Hi,
I just found out that Punakea is the kind of app I was looking for. No more countless static toRead, toWatch lists for every website/pdf :)
By using the app some feature requests and bugs came to my mind. The list is very large, but please see it as a positive user feedback. I just want to support you to make Punakea even better.
Here’s my feedback:
Bugs/Strange behavior:
B1:
Menu -> edit -> delete puts all selected items to the trash. First I thought this command would wipe all tags from the item. I did not expect the actual file to be deleted, so there really should be a confirmation dialog "Do you want to delete...“. Dangerous behavior! :)
B2:
Double clicking on an item in order to open it opens it correctly but sometimes it enters the "edit item name" mode in the Punakea browser. Workaround: use only the file icon on the left hand side of the item name.
B3:
After creating a new tag set with File -> New tag set... the new tag set has the label "New Tag Set". The new tag set should be labeled by default with the tags assigned to it. Keep it selected, so the user could instantly rename it if he wants to. Example: defining the tag set „today read“ should name the lapel of the tag set to „today read“.
B4:
If you add a folder from the finder to punakea and lets say you add the tag "today" to it. When you show all items that have the tag "today" the added folder is shown under the category "Folders" but that category is missing in the filter bar above the items list.
B5:
If you click „Preferences...“in the Punakea menu item then the Punakea preferences window is not activated to front (Punakea is not made the front application). So the prefs can easily be overlapped by a large window of another app.
Feature requests:
F1:
The user should be able to search for file names after he previously defined the tags. Please add a search input field in the bottom right in order to be able to make a second „by name“ search. Include wildcard support to show the items aaB and aaC when searching for aa*. This is absolutely necessary Imo when you have more than 20 files in the list.
F2:
Add the items „Documents“ and „Folders“ in the sidebar file kind list. „Documents“ to show any file that is not a bookmark, an image, a movie, music, or a pdf file or a folder. „Folders“ should obviously show only folders.
F3:
Allow command clicking in the side bar list to select multiple file. Let’s say would like to see only bookmarks and pdfs.
F4:
Add a context menu when right clicking on one or more files for commands like „reveal in finder“, „open with...“, „remove tags“.
F5:
If the Tagger quick entry window is on top it should be disappear when the user presses its hot key again. Like a show/hide toggle.
F6:
It should be possible to drag one or more tags from the browser tag cloud or the browser favorites list (tag sets included) to the Tagger tag field for easy drag and dropping of tags. The same should be possible with the tags in the sidebars recent and popular tags lists.
F7:
Place the „Home“ button on the left hand side of the tag bar. On the right hand side it is too far away. The mouse cursor is already near the tags on the left hand side, why should it travel on the opposite side? Clearing the tags in tag bar should as quick as possible (yes, there is as hot key - I speak for the mouse interface)
F8:
It should be possible to select one or items in order to clear them from their tags. Currently you can only "delete" the common tag(s) of all selected items in the bottom left tags panel. Having to enter the tags panel to delete tags is cumbersome. Add a context menu „Clear all tags of the selected items“. Don’t get me wrong, the tags panel is nice but add an additional more quick option to delete tags.
F9:
Allow sorting of items by file kind. Example: 30 email files (.eml), 23 rich text files (.rtf) and 17 voodoopad files (.vpdoc) have the same tags. Order by name does not help much.
F10:
It should be possible to drag a URL from the safari address bar or a file form the finder to a tag set in the favorites section of the punakea sidebar to instantly set the tags defined in the tag set to that url or the file.
F11:
The user should be able to choose his own files that are shown in the desktop sidebar (not only recent and popular tags). Also: it should be possible to add tag sets to the desktop sidebar in order to instantly add the multiple tags to that item.
F12:
Add „Recently added items" item in the sidebar.
F13:
Add feature to reset the statistics/ratings for several (or all) tags a once. A way to reset the font sizes in the tag cloud.
F14:
A left click on the menu bar item should show the browser or the tagger (choosable in the prefs), a right click should open the context menu that is currently shown.
F15:
Add a slider in the bottom of the Punakea browser in order to zoom in/out dynamically the image/pdf previews. Yes, quick look is available, but an additional zoom slider would be nice.
