Life Cycle Navigator?

Question

In many environments the file system directory structure and naming conventions attempt to allow one to use a file manager to navigate the life cycle of a document. This overloading of functions makes it difficult for users to handle the complexity.

A file browser is a tool that lets the user navigate among files located in a directory structure to find a specific file. Whereas, when given a specific file, a life cycle navigator is a tool that lets the user navigate its life cycle from source to published copy and across versions.

Does a Life Cycle Navigator exit?

I see a user pointing at an object:

• Left mouse button displays the document
• Right mouse button has a Life Cycle Navigator (LCN)

The LCN displays a tree for a specific document within a file manger, for example:

• Published
  • 3.2 Current
  • 3.1
  • 3.0
  • +2.x
  • +1.x
  • +Archived
  • +All
• Source
  • Draft
  • 3.2 Current
  • 3.1
  • 3.0
  • +2.x
  • +1.x
  • +Archived
  • +All
• +Work Flow
• +Properties

Or from a command line:

$ lcn x.pdf --open_source_document | my_favorite_editor
$ lcn x.pdf --show_published_version_info
$ lcn x.pdf --show_previous_publish_versions_info

See also, Life Cycle Navigator.

Answer 1

You looking for a Document management System (I'll let wikipedia explain it better than I can)

Any decent DMS will have a way to look at previous version of the doc, and see attached meta data.

Answer 2

In Alfresco (and some other ECM software), you use the navigator to find a file, and then you click "View Details" to see all versions of the document. It is a web interface rather than a standalone program, though. Is it the kind of feature you are looking for?

Beyond that, I have good news: CMIS has been approved as a standard, and all ECM vendors are starting to implement it. It means that the same explorer can talk to all kinds of repositories. It is very new but there is already a standalone CMIS Explorer that allows you to browse a repository's files. For each document, a "Get All Versions" button is described as an "in progress" feature in February. Not sure if this feature has been finished yet. If yes, I think it would what you want.

Update: I installed the latest CMIS Explorer to check: the versions feature is not here yet...