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[Stephen J. Turnbull]

J Lorieau writes:
 > Preferrably, the above update and commit commands could be done in an
 > automated or scripted way whenever I'd like to read/write to the repository
 > -- ex : turn on or shut off a laptop or work system.

The scripts and operations you use should be automatable based on
scripts triggered by shutdown and startup (eg, your shell .profile and
.logout scripts), or even scripts triggered by events (Linux can run a
script when the machine is about to sleep, etc).  This depends on your
shell and OS, though.

 > Later, I might want to collaborate with colleagues on a paper I'm writing in
 > Documents so that they can make their own edits. (i.e. give them permission
 > to checkout a subdirectory of Documents for editing)

Bazaar is planned to have nested tree support, but currently doesn't.
What this means for your situation is that IMO your *server* should
have a shared repository with a flat structure, one per paper, say
(whatever the unit of collaboration is):

repo -+- ProjectAPaper1
      +- ProjectAPaper2
      +- ProjectBPaper1
      +- ProjectBPaper2

You could impose more structure if you want in your checkouts, eg

Documents -+- ProjectA -+- ProjectAPaper1
           |            +- withAlice -+- ProjectAPaper2
           +- ProjectB -+- ProjectBPaper1
                        +- ProjectBPaper2

The reason for the flat structure in the repo is to allow maximum
flexibility in reorganizing your personal workspace and in sharing
with others.