Needing a good filling system

[Colombia blues]

Does anybody know a good software that would somewhat work like Windows Explorer but allow you to have all of your files (word,exel,pics,ect...) in one common folder and then have an image or in Windows language Shortcut of that file in one or several different folders. With Windows Explorer I need to go to every folder and create a short cut. Is there a program that, when I save the file it would ask in which folders would I like to create an image or shortcut of this file. Also looking for the program to ask if this is what I want to do before allowing a folder to moved around or into another folder.

I am looking for this program because I work in an office where we all share the same information on a networked hard drive and there are different skill levels when it comes to working with computers. We have had folders and files moved around and takes for ever to find because people accidentally click and drag a folder into another. Also Windows Explorer search sucks. It can't find crap. So it would be great for the program to have good search capacity.

Thanks.

[Paul Komski]

If I have understood correctly, you want to automate the creation of shortcuts to newly crated files so that those shortcuts (to the files and not to the original folder holding the newly created files) get placed in certain locations and prompt you to allow this or not each time you create a new file in that folder. If that's so then bear in mind that just about everything you can do to the original will be able to be accomplished via its shortcuts.

What you asking is so elaborate that I doubt if there is existing software to accomplish this. All of that could be customised by a programmer I have no doubt.

It is also not clear if you want multiple users to be able to work/collaborate on the same files or just to be able to access them to read or copy them.

Workarounds could be to automate copying/synchronisation of the files in that specific hold-all folder with software such as syncback (http://www.2brightsparks.com/syncback/syncback-hub.html) to a number of locations (using filters as appropriate) or to consider collaboration using something like Google Docs (http://docs.google.com/).

[Colombia blues]

Thanks for giving it a shot at understanding what I wrote. I was thinking something in the lines of Gmail label system. The emails are kept in one place and you can add or take away labels as you wish. Also the search engine is great.

We need something that would work just like this but on a networked hard drive where multiple computers can access word, exel, powerpoint, pdf, documents, pictures etc. offline. You save the document in one central place and put as many or little labels to identify it. The label system is really only a reference point but the documents are saved all together in one place.

This might explain better what I mean. Maybe not. I have tried to google different combination's of words to find such a program but haven't yet.

Thanks,

[Paul Komski]

Possibly much of what you want could be achieved on an intranet using something like Sharepoint (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointserver/HA101748861033.aspx?pid=CL100626951033) or Sharepoint Team Services (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/sharepoint/bb741069.aspx) - though I have no hands on experience and dislike MS Front Page.

Having your own internal WebSite hosted on the server (and accessible from the LAN as an intranet) would seem to be a logical way to go. You would need to talk to a good web-designer to see what options would suit the business best. One approach would be to organise the documents in an FTP file hierachy.

Another approach would be to set up a database using say PHP and MySQL that would be easily and quickly searchable. Each entry would have a number of fields with one field being the file name but other fields being any type of flag or marker. This would allow the most customisable way of finding specific files for specific uses or for specific groups. However an entry to the database would be required whenever a new document was saved.

To dynamically "spider" an intranet site for content like all the search engines do on the web can also be done with the appropriate web design.

Another approach wold be to simply give the filenames coded parts and which could make the files much more easily searched. MyFile.pdf could, for example, be renamed MyFile_001_GpXX_Sales.pdf and then searching for the individual parts of the file name would collect them together in Windows Explorer. You wouldn't even have to rename the original files but instead create shortcuts to them and give the shortcuts any similar long coded names and then save all these shortcuts in one folder for searching.

I doubt if the A43 file manager (http://www.downloadsquad.com/2006/10/16/a43-file-management-utility/) would be the answer for a corporate collection of files but I do find it a great way of organising shortcuts to files, folders, internet favorites and to executables from its Quick Launch area.