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.

For the most recent release notes or to download the new version, visit the FileSpot download page.

Definitely a useful article to read if you use Spotlight much (for finding tagged files, for instance), although it doesn’t have anything to do with tagging specifically. (Thanks to Daring Fireball for the link.)

FileSpot is a fantastic program that I highly recommend for everyone, and you can’t beat today’s price. Check out my review if you want the full scoop, or download the program for yourself and marvel at how easy it makes using Spotlight.

Straight to the point: FileSpot is a Spotlight utility whose simple and intuitive interface makes amazingly powerful searches available to everyday users in a way that Spotlight never dreamed of. Despite some minor flaws, FileSpot is a tool that should be downloaded by anyone who searches their computer.

Humble roots

Back in the day, I got disgusted with Spotlight’s slow, inaccurate searches and went looking for something better. I downloaded a little piece of software called MoRU (along with a couple others), and gave it a whirl. Although MoRU was a nice piece of software, I ended up uninstalling it before the trial period was over because I rarely used Spotlight anyway and it wasn’t worth the trouble. Since then I’ve continued to resort to Spotlight only in direst need, and when I do it generally takes me longer to find a file than if I had just gone folder-diving.

Now, however, MoRU has matured and been rebranded as FileSpot, and I’m sold; searching is fun again. FileSpot is what Spotlight’s interface always should have been.

Power searching made easy

What makes FileSpot such an excellent utility is its interface. Not stopping at exposing Spotlight’s more powerful functionality as many other apps have done, it also makes powerful Spotlight searches extremely easy to perform and offers several improvements over the default Spotlight interface’s functionality.

When FileSpot launches, it provides the user with a simple text search that is automatically restricted to the Home directory (customizable via preferences):

Arrayed along the top of the window are tabs to access saved searches and tags (a special type of saved search). Although a simple text search will hardly display FileSpot’s real power, it still offers two big improvements over the OS X Spotlight interface. First, searches aren’t run until you’re done typing and hit enter (or the “play” button). Second, the search results are not displayed until they have all been gathered (thankfully, though, the program does keep a running total of how many items it has found as it searches).

While these differences make FileSpot seem like less of an instant gratification solution, they vastly improve on the user experience. Thanks to the fact that it waits for you to finish typing, FileSpot doesn’t waste processor power or your time by running fruitless queries, and because the search results aren’t populated until the search is complete you’ll never lose track of an item right after you’ve found it. I can’t even describe how often I’ve tried to use Spotlight only to have it sluggishly respond to my quick typing, find the document I’m looking for, and shuffle said document down who-knows-where in the search results before I’m able to click it.

Interestingly, once a search is running or has run (you can tell because the “play” button switches to a “pause” button), any changes you make to the search criteria are updated in real time, much like Spotlight’s default behavior; thus if you’re really into find-as-you type you can always hit the play button before you start typing.

Such improvements to the standard Spotlight experience are very welcome, but the reason that I’m such a fan of FileSpot is not because of its friendly simple searches. No, what made me really sit up and take note was the fact that FileSpot permits arbitrarily complex nested searches and allows you to perform such searches through an easily-understood interface that is reminiscent of smart playlists in iTunes and smart mailboxes in Mail.app. It’s difficult to explain, so here’s an example:

Say for some reason I want to find every MP3 that I placed on my computer in the last ten days, along with every song I bought in the iTunes store (regardless of when I downloaded it). FileSpot is ready to help; all it takes is clicking the little “+” button that you can see beneath the search bar in the screenshot above.

The “+” button adds search constraints to the search, and what’s really exciting is that the search constraints can be nested to any depth. For example, using the search restraints I quickly set up a search that will find all my new MP3s and old iTunes purchases:

Learning to use the system is simplicity itself. The”+” buttons add another constraint at the same depth (or adds a constraint within the group if used on a group). The “-” removes the constraint (or all nested constraints if used on a group), and the “()” button nests the constraint within a new group. Constraints can be based off of any available Spotlight metadata, including custom metadata created with a tool like SpotMeta.

Aside from being easy to learn and reasonably intuitive for anyone who is used to creating smart playlists in iTunes, the visual representation of the search constraints makes complex searches very easy to understand at a glance.

The fun isn’t over after the search is run, either. Each new search automatically displays a number of columns, but by clicking the small arrow above the scrollbar you can choose which columns you’d like to display (including columns based on custom metadata from SpotMeta), save the currently displayed set as the default, or reset it to the default. Clicking a column organizes the results by that column and a second click reverses the ordering.

While you’re browsing through the files you found, you can also open up the attributes and preview drawer. Attributes includes a comprehensive list of the Spotlight data attached to the selected item, while preview is pretty much what it sounds like (listen to the music you’ve found, see the pictures, view the movies). Unfortunately, the preview functionality is still suffering from a number of shortcomings (no preview for webpages or RTF documents among them), so if previewing functionality is important to you you’ll probably be disappointed with what FileSpot offers.

Advanced features

Aside from the great searching, I also discovered that FileSpot has a number of gratifying features available through the contextual menu. Right clicking on an item in the search results (or using the gear menu at the bottom of the window) opens up a number of options such as renaming the file, copying it to the clipboard, labeling it, editing its Spotlight comments, copying its path in a number of formats (including Unix, HFS, and URL), and moving it or copying it somewhere else in the filesystem (a feature that will be especially welcome to any Windows switchers).

