Tagamac

Although not strictly tagging software, Quicksilver, one of the two best application launchers and all-around Mac enhancements (the other being LaunchBar), has been released as open sourced software to the general community. Although the developer has been promising this for quite some time, that it’s actually been accomplished is quite exciting; hopefully some talented programmer with lots of time on their hands will pick up the project and provide a much-need bug fix and overall revamp. Quicksilver is a beautiful piece of software, and one of the staples in many peoples’ do-it-yourself file system tagging systems.

If you yourself are interested in taking a peek at the source code, it is freely available from the BlackTree Google Code site. The current BlackTree release of Quicksilver remains a beta, although it has been updated for 10.5.

Big Robot Software has posted a notice that while TagBot is mostly compatible with Leopard, showing tagged files does not yet function. If you’ve upgraded to Leopard, you’ll still be able to use TagBot to apply and import tags, but until Big Robot is able to release a full bug fix, double clicking a tag in the list will be pretty pointless.

They point out that the incompatibility has no harmful side effects, so you can continue to use TagBot with impunity; you’ll just need to browse your tags some other way (for instance, through the much speedier Spotlight).

Tagamac is launching a new section of the site! Called “Mac tagging”, this section will house articles and more focused on tagging specifically in Mac OS X with desktop software (as opposed to the articles about general tagging principles in the General section or newsbites about software updates).

To kick things off, I’ve got a special treat for you: an interview with Tom Andersen, one of the two developers of Leap, a new application for tagging your file system. I don’t generally go in for interviews, but the recently released Leap public beta made me pretty curious and I decided to head to the source. Tom reveals where Leap is heading before the final 1.0 release, explains why you need to ditch your complex Finder hierarchies, and describes why Cover Flow in Leopard is not actually your friend. [read more...]

The developers of the tag-based PDF file library Yep have just released a public beta of an exciting piece of new file system tagging software called Leap. Leap bills itself as a tag-based Finder replacement, and features an interface that is strongly reminiscent of Yep, but also uses a kind of bastardized child of Spotlight and the Leopard Source list. In a way Leap is a specialized front-end to Spotlight combined with the tag-based file library features of Yep. It also includes some very cool previewing features (the loupe in particular is a nice touch). I’ll be writing a more in-depth look at Leap in the near future, but why wait? Go download it for yourself and see what it’s all about.

Although final pricing has not yet been announced, the developers are offering a free copy of Leap (when released) to anyone who purchases a Yep license during the public beta. I’m pretty jazzed to try Leap, since it’s about time a decent file system tagging system hit the market. Whether Leap can truly replace the Finder, of course, remains to be seen, but hopefully Leap will at the very least encourage other developers to try a few new things when it comes to file system tagging.

The fact is that people usually want to tag their files, but unfortunately file system tagging is still one of the most difficult and onerous tagging activities. Although there are a number of different tools now to choose from, if you want to use tags in your file system you will likely need to roll your own solution to some extent.

There are two main categories of file system tagging software: software intended to help you tag your files, and software that you can use to roll your own solution. Keep in mind that the focus of this series of articles is on helping you find software; coming up with a workflow will still be up to you (although I’ll be publishing some workflow advice down the road). [read more...]

Although tagging for productivity can be fun, tagging any old file on their computer is one of the main things people want to be able to do (right up there with tagging photos). If you’re into tagging your files, then you’ve probably run across two different ways to do it: file system tagging and file libraries. I’ll get to specific software in the next article; for now, here’s the differences between the two.

Wether you use file system tagging or a file library depends mostly on personal preference. Both have their pros and cons, and both have a selection of different software available (although file system tagging still doesn’t have any standout fantastic options). [read more...]

Punakea has been updated to version 0.3.2. This minor update fixes a contextual menu bug and improves compatibility with Leopard.

You can find the full details in the release notes.

Everyone’s favorite free file system tagger Punakea received a minor update today. Punakea allows you to tag any item in the Finder using Spotlight comments. It features several quick and easy way to add tags, a tag cloud for browsing them, and saved searches (smart folders). If you’re a hard-core tagger, it will even allow you to ditch folders all together for your tagged items.

The update includes minor bug fixes for the most oft-reported crashes and increased Leopard compatibility. For details, see the release notes.