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[bebop]

Just moved up to MC11, and was wondering just what the documents function  does...is this just to help organize them if you have alot of them?  What kind of documents are included?  Are e-books included (I have my e-books and MobiPocket PC -  that allows me to read them on my PC as well as my PDA).  Last build had a "games" icon (an error, I think because it is gone now), but is being able to access and play my games from within MC something I can do, or will be able to do?  Just wondering.  Bet

[darichman]

is being able to access and play my games from within MC something I can do, or will be able to do?

I like that idea  

[Omni]

I think it just gives you the ability to organize and track (by being able to add customized tags and such) all the various documents on your system that you view or use on a frequent basis.

For developer or office user ("office" as in "work environment"), this has incredible potential.  For just the average home user though, I just don't see benefit.  But Jim is a better visionary than I, so I'll just defer to his wisdom on this.

...is being able to access and play my games from within MC something I can do, or will be able to do?  Just wondering.  Bet

Girl, if you have so many games on your system that you need MC to organize them all, then you and your husband need to get out more often!  *runs*

[Valissystem]

Well here are some of my views on the subject.

I like to talk about how data management for the average computer user is one of the most pressing areas to require innovation. This is due mainly to the escalating size and amount of data that a single user can accumulate and also the increasing size of Hard Drives. For instance, My "My Documents" directory here is 1.6G of document files. My offline cache of my company's documents, is around 6G. Managing this amount of data requires new systems past the rather tired Windows Explorer or similar.

What I find interesting, is that due to the popularity of Digital Media there are new ways of managing data that while aimed at Audio, Movies and Graphics are equally useful in managing more generic types of data. In particular, the ability to add arbitary Metadata (i.e. tagging!) with a database that is tracking individual files and so to allow searching, browsing and listing/sorting views based on that Metadata is extremely powerful.

This is of course what is commonly done these days by a number of Media Players. However J River, not only provide the best management system for media that there is (bar none); they have also seen the possibilities by extending the management functionalities to other files that are outside the range of the "ordinary" filetypes that can "played" or "displayed" internally to Media Center.

It's probably early days (well I hope so anyway) for this functionality, however even with the reasonably simple capabilities in the area that Media Center now provides - it still is doing some things that are more flexible and way more advanced than any other file management system I have seen.

The possibilities for the future are quite huge, so it will be interesting to watch the development further.

That's my 2c on the matter!

[IanG]

It's probably early days (well I hope so anyway) for this functionality, however even with the reasonably simple capabilities in the area that Media Center now provides - it still is doing some things that are more flexible and way more advanced than any other file management system I have seen.

I completely agree with that! I think the reason behind it is that documentation is just another medium - if you get it right for music and pictures, you'll get it right for documents.  It'll be interesting to see how an increased focus on documentation will provide benefits for the other media, as I'm sure it will!

Ian G.

[GHammer]

For one take on document handling, look at Directory Opus v8
They have a neat feature where I can have file collections, different types of files from different locations appear as being in a single directory. I love that feature.

http://www.gpsoft.com.au/history.html

Just for some good ideas for future MC builds.

[IanG]

For one take on document handling, look at Directory Opus v8
They have a neat feature where I can have file collections, different types of files from different locations appear as being in a single directory. I love that feature.

I use playlists for that - you can include URLs too.

Ian G.

[JimH]

It's probably early days (well I hope so anyway) for this functionality,

You're correct on that.  We know it's still somewhat primitive.

Thanks for your other comments.

[bebop]

Thanks, all, for the info.  MC just keeps getting better and better.  currently I don't do alot of documents other than accounting stuff - but have tons of e-books.  

Omni - only have a few games , my son is the gamer and am slowly turning his head in the MC direction - now I have added fuel for the discussion as he is currently in school for animation and design of games (go figure  ) and they have tons of documentation to wade thru.  Although I am an effieniency nut...if I can do something with one click, why bother with three or four  .  

Thanks again for all the info.   Bet

[Jaguu]

One of the big differences between audio/images/video and documents is indexing. With the first type you need only tags, with the second type you need indexing as well.

I imported my whole home directory into MC11 and played around a little bit. These were my experiences:

1) Not all my documents or other data were imported, many extensions were not, especially extiension url.

2) Right now I don't think I want to make anything than a very basic effort to tag all documents in my home directory. There is plenty of stuff there that I filed for convenience only, stuff that I probably will never use in my life and a lot of junk. If I save a single web-site, I have plenty of small jpg files that get imported that I do not need or want to manage inside MC11.

3) This means MC11 would need to have a very powerful autotagging feature. It should be able to determine the folder tree structure of the file and enter some more tags automatically than the ones it does right now.

4) With that I still cant search for anything inside a document. To do this there needs to be a powerful indexing structure, so that I might be able to search through document contents. Without that I don't think the document management feature will ever be really powerful.  I am experimenting right now with two such programs. One is Lookout, an Outlook addon which allows you not only to search through all your Outlook files (Which Outlook cant do, even Bill Gates installed Lookout on his Notebook!), but also all document folders as well. The other one is Copernic desktop search, which is kind of similar to MC11 Library browser, but includes a powerful indexiing mechanism (Both are freeware!)

The tagging mechanism of MC is really powerful and I think it is a tool far advanced on the market. Although I never searched consciously for a similar product, I never met any other program with such an excellent library management features.  I hope that J River will find a way to make the document handling as powerful as the rest of the product.

[Valissystem]

It's probably early days (well I hope so anyway) for this functionality,

You're correct on that.  We know it's still somewhat primitive.

But that's fine. Primitive but functional beats Pretty but useless any day!

For the future, extending functions so thast combining Media Server with Documents could be really useful!