Resource Library

The Library, first in the sidebar, indexes your resources folder. Its page has the folder tree and search in one column and the chosen file beside it: the file's tags as chips, a use bar, then the file itself. Tags and notes are kept in a sidecar file, so the resources themselves are never written.

• Search covers file names and the text of .py, .txt, .md, .csv and .pdf files. Office files (.doc, .docx, .ppt, .pptx, .pub, .xlsx) are never parsed; they open in their native app.
• Previews: Python with highlighting, plain text, images, the first page of a PDF, or an open-externally card.
• Cloud placeholders (files not downloaded on this Mac) are marked, not fatal.
• Re-index is incremental; the first index of a few hundred files takes seconds.

Using a file

The use bar under the file's title hands it on:

• Open for class with the lesson label typed beside it: select the file, type P3 Y9 loops, press Enter (or ⌘O). The Classroom tool copies it into today's session folder and opens the copy in your editor, exactly as from Classroom itself; the original is never touched. Classroom › then shows today's sessions. Offered for code and text files (.py, .txt, .md, .csv), which is what the editor opens.
• One button per tool that takes this kind of file: .py → Parsons, Trace, Bugs, Fade, Pseudocode; .md → Quiz; .csv / .xlsx → Marks; .txt → Pseudocode. Each opens the tool with the file already picked. The list comes from the tools' own inputs, so a new tool appears by itself.
• Office files, images and PDFs get Open externally as their main action (Office files are still never parsed). A file not downloaded on this Mac, or indexed by name only, is not offered for class or to a tool.

Reveal sits quietly beside the title, with Open externally when the use bar does not already offer it. Tools still reach the library from their own inputs too: From library… on every program input and on Classroom's and Quiz's file inputs.

Keeping things out

The index copies the text of searchable files into ~/.config/staffroom/library.db, so pupil work should not be under the resources folder at all. Two guards help:

• Exclusion list (Settings › Resources folder, or staff library exclude). A name matches at any depth, with * and ? wildcards (Pupil work, *assessment*, *.bak); a path matches from the root (Year 11/Mocks, */submissions). The same patterns, one per line, may live in <root>/.staffroom/ignore for a folder shared between machines; the app reads that file and never writes it. Excluded paths are neither indexed nor listed, and changing the list re-indexes.
• Name only. A file whose text looks like it holds pupil details (a candidate number, surname, UPN or date of birth next to a value) is indexed by name only. The index summary, the Library's header and column footer, and staff library status show the count; the preview carries a banner, and the file is not offered for class or to a tool. This is a warning to act on, not a filter to rely on.

Exactly what the index holds, where it lives and how to delete it is in Privacy.

staff library index
staff library search while --kind python
staff library tags "Python/loops.py" --set loops,ks3 --notes "Good starter"
staff library exclude --add "Pupil work" --add "Year 11/Mocks"
staff library status