5 ms·

I would jettison every piece of computing hardware I own right now and switch to the first device that would let me add (and search) tags in file metadata.

by jgeorge 14y ago

justincormack 14y ago
I think there are some Linux solutions for this using extended attributes (which are by the way pretty easy to use).
- simcop2387 14y ago
  And one that doesn't, and is AFAIK incompatible with others. Nepomuk from KDE does this with a separate database, I believe this is mostly to allow it to work when xattr isn't available (say for some network filesystems). I've not actually used it much myself, (there's far too many files for me to even begin doing it.)
  - justincormack 14y ago
    Most Linux distros do not enable xattr support at all by default, which is where the database thing came from. Very annoying.
  - justincormack 14y ago
    Most Linux distros do not enable xattr support at all by default, which is where the database thing came from. Very annoying.
fusiongyro 14y ago
I guess you weren't there for Be OS, which did let you define your own metadata and then search on them. The bundled mail "application" was what OS X calls a "smart folder," a saved search displayed in the filesystem browser. The software that downloaded mail stuck the headers into metadata attributes which the finder-like filesystem browser (the Tracker) could display in sortable columns. Really quite an impressive demo of the technology. The music player worked the same way, relying on other software to copy information out of the ID3 tag into the filesystem metadata so you could search for music by artist, album, year, genre, etc.
CamperBob2 14y ago
I've started putting tags in filenames. This works pretty well. Instead of saving a downloaded file under its original name -- "leadfreereliability.pdf", or whatever -- I'll give it a new, verbose name like "Aerospace_Corp_lead_free_reliability_report_2011_Kostic_Pb_free_RoHS_bullshit.pdf". Then, later, I can find that file and any similar ones with a simple command like dir /s | grep RoHS ...or the equivalent command in a different OS that might share the same drive. It's no substitute for a true tag-based file system, but it's much better than nothing.
pooriaazimi 14y ago
Type 'man xattr' in your OS X terminal; isn't it what you want? xattr -s author George file (It might need a -w, I'm not sure as I'm writing it with my iPad) I'm not sure it's searchable though. But unless I'm very mistaken, mdls (metadata list) Is searchable. It lists what's been saved by Spotlight and you can add to it.
cyclinghacker 14y ago
I use "Spotlight Comments" on OS X for tagging files. Not sure if this is exactly what you want but works great for me.
baudehlo 14y ago
The internet and need to transfer files between systems killed any concept of this sort of thing remaining working. The AmigaOS had it decades ago. Making it work when transferring a file to different OS's or even between the same OS using standard protocols makes it a really hard problem.

I would jettison every piece of computing hardware I own right now and switch to the first device that would let me add (and search) tags in file metadata.

by jgeorge 14y ago

I would jettison every piece of computing hardware I own right now and switch to the first device that would let me add (and search) tags in file metadata.

justincormack 14y ago

I think there are some Linux solutions for this using extended attributes (which are by the way pretty easy to use).

simcop2387 14y ago
And one that doesn't, and is AFAIK incompatible with others. Nepomuk from KDE does this with a separate database, I believe this is mostly to allow it to work when xattr isn't available (say for some network filesystems). I've not actually used it much myself, (there's far too many files for me to even begin doing it.)
- justincormack 14y ago
  Most Linux distros do not enable xattr support at all by default, which is where the database thing came from. Very annoying.
- justincormack 14y ago
  Most Linux distros do not enable xattr support at all by default, which is where the database thing came from. Very annoying.

fusiongyro 14y ago

I guess you weren't there for Be OS, which did let you define your own metadata and then search on them. The bundled mail "application" was what OS X calls a "smart folder," a saved search displayed in the filesystem browser. The software that downloaded mail stuck the headers into metadata attributes which the finder-like filesystem browser (the Tracker) could display in sortable columns. Really quite an impressive demo of the technology. The music player worked the same way, relying on other software to copy information out of the ID3 tag into the filesystem metadata so you could search for music by artist, album, year, genre, etc.

CamperBob2 14y ago

I've started putting tags in filenames. This works pretty well. Instead of saving a downloaded file under its original name -- "leadfreereliability.pdf", or whatever -- I'll give it a new, verbose name like "Aerospace_Corp_lead_free_reliability_report_2011_Kostic_Pb_free_RoHS_bullshit.pdf". Then, later, I can find that file and any similar ones with a simple command like dir /s | grep RoHS ...or the equivalent command in a different OS that might share the same drive. It's no substitute for a true tag-based file system, but it's much better than nothing.

pooriaazimi 14y ago

Type 'man xattr' in your OS X terminal; isn't it what you want? xattr -s author George file (It might need a -w, I'm not sure as I'm writing it with my iPad) I'm not sure it's searchable though. But unless I'm very mistaken, mdls (metadata list) Is searchable. It lists what's been saved by Spotlight and you can add to it.

cyclinghacker 14y ago

I use "Spotlight Comments" on OS X for tagging files. Not sure if this is exactly what you want but works great for me.

baudehlo 14y ago

The internet and need to transfer files between systems killed any concept of this sort of thing remaining working. The AmigaOS had it decades ago. Making it work when transferring a file to different OS's or even between the same OS using standard protocols makes it a really hard problem.