Looking for Dired mode to comment directory listing

Looking for Dired mode to comment directory listing

[Alan]

At one time, 4dos, an alternate M$DOG shell, enabled a file listing
command to include a comment.  In the days of 8+3 filenames, this was
simple feature improved my work output considerably.  Later on, GNU/
Linux with extremely long filenames worked ok, and I was able to
forget about 4dos.

It occurs to me, however, that it might be possible to do a similar
thing with dired, transparently.  Is it currently possible?  I saw an
ipa.el, In Pace Annotations,  on the emacs.sources group/list (http://
www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/emacs/ipa.el), enabling commentary
annotations  to be saved in separate files, and viewed transparently.
To use this feature for directory listings, however, it would be
necessary to save the listing to a file.  Or would it?

I have received comments in the past, that long filenames are enough.
I could still use other kinds of comments, for example, with photos,
and it would seem to be more convenient.

Thanks for any ideas.

Alan

Re: Looking for Dired mode to comment directory listing

[Will Parsons]

Alan wrote:
> At one time, 4dos, an alternate M$DOG shell, enabled a file listing
> command to include a comment.  In the days of 8+3 filenames, this was
> simple feature improved my work output considerably.  Later on, GNU/
> Linux with extremely long filenames worked ok, and I was able to
> forget about 4dos.
> 
> It occurs to me, however, that it might be possible to do a similar
> thing with dired, transparently.  Is it currently possible?  I saw an
> ipa.el, In Pace Annotations,  on the emacs.sources group/list (http://
> www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/emacs/ipa.el), enabling commentary
> annotations  to be saved in separate files, and viewed transparently.
> To use this feature for directory listings, however, it would be
> necessary to save the listing to a file.  Or would it?

I'm not familiar with ipa.el, but 4dos worked (if I remember correctly)
by having an invisible file DESCRIPT.ION in each directory containing the
mappings of file names to file descriptions.  As long as one used the 4dos
versions of copy, move, &c. to copy and move the files, the annotations
would follow the file names.  You could do this in Emacs, but you would
have to use the annotation-aware version of dired to maintain the
annotations.

 > I have received comments in the past, that long filenames
are enough.  > I could still use other kinds of comments, for example, with
photos, > and it would seem to be more convenient.  > > Thanks for any ideas.

Re: Looking for Dired mode to comment directory listing

[spamfilteraccount]

On Jul 17, 7:09 am, Alan <lngn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> At one time, 4dos, an alternate M$DOG shell, enabled a file listing
> command to include a comment.  In the days of 8+3 filenames, this was
> simple feature improved my work output considerably.  Later on, GNU/
> Linux with extremely long filenames worked ok, and I was able to
> forget about 4dos.
>
> It occurs to me, however, that it might be possible to do a similar
> thing with dired, transparently.  Is it currently possible?  I saw an
> ipa.el, In Pace Annotations,  on the emacs.sources group/list (http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/emacs/ipa.el), enabling commentary
> annotations  to be saved in separate files, and viewed transparently.
> To use this feature for directory listings, however, it would be
> necessary to save the listing to a file.  Or would it?
>

Not necessarily. I can add some code to ipa.el which would use the
displayed directory as file name if the current buffer is in Dired
mode.

The only thing I need is a way to determine the path of the currently
displayed directory in Dired. If someone provides this code then I add
the rest to ipa.el.

Re: Looking for Dired mode to comment directory listing

[Mathias Dahl]

"spamfilteraccount@gmail.com" <spamfilteraccount@gmail.com> writes:

> The only thing I need is a way to determine the path of the currently
> displayed directory in Dired. If someone provides this code then I add
> the rest to ipa.el.

Do you mean something like the function `dired-current-directory'? :)

Re: Looking for Dired mode to comment directory listing

[Dieter Wilhelm]

Alan <lngndvs@gmail.com> writes:

...
>
> I have received comments in the past, that long filenames are enough.
> I could still use other kinds of comments, for example, with photos,
> and it would seem to be more convenient.

For photos you can do this with M-x image-dired.  Just type 'c' for
the current thumbnail and you can add a comment for the respective
image file which will be saved automatically.  (At least this was
planed 8-), right now there is still a bug in image-dired.  First you
have to create the database file yourself.  And from then on it works
like a charm.)

-- 
    Best wishes

    H. Dieter Wilhelm
    Darmstadt, Germany

Re: Looking for Dired mode to comment directory listing

[Mathias Dahl]

Dieter Wilhelm <dieter@duenenhof-wilhelm.de> writes:

> For photos you can do this with M-x image-dired.  Just type 'c' for
> the current thumbnail and you can add a comment for the respective
> image file which will be saved automatically.  (At least this was
> planed 8-), right now there is still a bug in image-dired.  First
> you have to create the database file yourself.  And from then on it
> works like a charm.)

That bug will be soon gone, when the discussion how to best fix it, is
over.

BTW, from Dired, use the key binding C-t c.

/Mathias

Re: Looking for Dired mode to comment directory listing

[Dieter Wilhelm]

Mathias Dahl <brakjoller@gmail.com> writes:

> Dieter Wilhelm <dieter@duenenhof-wilhelm.de> writes:
>
>> For photos you can do this with M-x image-dired.  Just type 'c' for
>> the current thumbnail and you can add a comment for the respective
>> image file which will be saved automatically.  (At least this was
>> planed 8-), right now there is still a bug in image-dired.  First
>> you have to create the database file yourself.  And from then on it
>> works like a charm.)
>
> That bug will be soon gone, when the discussion how to best fix it, is
> over.

Yes, this is true for the CVS version, but it will take some time till
the next stable Emacs version including these improvements comes out.

>
> BTW, from Dired, use the key binding C-t c.

Aha, one can also comment non-images! Nice, but sadly one can't
display/see the comment except in the database 8-(.

-- 
    Best wishes

    H. Dieter Wilhelm
    Darmstadt, Germany

Re: Looking for Dired mode to comment directory listing

[spamfilteraccount]

On Jul 20, 10:14 am, Mathias Dahl <brakjol...@gmail.com> wrote:
> "spamfilteracco...@gmail.com" <spamfilteracco...@gmail.com> writes:
> > The only thing I need is a way to determine the path of the currently
> > displayed directory in Dired. If someone provides this code then I add
> > the rest to ipa.el.
>
> Do you mean something like the function `dired-current-directory'? :)

Yep, thanks. :)

Dired support is implemented: http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/emacs?action=history;id=ipa.el

Re: Looking for Dired mode to comment directory listing

[Mathias Dahl]

> > That bug will be soon gone, when the discussion how to best fix it, is
> > over.
>
> Yes, this is true for the CVS version, but it will take some time till
> the next stable Emacs version including these improvements comes out.

True, true.

> Aha, one can also comment non-images!

Yes :)

> Nice, but sadly one can't
> display/see the comment except in the database 8-(.

Then I suggest you switch to use file-props.el instead :) New version
on EmacsWiki now:

http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/file-props.el

/Mathias