This is not an introductory article on WhizFolders. You should read it only after you have used WhizFolders for a while. The purpose is to remove some misconceptions about how notes are stored in WhizFolders. Even if you are an experienced user of WhizFolders, you will find some useful information below.
A WhizFolder file is like a notebook: You can keep notes belonging to a subject or category in a particular WhizFolder file. You identify WhizFolder files by their file names in Windows File Manager.
You decide what name a WhizFolder file gets and what location it is created in: The New File action in WhizFolders lets you select a file name and folder location for the new WhizFolder file. By default, it selects the Documents location but you can change it to any other disk.
Identify by File Type in Windows File Manager: WhizFolder files have the File Type “WhizFolder File” and show up with a special icon in the File Manager lists. The actual extension is .wzfolder.
WhizFolder files are not deleted when you uninstall WhizFolders:
- When you uninstall a program like Microsoft Word, does it delete all your Word documents? No, the documents are your own files and they should be preserved.
- Similarly, WhizFolder files are not deleted when you uninstall WhizFolders.
- You can always view notes in your WhizFolder files by using the freeware WhizFolder Viewer that you can get from the download section of WhizFolders.com web site.
Manage by using Windows File Manager: You can manage WhizFolder files like any other files by using Windows File Manager. Copy or move these files to other disk locations with regular File Manager operations like Copy, Cut, Paste, etc.
The List of Files is not the only way to Open WhizFolder files:
- You can open WhizFolder files directly from Windows File Manager by double-clicking or opening them by right-click menu.
- You can have shortcut icons on the desktop that open a WhizFolder file.
- You can create such desktop shortcuts either by the standard right-click drag actions in Windows File Manager. Or, you can use the Tools menu in WhizFolders to create such a shortcut for the current file.
The List of Files in WhizFolders is just for convenience:
- It automatically keeps the list of WhizFolder files in “last used” order so that you can reopen them directly from there instead of going to Windows File Manager each time.
- The List of Files is not a database that keeps all your notes. It’s just a list showing you the file names and locations of WhizFolder files that you have been using.
- List of Files is equivalent to the “Recent documents” list shown in other applications like Wordpad.
- There are some special menu actions available on List of Files tab, for example, search through many WhizFolder files.
Sometimes you may need to update the List of Files manually:
- If you move or rename a WhizFolder file in Windows File Manager then the old file name will stay in the List of Files.
- For moved or renamed files, you need to delete this old file name entry from the List of Files by a right-click action.
- Also, the new named or moved WhizFolder file will not appear in the List of Files tab until you open that file from the new location by using the File menu or directly from Windows File Manager.
You should maintain a backup copy of your WhizFolder files:
- Hardware failures or network problems can cause corruption of WhizFolder files like any other files on your disk.
- Hence, you should copy your important WhizFolder files regularly to another location for safe keeping.
- You can use Windows File Manager to do simply copy files or you can use other backup software.
- The backup feature given in WhizFolders is a straight copy operation with some file naming features for your convenience.
You can keep WhizFolder files on “cloud” drives to use from multiple computers:
- You can keep WhizFolder files on “cloud” drives like Dropbox so that you can always access the latest copy from another computer.
- You have to take certain precautions when doing it. Always close such WhizFolder files after use otherwise the cloud syncing will have errors and you won’t be able to access the latest copy of such a file from other computers. You can identify such problems by looking for “conflicted copy” in the file name when using Dropbox.
- Windows shut down can also cause such problems for any type of file. You should close all applications like WhizFolders separately and give their files a chance to be synced before you shut down Windows.
- See some background and details in the article Using Dropbox.