Metadata Tag System

Help & Support
1

I've been brainstorming the best possible system for assimilating, storing, and finding digital information on Windows 10. Especially for project management, and Digital Asset Management (DAM).

Researched all the possible apps I could find and tried out a couple.
What I like is metadata, because when the file gets moved, its searchable information goes with it. And anything that can read metadata is compatible with this information. (The reason I stick with Windows is compatibility).

So I've thought up of a systematic metadata tag system for all my digital assets; with the intent that this same system serve me for the rest of my life, assuming it's rock solid, and a better one never comes along, so that the time investment to build it is invested in once only. It's meant to save time, not spend it, although it's just a passion project right now.

Tags
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  • Seven strict categories. They are ordered from most relevant to least relevant, so search filters will populate lists by relevance, top to bottom. The categories stay in the same spots.
  • Always three letters, always uppercase, for consistency. Always yellow, but I would like categories to have their own colours.
  • Each category has a choice of tag. Every file will have all seven tags.
  • Tag alphabetical order doesn't matter, only relevance.
  • They can be searched by 1 - all 7 tags, or combinations of tags. And by filtering (hiding) unwanted files by tag.
  • In searches and filtering, will be mixed with the other file data, like age, rating, etc.
  • The point of custom tags is to build a system that works with my personal logic.

...

I would love for Dopus and the third party scripts to be equipped for this task, but they are not.
Why?
-Metadata needs to be enabled to be accessed, instead of always being readily available. (Tags are all inside one little box, within a bunch of other metadata that often just gets in the way. Or you have to trigger a script in order to use it. Or the metadata pane isn't currently open.)
-Tags have to be typed instead of being buttons that can be clicked (toggled on/off).
-Typing needs the manual semi-colon and space between tags.
-There are no tag colours or grouping.
-Tags can't be kept in their column (my personal categories that I want to keep)
-The tags column can only filter by whatever order the tags are in.
-Saved searches don't have clickable buttons to enable/disable tags, and you have to type out proper syntax instead of a guided GUI, putting the tags in AND / OR / HIDE groups.
-Saved searches are good, and the search boxes, but I have to manually type out changes to my search, like buttons and drop down lists were never invented. (What are computer programmer's obsession with command prompts?)
-There is no automatic tagging. I would want a project tag to be added to a file when put in a particular folder. And a "picture" tag to be added to all picture files etc.
-There is no automatic changing of tags. I can't click on a button anywhere to declare items in a folder as "finished" etc. , and the system would remove the "work in progress" tags and add "finished" tags, then ask if I'm monitoring this project or not, and change that tag. (etc.)
-No "add metadata" system. You select your file/s then trigger this dialog, then choose what tags get added to the files. As in: each category gets one choice only and you go through and click on the buttons, choosing your tags. like it's an all you can eat buffet, then accept.
-New files would always trigger this dialogue.

So right now I'm leaning toward keeping my system in Dopus (I have to rebuild all my tags) and going back to using Eagle for project management. I don't like having two tag systems, but this is what I got to work with. I'll let you know how I get on with it.

I like how the Dopus forum has a mature, clickable tag system, that actually resembles...tags:
Tags 1
Tags 2
Tags 3

But not in the software that the forum WAS BUILT TO MANAGE
Laugh Cry

That's computer programmers for ya.
They are going to be the death of us all.

Hey, did you know markdown is markup, and you use plain text to make plain text not plain text.

Markdown
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2

2 remarks here (even though I didn't read it all) :

  • The length of this post really suggests that what you want is something that should be handled by a dedicated piece of software.
  • This seems to be very specific to your view on what you want to do. Very likely, this will clash with what orher people would want with metadata management.

Both those points make me think the best solution if not found on the market would probably be to "make it yourself". As I didn't go into all the details, I can't say if this task is easy or not and to what extent scripting knowloedge would be required.

