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How do you tag (or even organize) your files?
jared1999:
unfortunately, these fields are NOT always:
1- reliable (not always accessible for all file types, etc.)
2- searchable (through most desktop search software)
3- portable
-Armando (November 05, 2007, 05:52 AM)
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Too bad. I should have known there was a reason I haven't seen anyone use those fields. ;)
nontroppo:
Armando: do you know why ADS doesn't work for some file types? Is it than that programs that open them strip the ADS out?
Is that why Tag2Find stores tags in both a database and the ADS?
Nod5:
Armando, thanks for sharing your system.
My file name tagging differs a bit from yours:
- I use around 20 intuitive (self-constructed) subject matter abbreviations like "tv", "todo", "note", but mostly for different academic subjects.
- I use no tag indicator string apart from a "-". Instead I tend to put all tagged content in a few basic folders and then do searches on those folders. I have no problem finding things without such indicators.
Armando:
Armando, thanks for sharing your system.
My file name tagging differs a bit from yours:
- I use around 20 intuitive (self-constructed) subject matter abbreviations like "tv", "todo", "note", but mostly for different academic subjects.
- I use no tag indicator string apart from a "-". Instead I tend to put all tagged content in a few basic folders and then do searches on those folders. I have no problem finding things without such indicators.
-Nod5 (November 06, 2007, 04:55 PM)
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The reason why I use tag indicators and a coherent system are multiple. Here are some of them :
- I want to be able to find certain groups of tags, regardless of their particular signified – I can’t use a punctuation mark as a identifier because not all desktop search software will take them in consideration
- I want to be able to use the same tags I use for filenames INSIDE documents (e.g. : in word or pdf comments, etc.), and the tags have to be as visible and unique as possible to ease the search
- I want to simplify the bulk renaming process (using basic regular expressions)
- I want to use these same tags to identify projects in Outlook and create project/tasks hierarchies (a missing feature in Outlook)
- I want to be able to create tags easily AND reconstruct their meaning as easily (so the abbreviations need to follow a system),
- Etc.
It,s basically a matter of coherence and efficiency in mutiple (different) situations of application
Armando: do you know why ADS doesn't work for some file types? Is it than that programs that open them strip the ADS out?
-nontroppo (November 06, 2007, 03:30 PM)
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Really, I’m note sure. But what I know —someone correct me if I’m wrong! — is that in NTFS the data gets written behind the file which might be a problem for certain program (that seam to overwrite it), but especially if you copy these files to a CD, a DVD or another file system (like fat32) for backup. I don’t know about HFS+ specific tagging strategies.
Also, you’ll notice that the whole business of using the special fields available in explorer (author, comments…) when you click on property, is shaky ast best. All fields are not always available — there’ll be either absent, grayed out, or won’t accept any data! — and sometimes the data entered in the fields don’t even appear in explorer! And these are just a few inconsistencies. Wow.
here's an excerpt from http://www.flexhex.com/docs/articles/alternate-streams.phtml
So When to Use Alternate Streams?
Certainly you should not use alternate streams for storing any critical information. Older file systems are still widely used, and they don't support the advanced NTFS features. If you copy an NTFS file to a USB drive, flash card, CD-R/RW, or any other non-NTFS drive, the system will copy the main stream only and will ignore all the alternate streams. The same is true for FTP/HTTP transfers. No warning is given, and a user, relying on alternate streams, might get a nasty surprise. So the Microsoft reluctance to provide user tools for alternate streams is not all that unfounded.
However alternate streams are still extremely useful. There is a lot of non-critical information that alternate streams is the most natural place to store to. Examples are thumbnails for graphical files, parsing information for program sources, spellcheck and formatting data for documents, or any other info that can be recovered easily. This way the file can be stored on any file system, but keeping the file on an NTFS drive will greatly increase processing speed.
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Is that why Tag2Find stores tags in both a database and the ADS?
-nontroppo (November 06, 2007, 03:30 PM)
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Well, yes., it seems like it. But I can’t speak for the developers. Like I’ve posted elsewhere, I asked questions to the developer about the tagging system and here’s what on of them answered to me :
At the moment, to prevent you from losing your hard work, we provide one basic backup possibility: export to a plain text XML file. The schema of the XML is very basic simple and will for sure prevent you from a "vendor lock in", which we understand nobody really wants. The backup has some downsides at the moment, as the files are stored with absolute path, but it will always allow recovery in case of a disaster, maybe requiring a little bit tweaking with a text editor in case the location of files has changed.
We do not really make a very big secret out of how our tags are stored: at the moment they are stored in two locations: a system-wide tag-database (SQLite) and attached as Alternate Data Stream to the file itself (which is the reason why we can only support NTFS at the moment). Tags can be recovered from backup or the NTFS Alternate Data Stream in case the central database corrupts (which is highly unlikely). Alternate Data Streams are copied together with a file by Windows Explorer, as long as the target volume supports them.
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nontroppo:
Thanks for that info Ralf. The solution HFS+ uses is to generate ._sidecar files if a file with metadata is saved on a non-compatible drive. That way the resource fork is preserved even on non-compatible drives, and will be read back in from the sidecar when it is loaded from such a drive. *BUT* this is seen as file detritus to those on that other FS (who don't know what they are), and there are several programs to clean the ._sidecar files away or people just delete them anyway, breaking that metadata...
I've been playing with Mcnucle for a while for tagging. What is great is the preservation of my tagging schemes no matter from where I access that, though I haven't hammered the system to see how thoroughly it preserves it on a long journey. What I don't like its the limitations for tags - it is very consumer oriented at the moment (few tag choices), so I've decided to wait a while before using it more seriously.
What I do for tagging now though is a free tool Spotmeta. It does the tedious job of metadata scheme construction seamlessly. You can make any type of metadata types (booleans, lists, strings etc) and use them for categorisation. It uses standard OS metadata mechanisms, contextmenu support from anywhere, uses a namespace to stop collisions, and makes spotlight aware of the tag schema thus fully searchable.
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