Tagamac

MarsEdit, the excellent desktop blog editing software from Red Sweater Software, was updated to version 2.1 this morning, an update particularly exciting because one of the major new features is a true tagging interface for blogs running WordPress or MovableType. Although WordPress bloggers could in the past use the keywords field to tag their posts, MarsEdit now features a standard token-based tag field and remembers tags you’ve entered in the past in order to provide auto-completion. 2.1 also introduces the ability to search locally stored blog posts, and includes the ability, flawed though it may be thanks WordPress and MovableType’s issues, to save drafts to the server instead of just to your local machine.

The update is available via the in-program auto-updating or from the MarsEdit homepage. For more information, see the 2.1 blog announcement or the release notes.

The MailTags 2.2 beta for Leopard has been updated to public beta 4. This release removes Gmail IMAP tagging support (tags on Gmail IMAP messages will only be stored locally) because of Gmail’s nonstandard IMAP implementation, adds red tags back for tags which are not synched to IMAP accounts, and features a number of other improvements and interface tweaks.

For more information and to download, see the MailTags for Leopard page. As always, keep in mind that this is beta software and will not run on OS 10.4.

Gene Smith, a consultant specializing in information architecture, just published Tagging: People-Powered Metadata for the Social Web. Although the book appears to focus primarily on how to design a collaborative tagging system online, it may well be of interest if you just want to know more about the current thoughts on tagging as a social phenomenon.

I’ve ordered my copy and will post more about it when it arrives. For more information about the book, check out the Tagging companion website. The book is currently for sale through Amazon.com (I’m not sure whether or not you can find it in brick and mortar stores).

Reinvented Software continues to keep up the hard work, releasing version 2.0.5 of Together today. This minor update brings a slew of bug fixes and several minor features, such as the option not to show the library name in the shelf tab, View Encrypted Item and Hide Encrypted Item commands, the ability to size the Source list much wider (depending on window size), and the addition of a crash reporter.

For more details and to download the new version, see the Together release notes (you can also update via the in-program auto-updater).

Mariner Software today released StoryMill 3.0 at MacWorld. StoryMill (previously called Avenir) adds a new timeline view for tracking scenes in chronological time as well as narrative order, provides vastly improved customizable export templates for exporting text from anywhere in the project, integrates scene text and chapter text, and like Avenir before it still uses tags and smart views for powerful and simple organization. If you are a writer, I strongly recommend StoryMill; although its structure is most conducive for fiction and creative non-fiction, it is an excellent piece of software and provides powerful features that can help with any writing project (not to mention that as of its release, no other creative writing software on the market for Mac has anything like its timeline view). StoryMill is available as a download version for $44.95, and owners of Avenir can upgrade for $14.95. A boxed version is forthcoming, and will cost $49.95.

In related news, if you’ve been wondering why there haven’t been many updates to Tagamac over the last week or two, feel free to blame StoryMill; I was contracted by Mariner to write the all-new documentation for the program and as the deadline approached it ate up the free time that would otherwise have gone towards a new article or two. (Plus there weren’t any tagging software updates, so I haven’t had any news to post.) Now that sweet freedom beckons, however, I’m hoping to bring you some more articles on tagging to start the year off right and help you meet that New Year’s resolution to tag more. You made that resolution, right?

If you’ve been waiting to shell out for OmniFocus in the hopes that you could try the competition, you’re in luck! Things, the hot new GTD app from Cultured Code, is now available as a completely public preview. Head over to the Things website to download it if you want to see for yourself how cool tagging and GTD are together. Additionally, pricing info has been announced! Things will be released in Spring 2008 for $49, or $39 for members of the mailing list who sign up before January 31st. Keep in mind that Things is still not feature-complete, but the latest preview versions are very stable; I’ve been using it as my primary task manager since shortly before the limited public preview was released and have been very happy with it.

I’ve written a page in the now-public Things wiki with a real-world tagging example if you would like some help designing your tag cloud for Things. Additionally, you can still watch my Things screencast if you’d like to see it in action before diving in yourself. Please note that some very cool features have been added (particularly the ability to link to email messages and other documents) since I recorded the screencast, though.

The third public beta for MailTags 2.2 has been released, bringing the venerable Mail.app plugin ever closer to a Leopard release. This version of the beta is much more feature-complete than past versions and is well worth upgrading to if you’re running Leopard. It also provides a new, modular approach to some of MailTags’ features (notably calendar and event handling). The developer expects to release the full version around the middle of January after squashing any outstanding bugs in this beta.

For more information and to download the update, visit the MailTags for Leopard beta page.

Together, one of the top three tag-based file libraries for Mac (unfortunately 10.5-only), has been updated to version 2.0.4. This minor update includes better performance when working with tags in the tag browser, case-sensitive tag renaming, the ability to hide an item’s extension via contextual menu, improved performance for displaying icons (particularly on single-CPU machines), and a number of bug fixes.

For more details, see the release notes. Additionally, the developer has launched a support forum for Together (and his other piece of software, Feeder). Email support will still be available, but if you’d like to seek help from other users, the support forum is an excellent place to find it.