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3

Well, I had my heart set on managing everything from Dopus, so I've been seeing if I can.
It's good with basically everything except for tagging; it's behind on that, even with scripts, it's just too slow and clunky.
I'll never be able to write a script that's better than what's already available, so I will try out my hybrid idea. Using Dopus for everything except for projects.

I've even been seeing about Dopus for Home Inventory Management, (because of Dopus's searching abilities). The only apps that are good for that HM a subscription service. LOL good luck getting me to pay for the same thing over and over again for no reason.

4

Frankly if you're looking for something that bespoke that will last your entire life, it's probably a piece of software you'll need to (at least in part) create yourself, then at most have Directory Opus interface with it.

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5

I have develope an own dynamic data management system that search metadatas for every file and move it to library place. It work fine at this time and i use 5 synology diskstation and a database on it. It is not ready at this time because i develope it my own selft 1 person and that why it take a long time. What it do is great for me and a big help. I have a looked on many Software for that but nothing will do what i make.

Directory Opus is a great tool that can more as filemanagement. My Opus is working for all kind and have many symbols that i can switch in or out, every own Design for any kind of files.

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6

Sorry if I missed it, but do you use these tags now, and if so, how? Other than file types with metadata built in, how do you tag them? And how do you avoid other programs overwriting them?

Windows does have some features that could help with this, like Alternative Data Streams. No proper tagging system though. You could use a database but it would risk getting de-synced if you ever did anything outside of DOpus.

The simplest option might be to just put the tags in the file name. You could probably make buttons that do that too.

1 Like
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I'm brand new to these things. My quote is, "After discovering Raindrop for Chrome, I've developed an appetite for tagging, and now everything needs to be tagged."

So forums are an appeal to experience; I find that I often learn something new or gain a solution to a problem I would have never solved on my own. Putting out a probe about a topic never comes back empty.

I'm only at the brainstorming stage. Been experimenting with various options, and especially with Dopus. It's the cats ass, so the more I can use it the better.

I think the foundation to a system is crucial. I need to invest the most energy at this stage, which is an investment into the future. Our time is our most precious commodity, so saving seconds here and there, a thousand times a thousand times over, adds up.

My short list right now is Eagle for Windows and/or Notion (Looking at everything on the shelf before choosing the best one, to avoid buyers remorse). Trying to avoid piling on redundancies, or moving to another software that can only accomplish the same tasks in the same way, which makes the move a curse instead of a blessing. Seeing as a time and money investment was made, but without a return (If it's not broken don't fix it). Most of the normie software like Google and Microsoft products can handle a lot of this without any specialized DAM, CRM or networking features; but it's that file tagging prize I'm after right now.

Much of this genre of software is for businesses with teams. That is a problem, as someone like me doesn't need the team aspect, so that all becomes bloat that gets in the way. Finding and sorting assets is a huge benefit to project workflow, which is why I would prefer to stick close to Dopus when working. If and when I suddenly decide I need to find something and find it right now, my mouse is pixels away from the Everything search, filters, saved queries etc. If it's harder to interact with than that, I probably won't utilize it. The pain point for me is that Dopus's tagging is stuck in 1980, and custom tags is where the magic is, I think.

Ya I just recently learned about alternate data streams. That looks useful.

Desync is another thing that makes it more challenging to decide. I don't want to have to manually update my progress. Too much time spent with housekeeping. I'm looking at SyncBack Pro, that might help with that.

8

Ya true. Notion is looking highly customizable. That's right up my alley. Although that AI Assistant cringe can GTFO and never come back.

My business is file content orientated, not necessarily with notes or things like that. But Notion did recently come out with a 'Projects' feature that looks good so far.

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If you're looking at Notion, have you looked at Obsidian? I recently switched from Evernote after being a paying customer for several years.

Free for personal use
Plain text (with markdown sytax)
Tagging
Your vault (which is basically the folder you keep all your stuff in) is local meaning you can use Dopus and Everything to find stuff as well as editing notes in a text editor

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@utf-16
Thanks for the Obsidian reference. I wasn't aware of this product category and Obsidian looks like a prime example of it, and a tool I can use.

