File Commenting system - useful?

[Sirrus]

I had the daunting task of listening, reviewing, and commenting on over 700 voiceover files for work using no tools other than wav files in the folder.
This means I would have had to document each file (and name) in a separate document and put comments there.

Instead, I developed an app that loads all the files, stores their names, stores my comments, allows for comment changes, allows for one-button press comment (ie a button that stores "This file is acceptable" as many times), and launches each file when I want (since it was sound files, this was instant using Winamp).

This saved me a huge amount of time.

My question is, would there be commericial/private/indie use for this kind of app?

Basically it would work great when dealing with a large amount of assets that you need to remember your thoughts on.

Example:
-You receive 500 image files from your contract artist.
-You open that folder in this app, and click on each image to view.
-After viewing, you make a quick comment and hit save...moving onto the next...Such as "This image needs to be lighter and the sword needs to look cleaner"

Then, it can be output either as a text file for him to view or he can run the application itself (with the small INI file you send him) and go through each image on his own...seeing your comments pop right in the application.

This all make sense?

In any case, it saved me a lot of time and I am curious as to other good uses for it.

[DavidRM]

Skip the developers, and ponder the consumer angle.

For example:

How many people do you know with hundreds of photos, who want to scan those in and then organize them?

Have you ever looked at a photo album of your parents, without them there to explain who is in each picture, what is happening, when the picture was taken, and so on? Nowhere near as entertaining that way, is it? The commentary brings the photos to life, and puts you in the middle of the action.

As developers, we tend to think of other developers as a viable market. But there are far, far fewer developers than there are consumers with digital cameras, stockpiling huge collections of digital images on their hard drives.

Just some thoughts.

-David

[MattInglot]

It's not a bad idea but it's already available in NTFS, which is a lot more appealing to me than a propietary database for which support might disappear in 2 years. To use this feature just go to the Summary tab in the file properties. You can also add columns with summary info into explorer.

Now an explorer extension that makes commenting files easier and provides the comment export features you describe, that would be neat. I personally wouldn't use it though, so you still need to find that target market.

[Sirrus]

David - thats a really great idea...I will definately look into it more!

Lizardsoft - thats true...but using this function is still pretty time consuming...right clicking, tab click, then fill out info. From a developer standpoint, I would much rather have a list I can scroll through instead of looking at files one by one. From a consumer standpoint, average computer users dont really know about or use this feature...
But thanks for pointing it out, I definately forgot about it myself!


Maybe I could make two versions, one for developers (assets) and one for consumers (photo albums, etc.)

Thanks for the advice guys...

[PoV]

Just for reference, a similar sounding piece of software would be AlienBrain (http://www.alienbrain.com/). It being all fancy with source control and preview tools for all kinds of assets. It's also expensive.

Playing around with subversion lately makes me agree that some sort of file documenting feature would be a welcome addition to it, as I can already browse a repository with an html browser, but support for PSD files or 3D models, as well as note taking, warning message leaving, or such on versioned files would rule.