Brett,
I've been trying for a while to download your Hazel script at http://bret.tk/e/Filer.rb . Nothing happens; a blank page just sits there. Perhaps the file needs to be archived before posting.
Could you please help use acquire the file.
Thanks,
Dennis
PS Apparently the site originates from Tokelau, is that correct?
Sorry, I forgot I killed the bret.tk server and didn't update that link. Updated now to point to http://d.pr/FE7q .
The tk domains are free, I just had one pointed to my local server as an all-purpose Dropbox redirect. I sold the Mini it was running on, though, and need to get that redirect back in place...
Thanks, Brett. I downloaded it but haven't used it yet.
You will want to know that clicking on that link to the script gives a 404 error because the period was inadvertently included in the URL. Others clicking on the link may figure it's just a bad link and abandon the script altogether.
Thanks again,
Dennis
Hi Brett,
thanks for your insight in your filing system. The mind map is especially usefull the get some good habits with tagging. I also listened to the MPU-Podcast about this topic, which gave me a good overview of the topic.
I really like your "shallow folder hierarchy" approach, because I, too, don't like the idea of one big pile. A have a few questions regarding this approach.
As I understand, you have 4 top-level folder, which you've setup manually. Inside these folders, the hierarchy is defined by this special supertag "target" (thus resembling the folder hierarchy?) and managed solely by Hazel I guess? Or how does this work? Please explain this supertag "target" concept a bit more. I think this is key to the "shallow folder hierarchy" approach and worth explaining in more detail, so dumb people like understand it and are able to implement it themselfs :). Maybe an anonymized real-world example for a new file and a new folder would be helpful? And please post your hazel script, I'm willing to implement this on my system as soon as I get the fiddling part.
Thanks for your help
Simon
Your understanding is correct. I tag "target" folders with the tag "°target" as well as a unique descriptor tag, such as "ThernIndustrial" (a main client folder). Then, within that folder, I can have multiple "°subtarget" tags, along with descriptors which only have to be unique within that target folder. Commonly things like "contracts," "mockups," etc.
I'll try to do a more elaborate demonstration of the system when I get a chance. Here's the script I'm using with Hazel. It looks for files with OpenMeta tags ("Tags" is not blank) and runs the script on them. If the file has a tag that matches a unique °target descriptor, it will check the other tags to see if it belongs in a subfolder. It will file it wherever it matches first. Keep in mind that this is just for general organization, you can still get to the file in a few keystrokes using the tags.
Very nice.
Might I suggest a piece of my own system (which I got from Ethan Schoonover): I have an Inbox folder, and a completely empty desktop. Hazel sweeps everything from my Desktop and from Downloads into the Inbox. It's out of sight, out of mind, until I'm ready to process my Inbox and decide where everything goes. I also don't show disks or anything else on the desktop, so I'm left with just a pretty desktop picture, and room to use GeekTool etc without running into any icons.
Now that I have two computers, I also sync my Inbox via Dropbox, so I always have the stuff that I haven't put away yet.
I used to do something similar, but found that keeping the items on my Desktop provided a strong incentive to file them regularly. I hate it when my Desktop starts to look like a n00b Windows user's desktop, so I feel a strong urge to get things sorted at the end of each day. Probably not an inclination for everybody, though. I do like the idea of combining downloads and work files, right now I sort both folders individually. Might have to try that.
Great article, and makes me feel a bit more comfortable in using OpenMeta to drive my storage behavior.
I'm not super technical, so I figured you may have answers to the following questions:
<ul>
<li>
Do you know if Spotlight indexes tags in secure sparseimages? I prefer to send scanned bills, etc into a secure sparseimage, but would also like to tag them. I think spotlight images those images, and that I can search the image when it is open, but I'm not 100% sure.
</li>
<li>
Do you know if tags are saved to Dropbox? Best I can tell, they are, but I'm not sure their either.
</li>
</ul>
Great insights on this approach.
How can you add tags to iCal event? I guess Gravity Apps Tags doesn't support iCal.
Very interesting to me!
I very much enjoy reports like this on methods people develop to overcome the silly limitations of strict hierarchies of folders as the only filing paradigm here.
I find this topic that interesting that I decided to spend four years of PhD time here ;-)
If you are interested in my research approach, please feel free to visit http://tagstore.org and drop me a line if you want to test the software. It is no replacement for productive usage but a research prototype which offers a cool tagging method. Once the method is proven to be of use, its functionality has to be included into operating systems and file systems. This is my long-term vision.
For now I need test users which are willing to test tagstore and giving feedback for research purposes.
And if you have URLs to similar reports like this, drop me a line too: tagstore@IST.TUGraz.at
Thanks for your time writing down your method!
Thanks for having shared how you organize your information, it is very interesting. However, I fear that what works for you might not work for others (such as me). Why ?
<ul>
<li>I guess that you have one machine (one desktop), whereas I have to deal with a work PC and a Mac at home. Most of the stuff is clearly either work or home, but not everything, especially the most interesting ones (for instance : your blog entry and this answer….).</li>
<li>Many of my work files are shared with colleagues, and I don’t have complete freedom in how to organize information. Some people like tags and some not, some people are very good at organizing files in a hierarchical structure (and most are not…).</li>
<li>Same at home : I share a lot of files with my wife and/or kids, who are not as interested as me in cleanly classifying information.</li>
<li>And now the worse : tags work well in single language environments, but not in multi-lingual ones. My personal stuff is in French, technical stuff is mostly English, and work projects are in both plus sometimes German. Even for my personal use I have trouble with deciding on one language for my tags, the same decision for a multi-lingual group of persons is virtually impossible.</li>
</ul>
But thanks again !
Pascal
Remarkbox