Yojimbo 2.0 is a $20 upgrade for existing users, and costs $39 for new users. If you purchased Yojimbo on or after January 1, 2009, version 2.0 is a free upgrade. The program now requires OS 10.5.7 or higher (including 10.6). If you’ve been looking for an easy way to store notes, URLs, PDFs, application license information, passwords, and much more without the overhead and complexity of other solutions, Yojimbo has always been a great option, and with version 2.0′s improvements to the tag browsing system, I highly recommend giving Yojimbo’s free 30 day demo a try. For more information about the update, see the release notes.

Leap 2 is available for $59 with a 10 day demo, or $19 for owners of Leap 1 (to get the upgrade price, install Leap 2, launch it, and click the “Upgrade Now…” button for instructions). For more information, see the release notes.

This turns out to be only half the story, however, and should you be a developer or user considering OpenMeta (or Tags) as a solution for your tagging needs you need to use it with eyes open. Although the technology OpenMeta uses is completely on the level, the way in which it achieves instant Spotlight availability is based on exploiting Spotlight’s preferential treatment of metadata that is identified as coming from Apple. This doesn’t mean that you should swear off OpenMeta and Tags (I’m still using them), but before you go tag-crazy you definitely need to consider the risks.

How does it do that?!

OpenMeta uses a technology called extended attributes to store and retrieve tags. Extended attributes (or xattr as they are often referred to by those in love with tech-speak) are a way for third parties or users themselves to add arbitrary metadata to files. Using extended attributes for tagging is entirely legitimate; the reason that they haven’t been used for generic tagging software before is that extended attributes are not indexed by Spotlight unless the program creating them registers them via a Spotlight importer, which means that the only program that will know about the special tagging extended attribute will be the program that created the tag.

Unfortunately, any given file can only have one Spotlight importer, which is usually the program that created the file. Clearly it isn’t feasible for a piece of tagging software to convince all the various developers whose files might be tagged to add support for their tags in their importers, so the typical route for adding information to the Spotlight index is out. (Thanks to Michael Tsai for clarifying this for me.)

OpenMeta gets around the Spotlight problem by identifying its tag attribute as coming from Apple. Spotlight automatically indexes extended attributes placed in the Apple namespace, and OpenMeta exploits this by quietly writing its tags into that namespace.

This is a problem because Apple doesn’t support other programs writing information to their namespace (the expected and sanctioned behavior is for programs to create their own unique namespace). Since Apple doesn’t support it, OpenMeta may or may not continue to work the way that it does now with subsequent updates to the operating system, and tag data may or may not be preserved.

OpenMeta (although possibly not Tags) does take steps to ensure that your information is backed up. In the event of extended attributes getting wiped for a file (which can occasionally happen if other programs are buggy in their use of extended attributes), OpenMeta stores backups of your tags in your Library folder. This, however, does not address the problem that OpenMeta is injecting information into an area that is reserved for Apple’s use.

So should I use OpenMeta?

Whether you should use OpenMeta is a question both developers and users should ask themselves before blindly adopting the technology. On the one hand, it has significant benefits and at long last offers a standardized way for programs to share tagging information with one another and the system without relying on Spotlight comments. On the other, the program is exploiting unsupported aspects of the operating system and can thus offer no promises about its future viability.

Michael Tsai of EagleFiler fame is the first developer I know of to have been willing to frankly discuss the downsides and specifics of OpenMeta’s implementation, and over the course of a long and wending forum discussion he recommends that OpenMeta change its focus from storing tags in an Apple namespace to storing tags in an OpenMeta-specific namespace available to all tagging programs with duplicate storage in the Apple namespace offered as an option for those to whom Spotlight integration is worth the potential downsides. For developers, I agree with Michael. Were I developing an app of my own that used tagging, I would be leery of relying on a framework that forced me to write to an unsupported namespace with no alternative, supported method for data storage.

For users the question of whether or not to use OpenMeta or Tags is more a matter of personal needs and preferences. If their functionality feels as much like magic to you as it does to me and you’re comfortable with using technology that isn’t officially supported by Apple, then by all means tag away. If you are using tags in a mission critical environment, you may want to think carefully about whether OpenMeta is for you but for most users the risk of data loss is extremely low.

Although I haven’t created a full-fledged system yet, I’ve slowly been developing a use for Tags which uses tags as supplemental information, pairing it with Hazel where I can to enable automatic sorting of tagged files into my standard folder hierarchy. I wouldn’t recommend using OpenMeta to try and replace a folder structure, but by utilizing it to add information I can have a richer store of metadata without being hamstrung if an OS update for some reason broke OpenMeta.

Whether OpenMeta will work for you or not should be based not just upon how great the product seems but also how comfortable you are with the methods being used behind the scenes.

My hope is that as OpenMeta and Tags gain traction, Apple will finally take note and address the problem of third party extended attributes having no way to get into the Spotlight index. Whether that happens or not, however, is impossible to predict; time will tell if OpenMeta is ahead of the curve or if it will ultimately go the route of SpotMeta.

