C:\STUDIOLO\USES\BY-YEAR
Everything from 1989
Each app sees only its own kind of file. The catalog sees all of them, so it can build views no app can: the games, magazines and documentaries of one year, side by side. Those views are for people, served as a read-only share for Windows, macOS and Linux.
Originals
catalog
year == 1989
3 domains, 5 disks
Read-only, untouched
SMB share
\\studiolo\1989\
Games/
Prince of Persia (1989)(Broderbund).zip
Magazines/
Computer and Video Games 097 (1989-11).cbz
Documentaries/
The Fall of the Berlin Wall (1989).mkv
The layout SMB share expects
BY-YEAR.TXT
Rules, not folders
A view is an ordered list of declarative rules over the catalog; the first rule that matches wins. A filter on year, platform or rating is enough to build a new view, and a change shows its diff before anything moves.
SMB for people, local paths for apps
Apps get a bind mount of their own library. SMB is for people, and for devices that can mount a share. The share is read-only and set up so macOS doesn't try to write ._ and .DS_Store files into it.
Folders Finder can open
Explorer and Finder slow down past about 10,000 entries, so views for people are sharded by letter or by year, with names and path lengths Windows accepts.