[UFO Chicago] alternative ways of locating files

[Neil R. Ormos]

Brian Sobolak wrote:

> I've found that I have various techniques for
> reasonably organizing my files so that I can
> quickly find what I need.  But sometimes I
> forget, especially for older things.

File management is a continuing battle unless you
have created a sensibly-organized hierarchy of
your personal files and are absolutely diligent
about putting files in the right place upon or
shortly after acquisition.  The frustration caused
by this problem increases exponentially as your
files are scattered on multiple computers and
storage devices which are not always online.

IIRC, Lotus Magellan (circa 1987) was intended to
be a comprehensive solution to this problem, but
it did not achieve widespread acceptance.  I am
not aware of a modern comprehensive solution.  If
you find one, please let us know.

> Usually though I can remember this either by
> location or *when* I worked on it.  Yet short of
> using `find` and searching, I wonder if there is
> tool that organizes your filesystem into a view
> sorted by last modified time?

I use something like:

  find . -printf "%TY%Tm%Td-%TH%TM%TS %Y %012s %p\n" | sort > temp-file

which creates a list of files sorted by
modification time.  (I write "like" because I
actually use an alias that works only in tcsh.)
You can filter out uninteresting files (i.e.,
dot-files, browser cache files, etc.) with grep(1)
or delete-non-matching-lines in your favorite
editor.

I also find it useful to sort file names by file
extension.  On Unix-derived systems, it can be
more useful to construct an index of files by type
using find(1) and file(1).  This is handy to
search if you know that the file you are looking
for contains content of some unusual type.  It's
also handy for searching browser caches.

Regarding tagging, the Amiga's operating system
(20 years ago?  really?) had the ability to tag
files.  I did not find it to be all that helpful
for locating files, but it was handy for other
things.  If a user tends to be too busy, lazy, or
forgetful to put a file in the correct location in
the file hierarchy, he/she's just as likely to
neglect to apply the right tags.  One advantage of
tags is that you can usually apply more than one,
but if your filesystem supports soft links you can
achieve essentially the same utility by adding
links in the correct locations in your hierarchy.

--Neil