Zengobi Forums

[kc144]

I'm playing with a 60 day trial of Curio and am considering moving to it for managing multiple research projects. For me, the selling point is being able to employ both hierarchal (Organizer) and spatial/visual (Idea Space) organizational tactics. However, I have a major concern about the lack of organization of embedded assets inside the project package (i.e. right-click on the Curio file in the Finder and select Show Package Contents).

What happens if my library gets corrupt? While the risk is probably small, I'm concerned that finding my files amidst a sea of folders like ..., __Asset-79, __Asset-80, __Asset-81, ... will be a painful chore if something goes wrong. Is there a good reason this approach is taken rather than, say, storing all files associated with an idea space into a single (sub)folder of the same name within a file structure mimicking that of the Organizer?

[george]

In the beginning we used to store files within a single internal folder and only resort to subfolders if a name had a conflict (you had two files named "Image.jpg").

However, that became a mess both visually and in the code. In short, it became quite error-prone.

So we modified this a while back to always create a subfolder for new assets dragged into Curio. That way the asset can be renamed in the Curio UI without a sudden move of the file in the project's internal asset folder hierarchy.

An asset can be shared between multiple idea spaces so it can't simply exist in a single folder named after one of its parents. We also don't want to rename an internal folder structure just because you renamed an idea space or modified its hierarchical structure visually.

One suggestion if you'd like a "snapshot" file representation: do an HTML export. You can then surf to every idea space and easily find each asset.

[jshadow007]

Any way that we could get an option to export all sections of a project as a way of doing this more quickly?

As an aside, as anyone tried exporting a project to HTML and seeing if it's viewable on an iPad in Dropbox, AirSharing etc. (without publishing it to the web, that is)

[george]

Your option is on the todo.

HTML exports should be visible by Dropbox, etc, since each idea space is just an HTML file containing a big ol' imagemap.

[jshadow007]

Wonderful!

Unfortunately iOS does a pretty poor job of playing with HTML files. I've tried on my phone before, and just now on my shiny new iPad and still have no luck getting the HTML file to work.

Maybe the easiest solution for you to shut up all of us whiny iOS users, George, is to make an app that will view exported Curio HTML stuff on the iPad.

[george]

Yuck, you're right. I'm shocked that's how Dropbox renders HTML pages.

I found a workaround with their system but it's not great.

1. I exported a Curio project as HTML to my public Dropbox folder.
2. I waited for Dropbox to sync.
3. I used the iOS Dropbox client to view the index.html fie.
4. It doesn't show anything but if I click the chain icon I can choose Copy Link to Clipboard.
5. I then launched Mobile Safari and pasted that link.

Mobile Safari renders it just fine.

Another way to get that URL is in the Mac Finder right-click on the index.html and choose Dropbox > Copy Public Link. Then mail that link to your system or use some other means (Evernote, Pastebot, Mobile Me bookmarks syncing, whatever) to sync that URL to your iOS device. Then just open the URL over there.

[jshadow007]

Neat. Nice workaround, george.

I need to do some investigating and try some of the other file browser-ish apps (anyone have any recommendations other than Air Sharing?). Ideally, I'd love to have something that doesn't require internet access to view the exported HTML file.

[jjweimer]

[jshadow007]