Announcing Lex: Project based document management

[phildow]

[NovaScotian]

[PencilPoint]

Phil,

Lex sounds very good indeed.

I've read with interest the discusion vis-a-vis Yojimbo, but how would you compare Lex to DevonThink Pro (aside from the database issue)?

I'd be grateful to know because I'm on the verge of buying a licence for DT, but I like Journler so much that Lex is about the only thing that might tempt me away.

PP

[phildow]

[phildow]

[BLUEFROG]

SkyWombat:

In case you haven't found it yet...

http://www.journler.com/community/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1577

Cheers,
Jim Neumann
BLUEFROG

[madmaxmedia]

I think this is a great idea for an app, especially since some of the fundamental groundwork is laid out in Journler. A couple of questions and comments-

1. It sounds like the files will not be moved or copied to the database, so they will still reside in their existing locations, right? (I think this is better for multiple reasons.)

If so, what would happen if I accidentally move a file to a new location? In general, this app would eliminate most file organization work. I could picture having a single folder for work, writing projects, etc. just to keep some top-level organization, or use Lex to organize beyond that. But I could still see myself moving an occassional file without remembering that I have entered it into Lex.

2. I'm currently playing around with Punakea in this way, but it is tag-only. Come to think of it, it would be nice if Lex leveraged the Spotlight comments field in some (customizeable) way. Like maybe you could have Lex automatically fill in the Spotlight comments field with certain metadata. It's somewhat redundant, but would improve Spotlight search results.

The other thought is that it should be easy to drag and drop files into Lex, and then have Lex dump them into some sort of repository (one folder per project would be grand.) That's one of the things Punakea is good at- cleaning up my desktop! One possible issue with Lex here, is can i pick which project to drop a file, etc. Obviously a right-click menu item would make sense too.

So I guess my general point here is about how Lex will ideally be different from Journler to optimize for file handling vs. text entries, even if the basic organizational model is the same.

3. Based on how well you can sift through info in Journler, my inclination here would be to use 1 project database to actually manage all my work stuff, and another for personal stuff, and then use categories and tags to break down in to individual projects. So maybe 3 or 4 total projects, rather than 15 or 20 if I go 1 level down in organization. But that's just based on my experience with Journler.

4. There are 3 additional apps that seem comparable to me. There are DocumentWallet and Yep, but they seem to be only for PDF files. They are also far less powerful in organizational features than Journler. One thing they do offer is a front-end to scan and file paper documents. That would be a cool feature for Lex.

But the closest app that comes to mind is Microsoft Entourage, with its Project Center-

http://maczealots.com/tutorials/project-center/

I almost switched to Entourage when I first got a Mac for this very feature, but didn't want to switch everything over to the very monolithic app (plus, what's the fun of switching to Mac if you're just gonna use a MS app 75% of the time!)

One advantage of Entourage is that the Project Center can encompass so many types of information- files, emails, contacts, notes, tasks, calendar events, etc. It would be interesting if you could drag emails, contacts, calendar events from the Apple apps into Lex. That might be easy or hard, depending on how those apps behave. It seems that dragging an Address Book entry to the desktop creates a vCard (good), but dragging an email in Mail.app does nothing (bad).

5. Finally, it would be nice to be able to create text entries in Lex, even if this can already be done in Journler. I use Journler for my personal writing and personal notes, but not for work (I keep them separate.) My work workflow is much more document-based, so Lex would be ideal here. But I would also love to be able to jot down notes and ideas within Lex, and keep them organized in the same project-oriented way. (I could alternatively create a RTF, then import it into Lex, but that seems wasteful.)

Sorry for the ramble, looking forward to seeing the app!!!

Thanks,
Steve

[terryhatmaker]

Phil,

I am excited about this new product. Am I correct in assuming that I would still be able to create notes for a specific project? The program will not be Entry-centric, but it would have the ability to create notes.

I think this program would have a lot of the features of DevonThink. In fact, Journler is very close to DevonThink's capabilities.

Terry

[NovaScotian]

[phildow]

[phildow]

[phildow]

[phildow]

Unbelievable! It's just turning 24 hours after the initial Lex post and the thread has been viewed over a thousand times! Looks like there's a lot of excitement about Lex, which makes me excited. And I was already excited!

I'm going to set up a forum shortly to begin a general discussion about the project. Once I have a beta out that people can play around with I'll then start taking some requests.

In the meantime I've started fooling around with the data model and interface, and it's looking like this won't be a difficult venture at all. Once I've got something more concrete I'll certainly let everyone know.

[madmaxmedia]

[phildow]