Folders tragically broken
Completed
The way folders works is very confusing:
1. I can have multiple folders with the same name. If you try and do this in Windows Microsoft will at least do something like Folder, Folder (1), Folder (2). Gaia just does Folder, Folder, Folder. This really makes no sense.
2. The Ux is very confusing so you don't know if you are in the folder or looking at a folder. I once removed a folder when I thought I was removing tracks from the filter.
3. The folder structure should be represented as a tree structure, like Microsoft file explorer.
4. Content in a folder is displayed in random order. It should be displayed either by track/waypoint title sort order, or chronologically. It should also allow me to select the title and allow me to sort the list.
5. The folder display is slow.
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Official comment
Hello all,
Folders are now available in the Saved Items sidebar!
We've implemented a lot of the features you've been asking for. Here are some highlights:- Nested folders - Items filed to folders are no longer shown at the root level. Opening a folder takes you to a view of just the items in that folder. This functionality should feel familiar to anyone who has used folders in Windows Explorer or Finder.
- Create, edit, and delete folders from the sidebar.
- Filter the sidebar by Folders
- Adds a button to “Create a new item” to the saved items sidebar. Allows you to create new items while inside a folder.
- Adds the ability to file items and folders to folders. Adds an interface that allows you to either select a recently used folder, create a new folder, or browse your existing folders.
- Adds the ability to change the visibility of folders
There are a few limitations with folders at the movement:
- Folders shared with you will not be displayed below the root level.
- From the sidebar, folder privacy can be toggled between public and private, but there is not a way to share or view the details of folders just yet.
- If an item is filed to a folder, that folder is not displayed when viewing the item’s details in the sidebar.
We are continuing to work on this and we have a few follow-ups already planned:
- Address the current limitations
- Allow an item to be filed to a folder from its details sidebar
- Improve support for shared folders
You can read more about working with folders in the sidebar here.If you have any issues or feedback please reach out to Support here.
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I was going to start a new folders topic, but since this is already here...
I agree with sjmj3us. The folder UI and structure is clunky and a little confusing. Instead of trying to invent a new folder system, go with what all (most) operating systems use. If you need inspiration for the web interface, look at google drive, onedrive, dropbox, etc.
This should probably be a separate feature request, but adding the ability to tag objects (tracks, routes, waypoints, etc.) would make searching for things way easier. For example: I have a list of waypoints: trail heads, campgrounds, random points I think are cool, etc. I have to come up with a folder system now to organize everything so I don't have to scroll through all waypoints to find what I'm looking for. Instead, if I could tag my waypoints, I could easily apply a filter to find campgrounds in New Mexico. Or mountain bike trail heads in Arkansas. Said waypoint would be tagged: campground, New Mexico, Santa Fe National Forest, remote, etc.
Currently, if I didn't diligently create the waypoint, then file it away in the right folder, I might forget/miss that one.
If adding multiple tags to everything was an option and good filtering was in place, you could probably even forego the folder system?
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The tag concept sounds like gmail labels and I completely agree. What's nice is an object can have multiple labels which makes organization better. I think the direction in software engineering is to go away from folders and just use tags (in addition to Gmail, sharepoint seems to work that way).
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I like the idea of tagging and filtering to find categories of things (mountain hikes, hikes with wildflower photos, specific people I've been with, etc.)
I also find it useful to associate maps with tracks that are found on that map, and waypoints with the tracks on which they were collected. Folders can handle this kind of hierarchical organization easily, but doing it with tags might mean one tag per track and a second tag per map. That could get pretty cumbersome, so I don't think tags are a solution by themselves.
One possibility might be to use the Windows folder structure for hierarchical stuff and tags for everything else. Some photo programs already do something similar when they allow you to specify a folder with pictures (e.g., the "Pictures" folder) and automatically make everything in subfolders available for tagging, editing, etc.
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IDHikr, check out this article on Gmail Labels: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/118708?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en
It sounds exactly like what you're describing. I think applying Google's Labels method to GaiaGPS would make organizing everything much better.
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Thank you for the comments about gmail labels. I use them a lot with my gmail account, and I agree--they're great!
My concern is that can easily imagine myself ending up with a large number of labels (at least 100 or so), and I thought that might become hard to keep track of because of the limited space for viewing labels on my laptop or cell phone screen.
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I'd agree with TAGS being a better mechanism for GPS track organization than FOLDERS. I'd actually hate nested folders, as a track can only belong to one folder. I'd much prefer being able to do one folder for each and then have global tags that I can associate regardless of folders. Then I could tag something with traits (hilly, flat, crowded, wishlist) etc.
TL;DR: Folders aren't broken, but there is a need for Tagging.
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I don't know if it's just me but for the second time I deleted a folder when I meant to delete a track. I really just cannot tell in some cases beforehand what it delete. Also for me people like me it would be nice if they implemented a recycle bin maybe with a 30 day expiration, so I could get my data back after a screw up.
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Came across this post while posting another bug and figured I'd add my voice: I personally don't have any issue with the existing folder setup, save 1: the fact that things can only be in one folder at a time. I create folders for every trip I do so I can share it with the people going on it. That means when I do a trail (OHV 4x4 here) over multiple trips it ends up getting moved from one folder to the most recent. That's a bummer for people I've shared the folder with who'd like to have that folder as it was when we took the trip. Yes, those folks can and maybe should copy those tracks to their own folders, but that seems kind of silly when I've already created a folder.
So, my one piece of input to this issue is this: please allow items (waypoints, tracks, routes) to be in multiple folders. If re-envisioning folders as tags makes this more possible then I'm all for tagging instead of folders.
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I'm struggling with folders. I agree that it is not intuitive.
While we wait for an update - is there any post or description that recommends how you should organize your stuff using the current design? Geographically, Share-ability (public/private), Activity (bike/hike), etc? How were folders design to work?
