Would a desktop document management application be something that people would want?

[Lost User]

Do personal users actually think about organizing their files? I think it all goes to Documents in some form.

It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it. ― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food

[Steve Naidamast]

I don't really know. That is why I put the question out to the forum. From the answers I have been seeing it appears that outside of researchers, students, and the like there would be little call for my application. Had there been more positive feedback, I would have considered upgrading the application to a multi-user, department level application using something like WCF as the communication medium.

Steve Naidamast Sr. Software Engineer Black Falcon Software, Inc. blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com

[Private Dobbs]

Doubtful. Post your project on github or as an article here on Code Project. You can then get download stats to find out if there is any interest. If so then launch a commercial version.

[Cpichols]

You mean like grep -r "search text" * ?

[Sharp Ninja]

Not all document types are searchable as plain text.

[Sharp Ninja]

How about the fact that Google Docs are barely compatible with each other and don't allow live content embedding between documents.

[Moo v This]

What does your document management system do? Store docs? Windows does that. What else?

[rwprice]

Yes, I think there could be a use for such an application. I am a big user of One Note, and I love it, but I realize I'm vulnerable to the One Note database getting corrupted and me losing everything. If, instead of One Note, I kept my information in various file formats such as Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, then a document management application that allowed me to access those files as easily as if they were together like in One Note would be great. I would perhaps have to keep files in a particular folder in order for them to be scanned together, but it would have the advantage of being independent, standard formats (even text files and PDFs) and I wouldn't be so dependent on a single application. Do you have any screen shots available?

[Matt Bond]

I wouldn't be too hard on yourself. Your informal survey has a biased population (from a science of surveys point of view). I do keep my personal documents managed manually. I also work on an enterprise level document manager (called Doc Man), which is just a small piece of the overall program. From what I've seen, I'm the exception for how well organized my documents are. I find Windows Search frustratingly stupid. I use grepWin (freeware) to deal with that, which only searches plaintext documents. If I had a binary searcher, or one that could search PDF's, Open Office files, and Microsoft Office files, then I would be set. If I had to manually tag items, then I wouldn't bother with it. That's an extra layer of work that wouldn't be worth the effort. Hope that helps.

Bond Keep all things as simple as possible, but no simpler. -said someone, somewhere

[Lintunen]

I already use a document management application by the name of Mendeley (that also syncs across devices) and it's free.

[David Carta]

Long ago, I used AltaVista desktop search which did this - it was great. Unfortunately, it disappeared along with the rest of AltaVista. I currently use everything (from voidtools - great app) - if your application could filter by file name, file type, and content, I could see myself using it.

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"Qulatiy is Job #1"

[Steve Naidamast]

The application does not use filtering in the sense you are thinking about. Instead, it uses categorical levels, which you would define. For example, you could set up a master-level of C#; then secondary levels for PDF, TXT, and Doc, DocX files. Or C#, then WPF, then PDF, TXT, Doc and DocX. This would be 3 levels of categories. The application allows up to 5 currently... The base version is completely free.

Steve Naidamast Sr. Software Engineer Black Falcon Software, Inc. blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com

[Steve Naidamast]

For everyone who kindly provided me with some input regarding my desktop document management application, I have put up the Help File (CHM) in my online, download file storage server. You may download the file from the following link... CDOCS 1.0.1 I had stopped working on the project some time ago, when I had nearly completed it. In fact, I believe that the development had been completed but with additional testing required. The Help File should be relatively complete, which has both images and text describing all ofthe functionality of this application...

Steve Naidamast Sr. Software Engineer Black Falcon Software, Inc. blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com

[C Grant Anderson]

Hi Steve, I'm interested. Please add me to your email list for beta or for personal version - Grant@CGrantAnderson.com. Thanks! - Grant

[AnotherKen]

I think most expert users don't need this, but I have come across any number of small businesses that would be happy to use such a tool at that price. You should do just fine if you can get some early adopters and get good reviews out of them.

[Martin ISDN]

everybody needs a good document (file) management system, depending on personal preference. also, everybody will stubbornly try to manage it's own documents. at least i will. best chance of selling software like that is with a medium to large sized companies, where document management has to be uniform.

[Steve Naidamast]

Thank you for your encouraging notes. However, my current document management application is for personal use on the desktop. If it is popular enough, I was planning on developing a departmental level application. While the base-version of my current application is free, a departmental level application would have some form of moderate cost for it (ie: $79.00 USD).

Steve Naidamast Sr. Software Engineer Black Falcon Software, Inc. blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com

[Jim Knopf jr]

How about FileSeek: Lightning Fast File Search by Binary Fortress Software[^]