Custom file properties and Windows Explorer View\Choose Details

[Rob Benz]

The default custom file properties that come with Word (Checked by, Client,
Date Completed, Department, etc. [these appear when you right click a word
doc, choose "properties", then the Custom tab, and click the down arrow next
to the "name" field]) are almost worthless to me and I can't change their
names to make them useful. And, even if I create my own custom properties,
there doesn't seem to be any way to search on either the default properties,
or on the custom properties I create. They're kind of useless.

Meanwhile, in Windows Explorer, there are a bunch of mostly irrelevant, if
not useless, default columns that can be made to appear in any Explorer
window (view/choose details) but these can't be renamed, custom columns can't
be defined, and the default columns have no relation to the file properties
available in Word, so I can't make my custom file properties appear as
columns in Windows Explorer.

Gee Whiz....why not enable users to define (and even rename) custom
properties in Word, store metadata about their files there, and then in
Explorer, allow those custom properties to be selectable as viewable columns
in the Explorer window? Also, why stop with Word....why not enable this for
all Office programs?

If this was done, people could store all kinds of metadata in custom file
properties, and use Explorer windows almost as a database view, to
view/browse/column sort alphanumerically on their custom metadata to sort and
find files in many new ways. Currently the only option an average user has,
is to embed bits of information in file names...a very limited option indeed.

I realize this would entail some new features....users would have to be able
to define, save and publish their custom column views using some
publish/subscribe functionality so that others in the org. could use those
custom views in a team environment when they want to. But that would be yet
another advantage that would give users more power to work together as a team.

Seems like we're stuck with ancient 1980s-era, basic file/folder technology
here! with all the iterations of Office and Windows, will Microsoft ever
evolve Windows Explorer and Office into a far more robust and useful,
coordinated toolset for not just naming and storing files/folders, but also
for helping users store and view information about each file for enhanced
data management?

Just an idea....if I'm missing something here, please feel free to post it!

 

[Peter Jamieson]

Microsoft never really had a good "story" to tell about properties,
because they kept changing their approach, and properties are typically
only reasonably useful if you have a fair amount of stability.

There have been several different types (basic file properties,
old-style pre-OLE document properties, new-style OLE custom properties,
NTFS properties, MAPI properties, Exchange properties and quite probably
others).

The impression I have is that anyone who wants to benefit from the
current, XML-oriented iteration of "properties" had better be using
Sharepoint, and possibly Infopath. You can define properties in there
that let you sort/filter Sharepoint folders in the way you describe (not
so sure about the searching), and it is possible to display those
properties in the "Document Information Panel" in Word, and even to
customize the Panel using Infopath.

I haven't yet looked to see if any of that stuff comes as standard in
Windows 7, but to make use of custom properties in any other Windows
version you'd probably have to do some serious Shell programming. Shame,
really. Even Exchange (the predecessor of Outlook) could pick up such
stuff, but I /think/ they ditched it later, probably because you had to
copy material into an Outlook .pst to do it. I think.

Peter Jamieson

http://tips.pjmsn.me.uk

The default custom file properties that come with Word (Checked by, Client,
Date Completed, Department, etc. [these appear when you right click a word
doc, choose "properties", then the Custom tab, and click the down arrow next
to the "name" field]) are almost worthless to me and I can't change their
names to make them useful. And, even if I create my own custom properties,
there doesn't seem to be any way to search on either the default properties,
or on the custom properties I create. They're kind of useless.

Meanwhile, in Windows Explorer, there are a bunch of mostly irrelevant, if
not useless, default columns that can be made to appear in any Explorer
window (view/choose details) but these can't be renamed, custom columns can't
be defined, and the default columns have no relation to the file properties
available in Word, so I can't make my custom file properties appear as
columns in Windows Explorer.

Gee Whiz....why not enable users to define (and even rename) custom
properties in Word, store metadata about their files there, and then in
Explorer, allow those custom properties to be selectable as viewable columns
in the Explorer window? Also, why stop with Word....why not enable this for
all Office programs?

If this was done, people could store all kinds of metadata in custom file
properties, and use Explorer windows almost as a database view, to
view/browse/column sort alphanumerically on their custom metadata to sort and
find files in many new ways. Currently the only option an average user has,
is to embed bits of information in file names...a very limited option indeed.

I realize this would entail some new features....users would have to be able
to define, save and publish their custom column views using some
publish/subscribe functionality so that others in the org. could use those
custom views in a team environment when they want to. But that would be yet
another advantage that would give users more power to work together as a team.

Seems like we're stuck with ancient 1980s-era, basic file/folder technology
here! with all the iterations of Office and Windows, will Microsoft ever
evolve Windows Explorer and Office into a far more robust and useful,
coordinated toolset for not just naming and storing files/folders, but also
for helping users store and view information about each file for enhanced
data management?

Just an idea....if I'm missing something here, please feel free to post it!