Moving Files between folders
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Back when I started testing nvUltra I took my nvAlt files and imported them. Then I started creating folders and tried "moving" the files to other folders but instead I got files "copied" to new folders. Therefore to move a file I had to copy the file to the new folder then delete the file from the old folder. This is awkward especially since I have over 1,000 files.
My work around to this situation was to use "mv" in the terminal app.
There is another note keeping app called Notebooks that uses Multimarkdown has the feature I like. They call folders "books" and I can easily move a file from one book to another by drag and drop. There is an iOS app too. Like nvUltra the files are really kept in directories (folders/books) which I like more than mweb and Quiver!
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David,
We'll consider the possibility of a "move" function. But these are just files and folders on disks... Don't forget there is this macOS application called "Finder" that is really good at moving/copying/deleting files and folders. ;)
In all seriousness, our intention is not to build a file management application. You can quickly copy files into the nvUltra window, which is handy for adding images or notes. But as things start to get more complex -- moving instead of copying, aliases/links, duplicating files, etc. -- it starts to reach a point where nvUltra would need to become a lightweight Finder replacement or we should encourage using the Finder (or other tool of the user's choice) instead.
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One nice thing about a move function is you can take notes in a staging folder then go back later and move them to the folders you have defined. One of my books is Calligraphy but now I would like sub-books like Gothic, Italic, Uncial, Copperplate, Spencerian, nibs and holders, inks, paper, guidelines. I have a similar situation with a LaTeX book.
It can just be simple. In order to move a file it has to be a file (not a link). I can see where the links to photos or other files contained within a file could cause an issue but really if a person is going to move a file it is their responsibility to move those files/photos or change the link specifications in the moved file.
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@David: you know you can copy more than one file at a time when dragging, and that the originals remain selected in the first window? i.e. you can drag them into the second folder to copy, then you can switch back to the first and delete the first set.
Also, do you know you can select multiple files either with shift and up-down arrow, but also by cmd-click if they're not adjacent to each other. So you can hunt and peck as it were, then drag them, then use cmd-backspace to remove the originals.
I suppose the missing feature would be to have it work identically to Finder, so (in macOS 10.13 at least), it's either move or copy by default, but it switches between them if you hold down the option key when dragging.
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I know that trick but it is slow especially when you have a few thousand files. Use 'mv' in terminal is much faster.
Yes, if they have move/copy work like in the finder that would be great. But need a more intuitive display of the folder/file hierarchy.
I have an app called Notebooks and in my opinion they did it right and they use Multimarkdown plus some extras and they have both Mac and iOS versions.I really respect Fletcher and Brett and I am hoping they pull this off. I would also like to see a hierarchical display of folders/files. The long path name is a bit of pain for me.
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William Turrell -- excellent point.
And along those lines, in this situation nvUltra becomes like other "shoebox" apps (e.g. Photos), where you store a bunch of files, but can quickly drag them to somewhere else (e.g. Finder, or another application.)
In that situation, I *don't* want those files being removed from the shoebox. Deleting them from the shoebox is a completely separate action from copying them somewhere else. (For instance, when I drag a photo from Photos to the desktop in order to do something with it, I want to be confident that my original photo is still in the Photos library.)
However, when dragging multiple items from one window to another, the selection is *not* maintained when I do it, if files are actually copied. This is because the act of copying a file from one location to another modified the metadata of the original file, triggering an update to the index, which resets the selection.
I'll look at preserving the selection even when the backing folder changes.
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A distinction between nvUltra and Notebooks is that nvUltra very intentionally does not lock you into a single repository for your notes. It is designed to allow you to work with any folder on your computer (or iOS device, but more to come on that later). More importantly, it allows you to work with multiple folders at the same time.
The approach I recommend for what you describe is to open a subfolder as a separate window when you need to focus your attention on a specific subset of your notes. For example, in my `Notes` folder, I have separate subfolders like `Software`, `Hospital`, or `Software/nvUltra`. Depending on what I am doing, the right context for me might be `Notes` or `Software/nvUltra/Bugs`. I can choose the granularity that I want for the task at hand, whether that is instantly searching all of my notes, or working with a specific subset.
We'll continue to consider changes to the UI, but I believe I speak for both Brett and myself when I say that there is a reason that so many people like the approach taken by Notational Velocity, later nvAlt, and now nvUltra as compared to other shoebox applications. That's not to say it's right for everyone, or right for every use case. But we believe it is a very powerful approach.
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