
Make tags not trees - filesystem based on tags instead of directories - 10ren
http://gregdetre.blogspot.com/2007/04/make-tags-not-trees-filesystem-idea.html
======
dlib
I've been thinking of pretty much the same thing ever since I got a Fujitsu
Scansnap scanner to digitize all the documents I have. Tagging is often more
appropriate to categorize my documents than hierarchical folders. Spotlight
comments may make up for this although they are a bit cumbersome. Right now I
only enter a comment for files I know I want to find back.

I have also considered Evernote to handle my document storage (and always
accessible, including search) accompanied with its tagging features but I
found it too slow and plain directories combined with Spotlight worked better
for me. These directories are in my Dropbox folder so I can access them
anywhere, some hierarchies are applied for Bank statements etc. but most files
are in one big folder. It's a pity there is no good searching in documents
from the Dropbox site.

~~~
gry
I want to be able to file documents in one place, but tag them for action.

I've been meaning to find which one of these fits my workflow:

Quicksilver tag plugin [<http://lifehacker.com/169971/metadata-as-a-filing-
system>]

TagBot [<http://bigrobotsoftware.com/>]

Punakea [<http://www.nudgenudge.eu/punakea>]

They all use Spotlight metadata to accomplish the tagging, Punakea seems the
most modal, which I like less.

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bayareaguy
The original goal of the Namesys filesystem (what eventually became ReiserFS)
was a similar attempt to replace fixed hierarchies with a form of tagging.
While the original paper is no longer accessible, I found a copy here:
[http://www.dmi.me.uk/blog/wp-
content/uploads/2007/11/reiser-...](http://www.dmi.me.uk/blog/wp-
content/uploads/2007/11/reiser-the-naming-system-venture.pdf)

------
gnosis
Some related projects:

<http://www.pytagsfs.org/Introduction>

<http://code.google.com/p/dhtfs/wiki/UserGuide>

<http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~marriaga/software/oyepa/>

<http://manishrjain.googlepages.com/flickrfs>

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oconnore
It seems like you could easily build a file browser like this on top of the
file system. That way you preserve operating system hierarchies while getting
all the benefits the article talks about. If you kept a database of tags
mapped to files, you could keep every file in the same folder, without
suffering from linear search of the directory.

But really I think the author just needs to discover 'locate'...

~~~
gregdetre
Yup! The question was: how might we move to a tag-based _infrastructure_ while
preserving our current _interface_ , so that all of our existing applications
and File/Open dialogs would still work.

~~~
cgcgcgcg
I've thought about this a little. The 3 options I could think of, along with
their issues:

1\. Using an OS's comments/metadata field to store tags and include them in a
desktop-search program -- the comments/metadata field is not compatible
between operating systems and can be lost while copying files between
filesystems or operating systems, so this is not a robust solution. And
currently only OS X supports comments/metadata field for all file types.

2\. Using a central database that does all the file-to-tag association -- this
may be 'less universal' or robust than #1; to be cross-platform this requires
someone to write a new program that plugs into a given OS and runs constantly
monitoring files in case you move or rename them.

3\. Storing the tags in the filename itself -- this will give you long, ugly
filenames, but should be the most robust because all of the modern OS's and
filesystems support 256 character filenames (usually including the path) which
gives plenty of room for a number of tags separated by some kind of delimiter
character e.g. filename###tag1#tag2#tag3.ext . This would need just a simple
tag-management program to help you tag files (and can function as a nice file
explorer as well, like <http://www.nudgenudge.eu> and its clone
<http://lunarfrog.com/taggedfrog>) which does not need to be constantly
running, and could use whatever desktop-search program to use the files.

Therefore at the moment I think #3 would be the most robust and versatile
solution. Then someone just has to make a frontend for file renaming and tag-
database storage/rebuilding from filenames/viewing...

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epochwolf
I love this idea but plain tags are simply not enough. I still have a need for
hierarchy. If I can have tags like "programming/ruby" and
"school/2008-fall/ecology" be organized like mini-filesystems I would be
completely sold.

~~~
gregdetre
Hey Epochwolf,

I hope I'm not misunderstanding you, but I think that's exactly what I was
trying to suggest in the article. The idea was that you could have:

\- school/2008-fall/ecology

and that would be identical to:

\- ecology/2008-fall/school \- 2008-fall/ecology/school

etc. To put this broadly in terms of data structures, our current filesystems
use an ordered list, whereas I'm proposing using an (unordered) set.

g

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windsurfer
What's wrong with the traditional folder full of symlinks? This article
doesn't talk about symbolic links at all, and they would solve all the
"problems" discussed here.

~~~
moe
_This article doesn't talk about symbolic links at all, and they would solve
all the "problems" discussed here._

The only problem symlinks can address would that of having files available
under multiple locations. But that's still strictly hierarchical and bound to
become a maintenance nightmare soon (just think about file renames).

Tag based filesystems are indeed an interesting idea and a somewhat logical
next step from the traditional hierarchical fs + desktop search tandem that is
commonplace now.

~~~
ThinkWriteMute
Never going to happen. Far too many people like the person you replied too are
going to scream that we're just not using the regular tools 'right'.

~~~
TomasSedovic
True -- on the desktop. But most web-based storages are doing this already
(gmail, flickr, delicious).

I do believe that desktops will lose their significance over time and the web
experience will be the next thing.

And then it may even migrate to the OS itself, because it will be the familiar
thing.

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xtho
Haven't there been some efforts in implementing "database filesystems"? Wasn't
this supposed to be a key feature of Windows Vista?

~~~
julio_the_squid
An FS that supported indexing and querying of files through metadata was a key
feature of BeOS, actually.

And yes, MS claimed their project, 'WinFS', would be a key part of Vista (aka
Longhorn), but then dropped it in 2006.

~~~
agbell
Seems like MS has had go at this problem many times since 1990 and never
cracked it.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinFS#Development>

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j_baker
Windows 7 has essentially added a much more basic version of this called
"libraries".

