OmniOutliner- revisiting embedded vs alias

[Christian Bogen]

Am 06.02.2005 um 21:54 schrieb Timothy Elliott:
> Any thoughts or solutions?

OO3 files are bundles, ie. special kind of folders. When you drag and 
drop, say, a Word document into your outline, the document actually is 
copied into the bundle (folder), just as if you'd made »normal« a copy 
to a »normal« folder by means of the finder. That explains why the 
original file doesn't change when you make a change in the copy.

As the manual explains, this behavior can be changed by holding down 
the control key while dragging and dropping (the original file, _not_ 
an alias of the original). Then an alias is created inside the OO3 
bundle and which will point to the original file. That, of course, has 
the downside, that you have to keep track of where all the files of 
which you created aliases in your outline are and if you move the 
outline (eg. send it via e-mail) you have to move the files with it.

As far as I understood your mail, you made an alias of your Word 
document in the finder and draged that into the outline (probably even 
pressing ctrl while doing so). This is probably the reason why it 
didn't work as expected. Drag the original and while dragging press and 
hold the control key -- I just tried it, it really works, the alias 
really leads to the original Word document with its content ...! :-)

Alternatively you could »accept« the fact that OO3 actually copies the 
attachment into its file bundle and simply »discard« the »original« 
afterwards. That'd have the advantage that you'll have only one file 
(the OO3 bundle) to move around, but of course the downside is, that 
you can access the attached (Word) documents (or images etc.) only via 
OO3. (That, of course, is only have the truce: The finde let's you 
access (almost?) any bundles contents. Control-click/right-click an OO3 
file in the finder and you'll find the option »Show package contents« 
in the context menu.)

Hope this helps!

Christian