Work Flow:
Files and Folders
by Toni and Daniel Will-Harris

At eFuse.com, we add new articles on a regular basis—every two weeks. That adds up to a lot of articles and illustrations in a lot of files. If you don't keep track of these, you can end up with either hundreds of files all over your hard disk (making it next-to-impossible to find things), or one gigantic directory with hundreds of files in it (slowing down your computer). Either way, it's messy.

The simplest way to keep track of your articles is to start making and methodically using folders on your hard disk.

If you've read Part I of this article, then you should be on your way to having your people organized. Now it's time to get your own computer organized.

Part 2—Files and Folders: This is the side where you work with computer files from start to the finish of your Web page

• Files: The more descriptive the filename, the better. We use author's name, headline, and editors' initials to tell us exactly what is in each file. Illustrations must have explicit names to prevent graphics from showing up in the wrong place.
• Folders: Now that your files are named, you need to organize them within folders. Some of the most helpful folders are editing folders (Organize these folders according to their urgency), processing folders, and publishing folders (These hold your finished files that are ready to publish).
• Backups: The few minutes you spend each day backing up your files could save you days of work.
• Finding files: Now that you have so many files, finding them may be tricky. Choose a method that works for you.

The most important part of keeping your computer organized is to create a clear organization of folders, and make sure your filenames are descriptive and make sense.

File naming

The more descriptive your filenames, the better. While some people like to have numbered filenames, that just doesn't work for us. For example, 050900.doc tells you the date, but other than that, it could be anything.

We prefer to use a format that uses:

• The author's name
• Column number, if it is a column (optional)
• The headline
• The editors' initials

Here's an example:

Then we can easily tell who wrote it, (optionally: what order it comes in their column), the title, the copy editor's initials, then the final editor's initials. Spaces are fine in these filenames, because the filename won't appear on the Web.

This combines to make the files easier to find—and lets you know which files are really ready for production. It also helps avoid accidentally producing an old or unedited version of the file.

Illustrations

Illustrations create another layer of file naming trouble.

• Must be Web-safe—no spaces or illegal Web characters.
• Must be unique—even when you create multiple folders for graphics, if you have illustrations with the same names, they can sometimes overwrite existing graphics and lead to a situation in which the wrong graphics appear on the wrong pages.
• Must be clearly associated with article.
• Must show order inside of article.

Here's an example:

Now, to be completely honest, we do not always do this. But if an article has a lot of illustrations, we do make sure everything's in place.

For editorial illustrations, the graphics we use at the top of articles, we usually use names that describe the graphics, include the artist's name and where the graphic came from, such as this: deus-ex-tech-support-by-jonathan-evans-artville.jpg

If you're wondering whether length is a problem—it's not--within reason. If your ISP uses Windows servers, the filename can be up to 256 characters long. If it uses Unix, it can be up to 1,024 characters long (including the folder/directory names).

Also—if you use a Web creation program such as NetObjects Fusion, it will automatically rename files if the kind of server you're uploading to can't handle them for some reason.

Folders

Now that your filenames are in order, it's time to organize your files inside of folders. To start, create a series of folders on your hard disk to help you track and manage files. Some of this sounds obvious, but it's the kind of obvious that only appears obvious after months of mess!

Editing folders

Today: This is for articles that need to be edited today. Putting them in their own folder makes it easier to tell what's urgent.

 Next : These are articles that need to be edited, but not today. Maybe tomorrow, maybe for a later issue.

 05-15: You can also date the folders based on deadline or issue dates.

 Outlines: Keep track of your outlines here. You very well may need to refer to them if the article doesn't jive with the outline.

Before writers write a piece, they submit a short outline. This can be very short—just a few paragraphs that show the main points they're going to cover. This allows the editor to make sure it covers what's needed. The editor can also suggest that they don't include something, or that they include something else.

Processing folders

 To copy editor: Place articles here that you've edited and now need to be copy edited. Make sure your editor uses your word processing program's "Revision Marking" or "Track Changes" feature. This allows you to see what changes have been made.

 From copy editor: Save articles here once they've been copy edited.

Have your copy editor add their initials to the filename, to make it instantly obvious that they've edited it, for example, you give them "workflow.doc" and they return "workflow-jrs.doc"

When you've received the file back from the copy editor, you need to check it yourself. With Track Changes on, you can use the "accept or reject changes" feature to go from change to change, review it, and accept or reject it. If you have a great copy editor (as we do at eFuse.com with Judith Selby ), then you rarely have to reject that editor's changes. But it's good to keep track of it because there are times, for whatever reason, when you may not want to keep an edit.

If someone edits a piece and they haven't used the Track Changes feature, you can also use Compare Documents to compare their edited version with the original. Your word processor will then mark the changes between the two documents.

When you're done checking the changes, rename the file with your initials on the end. So now "workflow-jrs.doc" becomes "workflow-jrs-dwh.doc," and move it to the next folder.

 To produce : This is where articles go when they're ready to be added to your site. Depending on how you work, you may want to have other folders underneath it, dated to match issue dates. We also place illustrations into this folder, or the one for the date of the issue.

 05-15: This folder would be used for articles ready to be put into the May 15^th issue.

Publishing folders

Now—all of the above are working folders. We use them for files in progress, but when it comes time to actually publish the site, we move those directories under our Web site files.

Our main Web site file is C:\nof4\user sites\efuse\

We always put our assets under the \assets\ directory—that way we don't have to worry about accidentally deleting the files, moving the directories, or otherwise moving the files from where NetObjects Fusion thinks they are.

So, now we have C:\nof4\user sites\efuse\assets\05-15\ and it contains our articles and our illustrations. All in one place. All neatly arranged by date.

Backups

One essential part of this process is backup. We use Connected's on-line backup to backup all of our files daily. This ensures we don't lose more than one day's worth of work. Because Connected is smart, it only backs up what's changed, so even large files only take a few minutes a day to update.

We're firm believers that you can't have too many backups. So even with the on-line backup, we still export our NetObjects Fusion files to NFT templates, and then copy them onto CD-R discs.

Finding files

If you can't find your files for whatever reason, go to the Explorer, and press ^F. Then you can search for filenames, or words inside. (You can also reach this by clicking on the start button, then choose Find, then Files/Folders.)

If you use Word, you can choose File/Open/Tools/Find, then Properties/Contents. It's a pain to get to, but if you use FindFast, your files will be indexed daily, so searches are faster. One warning: There are bugs here, and if you view long list of files, Word can crash entirely.

Yes, this all may sound complex, even tedious at first. But it works, and if you set up a system like this for your own web site, you'll work more efficiently, get your work done faster, and spend less time pulling out your hair.

Read Part III: Text editing

About the authors

Daniel Will-Harris is a designer and author whose design and writing work can be found at his Web site. His site features TypoFile Magazine and EsperFonto, the Web's only typeface selection system. He may be reached via e-mail at daniel@will-harris.com.

Toni Will-Harris is a writer, designer, and naturalist who runs the Point Reyes Chipmunk Observatory and Gardens. She can be reached at Toni@Will-Harris.com. This picture is neither recent—or actual size.

Illustrations: Jonathan Evans Artville