would be good too. The ability to sync your notes with your phone/pda/pmp would be highly desirable.

Also the file management seems a logical extention to the library system you already have, although I'm not sure where this would slot-in in relation to things like (the vapourware) WinFS.

Going back to the wine and recipes ... the recommendation system could tie in beautifully there too... for books as well...

Social-type things seem to be all the rage too... I'm not good with out-of-nowhere ideas, but surely someone out there has a good socially active application idea...
..Perhaps a 'live' listening/watching and review system? (as in a group of people meet online at a proposed time, listen or watch a performance or whatever, and discuss it) You could have expert panels where things are discussed which is viewed by an audience, general "all-in" groups, private groups, etc. You could possibly have archives available of these discussions....

RSS reader/aggregator/mash-up-erer would be good too... video feeds ...

Hmmm... bit of a rambling brain-dump, sorry. 

[JimH]

Hmmm... bit of a rambling brain-dump, sorry. 

No need.  All good.  Ideas, all good.  We can sort through the lot later.

[datdude]

I would say something that expands upon the idea of Google Earth.  Imagine if you could browse media files based on where they are physically shared geographically on the planet.  That's a pretty whacked out idea, but might bring up some interesting choices in far off lands.

[datdude]

I think 3-d browsing is something that needs to be explored more.  I like your concept of a million tracks showing up in panes in under 10 seconds, but In my mind that would be incredibly difficult to browse.  If it was some crazy 3-d multi touch interface re-positioning and zooming in and out of large groups of files, that would be sweet.

[datdude]

Ok, please take a look at kbase. It is a tool for taking notes and organizing thoughts. Scientists love it for simplicity.

Do you have a link to this?

[darichman]

First of all, I guess the team needs to work out how to support documents (there are thousands out there) and to what extent to support them.

- I think thumbnails of some description are a must (either take it from the file itself or have custom icons for different types of files... file types, collections etc)
- Metadata reading AND writing would be a big bonus
- There are rumblings of linux and mac support, so your number of document types to support could be huge...?

If MC plans to do well in this area (critically and financially) it has to do it in a way that stands out in a BIG way from the competition. Yes, the main competition at the moment is explorer, but how do you convince the casual user that they NEED your software when they can use explorer for free.

In my humble opinion, the best way to do that is with a new graphical or interactive experience, something that grabs your attention... 3D browsing, surface desktops etc are REALLY COOL!! This example is for photos, but would work equally well for documents: My friend was showing me how his PS3 can show his photos being delicately thrown on a virtual desktop in 3D with an elegant little date and timestamp near the photos. Wouldn't it be great if you could organise your documents visually as you would on a real desk top? Just throwing ideas around...

Ok, please take a look at kbase. It is a tool for taking notes and organizing thoughts. Scientists love it for simplicity. Basically, it contains a set of notes that are organized relationally (as oppose to hierarchically). Now, imagine to add MCs browsing power on top of that!

Is this the same idea with organizing documents? No, browsing is very similar, but what is different is that you can create new entries/edit within the database.

I want to emphasis this: Creating new entries within the database, entries that don't correspond to actual files.

If you will, the proposal works like OneNote, a set of notes, but the files are organized relational rather than hierarchical and browsing and tagging is done with MC, in style. Boom! All my thoughts are suddenly organized.

This is definitely a good idea (and has been asked for a lot, especially the bit in bold)... and is something J River will really have to look at pursuing if they really plan on developing a database for digital distribution and media services (as has recently been alluded to). A relational database would have big benefits all over MC, for video/audio/images but particularly for documents.

[Qythyx]

I think a feature full and easy to use document management system would be great. I also think this is a very difficult problem to solve, which is why nothing exists yet that comes particularly close. That's despite the giants like IBM and MS putting a lot of time and effort into it.

Probably the biggest problem in the massive increase in the number or variables related to the documents' meta data when comparing generic documents of any sort to the types of media MC handles well now. Also, a really useful system would need to do quite a few very difficult things very well:

• Organize the documents in useful ways automatically
• Bridge the gap between peoples' desire to organize their own docs (via folders, etc) with the necessity of organizing them in an internal database
• Handle manually (re)moved docs well (see the previous item)
• Handle versioning well
• Handle diverse document locations including network locations
• Provide good shared usage scenarios

So far a semi-solution that works well (enough) for a lot of people is to use the desktop search systems like Google Desktop Search or Microsoft's. This ignores or bypasses a lot of the above issues, but does provide the ability to find documents quickly.

