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How do you tag (or even organize) your files?

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Armando:
Thanks. Interesting.
Spotmeta seems nice. Does it integrate well with QuickSilver?
(From what I've read, spot meta is not without its share of problems too. But it might not be as bad as some say. :) )

nontroppo:
Not fully, the Spotmeta dev has stopped work on it (explaining said problems), and Quicksilver is transitioning to open-source so I doubt any Quicksilver devs will adopt it soon... I use Quicksilver to quickly find Spotmeta tagged items (using the spotlight plugin), but cannot not add tags to an item. So I still mostly use Quicksilver comment tagging for the grunt work and spotmeta via its own window or the Finder for more detailed tag additions.

Armando:
I see...

joepez:
Wondering if anyone else has more thoughts on this topic?

I've been searching for a good solution for desktop tagging for awhile, but have yet to find a good one.

I've tried very app out there: Tag2Find, Tagg, UltraFolder, but have found them all lacking.

Tag2Find - Great interface, relatively easy to use. But, is tied locally (Current ver you can't have the DB on a network share, or even share the DB across systems); plus they've been saying they'll have v2 out now since Aug (Oct was target date) and there's very little activity on their forums anymore or updates.
Tagg - Ok interface, complex to use; Can have multiple tagging DBs, and can be stored remotely (nice). But, complex as heck to figure out, an requires a lot of clicks to do anything.
UltraFolder - Simple interface, snap to use. But, no network capabilities, and unlike the others likes to store the files in its own directory structure, instead of on your HD wherever you want.

So they all can do part of the job, but lack in critical areas (particularly portability) or have complex and inefficient UIs. They also all use proprietary DBs, so you can't search them with any DT search apps. I like cloud tags, but I also like simply typing in my DT search app and finding what I want there quickly and easily.

In the meantime I've tried using a system similar to Armando's system (specific names, tags in the file name itself) but this becomes cumbersome, and while using tags in Vista is nice (home PC) it is useless for my work laptio (XP) or any portability. All of the problems as well with Comments or Keywords on a file make thus highly problematic.

So in the meantime I'm considering one of two systems:
1) keep doing the file naming (possibly toss in the comments/tags aspect (short tag names)
2) Dumping all of my files (just PDFs, docs, xls, txt, ppts) into Outlook PSTs and using the same category approach I use to tag my emails (Outlook 07 categories are very nice). I'm limited to 2GB safe PSTs, though 07 now claims PSTs are safe to 20GBs. And separating my PSTs into Work (<2GB), Research (>4GB, but can be broken into logical chunks), Home (<2GBs).

The advantage to 2 is that I only have to create the tagging structure once, and get familiar w/ 1 methodology. Also its searchable and indexable via any DT search that can read PSTs. Its portable in that I can always transfer the PSTs to a key or external HD (or w/ my home server setup store them all on the server like I do, and access remotely). And relatively easy to extract from in the future. And it is very simple and easy to use (click away).

The 1st option roughly gives me the same capabilities as the 2nd..

And as for tagging in Outlook, I've tried all the Apps there as well, both specific (CategorieZ (current solution, though it does crash alot), & Taglocity) to IMS systems like ClearContext (like it, but its limited to 1 category only, and that's pointless with tags). The nice thing about tagging in Outlook is it can be both text driven (Idea) and visual (purple means Idea), which I haven't seen any other tagging product explore. No clouds though, but apps like CategorieZ and Taglocity can filter on tags in a folder, and using Outlooks's Advanced Find and set to Everything, you can search for Categories on anything. The downside is you can only search 1 PST at a time directly in Outlook. But w/ DT searching you can search anything.

I'm looking forward to v2 of Taglocity, which is supposed to be a lot nicer and easier to use. The fact that it doesn't integrate w/ Outlook's Categories is a deal breaker for me, that just limits the usefulness once again.

Armando:
Thanks for sharing your experiences.
 
Like you said, taging is currently problematic, and without any complete and satisfying solution (for Windows).
 
On another note, I'd be surprised if tag2find just disappears... IMO, the "New Generation" is eventually going to be released but they might got into more complexity than what they foresaw...
 
Your Outlook strategy seems interesting but a bit constrictive to me... Why not use a "proper" database like asksam, General knowledge base, etc. The color thing is interesting but I don't think I'd choose outlook PST files just for that feature.  Especially that tags in names can be associated with colors with certain file managers (as noted by nosh here  https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=10469.msg82651#msg82651 ) like Xplorer2, and probably others like XYplorer.
 
Personally, I'm not crazy about usual databases to store documents. I prefer to just use the NTFS as a big database, using proper names, etc.

As I wrote somewhere else:

[...]
I could certainly store files in the database, but am relunctant to do it. If someone gives a good reason to do it perhaps...
-PPLandry (October 31, 2007, 09:53 PM)
--- End quote ---

I share the same point of view : I don't like to store files (different file types) in one database. I've always disliked it, for many reasons.
- One of them is backing up -- while some will advocate that it facilitates backup**, I find that it makes it cumbersome and harder to manage : backing up a 2gb database is not as convenient as backing up a 34kb file.
- Another reason is that most stored files lose some of the features tightly linked to their specific format in the first place (why edit a word document in rtf????).
- Another one is that, usually, not all file types can be stored and managed in a database (so what's the point?? If I'm going to put files in a database I want to be able to put any file I want. Not only *.doc, *.txt, *.rtf, *.pdf., *.jpg and *.bmp).
- Another one is the fear of data corruption. Often, when a database is corrupted, and it happens, chances are you'll loose quite a bit of data.



**"you just have one file to backup", etc. . But I don't care, personally: I have a good backup program.
[...]
-Armando (October 31, 2007, 10:13 PM)
--- End quote ---

And as justice wrote before:
 
we need a document management solution for the desktop.
make my documents a database,
with tags, versoin control and notes about where files are copied to out of the system.
I admire your persistance but in the end its just abusing a crap system (the concept of filenames and organisnig by folders).
-justice (October 20, 2007, 08:28 PM)
--- End quote ---

Still, as it is now, I find that tags in names are easier to use and manage (delete, change, etc.) than other tagging system… Maybe it's just a matter of habit. But it’s so practical to be able to use my tags anywhere, and with any searching app.

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