Tagging Files in OS X
I’ve been tagging files in OS X 10.4 (Tiger) for quite a while but got into it in a pretty big way lately. After looking round at different tagging tutorials, software & methods here’s the things I’ve tried plus which methods I prefer.
In the past I’ve tagged mostly Illustrator & Photoshop files by selecting them, & typing Command +I (or right click & selecting ‘Get Info’). Then added tags in the Spotlight Comments section. For example if I’m working on 10 icons for a client I’ll have one Illustrator file containing all 10 icons (rather than creating a new Illustrator file for each icon). So I’ll tag the Illustrator file with names/descriptions of the icons in there (e.g. document, file, speaker, audio, plant, tree, football, ball etc.)
It’s worked OK but when searching for things in Spotlight it usually returns a fair bit of useless stuff not relating to what I’m searching for.
I have some Illustrator files called Documents.ai, Documents 2.ai & mAqua Documents.ai which contain lots of different document icons. I’ll type in documents .ai in the spotlight search pane which will turn up the files I’m looking for, but will also return a lot of crap that I don’t want.
Add a Prefix
So I’ve been looking round at different tagging tutorials, software & methods. It seems the thing to do it to prefix the tags with a delimiter so that when searching for the tags you won’t get a lot of irrelevant crap. From what I’ve read a popular prefix to use it the @ symbol. But this still tends to return some irrelevant results.
Using the & symbol has much better results.
Tagging Methods & Software
Quicksilver plus the Tagging Plugin:
Very good. Select the files you want to tag on the desktop, in a Finder window or wherever, press a hot key (specified in Quicksilver triggers) & add the tags. You can also specify a prefix symbol to add in Quicksilver preferences so you don’t have to type ‘&’ it each time, Quicksilver will add it for you.
TagBot:
TagBot is a fairly new app that gives you a tag palette on the desktop.
You can show & hide it from the menu bar or keyboard shortcut. Create new tags in the palette. Tag files by right clicking on them in the Finder, or by dragging them onto TagBot’s tag palette. Tag a folder & all it’s contents. Shows a tag count in the palette. Automatically adds the ‘&’ prefix when adding tags.
Automator Workflow:
Create a workflow to tag the files. Then right click on the files you want to tag, select the Automator workflow & a box pops up to add the tags (including your chosen prefix).
This works well. The only problem I have with it is that as I’m not the best/fastest at typing so I use TextExpander automate things & use abbreviations for common things I type (including tags). But TextExpander doesn’t work in the Add Spotlight Comments box.
Default Folder X:
Adds a box for Spotlight comments to all save dialog boxes so you can tag your files as you save them. Works with TextExpander but you have to add the prefix to each tag.
Punakea:
(Early beta software). Tag files by dropping them onto the browser window, by dragging them to the popout drawer at the side of the screen & dropping them onto existing tags or in the drop area to create new tags, or by dropping files on the dock icon. At the moment you can’t tag folders & it creates it’s own type of tag (e.g. ###begin_tags###@documents;###end_tags###) that aren’t compatible with the typical way you tag files with Automator, Quicksilver & Default Folder X. But apparently new versions will allow you to tag folders & set your own prefix.
(Update: Punakea has now been updated to 0.3).
With content filter (show documents only for a specific tag, images only, bookmarks etc. Sidebar for quick links to tags. Show info on selected files. Tag sets.
Searching for Tagged Files
Spotlight:
Just hit Command +Space & search for the tags (or Command +F to search in a Finder window).
Can also search for files tagged with Quicksilver, TagBot & Default Folder X.
Quicksilver:
Type the tag name & hit return once it shows up in Quicksilver.
This will create a Spotlight Finder search window.
If you close the window the search will be lost. But if you click on the smart folder icon in the title bar (next to the name of the tag) & drag it onto the desktop it creates a smart folder for the search.
TagBot:
Double click on a tag in the tag palette & it will create a Spotlight Finder search window (Same as Quicksilver). Can also save tags a smart folders by right clicking on them in the tag palette.
Punakea:
Click on a tag in the browser window. Drag a tag off of the browser onto the desktop to create a smart folder for that tag.
TextExpander:
I use TextExpander to abbreviate common things I type. So I’ve made abbreviations to help searching. For example in Spotlight you can narrow down search results to folders, images, applications etc. by typing kind:folder, kind:image, kind:application etc. (See a full list of kind keywords here). So instead of typing those I’ll type kf which will expand to kind:folder, kii will expand to kind:image etc… You can also create abbreviations for common tags you use.
The standard tag icon in Quicksilver is pretty ropey.
So I created a custom one.
If you want to use this one download it from here. Close Quicksilver & go to ~/Library/Application Support/Quicksilver/PlugIns, find the File Tagging Module.qsplugin. Right click on it & select Show Package Contents. In Contents/Resources/ replace Tag.png with the new image (make sure you rename it to Tab.png).
(Apparently they’ll be using one of these officially for the tagging module in the future).
Windows Vista & Tagging
I have to use Windows now & then for testing icons, web sites & Windows software. So I thought the new instant search & tagging in Vista would be a good thing, & on par with it in OS X. I just expected to be able to tag any file in Vista like you can on Macs, but then found you can only tag certain files.
It could have been great & it couldn’t have been much more effort when making Vista to enable tagging any file? So this looks like a missed opportunity in Vista.
Quicksilver
Custom Tag Icons for Quicksilver
Default Folder X
Punakea
TagBot
Spotlight
Automator
TextExpander
Tags: automator, metadata, productivity, quicksilver, spotlight, tagging