To add one more thought, I think one of the big differences between generic document management and media management is that (I believe) many of us are willing to spend tweaking each media file's meta data by hand when necessary. I think this won't be reasonable for a more generic system.

I'm not trying to be negative in this, just state some of the features I feel would be necessary for such a system.

[rossp]

My biggest problem is synchronisation.

I have a machine at work, a media server at home, a study machine at home and my wife has a work laptop. We both have phones. How are we supposed to keep thunderbird contacts and firefox bookmarks in sync across all the machines. Foxmarks does a great job for the browser but it will not keep my wife's explorer favourites up to date. Thunderbird has a contacts sync plug-in which is great but it does not help with outlook. Also there is no way currently to sync with my palm phone / Itouch etc.

As more and more people start to use multiple machines at home and at work this area of software integration is becoming a bigger problem. This is where Jim and the JRiver team could really excel as they have a willing test user base and some really inventive ideas coming through. Oh did I mention the talented programming team!!!

Weather or not you would include this within the MC12 framework or not is another matter, in my opinion you would not.

So multiple machine synchronisation - DISCUSS

Ross

[robydago]

How about books.

+1

[johnnyboy]

One other thing - I'd love an interface for browsing movies that was a lot more tailored towards films (ie a picture image with a description of the film (multi line) next to it).

[leezer3]

How about some massive database improvements in conjunction with an added focus document/ file management?
Adding a hierarchical layer to the database would improve large numbers of things, and as an example would allow something along project management lines, with subsets of documents
Additionally, it'd be a lot easier to associate multiple sets of disparate files with a hierarchical relationship within each fileset, for example Anime/ OVA. ATM you can add these into the same album/ series, but its hard to associate a single external file with each episode.

Plenty more uses I can think of for a DB upgrade along these lines!

And now.....



Cheers

-Leezer-

[JimH]

 
I don't think anyone under 45 even knows who Monty Python is anymore.

[carbo]

I would also like MC to take the way of explorer replacement.

I've tested more or less a dozen of them and for me the best out there is Directory opus. http://www.gpsoft.com.au/
It has a level of customization I've found nowhere else.
It has a lot of good features that can be a source of inspiration

I like also the idea of a relationnal database where you can define objects without links to physical files. I've always searched a good life organizer 

Maybe a great addition would be a calendar based interface where you can see what music you've listened, what pictures you've taken, what movies you saw on a particular day and also what tasks/appointments you have in the future.

Guillaume

PS: btw Jim, I'm afraid to say that you're wrong about Monty Python. Life of brian and the holy grail are classics. If there is an age limit it should be more around 25 

[leezer3]

I don't think anyone under 45 even knows who Monty Python is anymore.

Oi! I'm 21, so don't even start that one!
They've never been beaten though, was brought up on the VHS series, and I've got the LPs somewhere after nicking them off my dad

Cheers

-Leezer-

[JimH]

Oi! I'm 21

Sure you are ....

[Launfal]

Do you have a link to this?

I think he's referring to General Knowledge base.  http://www.baltsoft.com/  I hit their webpage every now and then since I first tripped over it, and it seems like a neat idea, but I've never found a serious need to spring for the registration fee.  It does seem to be the next logical step to take if MC is going to expand its document handling capabilities.  But it seems to me that you can almost do the same things in MC (although with a little more work) as it is now, but maybe I'm just not an advanced enough MC user.

[pank2002]

This post is long. Sorry.
If documents is going to be a priority you need to support PDF tags. I have said this a couple of times before. PDF is the best document format at the moment, probably seconded by RTF or a ODF. I am not sure MC will be able to write tags to PDF,but read them, certainly.
Searching inside pdf documents, Microsoft documents, RTF documents and Open Document should also be considered.
At the moment I handle all of my document in MC and a lot of tagging is involved. If MC could grab some of these tags automatically it would be wonderful. For example, MC might be able to guess the correct semester and course info from the folder name. It might also grab the title from the document, and the author from the PDF tags.
Here is a screenshot of my current setup:

MC has been organizing my music etc for year, but can it also organize my thoughts !!! (i.e. say shopping list or research agenda)

This would be great! Emacs already do this to some degree, but then again, Emacs does everything! People seems to undervalue it.

As more and more people start to use multiple machines at home and at work this area of software integration is becoming a bigger problem.

