File Browser

An overlay supporting embedded file browser.
Featurepacks:

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.