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11

I had passed over Obsidian because I didn't understand how it can help me.
But your mention made me look at it again and I'm liking it. I'll see how I can use it. Thanks for the heads up.

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I can DM you info on how I use it if it's of interest (primarily as a digital filing cabinet as I've tried to go paperless).

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Ok. I'm not decided yet, but that sounds interesting. Are there any youtube videos that showed you what to do?

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@utf-16
Thanks for pointing out Obsidian.
I use Google Keep for shopping and to do lists, but I have been looking for something that can easily document more complex tasks so that when I need to to do it again I don't have to try to remember how I did it before.

I worked through the Getting Started help this morning.
There is even a AsciiMath plugin available. AsciiMath markup is easy, can be exported to HTML documents and will render properly in the Dopus Viewer Pane.

Edit Note: An Obsidian Note with AsciiMath code exported as a pdf renders the AsciiMath correctly provided the AsciiMath plugin is installed. And that of course renders properly in the Dopus viewer pane.

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15

@ASUNDER @David

I use Obsidian not only for notes but as a document management system.

Some years ago I decided I wanted to go paperless and I found a blog on going paperless with some hints and tips and adopted some info from there. When I was looking for the same on using Obsidian, I found he'd written some articles on Obsidian too Practically Paperless with Obsidian – Jamie Todd Rubin.

I currently use the Minimal theme with the following plugins:

Auto Note Mover
Automatically moves the active notes to their respective folders according to rules you define.

Dataview
Lets you run SQL-like queries on your vault

Enhancing export
Export notes to HTML, PDF etc

Folder notes
Lets you attach notes to folders so that you can click on the name of a folder to open the note. You can then paste in this Dataview code to return a table of contents (which auto-updates) of that folder

There needs to be 3 backticks round this with the opening set followed by the word Dataview but the forum uses them for code blocks


TABLE

FROM "MyFolderName"

SORT [file.name](http://file.name) ASC

Hider
Hides UI elements

Minimal theme settings
Allows you to change fonts and features in the Minimal theme

Multi tag
Adds a tag to multiple notes at once

Omnisearch
search engine, OCR

Tag wrangler
Rename, merge, toggle and search tags from the tag pane

TextExtractor
OCRs images and PDFs

Update modified date
Updates the frontmatter modified date field when you modify your note.

YouTube:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-1Nqb2waX4Vba6QDVS5rhnSb9pZGTO4b&si=_u5xHYLZkrEiLUhg

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3NaIVgSlAVLHty1-NuvPa9V0b0UwbzBd&si=ci8t-BkZ6zn7R-om

https://youtube.com/@leanproductivity?si=9mOKPeTAXdjIYMTv

2 Likes
16

That looks powerful. I'm going to give it a go, but my to-do list has ballooned; I've been doing everything wrong. I'll have to shelve this for now.

1 Like
17

So I recently discovered that you can put emojis into filenames and that actually works using search engines.

It works with Dopus search, filters, and 'Everything' search tool.
So this could be a sneaky way of doing tagging on files.

In this example I put a keyboard emoji at the end of these two. If I only put that keyboard emoji in a search, then those two will be the result. It actually works.
Emojis

I have no idea where iconagraphy fits in the Dewey Decimal system, so I think putting emojis at the end of file names would be better than the beginning. And not sure how that works for publishing files to the internet and sharing them.

Also Dopus doesn't respect my (Windows + Period) macro for some reason, but if I do the shortcut by hand it works. Dunno.

...

Previously I had asked if there was any other secrets that people wanted to let me know.
... Well I'll give you one last chance to cough up the goods, confess that you were holding out on me, cause I just found it. The project manager that is the standard of all project managers, and I'm the last one to know about it, as usual.

:angry:

you see this face. ya buddy, that's a grim face
You guys knew about this program and didn't tell me.

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Disregard what I said about my emoji macro.
I had it temporarily suspended off of my keyboard. It works fine.