The problem from my point of view proprietary format is the problem. Why does Outlook not use a standard format? The problem is not different software; differentiation is good thing (just compare iTunes/WMP vs. MC). The problem is when the format is not open. There a lots of stupid examples: look at Zunes/iPhone. Why can I not use whatever software I desire? Open source is the way, at least for formats and standards. (I am not against paying for software)     

I've tested more or less a dozen of them and for me the best out there is Directory opus. http://www.gpsoft.com.au/

I like Total Commander. It is the best!

I do not think MC should do anything in regards to browsing the actual folder structure. Rather, organizing is the key IMO.
JRiver needs to find out where their comparative advantage is. I am quite sure that it is not within back up for example. I think the key is organization of stuff.

I also think MC should take a look at Pix01. It should be improved in my opinion. This has been discussed previously, but it needs to become a living part of MC, that should sync in both directions.
Sharing of everything should be one click away. Maybe there should be a big fat share key.
Why do I have to wait for an email when I submit content? Annoying!
Like ImageShack there should be a pre-written code for pasting the image lots of place (like I did with the image above).


Include Hunspell. It is a great spell checker. Mozilla and Openoffice uses it. The license might restrict MC from using it? I guess it is no different from


Sometimes I think MC should perceive the world with Unix eyes. There are lots of great services out there that does things wonderfully. MC does not need to make their own service each time.
* For example, last.fm seems to have an advance recommendation system. Use it!
* JRiver has made some great music stores, but they are not widely available. If they are, one has to get a custom MC client. Make a music store that is integrated into the MC system.
* If the Pix01 is entitled to be here, it need to offer something that could not have been done but uploading to Flickr or Piscar. At the moment this is not the case.


What the world needs is a good word processor that combines ease of use (Wordpad) with great typographic quality (TeX). Microsoft Word is cr*p, to say the least. It produces horrible document, it uses fonts like it 1979 and computers lacks memory. It is choppy. It only recently got bibliography support (as a comparison BibTeX has been around since the 70's or 80's!). Worst of all: it removes the author's focus from the content! It is okay for party invitations, though.
  The ideal word processor should tag parts of the text with some value, i.e. "chaper". Some text properties should be tied to this tags, i.e. chapters are added to TOC and chapter should be formatted a given way.
  Rather than five different buttons that can be used to highlight text (bold, italic, underlined etc.) there should be one emphasize button, and one could define later on how emphasized text should look. Scientific Word seems to be one of the better options at the moment, but nobody can afford it. This, of course, is probably not the concern of JRiver. It is probably way beyond the comparative advantage of the company.

Sorry for the long post. Hope somebody will make use of it...
-Rasmus

BTW: I am 21 too and knows lots of Monty Python

[JimH]

Why do I have to wait for an email when I submit content? Annoying!

It's our simple way of protecting ourselves from being used as a storage facility for evil purposes.

[hit_ny]

Years ago there were several fabulous file managers, but they all disappeared, likely driven into the ground by the "free" but horribly lame Windows Explorer.

Since Opus has already been mentioned i'll add  total commander seems someone beat me to it, speedwise its the quickest

I want to emphasis this: Creating new entries within the database, entries that don't correspond to actual files.

Not seeing immediately what you can do with this. Are you talking about containers of some sort ?

Here is a radical idea, relatively easy to implement on top of existing MC.
MC has been organizing my music etc for year, but can it also organize my thoughts !!! (i.e. say shopping list or research agenda)

Anything like mind manager ?

First of all, I guess the team needs to work out how to support documents (there are thousands out there) and to what extent to support them.

- Metadata reading AND writing would be a big bonus

If the writing back-to part isn't mandatory, MC can tag anything out there.

If it is, supporting the closed ones will be harder, possibly expensive and yes there is the sheer number of it all. It could conceivably be easier to read said tags from these docs than to write them but then there is the mismatch if the tags change as they inevitably will. Have to admit tho that documents seems the next logical step.

File management hmm, seems so clinical, i'd like to think of MC as a media manager or is it past that definition now

Managing contacts + calendar off the mobile seems a long shot, why would you use MC for that . Isn't a mail+contacts program better suited for the job ?

[pank2002]

It's our simple way of protecting ourselves from being used as a storage facility for evil purposes.

Would it be enough to validate each user one time?

[JimH]

Would it be enough to validate each user one time?

No.

