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Features

1 - Advanced Links

Use advanced Linking.

Copy your Links to other apps using different title formats. Export compatible Web-Links where necessary. Tapping those Web-Links brings you back to this App.

Title formats

When copying links or appending to a note, Foldie offers to copy the plain link, a formatted version for pasting into a rich text editor and a Markdown version. The latter two require a URL and a title.

This title can be customized in Settings and is a dedicated portion of the URL, such as the file name or the file name without extension.

In some contexts, like web pages and Office documents, links with a foldie: URL do not work or require confirmation when clicked. In this case you can use a Foldie Web Link, which has a https: URL, but otherwise functions as a Foldie Link.

2 - Advanced Windows

Use multiple browser windows on the Mac.

Hold the option key or double click to open a Link in a new Browser window.

3 - Annotations

Use Annotation Files and Folders.

When you follow a link to a file, Foldie reminds you about files and folders that are similarly named as the target file. For Name.ext and Name-X.ext these are all other files in the same directory that start with Name. You can use this feature to add annotation files into the same physical folder or in an overlay.

In a big band you could put playing instructions for Song.pdf into Song-trumpets.txt.

Creating annotation folders

Besides creating sibling files and folders outside of Foldie, Foldie supports you in creating annotation folders with the suffix -Info, when the feature Create Annotation Files and Folders is enabled.

While browsing, simply expand the link section and in the siblings section tap the Create Annotation button. Foldie presents you a list of possible destinations. After choosing a destination, Foldie creates the Info folder in the correct subdirectory of the Base Folder after creating intermediate directories as neccessary.

One of the following conditions must be given for this to work:

  • You have enabled a default overlay folder in settings.
  • In your virtual folder definition, you have one or more mounted folders, for which the Folder Mirroring option is enabled.

Use case: Big band

Each score is a PDF that contains scores for each instrument. To instruct guest players, add an Info folder score-Info to each score, with a file per instrument group (e.g. trumpets.pages) that contains

  • overall playing instructions, such as which mute to use,
  • for each instrument voice (trumpet 1, trumpet 2, trumpet 3) the page number within the score file to look up the relevant notes quicker.

The trumpets may manage their own information and share it in a trumpet-internal overlay folder, so other instrument groups even do not see the annotations.

4 - Bookmarks

Bookmark links for later.

While browsing, and in other places where links are active, you can bookmark the links. You can then later look up the bookmarked links using the side bar. Then you can edit the list of bookmarks and mark bookmarks as favorites.

You can perform common actions with each link in the bookmarks list.

5 - Call Shortcuts

Call Shortcut Actions.

Foldie is - on purpose - very limited in what you can do with the contents of the files. And, by design of iOS, Foldie cannot interact easily with other apps other than through the share sheet. You, the user, on the other hand, are allowed to create workflows in the Shortcuts app, which has access to actions within other apps.

To support your specific workflows, Foldie allows you to call your shortcuts with the current link.

  • Craft custom actions in the Shortcuts app, and expect a URL as a parameter.
  • Make those actions callable ??
  • Enable the Call Shortcut Actions feature.
  • Put the action names into Settings/Link-Actions.

Examples:

  • Add the link to an Apple Notes note that you select in Shortcuts.
  • Check a path component of the link and act differently.
  • Use the Foldie Intents to fetch the location of the file and create an annotation folder next to it using a template folder.

6 - Default Overlays

Add Folder Overlays anywhere.

Default overlays provide overlays for all base folders and virtual folders. You can easily create parallel folder structures for each host and put related files there. (See annotations.)

Go to Settings/Default Overlays. Check one of the default locations (iCloud or local) or use comma-separated base folder names.

When you browse at foldie://host/somepath, all the content of DefaultOverlayFolder/host/somepath will also be shown for each of the enabled default overlay folders.

7 - Embedded File Viewers

Creating links to locations inside a file.

For PDFs, audio and video files, you can use an embedded viewer to create links to specific locations within the file’s content. The location is encoded as a # fragment of the link’s URL. When opening such a link later, you can get back to the location in the embedded viewer.

  • For PDFs, the current page page is encoded in the link.
  • For audio and video files, the current playback postion in seconds is encoded in the link.

8 - File Browser

An overlay supporting embedded file browser.

The Foldie file browser is shown when you open a link from outside of the app or in the many places, where common link actions are available.

When opening a link, foldie looks up the host in the virtual folder definitions and in the base folder definitions. It then resolves the necessary security scoped bookmarks to access the underlying file system. If the link represents a folders, the browser lists its contents. If the link represents a file, the browser shows actions you can perform with the file.

The file browser supports of overlays which means, that for a single link there can be multiple source files or source folders. And within the listing of a folder-overlay there can be multiple entries with the same name.

The browser view always presents the link for the current browsing state at the top row. The row contains:

  • A link icon.
  • The link name (the link’s last path component).
  • Optional overlay information: The number of sources contributing to the current item (in brackets).
  • Optional sibling information: The number of sibling files (after a star).

You can use the context menu on the link icon to perform common actions or tap the link name to reveal the link section and the siblings section.

