Your thoughtful, incisive responses are appreciated.  It's hard to imagine
why that simple expedient---a directory listing with a comment field---has
failed to catch hold.  It was incredibly useful.

Thanks

Alan Davis

On Thu, Feb 9, 2017 at 2:07 PM, Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net>
wrote:

> "Alan E. Davis" <lngndvs@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > I am looking for something a little different than this: annotated ls
> > listings.  I have been searching blindly for years for this.
> >
> > Back in the 90s was a Dos clone called 4dos, which featured directory
> > listings with annotations, such that typing whatever the command was
> > (dir?), gave a listing with the file name just like "dir" but also a
> > description of the file.
> >
> > It was exceedingly useful for me, in keeping track of a large number
> > of files.  I have never seen anything like it.
> >
> > Could org-annotate fulfill at least part of this requirement?  (I have
> > posted to this list a similar question quite some years ago.)
>
> org-annotate could do the annotation part of it, but really that part
> pales compared to the challenge of creating and maintaining directory
> listings in Org. Doing it once would be easy, but tracking
> additions/deletions/renames in the directory sounds like a *lot* of
> work, not to mention making sure the annotations follow the correct
> entry.
>
> I suppose if you *only* edited the directory listing through custom
> commands you implement from Org mode you could keep it under control,
> but still... Some challenges energize you when you start imaging how to
> solve them. Others make you exhausted just thinking about them!
>
> Eric
>
>
>


-- 
[I do not] carry such information in my mind since it is readily
available in books. …The value of a college education is not the
learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think.
          ---Albert Einstein



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