Attaché is a filing and journaling application written in Java™. Attaché works like a digital briefcase allowing you to organize your files, or just stuff them in, whatever you prefer. Unlike most briefcases, however, Attaché gives you as many compartments as you need. In addition, Attaché provides privacy using password based encryption, and features a powerful search function, making it easy to get the files you need when you need them.
Attaché stores files in entries. A file in an entry is referred to as an item. An entry may contain an arbitrary number of items. A category represents a grouping of entries. A category may contain any number of entries and other categories. A site is a location you choose to put entries and categories. A site contains a root category where you can store entries and create new categories. The location of a site is the path to the folder where your site is located.
The first thing you need is a folder for you site. When you have chosen a folder, enter the path to the folder in the location bar at the top. You will then find yourself in the root category of the site. In the case you enter an invalid location an error message will be displayed in the message pane at the bottom.
To create a new category, select File, New and New category from the menu bar at the top, then type the name of the category you wish to create and click Ok. The name you choose should be a valid filename.
The navigator to the left allows you to navigate in and out of categories. The navigator displays the categories and entries that are inside your current category.
NOTE: The Attaché installation contains a folder named MyAttacheCase. This folder contains a sample site with a short tutorial that will guide you through the basics of using Attaché. To open the site, enter the path to the folder in the location bar. In the navigator you should now find an entry named "double click me". Open it by double clicking it. It contains an item named readme.txt, which contains information on how to proceed with the tutorial.
To open an existing entry, either double click it in the navigator, or select it in the navigator and press enter.
To create a new entry, select File, New and New entry from the menu bar. The name you choose for the entry should be a valid filename, but you may choose anything you want as the title. The entry editor also allows you to enter arbitrary tags to be used as search keys. Save the entry using one of the save buttons at the bottom of the entry editor.
The entry editor contains a list of the items in the entry. When you select an item you can view and modify its metadata (filename, content type and charset). You open the item by double clicking it, or by selecting it and pressing enter. The list of editors below the items shows all the editors capable of opening the selected item. The one on the top is the default. To override the default, simply double click the desired editor.
There are several ways of adding items to the entry:
WARNING: Very large entries may cause the memory available to the Java virtual machine to be depleted. If the items in an entry amount to much more than 30 MB, you might consider distributing them over several entries.
Encryption is accomplished using a filter. A filter is a transformation that can be applied to an item. The entry editor contains a list of applicable filters. Another list shows filters that have been applied to the selected item and that can be reversed.
To create a filter for password based encryption, select File, New and New password from the menu bar.
The filter name is a name given to the filter that will help distinguish it from other filters. The cipher algorithm is the method by which encryption and decryption will be performed. Two filters with the same passwords and ciphers are interchangeable. The Auto reversal option specifies whether an item encrypted with the password will be automatically decrypted when opened. The alternative is to manually reverse the filter before opening the item. If the Request on startup option is selected, then the user will be prompted for this password whenever Attaché starts. This is especially useful for preventing typos when the same password and cipher combination is applied to many items. Selecting Settings and then Reset password startup request from the menu bar will clear all password requests.
To manually encrypt or decrypt an item, first select the item in the entry editor, and then double click the filter that you wish to reverse or apply.
The built-in text editor has a slider at the top that controls text visibility. This is intended to provide some level of privacy by making it more difficult for curious spectators to read the text behind your back.
The text editor recognizes certain types of links. To open a link, either click on the link while holding down ctrl, or press ctrl + enter while the caret is on the link. The following types of links are supported by the text editor:
The Search tab next to the Navigator tab contains three main areas. The top area contains a list of available search conditions that can be added to limit the search. The middle area contains a list of added conditions. The bottom area allows you to configure the added conditions.
If you add, say, a text condition, and then select this condition in the list of added conditions, then the bottom area will allow you to enter the text you want to find, plus some additional parameters for this condition. You can add as many conditions as you'd like. The added conditions act in conjunction by filtering the result.
When you're done configuring your search, press the Find button at the bottom, and off you GO!
An inventory is a list of references to files stored in a set of entries. An inventory of an entry includes the items stored in the entry plus, if any items are zip files, archived files stored in the zips. Inventories are created using the inventory editor. You can open the editor from the menu bar by selecting Edit and then Inventory editor, or with the shortcut ctrl + shift + I.
The Start button initiates an inventory construction. The Stop button aborts an ongoing inventory construction. The navigator controls which entries to include in the inventory. By default all entries in the current category and down the tree are processed. To create an inventory of a single entry, select the entry in the navigator, and tick the Selected entry checkbox in the inventory editor before pressing Start.
The file list has four columns: Location, Filename, Content type and MD5. A location is specified as an entry path followed by an item number, e.g. Secret stuff/top secret [1]. Note that files stored in the same archive have the same value in this column. The MD5 hashes in the last column are used for file comparison; files with equal content have the same MD5 hash.
The inventory editor has a preview feature that is activated by selecting the Enable preview check box. This checkbox shows or hides the preview pane. When visible, the pane shows a view of certain files (images in particular) as they are selected in the file list.
In addition to providing an overview of files in entries, the inventory editor can perform some operations on the files. The Open button opens the selected file in the default editor. The Delete button deletes the selected file. The Show duplicates button removes all file references from the inventory except those that have recurring MD5 hashes, allowing you to spot duplicates. Show files on clipboard removes all file references from the inventory except those that have a counter part in a file selection on the clipboard. The Open and Delete buttons modify the entries containing the files. The Show duplicates and Show files on clipboard buttons only affect the inventory, not the referenced files themselves.
If the clipboard contains a selection of files, you can paste it to a zip file in the file list by selecting the zip file and pressing ctrl + V.
NOTE: Changes to entries are not immediately shown in the inventory editor. Pressing Start brings the inventory up-to-date.
WARNING: When using the inventory editor to modify an encrypted zip file, the password filters that decrypt the zip file must be available. Otherwise the zip file will be corrupted.
It generally takes longer to build an inventory from scratch than it takes to update a pre-existing inventory. If you intend to make an inventory of a large set of entries, you may want to save the inventory to an entry so it can be reopened later. To do so you need to open the inventory editor from the entry editor by creating an item with the content type application/x-attache-inventory.
If you have used the Show duplicates or Show files on clipboard buttons you will notice that the Start button won't work. That's what the Force refresh checkbox is for. Ticking this checkbox will make the Start button build the entire inventory from scratch. Otherwise it skips those entries which were last modified prior to the last inventory build. If the inventory is saved to an entry, an alternative to forcing refresh might be to close both the inventory and the entry editors without saving, and then open the inventory again.