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My workplace doesn't have a easy to use document management system, and I have no chance in building or installing one. Right now, people just throw files on a shared fileserver, where search doesn't really work.

Trying to find information/files for a particular project by looking into random folders doesn't really work. There aren't any file naming conventions, and my workmates are non-tech.

I won't be able to install any server software or make changes to the existing software on the file server. My idea was to use a script/app I run locally when mounting the fileshare. The script would traverse a given folder and create a webpage listing all the files/folders within with a description. Adding the description would require editing the html file directly, but other meta data (file size, creation date etc) would just be automatically read from the filesystem. It would also pickup a README.MD file if present that describes the folder/project and append that to the page. Very similar to how GitHub project page works/looks.

I accept that it may need to be re-run periodically to ensure the listing is correct as contents of the folder are updated.The fileserver appears to be a standard windows fileshare, I access it using SMB from my mac. I have no admin access to the fileserver, and it's admin is done offshore by an IT help desk. I won't be able to get them to run any services or processes on the fileserver.

My thoughts are just to generate a 'index.html' file for each project folder root and tell coworkers to just open that file to learn about a project.

Any ideas on if such a tool exists?

I'm a mac user, the rest are mostly windows. I'd be the main/only user of this software though.

See example of GitHub page here.

Dipak Patel
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You are describing SharePoint document libraries.

MDMarra
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  • As I mentioned before, I not able to install any software on the server, I can only write a script or run software on the client that will create files on the server. – Dipak Patel Mar 29 '14 at 16:33
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    The you're going to have a hard time. People don't typically spend time re-inventing the wheel around outrageous restrictions like "I can't install software on a server." You also don't mention that you can't install anything on any server, just that you can't install it in the *file server* which isn't where you would install SharePoint or another document management system anyway. – MDMarra Mar 29 '14 at 17:39
  • Thanks, I appreciate the great empathy in your comment. I'm the only technical person in a team of 40 people that are looking to me for a solution because our IT department have delivered one yet. There is an archaic, centrally run solution that few use properly, based on Documentum, but that is not to be used as a general fileshare. The question I posted was about coming up with an improvement to the solution put in place before I arrived. – Dipak Patel Mar 29 '14 at 20:48