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TMSU is a tool for tagging your files

tmsu.org

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Re: TMSU is a tool for tagging your files

#41

Post by CalRobert »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #17
slackson wrote: post #9

I remember looking at this a few years ago. My main reason for not using it was the time it would have taken to tag all my files. Basically, if you have so many files that it's worth tagging them, you need to spend a lot of time tagging, and if you have so few that it's reasonable to tag them all, you don't need this system. If you have a manageable number but expect tagging to be useful in the near future, then this…

For similar reasons, I just can't bring myself to use OSX's tagging feature; it just seems like so much effort without a good use case. I'm not sure it helps that the defaults are simply colours, rather than real examples. And I don't really want to think about how files are shared (server, dropbox, google drive, usb stick) and do all the necessary research into how tags work in each and every case. I too would be in…

OS X tagging is sometimes handy for tasks over a short time frame. Picking out photos to upload to FB? Scan through them all and hit cmd-6 on the ones you want, maybe cmd-7 on the ones you need to crop. Sure you could use Bridge, Aperture, etc. but having it built in to the OS is nice.

Re: TMSU is a tool for tagging your files

#42

Post by ap22213 »

I've always wanted this for Windows. I wonder how hard it would be to port it.

In a business setting, I often see people's desktops cluttered with files. It'd be nice to give them a virtual folder on the desktop where they can drag and drop files into in to it, with tags.

Re: TMSU is a tool for tagging your files

#43

Post by Yizahi »

jschulenklopper wrote: post #32
Yizahi wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Search doesn't help when you don't remember filename.

Sure it does when the search also investigates the contents of the files. For example, GMail and Outlook do this for mail items -- you don't need to know the subject, which is comparable to the file name, to retrieve an email -- and Google Desktop Search (discontinued) or Copernic does this for file systems. It is almost as if every system-retrievable item inside a file (e.g. every word in a text document) automatica…

The Outlook is a prime example for situation when pure search doesn't help. When I'm looking for some mail 1+ year old I sometimes don't even remember one correct word in it. Then I resort to some kind of tag system - folders, timestamps etc. And some times I don't find it at all.

Re: TMSU is a tool for tagging your files

#44

Post by taivare »

pmoriarty wrote: post #13
slackson wrote: post #9

I remember looking at this a few years ago. My main reason for not using it was the time it would have taken to tag all my files. Basically, if you have so many files that it's worth tagging them, you need to spend a lot of time tagging, and if you have so few that it's reasonable to tag them all, you don't need this system. If you have a manageable number but expect tagging to be useful in the near future, then this…

I tag all of my Firefox bookmarks. I've been meaning to export them out of Firefox and use some other kind of bookmark manager or write my own (perhaps integrating it in to Emacs). Something like this might help, if I make each bookmark in to a separate file.

I read where you can import Firefox bookmark-Tags into Pinboard.

Re: TMSU is a tool for tagging your files

#45

Post by teach »

jschulenklopper wrote: post #32
Yizahi wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Search doesn't help when you don't remember filename.

Sure it does when the search also investigates the contents of the files. For example, GMail and Outlook do this for mail items -- you don't need to know the subject, which is comparable to the file name, to retrieve an email -- and Google Desktop Search (discontinued) or Copernic does this for file systems. It is almost as if every system-retrievable item inside a file (e.g. every word in a text document) automatica…

So far this only works with text-based files. For videos or photos, there's usually not much good metadata or machine-readable file content.

Re: TMSU is a tool for tagging your files

#46

Post by oniony »

ap22213 wrote: post #42

I've always wanted this for Windows. I wonder how hard it would be to port it. In a business setting, I often see people's desktops cluttered with files. It'd be nice to give them a virtual folder on the desktop where they can drag and drop files into in to it, with tags.

Hi, author here. Windows support is in progress.

Re: TMSU is a tool for tagging your files

#47

Post by sbierwagen »

dmd wrote: post #40
fallat wrote: post #39

Hm. How could this be used efficiently for real work? I think because many of our tools are already file-based, this is not the greatest idea for uses cases that require structure. If anything tagging should be used along side hierarchical layouts...Or users should follow the standard of what /etc, /home, /lib and friends are used for. They are essentially tags in directory form. Take TMSU's example command: tmsu tag…

This quickly becomes cumbersome when you have dozens or hundreds of tags, and doesn't address tag values.

The other problem is when a file can be in multiple categories: say you're sorting photos into folders based on who is in the photo.

alice.jpg goes into alice/, and bob.jpg goes into bob/, but where do you put groupshot.jpg?

Re: TMSU is a tool for tagging your files

#49

Post by zo1 »

fsiefken wrote: post #4
simula67 wrote: post #2

Too bad WinFS was canceled. Seems like no GUI support for any of these tools :(

TagSpaces has excellent GUI support.

That looked excellent until I read that it stores the tags in the filename. That's just... completely not what I'm looking for, or would use, ever.

Re: TMSU is a tool for tagging your files

#50

Post by whichfawkes »

Immortalin wrote: post #27
sebastianavina wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a library of a lot of ebooks about a lot of subjects, I order them by folders, but is very common to have interesections on the topics they cover. I could tag all them with the folder name, and then manually tag the subtopics each book covers. edit: too bad it isn't on ubuntu repositories. I've a personal policy to avoid programs outside the repositories

Try Calibre for managing ebooks, it has a built-in tag system.

I really like Calibre, but it's tag system is pretty clunky. I don't think I can even tag multiple books at once.
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