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Tagging files
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Posted by Jack Crawford
Jul 10, 2010 at 01:20 AM
I notice GOTD is running another special for Tabbles in its various incarnations.
What do people here think of the philosophy of creating virtual folders and/or tagging files? I’ve always stuck with physical file locations although I do use some virtual tools like Outlook categories. Is the investment in set-up and maintenance worth the long-term benefits?
Is Tabbles a good implementation or are there better options in the market?
TIA
Jack
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Jul 11, 2010 at 12:18 PM
I bought a license to Tabbles sometime ago, I think in Bits du Jour. It is stable, does what it says and looks nice, but I can’t say I use it much. I guess the reason is that I am quite happy with the other ways I have organised my material over the years, both within the file system and through links from information management software.
If you want to try tagging I suggest you also give the following a go, both mentioned here in the past I think:
- TaggedFrog http://lunarfrog.com/taggedfrog/ This is freeware and has the advantage of working in portable mode, as long as .NET framework 2 and above is available
- Detalizer http://www.detalizer.com/en-us/ IMHO, this is rather expensive for what it does, but it integrates well with Windows Explorer
Posted by quant
Jan 27, 2013 at 09:27 PM
is anyone aware of tagging program that stores the tags/keywords also directly in file’s properties section (those that allow it, talking windows here)?
Posted by Tomasz Raburski
Jan 27, 2013 at 11:34 PM
You can use Total Commander. There are two ways to tag files:
- using Comment command (Ctrl-Z) - saves tags in separate files
- using NTFS Descriptions plugin - saves tags on the NTFS file system
Check these threads for more info:
http://www.ghisler.ch/board/viewtopic.php?p=164123
http://www.ghisler.ch/board/viewtopic.php?p=155170
http://en.totalcmd.pl/download/wdx/fls/NTFS_Descriptions
Tomek
Posted by jimspoon
Jan 27, 2013 at 11:56 PM
quant wrote:
is anyone aware of tagging program that stores the tags/keywords also
>directly in file’s properties section (those that allow it, talking
>windows here)?
Quant, I would love to find such a program. There are some types of files that support metadata (including tags) - jpg and mp3 come to mind. In these cases the metadata is stored in the jpg or mp3 file itself - the metadata travels with the file. If you are displaying the details pane in Windows Explorer, you can directly edit these data fields in the details pane. Just tried the same with MS Word .docx file - same thing. PDF files, some fields are displayed, but can’t be edited from Explorer. Pure TXT files, no editable fields or tags.
Another possibility is the use of alternate data streams. These are like invisible sidecar files that ride along side the “main” file, without being a part of them. Here is an interesting explanation -
http://www.irongeek.com/i.php?page=security/altds
It is extremely easy to create and view an alternate data stream - tried these three command lines:
C:\>echo this is a regular file>adstest.txt
C:\>echo this is the alternate data stream>adstest.txt:ads.txt
C:\>notepad adstest.txt:ads.txt
Such an ADS file could include tags, or attribute:value pairs. A program could be designed to put tags in an ADS file, to index ADS files along with the base files, and to search on tags contained in an ADS.
NTFS also supports extended file attributes.
I’d have to do some research to see if any tagging programs make use of the ADS or the extended file attributes.