Quote:
Originally Posted by peterlemer
so Dennis - any chance of a screenshot of your folder hierarchy?
My Documents folder is a mix of my main category folders and all sorts of stuff that my various apps put there, plus customised folders and alias folders that are my personalised Dock folders.. Quite a long list - not very well structured.
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I suppose I could post a screenshot when I get back to my Mac (traveling with my iPhone right now), but I can tell you my Documents folder is pretty ordinary. I don't have any magical filing techniques or anything. :-)
I also suffer from the same problems you do with apps placing their support data in my Documents folder. I thought they weren't supposed to do that. Isn't that why we have a Library and Application Support folders? If I didn't explicitly create it, don't put it in my Documents folder!
Anyway, I agree it's a pain moving those app-created folders, so I just tend to leave them as well. But if you have too much clutter in there, why not create a single folder at the top level of your Documents folder, or even at the top level of your user account (i.e. at the same level as your Documents folder), and call it something like "Project Notes", "Notes", "Project Support", "Private", or whatever. Then create a clean folder structure in their for all your reference material. You could also put a link to the folder in your Finder sidebar for easy access.
Also, in Finder's preferences in Snow Leopard (last tab, I think), you can restrict the default search scope to just the currently-selected folder. I find this to be really helpful in getting narrower search results.
If that's not enough, try hitting Commad-Shift-F (rather than just Command-F) to initiate a Finder search; it'll search only filenames instead of doing a full content search. Between these two tricks, it's pretty easy to narrow things down to just what you're looking for and almost feels like you're working in a PIM. :-)
Hope this helps.
-Dennis