Using GoodReader with MyNetworkFolders

Posted on 09. Mar, 2011 by fotis in Blog, mobile

My personal favorite iOS application for reading content on my iPhone and iPad devices is GoodReader; an excellent application with lots of features, some of them unique. I have been heavily using the iPad version of GoodReader for a few months now, as a mobile reader for content pulled from my central document repository in MyNetworkFolders.

I read a lot. I read eBooks, paper books, (technical) reports, magazines, on-line content, research papers, comics, brochures, I sometimes even read barbecue sauce bottle labels. I can’t do much with labels (other that shoot them with my iphone camera) but nearly all of the e-content I receive or generate in PDF and office formats I upload to MyNetworkFolders for later reading and/or archiving. I usually throw the file in a very “shallow” folder tree in my account, tag it with appropriate tags (more than one) and let MyNetworkFolders index it. I then retrieve it through search on tags and keywords. This anarchic organisation some times gets really messy, so I do keep specific first level folders for three specific categories (e.g. eBooks, Business, SW) and the uber-generic ‘Incoming’. Enough said on my flawlessly efficient document archiving skills; let me focus on consuming content: enter GoodReader. Since I like reading on my iPad, these are the two ways I pull content into my GoodReader:

  • webDAV. GoodReader fully supports webDAV so I’ve set up my MyNetworkFolders account as a remote server. When I need a file not already stored on my mobile device, I just connect to the server and download all I need (more than one file in parallel). I mostly use my iPad for consuming content, but in cases when a new document ended up first in GoodReader, I use the ‘upload’ option to also push it and archive it to my central MyNetworkFolders document repository.
  • via the MyNetworkFolders iOS client. I have been trying this method with alpha and beta revisions of the recently released version 1.3 during the last two months. I usually open the client app to locate files in my account for either sharing to colleagues, sending them via e-mail or downloading them for local reading. In the last case, I just click on ‘Open In GoodReader’ and enjoy reading the downloaded content in the best way possible on my iPad (instead of struggling around with the default Safari view). I choose this path when I’m not sure were my file is and I use our search function to locate it. In all other cases I just pull the file through webDAV.

So how do you connect your GoodReader copy to MyNetworkFolders? Easy:

  1. Click on the “Connect to Servers” tab
  2. Click on the “Add” button
  3. In the “Create New Connection” dialog click on “Any WebDAV Server”
  4. Fill-in the server details. URL is https://mynetworkfolders.com/webdav/
  5. Click ‘Save’
  6. You’re done. At any time click on the server to connect, browse and download / upload files.

GoodReader also has a remote server sync feature which I haven’t tried yet since I do not synchronize everything between the my document repository and my mobile device. However, this is the next feature I intend to try and I’ll get back with more information. Till then, happy mobile reading.

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