File Management - DAM

[davezub]

I've been using Xara products since the 90's and have created tons of designs. I have a fairly good folder hierarchy structure for storage, but I'm looking for more file management, DAM features. There are a lot products in this space but I'm having issues finding ones that support .xar files. Eagle seems promising but does not support .xar files but the beta now supports a plugin architecture https://en.eagle.cool/. Hoping someone will develop something, but holding my breath as they have support for Affinity.

Wondering what Gary and other old timers like me are using to manage their digital assets.

Thanks.

[gwpriester]

I do my best to remember where I filed something. Windows File Explorer > Search has improved greatly over the years and if I can remember a file or image name, Search can find related files relatively fast.

[Acorn]

Xara Cloud has a sort of DAM approach.
You can store mixed digital assets in Obsidian very easily.
I generally use Everything for quick location of assets.

Acorn

[davezub]

Appreciate the replies will see where this all ends up. Thanks

[haakoo]

You can create custom thumbnails in eagle for xar files(using the clipboard/screenshots)
I also use xnviewmp which does support the xar thumbnails though.

[Jonopen]

Just to expand on haakoo's suggestion, alongside a combination of memory, consistent file and folder naming, I also use XnView MP to visually search .xar thumbnails.

Two features I find really useful are the built-in search which allows you to find files by applying conditions such as date range, size etc, and the fact it can also search through sub-folders recursively.

The results can then be viewed and browsed as thumbnails. From there you can open the folder or file in Windows Explorer or directly in your Xara app.


The second great feature is the ability to setup favourite folders so you go straight to a particular folder with a single click.

XnView does also have some other potentially useful organising tools, for example, star ranking, colour coding, categories etc, but I've not personally used them.

You may notice the screenshots are from the Mac version, but Xara thumbnails still display ok when viewing an archive of files on an external drive.