For more information about the specifics of how OpenMeta does its thing, I highly recommend reading some of Michael Tsai’s posts in the aforementioned Ironic Software forum discussion. Although the thread ranges pretty far afield, some of the early information offers a very specific look at what OpenMeta is doing, and there are some interesting suggestions for alternative ways the software could go about achieving its various goals.

HoudahSpot 2 requires Leopard, and is available for $25 with a 14 day free trial. Like other Spotlight enhancers, HoudahSpot gives you an easy way to construct and save complex searches without needing to rely on Apple’s less-than-ideal tools. If you’ve been as miffed at FileSpot’s apparent abandonment, then HoudahSpot definitely deserves your attention.

The exciting part about OpenMeta is that developers finally have a standardized way to assign and read tags on files (other than the less-than-ideal Spotlight comment hack of yore) which has the potential to free users from getting tied down to a particular solution. Aside from Tags and Deep (the first of which is compatible with OpenMeta, the second of which was the first program to use it), MailTags is also in the process of joining the OpenMeta bandwagon (not available in public builds yet, unfortunately). Hopefully software like Together, EagleFiler, and others of that ilk will also begin to incorporate OpenMeta, allowing users to tag and find files across the system and their various tagging programs without needing to keep all of those programs running.

The downside to the first public beta is that it doesn’t actually have much in the way of tagging support. There’s a place for tags in the Get Info window, but you can’t edit them (the contents currently defaults to the groups for a document). However, tagging (and presumably auto-tagging, given DevonThink’s long dedication to auto-sorting) is definitely on the radar for the final release. For more information about what’s new in DevonThink 2.0 and to download see the release notes and DevonThink 2.0 page. The first public beta will expire at the end of January, and upgrade options will be made available at the DevonThink website soon (they have announced, however, that users who purchased DevonThink 1.x after July 1, 2008 will receive a free upgrade to 2.0). DevonThink 2.0 requires OS 10.5.

The awesomeness of Deep does come at a cost, however: Deep not only requires Leopard, but is Intel-only. It will not run on PowerPCs. Deep is available for $34 or as part of a package deal with Yep and Leap for $69, and the application includes a 21 day free trial. Definitely check out the manual for some very useful tips and tricks on using the software; although Deep is simple enough to pick up and use immediately (or almost immediately, given the need to index the colors of the images on your hard drive), there’s definitely more to the program than meets the eye.

I strongly recommend TaskPaper even to people who think their needs are met by more complicated software. There is nothing like using a minimalist tool like TaskPaper for a couple of weeks to learn exactly what features you can live without and which you desperately need in a task manager, and for many people TaskPaper will be the solution that finally gets out of their way and lets them complete their tasks rather than fiddling with them. TaskPaper 2.0 is a free upgrade to users of TaskPaper 1 (although it now requires OS 10.5), or is available for $29.95 with a free trial.

For full details, check out the release notes.

Despite its unprepossessing version number, EagleFiler 1.4 is a big and worthwhile update to an already fantastic product. For a full run-down of the many changes and additions in version 1.4, take a look at the release notes. If you have never given EagleFiler a try, now would be an excellent time to give it a whirl.

For more information and to download, visit the MailTags release notes.

For more details or to download, see the Together release notes.

For more information, see the EagleFiler 1.3.2 announcement. No new features it looks like; just a worthwhile bug fix update.

For more details, see the release notes. If you’ve been wondering how to handle your bookmarks, WebnoteHappy is a great option. The only black mark against the program, in my opinion, is the lack of integration with Ma.gnolia (it’s Del.icio.us-only). Still a great example of a program that makes simple tagging just work.

If you’ve never tried MailTags, I highly recommend it. MailTags is one of those rare programs that can become an irreplaceable part of your workflow during its trial period, and is not to be missed for anyone for whom email is a central part of their productive workday. For more details about the 2.2 release in general, see the MailTags homepage, the general release notes, or the detailed release notes.

For the full release notes and a direct link to the download, see the EagleFiler 1.3 blog announcement. This is definitely a worthy version bump to an application that’s already great, and I highly recommend downloading it soon if you’re using EagleFiler.

Punakea is an excellent choice if you’re looking for file system tagging, but there is one major caveat: Punakea uses a very unfriendly syntax for Spotlight comment tagging. Although this means you can use spaces in your tags, tagging files by hand using Punakea’s syntax is difficult at best. The program provides workarounds (an excellent, unobtrusive sidebar for one), but to tag with Punakea you generally have to have the program running all the time. For more details about this update, see the release notes. Punakea 0.3.2 is still available for Tiger users.

For the full story, see the Together release notes. As always, Together is OS 10.5-only.

As is common for Ironic Software, there are no release notes available unless you download the program or auto-update, although some details are available via MacUpdate. Yep is $34, or $10 when purchased with Leap (for a total cost of $69).

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