I know this isn’t the intended purpose of Scrivener, but has anyone used it as a replacement for project/file managers like Yojimbo, EagleFiler, and the like? I know that this means some of those programs’ bells and whistles might not be here, but I’m trying to minimize the amount of software I’m always flipping between (and paying for), without extreme minimalism.
Of course, I mean using it as a small project note-taker/filer; as for large databases, nothing can replace DEVONthink Pro. But, on a smaller, project-basis: with Scrivener’s excellent metadata abilities, ability to open more than one project at a time, its searchability from Spotlight, its acceptance of PDFs and images, etc., I’m wondering … is there any reason why not to use it as such?
Indeed, since that portion of it was designed specifically to serve as a light-weight data manager sidekick for the writing aspect of the application, it should work splendidly as a light-weight data manager. One major advantage to using Scrivener projects to store random data (and not just data related to a specific project), is that when enough data accumulates to merit looking at it from a project standpoint, transferring it keywords and all to a normal book project is as painless as it gets. I believe the only thing that does not cross over is label, status, and any internal links that may have been established. External references will be retained, though. In comparison to EagleFiler, it is actually doing something very similar by just mirroring data as files.
I am using it in conjunction with EagleFiler, having abandoned DTP (which has become too bloated for my taste). EagleFiler handles archiving my emails, keeping track of web research, notes, documents, etc. At the moment, EagleFiler doesn’t support Scrivener directly but it allows the user to import “unsupported” files (maybe Keith can chat with Michael Tsai one of these days…).
In essence, EagleFiler is my overarching file manager and Scriv is one of the applications that work beneath it. The nice thing about EagleFiler, by the way, is that it leaves all of your data files in their native formats.