Within the link section, you can perform actions more easily, because the context menu of the link icon is spread out on the second row. If the current item represents a folder overlay, the link section contains a button that shows all contributing source folders and offers to create the folder in sources that do not contribute yet. The latter allows you to construct overlays easily.

The siblings sections

The siblings section shows siblings of the current item. This gives you quick access to annotations. There is also button to create a -Info annotation folder.

Metadata

For the current link you can get access to its properties and is mentions from the toolbar. A mention is an occurency of the link in a values of a property of another link. See the Metadata feature.

Folder list modes

If the current link represents a single folder, the browser lists the folder’s content.

However, within a folder overlay there can be multiple entries with the same name. These may hide another and you may or may not be interested in, which source provided which entry. Therefore, the file browser suports different modes for listing folder overlays: merged, flat, and by source.

  • Merged: Only one entry in the directory per content name. That entry represents all matching sources.
  • Flat: One entry per matching source. The listing is ordered by name.
  • By source: One entry per matching source. The listing is grouped by source name.

File view

If the current link represents a simple file, Foldie shows the link row and a section with buttons to act on the underlying file. You can preview the file, reveal it in the Files app or on the Mac in Finder, or share the file. For PDFs, audio and video files, you can use an embedded viewer to create links to a specific location within the file’s content. If enabled in settings, the preview opens automatically when opening the file view.

Since the file browser supports of overlays, for a single link there can be multiple source files. When browsing to an entry that represents different files backed by different sources, the browser shows all those files and actions for each file. Additionally there is a Copy File to button that allows you to copy an underlying file to another layer in the overlay.

9 - Intents

Automate Foldie.

Use this app’s actions in the Shortcuts app and elsewhere in the system.

Security warning

This feature is deactivated by default, to keep your files safe. You should only activate these features, if you know what you are doing. Shortcuts may perform changes to the underlying file system.

Always check Shortcuts before installing and running them! You risk your data and privacy!

10 - Link Actions

Common actions that you can perform with links.

There are many places in Foldie, where a Foldie Links is active:

  • The current location in the file browser.
  • A selected item in the file browser.
  • A selected item in the recents list.
  • A selected item in the bookmark list.
  • A selected item in the host list.

In most places you can use the context menu to perform common actions.

If the link represents a single file or folder, you can also access the file itself in some places with the following actions:

  • Show a preview of the file.
  • Show the file in the Files app or on Mac in the Finder.
  • Share the file using the system share sheet.

11 - Metadata

Working with Link-Metadata.

Foldie metadata is inspired from the Resource Description Framework (RDF), but much simpler. A Metadata entry is represented by a subject-predicate-object-triple (Link, Attribute, Value), where Link is a Foldie Link URL, Attribute is a user-defined name such as “tag”, “quality”, “basedOn”, and Value is single- or multiline plain text that may contain other links.

A link property is an (Attribute, Value) pair, and a mention of a link is a metadata entry, in which the link occurs in the value field.

You can attach arbitrary properties to the current link in the file browser. You can see at the tag icon that a link has properties or is mentioned in metadata of other links.

You can create a new property and set text values for the attribute and value fields. Or you select an existing attribute and an existing values for that attribute.

This way you can tag your links, add info-notes, attach related links.

The file browser also shows you mentions.

The metadata browser

The metadata browser shows all entries, but you can filter them in different ways:

  • Use the search field to find triples that contain some text.
  • Tap on a link to find triples that contain the link. If you tap on a project folder, all links to subfolders match.
  • You can further filter by requesting that the link is part of the link field or part of the value field.
  • You can choose to show a subset of existing attributes.
  • You can filter the triples to show a specific attribute, value or attribute-value combination.

Interaction modes:

  • In open-link-mode (share icon) when you tap on a link, that link is opened.
  • In metadata-browse mode (right arrow), when you tap a link, you replace the link filter with the new link. This way you can walk the graph of links.
  • In edit mode (pencil icon) you can select and delete entries.

12 - Notes

Collect Links in Notes.

In notes you can freely mix plain text, links and basic markup. Use notes to create an ordered list of Links or to tell a story. Select a Current Note and easily add Links to it from context menus.

Basic Markup

Foldie supports only a small subset of Markdown:

  • Use **Some text** to make it bold: Some text
  • Use *Some text* to make it italics: Some text
  • Use [Link Title](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page) to create links with arbitrary titles: Link Title.
  • You can use relative paths in links like [Link Title](relative/path.txt), if you set a Base URL in the editor.

Additionally, plain text URLs are detected and turned into tappable links.

For further formatting, please use your favorite editor.

  • If that is a Markdown editor, copy the source code of the note.
  • If that is a rich text editor, such as Apple Notes or Pages, copy the rendered note.

Besides text - in which you can create lists of links - you can attach Foldie Links to a note. These are shown in the order of the attachment date.

You can add a link as an attachment or directly to the note in many places where a Foldie Links is active, such as in the file browser, in the recent, bookmark or host list. Simply use the context menu to add the link to the Current Note.

Foldie supports two stages of creating link lists:

  • First you attach links to the note.
  • Then you copy the attachments to the note’s text. Either at the end, or at the current text position in the editor.

