FileWeaver: Flexible file management with automatic dependency tracking

Abstract

Knowledge management and sharing involves a variety of specialized but isolated software tools, tied together by the files that these tools use and produce. We interviewed 23 scientists and found that they all had difficulties using the file system to keep track of, re-find and maintain consistency among related but distributed information. We introduce FileWeaver, a system that automatically detects dependencies among files without explicit user action, tracks their history, and lets users interact directly with the graphs representing these dependencies and version history. Changes to a file can trigger recipes, either automatically or under user control, to keep the file consistent with its dependants. Users can merge variants of a file, e.g. different output formats, into a polymorphic file, or morph, and automate the management of these variants. By making dependencies among files explicit and visible, FileWeaver facilitates the automation of workflows by scientists and other users who rely on the file system to manage their data.