Database Filesystem
I’ve been madly preparing for a new role-playing campaign set in Eberron. It’ll be my first time behind the screen in almost two years, and I’ll admit that I’ve probably gone a little overboard in the preparation stages. Despite the fact that I’m using a commercial world, I’ve already written up thirty or more custom NPCs, designed several maps in Photoshop, written up hundreds of potential plot threads and twists to throw at my unsuspecting players.
Now I’m faced with trying to organize it all so that I can find things quickly, and lets just say that the standard folder-based hierarchy provided by today’s operating systems just ain’t cuttin’ it. For instance, let’s take a map I’ve made of a tavern the PCs will be using as a base. I can file it under Locations -> Taverns, or Images -> Maps, or Khorvaire -> Breland -> Sharn -> Middle Menthis. If I pick the first, it’ll be easy to find based on what the map is of, and I can probably put a bunch of detail about the NPCs for the tavern in another file in the same directory. Of course, if I’m just looking for the map, and I have a LOT of taverns, I’ll have to sift through dozens (hundreds?) of files to find the one I want. If I choose to file it under Maps it’ll be easy to find the map, but the other associated files will be hard to find, and I’ll have to dig around to find the NPCs I originally wrote up. Filing it under it’s location in the world seems to be a decent idea, but what if I just need a map quick, and I know I wrote one up that I haven’t used yet, but I don’t remember where the heck I put it?
I suppose I could file it under all three categories, but given the current computer storage system, I run into one of two problems. I could simply put a copy of each file in each directory, but if we’re talking about a 10 MB file, and it’s replicated four or five times, that’s a lot of wasted hard drive space. If instead I decide to put the file in one place, and put shortcuts/links to it from the other folders, I save on storage space but if I ever need to move the original file, I have to carefully correct all of the links to it, which would mean lots of work and could lead to broken links if I forget one.
There is a solution in the ether to this problem, but it has yet to fully materialize. A Database Filesystem would allow me to create a single file, and all of the categories or locations associated with the file are stored as part of the file. I can have all sorts of detailed information about the file, and store it in multiple “pseudo-folders” and still get the exact same file. “Moving” the file to a different folder only means changing the meta-data tags associated with the file, so there is no issue of having to update and maintain a collection of links.
Part of me wants to drop everything and start writing up a great database filer, but given the magnitude of the project, and the fact that there are several variations currently being implemented, I’ll just have to content myself with the knowledge that it’s coming.
August 5th, 2005 at 8:09 pm
In the interim, you could put a tiny li’l web page together based completely on your laptop with categorized links and cross-references to where the files are located on the system. While this does not eliminate the need to file it in one specific place, it does allow one to make multiple references to the file without the OS impact of making shortcuts or links all over the place. This also has the added benefit of being able to rapidly organize things for specific sessions. There are a lot of ways to do it, but I think that this is the closest to the ideal and requires the least amount of upkeep.
August 7th, 2005 at 3:43 pm
I actually have a system that works somewhat like that, but it only works for certain types of files. The system I use is based on the wiki technology, and is built into a simple program called Notebook, available at http://www.wjduquette.com/notebook. Unfortunately, it doesn’t allow for things like images or complicated print formatting. Since a number of the files I’m using for the campaign include such media files, it does prove less useful.
There’s also the fact that putting together a mini-webpage would require a decent amount of coding and effort to appropriately arrange everything, it would almost take more effort and energy than simply suffering through the existing file systems. Though I have to admit such a webpage would make for a really neat way to display everything.