EagleFiler: tag-smart, open-format PIM
SpamSieve developer Michael Tsai has released a personal information manager that takes the fight right up to established apps like Yojimbo and SOHO Notes.
While EagleFiler is a powerful, fully-featured information manager, it offers more flexible tagging and annotation options than other apps. Also, although it uses a Core Data SQL database to track your files, it stores them in an “open format” library or Finder folder, just like iPhoto or iTunes. This will not only please open format advocates, but allows other apps to access the data easily and makes backups much more efficient.
The interface has the much admired three-pane Mail-like look (just like Yojimbo and SOHO Notes):
It provides numerous ways for importing or capturing the information you want to store. A system-wide capture key (F1 by default) allows you snag info (EagleFiler handles emails from all the major email clients, web pages, PDFs, word processing files, iChat logs, audio files and more - see the full list 
) without interrupting your workflow, although files can also be dragged to the Dock icon, interface or dedicated “Drop Pad”.
Integration with Growl is a nice touch, providing notification of successful capture without the need to switch apps and check.
Mail can’t (yet) be imported directly from IMAP accounts, but has to be moved to a local folder first. Michael says that he hopes to overcome this limitation in later releases.
To make up for that, MailTags users will be delighted to hear that EagleFiler will import its tags along with the emails. Nifty!
It also provides flexible ways of organising your data. Hierarchical folders and labels allow “folder-lovers” every opportunity to indulge; it even supports multiple libraries for the ultimate in data separation.
“Archivers” will value the ability to find things in one huge folder through the app’s Search function which supports Boolean or phrase searches.
Tag support is something that Yojimbo and SOHO Notes don’t provide. In EagleFiler you can tag each items with as many tags as you want.
A tag pane allows you to add, customise and add color to your tags.
You can also set a character or symbol for each tag, which shows up in the app’s main viewer.
Tags are also displayed in the folder list on the left, so that it is easy quickly to find all the items with a particular tag.
Further options for labelling, naming and tagging are provided by an Inspector window.
You can enter tags in a field obscured in the screenshot by the drop-down menu for the labels (which are Finder labels and can be edited in Finder’s Preferences pane).
People who feel constricted by Yojimbo’s lack of support for hierarchical folders or restricted meta-data options will love the flexibility EagleFiler offers without the need to switch to SOHO Notes’ OpenBase database engine.
EagleFiler’s preferences are minimal and mainly control the look of the interface.
You can also customise the capture key here.
EagleFiler also pitches itself as an archiver for Mail.app and other email clients.
Michael suggests:
Most e-mail programs are designed for communicating with your mail server and letting you read and write messages—not for storing all your old mail. By cleaning out your mail program’s database, you can remove some clutter from its mailbox list and speed it up. But cleaning it out doesn’t have to mean lots of time wasted trying to predict which messages you might need in the future. Disk space is plentiful—just archive all your old mail into EagleFiler. Later, you’ll be able to find what you need with a quick search. Meanwhile, the archived messages will no longer be slowing down Spotlight searches of your files and current messages.
I was very impressed. It is more flexible than Yojimbo. Its open format makes it more attractive than SOHO Notes. EagleFiler doesn’t have the full range of extra features — syncing, blogging support, full-screen option, alarms, etc — that SOHO Notes provides. That’s a pleasing lack of feature bloat for me. YMMV.
EagleFiler is shareware (USD 40) and a 30 day free demo is available from Michael’s web site .
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October 16th, 2006 at 10:15 pm
This looks really nice, but it’s yet another application in a very crowded field. I switched a few weeks ago from Yojimbo to KIT (Keep It Together), after I was told by someone at BareBones that there was no plan to add AppleScript support to list documents in the library (which I wanted to be able to export items for backup). KIT on the other hand also uses the file system to store the documents, which makes it very easy to back up.
I’ll definitely keep an eye on this, but I’m not sold yet. (Now if there are some promotions to crossgrade, I may get tempted ;-) ).
October 16th, 2006 at 11:40 pm
It’s not quite true that Yojimbo doesn’t support tags. The Inspector for each item in the library has a Comments field, and when you do searches you can search by comments. So this is just tagging by another name.
October 16th, 2006 at 11:48 pm
Sure. But it’s not really an integrated solution in Yojimbo. It’s a “hack”.
You can’t see the comments as true tags in the main viewer, quickly view all the items with the same tag from the Folder list on the left. You have to search.
It’s much, much more polished in EagleFiler.
