[Design] 0.7 Planning (Reframing the issue.)

[Philippe Bossut]

Hi,

Some time ago on this thread Mimi asked to envision the following scenario:

Mimi Yin wrote:

>>> 2. How would a photographer's studio use it to coordinate scheduling 
>>> equipment, traveling and client jobs?
>>
Well, it just happens that I'm registered on a pro photographer mailing 
list and today someone (not prompted by me BTW, that was in a thread 
about backing up jobs and its different from Mimi's original scenario) 
volunteered his own workflow method (appended to this mail).

Without saying it, he's doing triage using file names as a clue for 
triaging so that his files and jobs show up in the right location. The 
really interesting thing IMO is that it allows him and his assistant to 
collaborate on a project without having to send messages to each other: 
when the file shows up in the right location, everyone knows the status 
and what needs to be done next. It's very smart.

It's not a scenario we want to support in Chandler but it gives an idea 
on how triage and tags could be use not only by individuals (à la GTD) 
but by groups to collaborate in a professional environment and manage a 
project workflow. Food for thoughts I think.

Cheers,
- Philippe

------------------------

Tiger brought us Spotlight and 'Smart Folders' and they are just  great 
for this sort of thing.

For example, when I'm working on a book, which up till now have ended  
up at around 25-35gbs, *not* including the original Eyelike  galleries, 
which have already been burnt to DVD, I have a 'smart  folder' which 
shows me all the Fits that have been worked on in the  last week.  These 
Fits are buried in a hierarchy of folders, which  are organised by 
shot.  Equally, I have smart folders which show the  labels we use to 
organise, the various stages of work.  So, when  Baptiste alters a file, 
he gives it a label.  When I alter a file I  give it a different label.  
When a file is awaiting further work it  has another label and it has 
another one again when it's totally  finished.  The incredible thing 
with smart folders is that all of  these labellings can be found without 
having to do any searching at  all.  They're just there automatically!  
And you don't have to  organise anything ... change a label and the file 
automatically   appears in the appropriate folder and disappears from 
the previous  one.  It is a very straightforward process using smart 
folders to  update the workflow.

As for burning to DVD.  We have a 4x burner, which is fast enough and  
if we make any changes to what was supposed to be the definitive  
archive, I tend to have a final DVD with these altered files.  We use  a 
CD catalogue software to keep track of everything and again, I rely  on 
the old-fashioned manual method, of adding a written note, into  the 
original 'jewel' case of any files, which were subsequently  changed, so 
that even though we forget ... as soon as we get a dvd  out, we'll 
notice straight away if there was a later version  archived.  I also use 
dates in folder names and dvd names, so that we  can always see when 
something was considered to be 'definitive' and  of course, I use those 
text notes, sometimes in the form of text- clippings, which are great 
because you can read them in the Finder's  Column view, without even 
opening them.

It all works quite well ... but I have to say that Tiger has made it  
far more easy and quick to manage.  I'm not expecting the dvd's to  last 
forever, or to be particularly important in the years to come,  but as 
technology moves on, it's important to move the files with  it.  I'm 
planning to re-cut all my cd's and perhaps dvd's to the next  generation 
'blue-ray' or hd-dvd, whichever it is that becomes the  standard on 
Macs.  As time goes by, this will become less and less of  a pain.  CD's 
can be read at 32x and you can fit about 50 of them  onto a single 50gb 
dvd.  Cool!  Of course .... image files are  getting bigger too!