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One of the biggest problems with folder hierarchies is that files can often be classified in several different ways. To take your paper statements analogy, do y

One of the biggest problems with folder hierarchies is that files can often be classified in several different ways. To take your paper statements analogy, do you organize by year, by institution, or by category? What if you have a 2002 bank statement? Do you put it in the '2002' pile or the 'bank statements' pile? Using existing file hierarchies allow you to store the digital document in the '2002' folder and then create a hard or soft link in the 'bank statements' folder, but that can be a hassle. Tags allow you to attach them to documents, photos, videos, etc. without worrying about how you might organize them. Luckily, Didgets lets you organize your file using either a hierarchical folder structure or just by using tags. It is your choice.

selfhoster11 5y ago
To me, it seems best to exclude as many possibilities as I can during each step of the (naturally recursive) search. Filtering by "is bank account statement" excludes a lot more files than "was incorporated into my files in 2002", since most people only have a few bank accounts but a lot of photos, videos and other things that they create or download in a given year. I think the best system is actually a mix of hierarchy and tags. Top-level, very broad "semantic zones" (aka is this .PDF a bank statement, a cake recipe, a textbook, or some temporary file from the browser cache) would lend themselves to being represented as a shallow hierarchy, and items within a specific semantic zone could be then freely tagged or further subdivided into a hierarchy, whichever approach makes sense for that particular semantic zone.
- didgetmaster 5y ago
  You assume that there are fewer bank statements than 2002 files in your argument. What if you loaded in a million bank statements in 2005 but only created a few thousand files in 2002? With Didgets, I can tell how many objects have each tag attached so I order the search to eliminate based on how likely the set I am searching for has each tag.
  - selfhoster11 5y ago
    How many bank accounts does an average person have? Even for the most extreme cases, we're looking at the low hundreds of statements annually, at the maximum. If you're not an average person but instead a business or an archivist, then you need a custom system anyway. I'm really not trying to criticise or diminish the value of your system. All I'm saying is that even without an additional tag (or hybrid tag+hierarchy) overlay, a hierarchical system can be quite useful as long it's well thought-out by the user.

selfhoster11 5y ago

To me, it seems best to exclude as many possibilities as I can during each step of the (naturally recursive) search. Filtering by "is bank account statement" excludes a lot more files than "was incorporated into my files in 2002", since most people only have a few bank accounts but a lot of photos, videos and other things that they create or download in a given year. I think the best system is actually a mix of hierarchy and tags. Top-level, very broad "semantic zones" (aka is this .PDF a bank statement, a cake recipe, a textbook, or some temporary file from the browser cache) would lend themselves to being represented as a shallow hierarchy, and items within a specific semantic zone could be then freely tagged or further subdivided into a hierarchy, whichever approach makes sense for that particular semantic zone.

didgetmaster 5y ago
You assume that there are fewer bank statements than 2002 files in your argument. What if you loaded in a million bank statements in 2005 but only created a few thousand files in 2002? With Didgets, I can tell how many objects have each tag attached so I order the search to eliminate based on how likely the set I am searching for has each tag.
- selfhoster11 5y ago
  How many bank accounts does an average person have? Even for the most extreme cases, we're looking at the low hundreds of statements annually, at the maximum. If you're not an average person but instead a business or an archivist, then you need a custom system anyway. I'm really not trying to criticise or diminish the value of your system. All I'm saying is that even without an additional tag (or hybrid tag+hierarchy) overlay, a hierarchical system can be quite useful as long it's well thought-out by the user.