October 16th, 2006 at 11:53 pm
I totally agree that EagleFiler has a better, richer implementation of tagging. But my original point is correct: “It’s not quite true that Yojimbo doesn’t support tags.”There’s a big difference between having “unpolished” tagging and no tagging at all. No disrespect to EagleFiler, which looks cool.
October 17th, 2006 at 12:06 am
Hmmm…. I think that there is a significant difference between a searchable comment and a tag, enough to make them different things.
But semantic slanging-matches are best avoided. Let’s agree to disagree :)
October 17th, 2006 at 1:06 am
Sorry, Alan, I’m a cantankerous dipstick sometimes. :(
If I had a more functional turn of mind, I would probably see your point entirely.
October 17th, 2006 at 1:10 am
No worries, Tim! You’re right that “there is a significant difference between a searchable comment and a tag”; I just want to suggest that some of what people want from tags can be accomplished via the searchable comments of Yojimbo. That’s how I use the app, anyway. When (if?) Yojimbo gets user-defined smart folders, it will be a lot closer to having the full functionality of tags, though it will probably never match EagleFiler in this regard.
October 17th, 2006 at 1:59 am
I have been switching between StickyBrain (SOHONotes) and Yojimbo as my primary file manager for months. Neither of them completely capable of my needs. Yesterday I installed EagleFiler and imported my saved files from SOHO and Yojimbo, spent some time tagging the files and I have to say EagleFiler performs flawlessly. The ability to tag the files with Keywords is necessary for a great File Manager. Both StickyBrain and Yojimbo force the user to use categories for filing which is very limiting.
October 17th, 2006 at 1:59 am
I have been switching between StickyBrain (SOHONotes) and Yojimbo as my primary file manager for months. Neither of them completely capable of my needs. Yesterday I installed EagleFiler and imported my saved files from SOHO and Yojimbo, spent some time tagging the files and I have to say EagleFiler performs flawlessly. The ability to tag the files with Keywords is necessary for a great File Manager. Both StickyBrain and Yojimbo force the user to use categories for filing which is very limiting.
October 17th, 2006 at 3:42 am
I’ve always been a fan of MacJournal. Back when it was freeware, I thought it was amazing, however the one thing I wanted, nested journals, didn’t come until after it was purchased by Mariner Software, and turned into a payware application. Eventually, I caved in, and purchased it, and couldn’t be happier.
It does everything I want… a system-wide Service to add to MacJournal, multiple, nested journals, multiple pages per journal, tagging, smart groups, posting to weblogs, etc.
To be honest, I don’t find the “mail.app-like” 3 pane approach to work for a scrap management tool, so this works best for me.
Interestingly enough, I found MacJournal while trying to find a replacement for the Classic “Notepad” application, and I’ve never looked back.
October 17th, 2006 at 9:22 am
Argh! I just switch from then Stickybrain to Yojimbo, now Eagle Filer comes along. I like the fact that it stores things within the regular file structure instead of a proprietary database a la SOHO Notes or the weird hidden Yojimbo library (at least I don’t know where it is). On the other hand, how many of these things do we need?!
What I’d like to know is what the future development plans for these programs are. If Eagle Filer will have the robust Applescript support that Yojimbo lacks maybe that would be enough to get me to switch. I agree with the above poster, however, I thinking that a cross-grade discount would be nice.
It’d be nice if somebody would do a comprehensive comparative review.
Oh and EF needs a better icon (not that Yojimbo’s is any good either)!
October 20th, 2006 at 12:19 pm
Yojimbo’s data is in your Library > Application Support > Yojimbo.
November 13th, 2006 at 9:27 pm
Hmm… I just tried EagleFiler. I put 2 files in it, a web page and a 28k jpg. My library folder is only 328k in size.
I opened Activity Monitor to compare it to Yojimbo, and am shocked with what I’ve seen:
EagleFiler - Real Memory: 73.73mb Virtual Memory: 423.70mb
Yojimbo - Real Memory: 22.36mb Virtual Memory: 461.48mb
Yojimbo Helper - Real Memory: 8.44mb Virtual Memory: 360.84mb
In my opinion, all three are using way too much memory. But, to be fair, I have been running Yojimbo consistently for months now and put a lot of data in to it. Why the hell does Eagle Filer need so much memory after running for 2 minutes with 2 files?
I was planning to run both side by side as I prefer the ability to store and encrypt login details with Yojimbo, but I think I’ll stick with Yojimbo for now because it just seems an unncessary drain on my system to run both.
Can anyone tell me how EagleFiler’s memory usage is after some time and use?
Thanks,
Alex