Import existing folder tree structure vs .ads naming

oceanborn

Hello, I am currently reviewing adocstudio for a book project and notes taking. I am looking for a way to import an existing directory structure (git repositories say) for which I want to keep the structure as is rather than having to create folders and documents from adocstudio itself.

The reason is that I have a lot of git repositories and existing folder structures and I cannot change the structure easily.

The first problem is that it seem that I only the choice to create a folder with .ads extension. Also, it seems impossible to import an existing folder structure. When using add a doculment, I am forced to create a new one. How can I add something that already exists to the project. The same goes for folders. If I want to create a composite document, adocstudio creates a new folder.

Any way to do this besides editing the JSON project file ?

Kind regards,

Pascal

fblome

Hey Pascal,

There is a … well … undocumented feature: A referencing project.

When you about to create a new project, hold the OPT key, so the menu item will change from "Project" to "New referencing project"
As a result you get an empty adoc Studio window. Save that where you want (i.e. on your Desktop)
Next; you can drag & drop any file or folder into adoc Studio in the list of files (AKA Project Navigator). This will create a reference to the folder in adoc Studio. You can edit all .adoc documents as you want, but they will updated in the source folder.

If the source folder is a git repository you get the changes, but not the mess of the adoc studio project file and also not the folder with the extension.

BTW: The folder extension is only used for drawing the icon on the folder icon. If you delete the extension .ads just the icon disappears, nothing else happens.

Hope that helps,
Frank

oceanborn

Hi Frank, thanks for the quick reply. I just tested and it seems to work. I feel this menu item should be visible at all times :-) At least now, I can see the files immediately rather than having to copy them. So I can create a dummy project folder and use it to reference one or more git repos ?

I'll have a better look to check if that works fully for me.

Thanks again.
Pascal

fblome

Great, that it seems to work…

On the visibility of the menu item; we aim our app for all users, including the unexperienced. And we think referenced projects are quite hard to understand… for non-techies. Maybe we'll change our opinion after the feature is well documented 😉

In regard of the folders; you could use symbolic links.