Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
This feature request is not strictly related to a problem, but it does seem to violate the basic principles on which Anytype is built on.
Describe the solution you’d like
Anytype is built on the fundamental concept that everything - including files - are an object. And each object is connected with relations. However, as of this moment, it is not possible to add or edit relations for files (images, PDFs, audio, etc), only the default relation for each file type is available (size, creation date, width, height, ISO, etc).
Adding a feature to add and edit relations for files would fulfill the expected behavior on which Anytype is built on - that everything is an object and that every object is connected with relations.
Additionally, adding the ability to connect file objects with relations can help create a few new usecases, such as a tag-based file management system, as outlined in this article.
A image of the current interface for viewing a file. There is no option to create or edit relations.
Describe alternatives you’ve considered
There are a few applications which exist for having a tag-based file organizations system, such as the Mac Finder, but integration with Anytype is not possible.
Even without the ability to add a relation to a file object, we can sort of mimic it by creating a custom type with an attachment relation and a tag relation and can filter them by tag in a set.
But yes, it would be great to have the ability to add relations to file objects. TBH, it would be great to build on that and add the ability to add relation to any objects - i.e, even audio, video and images as well
Wow - thanks for drawing my attention to the Attachment relation. I’d completely neglected to use that relation, and it seems very powerful for some other uses that I’d had in mind. Although as you said, yes, having the ability to add tags and relations for files would make the software much more powerful and flexible for many new use cases.
Allocate a more specific file type to each uploaded file. This new file type should allow us to create sets, filter and change the name of the file. This would allow me to create sets of all my pdfs with a specific tag (which I can add) in Anytype. PDFs are just an example. It could also be audio files or other types.
A good example is Capacities in this regard. They sort the file typed directly into a specific database (in our case this would be “type”) and show them on a single page.
HOW COULD IT BE DONE
Check for the file extensions and assign them to the specific type.
REAL WORLD USE CASES
Have all of the pdfs in one set which I can then tag etc. This allows me to easily find all the pdfs related to a certain topic.
RECOMMENDED ALTERNATIVES
Gather all the items on a single page. You can also create a set of file name relations and filter i.e. for the term “pdf” but this is just a workaround.
Disclaimer: This feature is quite new (for me), so I didn’t extensively test this (yet). You might run into limitations. If you do, I’d be very interested in hearing them
If this is indeed fulfilling your needs I suggest we rebrand your feature request to make this process easier
Thanks for showing me this. It is indeed what I wanted to see but in a hacky way. With this implementation, we make a set of the relation and not the item itself. Additionally, I would like to be able to change the name of the items as they are sometimes cryptic. Let’s change the name to make this workflow easier.
To emphasize why I think this is an important feature request.
For #2, I can only speak for myself, but I am in academics. I routinely work with pdf files and excel files and powerpoints, and latex files, etc.
If we only focus on pdf, there are many classes that these pdfs fall into. They might be a pdf that is a paper I am reading for a research project. It might be a report that a student sent me that I have to read. It might be a bit of logistical information sent from the college, it might be a budget report, etc.
So, for me, it would be VERY useful if I could add tags (relations) to the files, so that I can control what class of file this is. I understand I might be able to sort by extension, but this only gives me all the pdf files. However, I might want to see all the pdf files that are also student reports.
Even *better that adding relations would be the ability to make my own custom file type. I would love to be able to make a “literature pdf” type that I could put all my research pdfs into. If I could also then add relations to it that include things like “author” “page number” etc, then I am getting to the point that not only do I have unique objects, but I can assign them to projects AND (once APIs are available) it starts to look like a bibliographic management tool.
I realize that there is another ‘hack’ for this, which is to create a custom time and then add the file to this. But I don’t think this is quite a clean. It would be better if one could define a custom file type, and then bring Anytype’s power to bear on this.