F16:
It would be really awesome to be able to drag one or more urls from safari or a text editor to Punakea in order to import them in Punakea as webarchives. You find an interesting article online that you want to save locally. The problem arises „in which folder to put the file“? It would be really awesome if Punakea could manage that and you don’t have to think about the saving place. „Just drag the urls to Punakea and boom you have tagged webarchives!“
F17:
Add more buttons for the browser toolbar like „Home (delete all selected tags)“, „Delete file“, „Remove all tags from the file“. No danger of cluttering the toolbar because the user could drag and drop the buttons he wants to have on the toolbar.
F18:
Add an area at the bottom of the Tagger that shows the recent or favorite tags/tagsets of the user so the user could conveniently add tags by just clicking on them. Sometime you just don’t want to use the keyboard.
Questions:
Q1:
How does wild card search work? Neither asterisk or question mark do work. Searching for aa* should bring up the tags aaB and aaC.
Q2:
I don't want to mess my filesystem with tags. Is it possible to detach Punakea from the finder/spotlight file system? In that way that the tag to file association exists only in Punakea.
Hi gorgon, whoa, that's a
Hi gorgon,
whoa, that's a long list, thanks a lot for looking into Punakea so deeply!
I'll try to cover everything you wrote in detail :)
B1:
You're right, the delete function is misplaced in the edit menu, and we'll move that to the File menu with the next release - that should clarify what it does, as it replicates the Finder :)
B2:
You have to click fast enough - it's the same as in the Finder, if you wait too long between the clicks, it's interpreted as two separate clicks, and clicking on a selected file enters the "renaming mode"
B3:
Try dragging a tag to the favorites are directly, and a set will be created with the name - dragging more tags to the same favorites set will update it accordingly!
B4:
You're right - added to our todo list :)
B5:
Right again -> todo list
F1:
Very good request, we had that planned for a long time - stay tuned :)
F2:
Yeah, that's also a good one, we've improved the filters under the hood already, and this is a next step to do
F3:
Hm, might be helpful, I'll see what we can do!
F4:
Yes, also a long-standing todo list item ...
F5:
Yup, noted.
F6:
Tagger improvements are imminent :)
F7:
Hm, makes sense, we'll think about it
F8:
Might be useful, right.
F9:
The results view is not perfectly usable at the moment, we've already got some ideas how to improve it :)
F10:
Yes, also a long-standing feature request ... phew, our todo list is pretty long indeed ;)
F11:
Makes sense, yes :)
F12:
That's a very good idea, and if I recall correctly something that nobody as suggested before - thanks!
F13:
Hm, you can work around this by deleting your tag db (~/Library/Application Support/Punakea/DB/tags) and then rebuilding it (Tools -> Rebuild Tag Database).
F14:
Hm, I think that's not very intuitive - I never right-click menubar items. That's what the app icon in the dock is for :)
F15:
Yup, long-standing feature request - pending
F16:
Yeah, that's also a long-standing request, and one thing I myself miss very much ;)
F17:
Good idea, we'll have to ask jono for more icons though ;)
F18:
See F6 ;)
Q1:
Simply type aa, which - in wildcard syntax - stands for *aa*. So basically it's not a wildcard search but a substring search :)
Q2:
No, that is not possible - this is one of the basic ideas of Punakea, to be able to drag files around without worrying constantly about breaking your tags on them. You don't have to worry about messing the filesystem, though, it's all stored in the files xattrs, so if you delete a file, the tags are also deleted - and the storage requirements are really neglible imho.
That's it :) We know there's a lot to do, but we have some plans how to continue implementing new features constantly in the future, so stay tuned for more updates!
Cheers
Johannes
Hi Johannes, Thank you for
Hi Johannes,
Thank you for your comments and your answers. I'm glad you liked most of my feature requests. Punakea is really the missing link between GTD like apps (Things, OmniFocus) and PIM (personal information manager: CircusPonies Notebook, Together etc.) apps.
"Read that ebook" isn't really an actionable task (you cannot do it right now and check it of immediately), so this doesn't fit in an GTD app.
Copy that ebook in an PIM app and it is buried deep inside the folder structure so it never pops up for you to read it - you will simply forget it.
Here is where Punakea shines. Tag that ebook with @read. Show all files tagged with @read the next week - its right there!
Looking forward to see Punakea continue evolving.
Best
gorgon