13 - Overlays

List files from multiple sources.

Foldie supports creating virtual folder overlays of directories and files from your file system. An overlay can be realized with a Virtual Folder Definition and via Default Overlays. The file browser supports to browse these overlays.

What is a folder-overlay?

Overlays are well-known from painting applications, such as Adobe Photoshop. There, an Overlay consists of a list of ordered layers, each of which contains an image with a transparent background. In the overall view, opaque pixels in the upper layers hide opaque pixels in the lower layer, that have the same coordinate.

For the sake of simplicity we assume that every layer L[i] in a folder-overlay is backed by a physical source folder F[i], that recursively contains items (files and folders) - the ‘pixels’. The coordinate of an item within a layer is given by its relative path from F[i]. Items with the same relative path but different source folders are stacked on top of each other in the order of their layers. The overall view on a folder-overlay is like an overlay file system.

Consequences

Facts:

  • The root of an overlay is a virtual folder.
  • An element of a virtual folder is a virtual file or again a virtual folder.
  • A link into a virtual folder is a virtual file or virtual folder and generally refers to multiple physical items that share the same relative location.

Therefore, Foldie’s file browser

  • has different modes to present the sources of an overlay,
  • supports copying files from one layer of an overlay to another layer.
  • supports creating the ‘same’ folder in a different layer.

One mode realizes an overlay file system.

What can you do with overlays?

In an overlay, you can

  • stack a writable folder on top of a read-only folder,
  • merge multiple information sources.

A writable folder on top of read-only folders enables you to

  • add information that is only relevant to you next to of shared information,
  • keep edited files next to original versions.

What are ‘read-only’ folders?

Here are some examples, in which you cannot write to a folder or should consider a folder to be non-writable:

  • A shared folder which you cannot write to, such as an iCloud folder that a friend shares with you in read-only mode.
  • A shared folder which you should not write to, for example because of company policies.
  • A local copy of a resource folder. You should not write to it, because you would loose your changes the next time you install an updated version of the resource folder.
  • A folder that you want to publish. You want to keep it clean of personal annotation files.

Technique: Writing over a read-only folder

If you have a read-only folder R and a writable folder W, you can stack W on top of R in an overlay O.

Virtually editing a file

If you take a file F with path P in R, edit and save it to the same path P in W, the edited version hides the unmodified version of F in O. This way you can virtually replace F without touching R. Foldie’s file browser supports copying F from R to W, so that you can edit that version with an external app afterwards.

Adding sibling files

For file F with path somepath/filename.ext in R, you can put an edited version at somepath/filename-version.ext or an annotation file at somepath/filename.txt. These files show up as sibling files next to F in the file browser.

Technique: Merging multiple sources

You can merge information not just from two folders, but from multiple sources. Assume you are working together with multiple colleagues on a shared folder R and every colleague C shares his overlay folder CW, then you can construct an overlay, in which all contributions are visible.

Sibling files with a naming convention including the colleage’s name are visible. Files from different sources with the same path can also be made visible by choosing a browsing mode that just merges directories but not files.

See also the tutor use cases.

14 - Recents

Revisit recently opened links.

Foldie keeps track of links that you have opened from other apps. You can later revisit those links and perform common link actions with them.

15 - Siblings

Display sibling files and folders.

When opening a link in the file browser, other files and folders with a similar name within the same parent folder are shown. So you can put information about a file MyFile.ext in a folder called MyFile-Info. This also works across overlays. (See also Annotations feature.)

An alternative to sibling files is to use Metadata.

16 - Virtual Folders

Define complex folder and file overlays.

You can create complex overlay definitions in the Virtual Folders screen that you can reach from the sidebar.

You can combine multiple different Base Folders and Base Files into one Virtual Folder that behaves as a single directory. The virtual folder contains the underlying files and sub-directories from all sources and the built-in file browser shows all source-files and -folders.

Editor

In the top section, you can change the host name that represents the root folder and choose if you want generally want to make the host active. Because the host definition is synced to your other devices, you can choose on each device, if you want to enable the host on that devide. You would not do that on devices, where the base folders are not available that are used in the definition.

In the Mounted Folders section, you list base folders and specify, how they should be mounted.

In the *Mounted Files section, you list base files and specify where they should be mounted.

Mounted folders

For a mounted folder

  • choose a base folder,
  • optionally choose a sub-folder of the base folder,
  • choose where that sub-folder or base folder should be mounted within the host,
  • choose, if you want to allow the sub-folder or base-folder to be used for folder mirroring (see annotations feature)

Mounted files

You can add mounted files interactively by choosing a Base File and typing in the mount path within the host. Or you can edit the list of mounted files in a spreadsheet application and import the definitions textually.

In both cases, if you omit the mount point, if is assumed to be the same as the base file’s reference name.

17 - Widgets

Use Widgets from your Home Screen.

This app provides widgets that you can add to your home screen, so that you can open some links directly.

A Hosts widget that lists all Foldie Hosts and a Note widget that lists all links of the current note. Both come in different sizes and open the Foldie app, when an item is tapped.