Hi smeraldo,
I'd like to know if you have any new system or software about tagging files
'cause it's becoming a real (and "real" is a tiny euphemism) mess in my hard drives/computers and so on
I've stopped looking for something many months ago. My system works fine for my needs and works for everything, anywhere (file names, file content, etc.). You need to be slightly disciplined though, and be willing to learn (easy) AHK a bit.
I've started to tag web pages I save localy with the firefox extension zotero
I know it is not intended for that but it allows tags, highlights, notes, keep the url, would probably be transferable easily on mac or linux (I'm on xp)
but it is a bit slow, it is a database (how robust ?) and I don't know if it is searchable from outside 'cause I'm not yet using any local search engine
I just use the system described in my first post -- apply it in URLs. I don't use bookmarks as I find them harder to manage than URLs. So I use "favorites" in firefox using the "PlainOldFavorites" plug-in. Works well and insures compatibility with IE and other browsers not relying on the "bookmarks" system. Plus, they're more easily searcheable with programs like FARR and Everything.
plus evernote : tagging possibilities, but same question about search
Evernote is completely proprietary. If you tag stuf in there, you have to search stuff from inside EverNote.
but so far, armando, you convinced me that tags within the file name is the only robust solution (actually I thought that before but was too lazy or ignorant to do sth)
I'm still using the same system today. My tag database (in my AHK script) is now fairly large but very manageable. AHKs scripts are easy to navigate and edit, compared to other "text expanding" programs UIs.
I have to try to really use farr (it is installed but not used)
about local search engine, are you still using archivarius or x1 ?
I don't use X1 anymore. I'd love to, but I had some performance issues with it, plus it didn't index huge documents quite well (like... more than 450 pages... can't remember exactly, but it's probably more related to the number of words rather than the number of pages) and didn't index MS Word comments very well either. Still, X1 is the best in terms of features and useability, IMO.
I use Archivarius, but I find it clunkyer and does have a few issues -- the scheduling function is buggy (scheduler will just stop working sometimes and database needs to be updated manually)
I thought that creating a .txt file for each file could have been a solution to avoid the length limitation on the name, to create note, to paste a url, to be searchable
but it is probably a bad solution 'cause nobody is doing so, I guess it is too long but maybe could be automated, and also 'cause I've never been able to use the hardlink possibility with ntfs, besides this hardlinking possibility is probably not portable
I never liked the idea of poluting my filesystem with tons of secondary files... Plus it'd be extremely hard to manage -- but I won't enter the details now.
and lastly what about bookmarks, zoteros, and evernotes ?
I do use my tagging system in a database application calles InfoQube. So my system is basically the same, but I enter my tags in a special "field" for each item... Of course, InfoQube's database is only searchable from inside IQ though -- well Archivarius is actually able to search display the DB content, but it's not very... aesthetical (just plain txt).
this topic is, on the web, what I've found the deepest about tagging files
I'm really surprised that there is not a damn software that would do the trick
I don't know, something like a multiplatorm soft embedding files or adding a couple of bytes to each file to allow hard tagging
I have to say that I know nothing in programming or computer stuff, I'm just a user, so if you feel I'm saying stupid things, you can tell me, I won't be offended
tag2find was using the NTFS alternate data streams, which is similar to what you describe (You can find some info about ADS
here)
+ a database to store all the tag info in case something went wrong. It has a few tricks up its sleeves... Unfortunately it's pretty much dead (seemed like it was going to resurrect as a FOSS for a short while, but...)
ADS are not cross platform or even always cross software (even within the same OS) and all your work might be (permanently ?) lost if you decide to change software. There are also some privacy issues -- your tags traveling with your files with no obvious ways to see them when you share these. And if you burn your files to a CD or DVD they won't follow. etc. etc.
Recent Posts
) - I know LOTS of users have reported the same problem. In fact, I left X1 for Archivarius two years ago for that reason. Somehow, when I reinstalled X1 five or so months ago the problem had vanished and I've yet to see it. However, I do rub my rabbit's foot nightly before bed! X1 is set to index automatically on my systems and is set to start automatically as well. TextExtractor is the culprit when there IS CPU activity from X1 on my systems, but it rarely exceeds more than 15%.