Importing and File Types
Autonotes Repository Format
An AutoNotes repository is a directory or folder containing a combination of plaintext (TXT), RTF and RTFD files.
Files within the repository are in a flat folder structure. Subdirectories are ignored. (We would be interested in feedback from users about this.)
AutoNotes can also read some other file formats contained in your repository. For example, HTML. Also, the repository can be exported as HTML.
Viewing Existing Folders
Sometimes when viewing an existing folder there will be multiple files with the same name but different file extensions. One example of this would be C programmers who would have somefile.c and somefile.h. AutoNotes doesn't support creating files like this, but it has some handy features for viewing and modifying these files, making it a handy tool for viewing and browsing source code.
Normally AutoNotes doesn't show links that point to self, but if there are multiple files with the same extension, links are shown, and the link will take you to the other file of the same extension. (Handy for jumping from source to header files). Also, the extension will be shown in the Notes drawer titles, as well as on the status bar.
The buttons on the status bar will be enabled, allowing you to flip between different files with the same name and different file extension.
If you modify files with non-standard file extensions (i.e, not txt, rtf or rtfd), then certain rules apply. If the file extension in the Mac UTI type system conforms to public.plain-text, public.rtf or com.apple.rtfd, then the file extension will be left intact. If it is another type that conforms to public.text, then it will be converted to rtfd. (for example, html). (in practice, files which internally are the same as plain text retain their extension. HTML gets changed because it is displayed as if it was rich text, even though internally it is a combination of HTML plaintext and separate images).
If you want to check the Mac type hierarchy for file types, AutoFiler has a handy type browser when you try to add a rule about content type.
Importing Files Into a Repository
Of course, since the file format is simply a folder of files, you could simply drag files into your repository in the Finder. However there is also an Import menu item which does the following sanity checks:
- If any file has a name that conflicts with existing files, or with other imported files, it gives you the option to overwrite existing, to ignore those files, or to give those files a new name by appending a number.
- The import procedure will recursively traverse subdirectories and flatten the file structure when in the repository.
- The import procedure will attempt to read other file formats such as HTML, however they will be immediately converted into RTFD.
- Files in a format that cannot be read are ignored.
Tags
Files are tagged using the OpenMeta tagging standard, which has support from an increasing number of applications. In particular, the tags are the same as the user tags used in AutoFiler.
Well behaved Mac OS-X applications (which almost all of them are) will preserve the tags, even when opening and modifying the files in other applications.