How about comment tags for layers?

I backed up our server last night, then the 10.4.10 update came out today. Since I had a good backup, I decided to go ahead and install the update this evening. If the update has problems, I can restore back to last night again.

But suppose I recapture every night, and I discover late next week that I need to restore all the way back to 10.4.9 for some reason. I'm probably not going to remember which day I installed the 10.4.10 update. This is why I need layer comments. I'd like some way to tag a layer with a comment, either as I do the capture, or maybe later, in the case of a timed action capture.

I don't know if you're familiar witih Microsoft Windows' System Restore checkpoints, but they have a feature like this, and I've always found it useful.

I'm not sure how the user interface ought to work. For sure, the comments should be optional -- you don't have to have one for every layer. There should probably be an option to add some set comment as part of an action. A comment wouldn't necessarilly have to be long, but at least 40 characters would be nice. Maybe you could show the first part of it in a column in the layers section of an archive window. Move your mouse over the comment and maybe a little tip window shows the full comment. What do you think -- possible?

-- Bruce

Bruce Giles wrote:Maybe you could show the first part of it in a column in the layers section of an archive window. Move your mouse over the comment and maybe a little tip window shows the full comment.

Or another possibility -- something like the status bar at the bottom of a Safari window. Maybe it should be just about the window split instead. When you hover the mouse over a layer, causing it to highlight, if there's a comment, it shows up in the status bar.

-- Bruce

Great minds must think alike. I was contemplating this very feature yesterday (probably for the same reason).

As for an interface, I was thinking of adding an editable "notes" field to the info drawer, akin to the notes of an iCal event.

I'd like to add another vote for this feature. Being able to keep track of when significant changes were first backed up could be an extremely useful feature.

Ralph

I'd like to add my vote for this - it's about the only thing that occurred to me as I evaluated QRecall. (Just bought a license

This feature might not be that far away, although the design of the UI has changed a couple of times. Right now I'm favoring an implementation that lets you attach short textual notes to items the same way you set the capture preferences.

So, for example, you could make a major change to a file and then attach a capture note. The new version, and the note, would both be added to the archive when the file was captured.

For my particular purposes, a comment for an entire layer would be more useful - I'm using QRecall to checkpoint significant changes in a set of bus route maps and movies that have to be updated 2 or three times a year as the schedule for the ferry our community buses meet changes. Typically each checkpoint reflects changes to a substantial number of files. I *could* put a comment summarizing the changes reflected in a given checkpoint into a "Comments" file at the root of the file system subtree in question, but that would be a bit cumbersome because I'd have to recall the file to read it. Unless you implemented Quick Look for archive entries

. Hmm. Would comments attached to individual files be visible in the Inspector window? That would work just fine for me...

Which is more-or-less to say that what I'm hoping for is something analogous to the commit note provided by subversion.

Regards,
jcb

My working UI design is to allow you to attach a note to an item (file or folder). That note would appear in the inspector window when you selected that captured file(s), and a summary of all notes would appear in the inspector panel when you selected a layer.