[gappie]

It's our simple way of protecting ourselves from being used as a storage facility for evil purposes.

im not really understanding this.. i do understand the protection part, ofcource. but when i submit pictures after the first where i gave my email adress and password, i can not see what the mail from pix01 add to the protection.

btw. this thread is very informative. when jim said it should not be about video image or audio files, i wondered what files are there besides those that would interest me, and how much more happyness i could get from some programm handling them.
i could only think about a multy track audio recording programm. but to start a new thread about it seems silly   

 
gab

[hit_ny]

1.  File management -- we began to do this when we added documents, but we never really finished it.  Expand MC to handle all kinds of files.

File management is intriguing, given that MC 12 does certain aspects of this already with wonderful flexibility and power.

Years ago there were several fabulous file managers, but they all disappeared, likely driven into the ground by the "free" but horribly lame Windows Explorer.

Is Jim talking about handling more varied kinds of files and/or designing a more effective file manager ?

File managers in the traditional sense have used trees ie hierarchies.

Jim says he wants MC to manage upto a million files.

Well, do trees breakdown a  lot earlier before you reach that number ?

Maybe panes browsing is better

Question really is.....can panes handle a million files ?

I've always thought they scaled quite well.

Can reduce the lists in the panes a bit by grouping which is there now.

Where do we go after panes ?

3-D (or is that pseudo) might look interesting but how well does it scale ?

[ThoBar]

Another thought... though I dont know if this is really a good path, or one that JR is willing to head toward (requires hardware)...

Carputers - have a customised piece of hardware / os that would bundle in GPS/Media management/multizones/games/shopping list/etc... allow it to sync wirelessly, integrate dirctly with a (MC12) master server etc.

I know there are solutions out there that do a lot of this already though, but I'm not sure any go the whole-hog, so to speak. Mind you, Mastiff will be able to comment on what's about I'm sure.

[ThoBar]

And another one... how about a home file sharing and access control system - with login scripts and 'stuff' ... I'm thinking a cross between MC, filesharing, and a really basic Active Directory type thing...

[TheLongshot]

Another vote for supporting eBooks.  You guys already recognize Sony Readers and Kindles.

Jason

[darichman]

Sorry for the long post. Hope somebody will make use of it...
-Rasmus

Very informative. Thanks!

[carbo]

How about the management of "offline" files (files on cd, on backup cds, on other computers...).

I'm currently using http://www.whereisit-soft.com/ which does its job pretty well but an integration in MC could be great.
I'm always searching on which cd I have put a specific movie...

This idea could go along nicely with the synchronization asked in a post earlier. This way you could see what is on your backup media and define tasks to update it.

Guillaume

[pank2002]

How about the management of "offline" files (files on cd, on backup cds, on other computers...).

I'm currently using http://www.whereisit-soft.com/ which does its job pretty well but an integration in MC could be great.
I'm always searching on which cd I have put a specific movie...

This idea could go along nicely with the synchronization asked in a post earlier. This way you could see what is on your backup media and define tasks to update it.

Guillaume

This somehow relates to Tolga's suggestion with mindmaps etc. Both is purely "databased", and does not leave any files on the hdd. If JRiver decides to go in this direction, I would think your request would be a natural feature. Only my humbled opinion, though
-Rasmus

[leezer3]

Most of the posts here appear to support further work on upgrading the database; This is without a doubt MC's strongest feature, but it does still lack abilities in some of the areas mentioned. Offline storage would be comparatively easy IMHO, all MC needs is a means of recognising which disks are in the drive at the moment, & this is a short rundown on how I'd do things-
1. New database field #1- Offline/ online (Simple boolean). MC querys this when a file is requested. Should also be possible to show an icon for offline files.
2. New database field #2- Offline Disk ID. Again a simple field, should store a unique identifier for each disk. I'd store this in a simple data file on the root of the archive disk- MC also need to give the user this number for disk labelling.
3. It should be possible to archive files to an offline disk- I'd use a wizard to do this, all it needs to do is burn the files to disk and then give the user the disk number from the earlier field to write on the disk label
4. When an offline file is requested, MC should prompt the user to insert the appropriate number disk, again all it needs is a simple query to the CD drive.


Ebooks wise, all this really needs is an increase in MC's internal document handling abilities, and a little work on handheld support to make things workable.
Most current PDAs/ phones/ MP3 players support syncing documents to the appropriate location, again this would be a pretty simple (IMHO!) check as to whether a set player is capable of handling these files. More problematical might be formats of these, as MC would have to add a way to switch format as necessary- One for the devs to answer.