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Super glad this thread has your attention Ashli! This app's potential is enormous, unreal, now that phone batteries are getting to a tipping point where hikers can reasonably expect to keep a phone alive for a full day outdoors, or even a whole weekend with an external battery.
When I bang my head against the UX problems trying to do basic organization stuff, it makes me feel like I am a very early beta tester, except I bought a subscription. I wish the fundamental features would be improved at the expense of the extraneous features in general. Is the Gaia team super small / is this like a group of developers' weekend passion project?
I will continue to bricolage CalTopo and Gaia together to make one semi functional app. Can't wait for a more fully thought-out Gaia, crafted with more input from users. https://breakingsmart.com/en/season-1/running-code-and-perpetual-beta/ I could see it becoming a super polished thing that sells a lot of subscriptions and transcends its market and brings the company preposterous wealth
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I'm really struggling with folders too (full disclosure: I struggle to use several areas of the app/site). There doesn't seem to be a way to edit folder names... when you select a folder during upload, it just creates a duplicate... moving things doesn't really work the way I would expect... it's kind of a mess.
Looking forward to when they hire more designers and developers. As a seasoned product designer who's EXTREMELY passionate about the outdoors, peak-bagging, mountain biking, skiing, navigation, and wilderness first aid (the list goes on), I would love LOVE to work on a product like this... but not if we don't have the resources to address issues.
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fjscot,
They are hiring developers (https://blog.gaiagps.com/gaia-gps-welcomes-5-new-team-members/) and it appears they are looking to hire more people. I tried with limited success to get them divulge more of their plans on fixing folders (https://help.gaiagps.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360009507793-What-s-the-status-of-the-feature-requests).
I of course have no idea what their work environment is like. To me fixing folders is the highest priority and I thought from the upvote counts it was for most people. But according to the feedback I got there are other interests. So whether it's a resource problem or a priority again I wouldn't know.
There have been requests for an API so at least on the cloud people could write third party processing. I think that would be helpful.
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It's been 2 years since we heard from the Gaia staff on this. I'm specifically interested in hearing about any progress on the label concept.
Can anyone from the staff give us all an update? I don't know about others, but I'm a premium member and would appreciate hearing any update that you could give.
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Hey Folks,
I'm sorry it's been a long time since our last update on this.
Since this post originated 2 years ago, there have been some changes to the folders UX, but smaller ones, and not the large scale overhaul we had originally planned.
It seems that the majority of feedback I see here is centered around managing folders on the web.
While the addition of tags is not something that's on our roadmap, I'd like to get some more specific feedback on what folks are looking for.
With your feedback, please let us know your workflow - this will help up create a plan for future improvements
Here's a list of some actionable feedback I've seen on this thread:
1) when uploading new files, you can't upload them to a pre-existing folder
2) you can't remove items from a folder on the web
3)It's not obvious a folder is a subfolder
I also saw a few requests for having an item be in multiple folders. While this is actionable I don't foresee this happening soon as it's somewhat related to the tagging request. For this user case, I would suggest making a copy of your item for each folder you want it to appear in. -
1. Do not allow creation of folders with the same name (at the same level), this is a horrible bug. Related: don't create a folder when I upload unless I specify one and reuse the same name. Implement your folder/directory/file management the same way as all modern operating systems. There are numerous comments in various areas complaining about this bug.
2. Implement a recycle bin, when I mess up I want to be able to undo and get my deleted items back.
3. Implement folder/object structure display as a tree view like Microsoft Explorer.
4. Make the folders work consistently with the top level categories like tracks. That is I should be click on the column title to sort by name, date. Also tracks have sync and public which should also be displayed on the folder page. They should all be the same work the same.
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Now you have integration with iCloud, why not just mirror all the folder structures based on what the operating system has to offer? That way it'd be easy to import and export things in bulk as well, and things could stay in sync across devices and computers - no need to reinvent the wheel.
Now, iCloud isn't exactly the preferred method here though - Dropbox would be much, much better.
Oh, and I agree - the folder structure / file system in Gaia is completely broken - this really needs to be fixed (e.g., bulk import will create a bunch of ghost folders and then you have to try and move everything around individually)
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Regarding workflow, I want to upload multiple items (e.g., waypoints) into a folder. E.g., a folder named, "Tetons".
Currently, when I upload waypoints, they go into their own folder. One waypoint, one folder. That's not helpful for me. And if I upload multiple waypoints, each time specifying the folder as, for example, "Tetons", I'll end up with multiple folders named Tetons with only one waypoint in each.
So I'd like:
1. To be able to upload multiple waypoints (or tracks, etc) at one time.
2. To be able to select an existing folder (from a list... not from memory) and to have the option of creating a new folder.
3. To not allow multiple folders with the same name.
Thanks.
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I'm uploading some .gpx files for a bicycle trip. The files are from the Adventure Cycling Association. In order to group them by map section, I have to upload them one at a time, then navigate into that upload folder, click into the .gpx track, then manually add each one to the folder I want them in.
My suggestions:
1- Ability to upload multiple files
2- Ability to upload files to an existing folder
3- Select multiple files, then either drag and drop or use an 'add file to folder' button to move all of the files to the target folder
4- Eliminate duplicate folder naming
Folder management is extremely frustrating as it stands. Gaia has the potential to become a great repository for trip planning and histories, but only if I can organize all of my data in a simple, straightforward manner.
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I'm not going to read this whole thread, I trust there are good suggestions in it. Just look to basically any conventional file manager for examples. I just want to add my support for improvements here because I too find the functionality there sorely lacking.
I would like to be able to 'check' or 'enable' folders of tracks/routes/points on the map view, so that i can see more than one set of data on my map, but not have it cluttered with ALL my data.
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