Filed under: Software, Productivity
TagBot: Spotlight file tagger
A while back we mentioned some ways to develop a meta-data tagging system for your files to be used together with, or even as a replacement for, standard hierarchical organization. TagBot is another tool designed to help make tagging easy. Basically it allows you to tag files either by dragging and dropping them onto the appropriate tag in a "Tag Palette" or by selecting the tag from a contextual menu. The tags themselves are added to the Spotlight comments of the files for searching, etc. Nick Santilli over at The Apple Blog has a nice little screencast that gives a good sense of how it works.TagBot is $20 and a demo (limited to six tags) is available for download.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Joakim Nyg? said 11:11AM on 5-25-2007
There is a free alternative called Punakea available from http://www.nudgenudge.eu/punakea
Looking forward to much improved Spotlight support in Leopard!
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sjk said 7:36PM on 5-28-2007
I think using Spotlight (Finder) comments for file tagging is risky because that data is saved in relatively volatile .DS_Store files that can be too easily lost. That type of metadata belongs directly in the filesystem (e.g. using extended attributes), IMO. Backup/restore utilities need to be properly aware of it, too. I personally won't use or recommend any OS X file tags until they're as reliable as file names.
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Jono said 3:44AM on 5-29-2007
TagBot is OK but at the moment feels like it's lacking some features. Support is poor though. I've sent a couple of emails to them & haven't heard back.
@sjk: When I've backed up tagged files to other computers, external disks etc. I've checked them & the Spotlight comments remain intact. I also use CronoSync to backup my files & the spotlight comments are copied over.
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Jono said 2:56PM on 5-29-2007
Actually scrub my last comment about their support being poor. Turned out they had replied but their emails were wrongly being flagged as spam & moved to my spam folder.
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sjk said 7:55PM on 6-01-2007
@Jono: You and other people may not have any problems with file tags stored as Spotlight (Finder) comments in .DS_Store files but it's not an implementation I'm confident enough to seriously rely on. I think it's still too easy for something to go wrong without realizing it before it's too late to fix (if at all). Seems worthwhile to inform people considering or already using apps like TagBot of issues they might not be aware of while hoping they won't ever have any trouble.
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Ryan Perry said 9:26AM on 6-06-2007
Hi sjk,
I'm Ryan, one of the implementors of TagBot. I understand your concerns about how Spotlight Comments are fairly loosely-bound to their respective files. Pete and I are working on a good way to make this less of an issue.
In the meantime, I don't think the situation is that bad. Many backup solutions, such as ChronoSync, mentioned above, and even rsync on the command line, respect Spotlight Comments. So for those of us concerned with backing up our tags that live in Spotlight Comments, there are definitely options available to us.
But you're right about the fact that people concerned with backing up their tagged files should be aware that their backup solution will need to respect Spotlight Comments in order to back up their tags. At least for now.
Like I said, Pete and I are working on a way to make this a better situation for future versions of TagBot (while still keeping tags in the Spotlight Comments). Also, I would expect that Time Machine, in Leopard, will respect Spotlight Comments, so that anyone using Time Machine won't have to worry about this issue at all.
I hope this assuages your concerns.
Cheers,
Ryan
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