Various of us are also discussing access control and other bits & bobs over UPNP in this thread- http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=45518.0
Not quite what you're after, but I suspect the basic idea & rulesets could probably be used in other areas as well

Cheers

-Leezer-

[Tolga]

Here is a radical idea, relatively easy to implement on top of existing MC.
MC has been organizing my music etc for year, but can it also organize my thoughts !!! (i.e. say shopping list or research agenda)


Ok, please take a look at kbase. It is a tool for taking notes and organizing thoughts. Scientists love it for simplicity. Basically, it contains a set of notes that are organized relationally (as oppose to hierarchically). Now, imagine to add MCs browsing power on top of that!

Do you have a link to this?

http://www.download.com/TheKBase-for-NET-2/3000-2078_4-10462766.html?tag=lst-2&cdlPid=10571787

[Tolga]

Quote from: Tolga on May 06, 2008, 11:38:45 PM
I want to emphasis this: Creating new entries within the database, entries that don't correspond to actual files.

Not seeing immediately what you can do with this. Are you talking about containers of some sort ?

For example, I use MC to organize my dvds. To be able to do that, I download jpg cover arts for each dvd and store the information in their tags, which is not very easy. Instead, I should just say "insert" and insert a new record about the dvd. Similarly, I use MC to maintain citations. To be able to do that, I download pdf articles. Handling citations to articles that I don't have is difficult, so I use Endnote instead.

Quote from: Tolga on May 06, 2008, 11:38:45 PM
Here is a radical idea, relatively easy to implement on top of existing MC.
MC has been organizing my music etc for year, but can it also organize my thoughts !!! (i.e. say shopping list or research agenda)

Anything like mind manager ?

I am not familiar with it but looking at the pictures in their website, kbase is an extremely simple and light weight program. It is ideal to demostrate the idea of a relation file system (as oppose to an hierarchical one).

[Tolga]

MC's power is in filtering by combining browsing, search and clever filter selection. If you had a web-based version of it, it could be used to navigate say  "amazon.com".

MC would be selling that technology to basically any web store. (or any other web application that requires navigation in a database).

[glynor]

3.  [Insert your idea here]

I know this is a little bit off topic, as it is related to video, but I do think it is a different idea...

I think you should put your "organizational" prowess to work on (in addition to media and non-media files)... TV Recordings.  But I don't just mean as far as adding a Integrated Program Guide and replicating TiVO, SageTV, and BeyondTV.  I mean more... Allowing you to organize TV Recordings (even before they happen) just like you do everything else.  Apply the MC "file" paradigm to recording TV (and, I hope one day, downloading files from Amazon and other similar things)...

Let us organize these just like everything else... Like Podcasts almost.

That would be something new.

[datdude]

There has got to be a better way to browse Web pages on a big screen.  Take the content in the pages but filter it through Theater view somehow and simplify it.

[hit_ny]

What if MC allowed users to make their own CSS stylesheets like with Opera & FF ?

You could then control how the page looked etc.

[newsposter]

Do your web filtering like Opera Mobile.

More than a few times a week I find myself switching my Opera Desktop over to 'mobile' mode to simplify overly complex web sites.

But the right way to do this is to take a baseball bat to the fingers of every web designer who thinks that bells and whistles can substitute for good design.

[glynor]

But the right way to do this is to take a baseball bat to the fingers of every web designer who thinks that bells and whistles can substitute for good design.

Sites like this one?

[jgreen]

I think Glynor's suggestion has huge potential, although it IS about media, and we weren't supposed to talk about media in this thread.  But since it's about FUTURE media, that's okay, I guess.

I think this is a fitting next level for the J River crew:  organize the future.  Let's face it, the future is plenty chaotic and I personally would welcome any assistance J River can offer.  So TV would be a good start.  From there, maybe sports betting or the stock market.  Personally, it would take a well-organized view of the future for me to re-enter the stock market, but that's a whole other story.

So I say:  TV!

[Listener]

...
1.  File management -- we began to do this when we added documents, but we never really finished it.  Expand MC to handle all kinds of files.

2.  Device management -- manage contacts and calendar and sync to cell phones and other devices.

I have no enthusiasm for a file management product.  I use Windows Explorer and it is adequate for me.  Most of the casual PC users I know are barely aware of Windows Explorer (or completely unaware) and don't use it.  There are already a ton of these file manager products with little mindshare in the general PC user community.

Syncing cell phones to music and phone books on PC sounds like a better bet.  I'm not wildly enthusiastic though.