this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2024
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Asklemmy
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Convert from folders to labels/tags.
The folder system was based off of physical folders and cabinets, which has limitations that don’t exist in the digital space. Labels/tagging offers so much more usable metadata.
Directories are nice because they easily and clearly filter information in a human way and they naturally build a tree that can be parsed quickly by a person.
I like the desktop metaphor, because it's how I think.
Younger generations that have never seen a filing cabinet and are only accustomed to apps on phones don’t really use folder trees. It’s surprising at first when you encounter it.
It’s like that save icon… no one has seen a floppy disk in decades, it doesnt mean anything to most people.
I've been doing a lot with organizing my data in Obsidian, and I've found utility in having both folders and metadata. Using the Dataview plugin makes proper metadata fields really powerful; you basically turn your collection of markdown files into a NoSQL DB. Having a folder structure is handy too though because you can have different metadata templates applied to new files in different folders with the Templater plugin.
Obviously that is dependent on a fairly specific workflow, but I think it's worth considering "why not both?"
Like tags n artist labels for mp3 files?
How is it done for other things?
Gmail uses labels instead of folders.
More like paperless service. Instead of having folders, you’d have everything in one place (sure you can put them in folders) and add tags to files. That way a file can have multiple tags, and be searched by those tags, instead of having the file in multiple folders if needed, basically duplicates, which isn’t space efficient.
Why not just use soft links instead?
Tags allow set operations (union, intersection, etc) that are impossible with a tree based file hierarchy, even when using softlinks.
For basic usage, sure, you could make a folder for every tag you make and softlink everything into that folder to make it have said tag. But what if you now want all files tagged as "rent" but that are not tagged to your current landlord? You'd have to get the list of files in the "rent" folder and subtract form that list the list of files in the "" folder.
If you make tags have an order I'd even argue they are strictly superior to a tree hierarchy. Edit: that means that there is not a single operation you can do in a tree hierarchy that you can not do with those ordered tags.
That's true, but since we're stuck with the file/folder system for all intents and purposes, you should be able to replicate that behaviour by making those tags part of the filenames (like rent_lease_landlordX.pdf) and searching for (parts of) filenames instead. But yes, a dedicated system would of course be preferable.
Are we stuck though? IMAP supports folders, but Gmail ignores that and uses tags instead.
The filename idea is not bad, but you restrict the ability to give your files meaningful names.
Sorry, I mistakenly assumed you were talking about disk storage - sure, if you're designing your own solution, definitely use tags! Although the ones Gmail uses aren't really portable in my experience, so you're forced to use their mail client. That, however, is pretty much unavoidable if you're putting a new spin on established protocols like they're doing - maybe those changes will get picked up by other clients, maybe they won't, who knows?
No worries.
For what it's worth, I think even for disk storage tags would be better - but we don't have a filesystem that supports it yet. As you rightly pointed out, widespread support is a prerequisite to widespread adoption.
Like how does one actually do this? Is this some new feature in windows/linux I was never aware of?
Your music app probably supports labels/tags
Your photo organization app probably supports labels.
Most email clients supports labels in some way. Connecting a mail client to gmail usually ends up with a bad folder tree though.
Ntfs doesn’t. I don’t know what file systems do.