I was also very pleased and surprised to see that FileSpot automatically supports PathFinder if PathFinder is running. I always love it when my favorite applications play nice with each other with not prompting from me.

Search once, find it always

As you would expect of a program that provides such powerful searching, any search can be saved for later use. Saved searches are stored in the first tab in the default FileSpot window and are also exported as smart folders to a location of your choice. Clicking a saved search will run the search, double clicking will edit the search (oddly, it does it in the same tab and you have to hit “save” or “cancel” to return to the saved searches list), and there are various other options available via the contextual menu or gear button at the bottom of the window. Saved searches are automatically assigned numeric hotkeys so you can quickly access the first ten if you’re into navigating by keyboard.

But what I like best about the saved searches is the fact that you can quickly filter your results using the “filter” box at the top of the screen (for name, path, or content):

The ability to filter your results in a saved search is really what makes the saved searches so useful to me. Although saving a complicated search that you might want to perform later is always nice, the ability to save general search criteria but still be able to search for items within those bounds is really what makes the saved searches in FileSpot worthwhile. It lets you perform a simple Spotlight-style name/content search, but with loads of pre-defined criteria limiting your searching to a specific subset of files.

Tagging

That’s right, FileSpot is not only the easiest to use Spotlight enhancer that I’ve found, it’s also the only one that I know of that supports tagging with little effort on the user’s part. This is definitely heartening; searching and browsing are central parts of the tagging experience, so having tags represented in a tool whose main purpose is searching files is very welcome.

The downside is that FileSpot only supports the &tag format. While this format is possibly the most popular and useful for people rolling their own tagging systems (and for users of TagBot), the tagging functionality would be much more useful if the user had more control over it.

Tags are essentially just saved searches that you can’t edit, and tags tab is almost identical to the saved searches tab. Sadly, tags do not auto-update based on your tagging in TagBot or elsewhere, so you’ll have to add all of the tags you want to track by hand. Once you have added a tag to FileSpot, however, you can assign the tag from within the program using the contextual menu, which is quite useful. The tags also feature the filtering capabilities of the saved searches, making FileSpot an extremely useful tool for searching tagged items.

Not all sweetness and light

Although my overall impressions of FileSpot were extremely positive, that’s not to say that there aren’t some definite downsides to the program. My biggest beef with it is that although the interface for nested searches is fantastically powerful and easy to use, it does have one serious flaw: you can’t reorganize nested search criteria. Once you’ve nested something, it’s going to stay nested. There is no way short of duplicating the criteria to move anything, which means that you have to be quite careful while constructing your search so that you don’t make any mistakes. This is a surprising deficiency given the otherwise excellent interface, and hopefully one that will be addressed in a future update.

Additionally, the program as a whole feels as if it could use some optimization. Starting time in particular has been surprisingly slow for me (taking several bounces for an app that doesn’t do anything without user input), and some of the actions inside the program (such as selecting an “Other…” criteria) take a surprising amount of time and occasionally trigger the spinning beachball. The searching is as quick as a Spotlight search, of course, but saved searches can still be rather cumbersome because the program doesn’t provide any caching between sessions (which is one of the primary reasons I don’t use smart folders in the Finder).

The lack of a hotkey or quick-search interface is also definitely obvious, particularly because this program is crying out to serve as a complete replacement for Spotlight’s interface. Along with greater support for tagging, however, this is one of the features that the developers have mentioned as definitely on their to-do list. Let’s hope it happens soon.

Finally, although FileSpot is almost the perfect companion to programs like TagBot, it falls far short of its potential when it comes to integrating with other programs because nothing is automatic. If you use TagBot and FileSpot side by side you’ll need to update both by hand (and although TagBot can auto-detect new tags, you’re more likely to create your tags in TagBot than FileSpot). FileSpot also doesn’t support MailTags, which is a crying shame. I personally hate Mail.app’s limited search interface, and would love to do all my email searching through some crafty FileSpot saved searches. Without MailTags integration, however, this is simply not feasible for me.

Best I’ve ever had

I can’t lie; I may have found a few things I didn’t like about the program, but FileSpot is the single best thing that’s ever happened to me when it comes to searching my computer. Even with the caveats above, its interface makes powerful searching accessible and rids it of the aggravations that I usually suffer at the hands of Spotlight. It has some room for improvement, but it’s still an amazingly well-crafted app.

I highly recommend FileSpot because of this. Even users who don’t need FileSpot’s more advanced features will find it far easier to use than Spotlight, and if they ever decide they do want to search for some arbitrarily complex criteria, the tools will be ready and waiting for them. For users who want to milk the most out of their computer (say, the kinds of people who turn to tagging), FileSpot is even more compelling. One of the marks of truly inspired software design is when an application’s power and complexity scales naturally and transparently based on the abilities of its users, and FileSpot is very close to achieving this state of software bliss.

FileSpot is available for $20 (or $35 for a family/multiple computer license) and includes a 30 day free trial. If you are an owner of MoRU, you can register for a $10 upgrade fee.

Like the review? Hate it? Disagree? Let me know! Not only do I love hearing from readers, but I’m usually quite quick to respond.

Tags for every situation

1. Tagging for productivity
2. File library vs. file system
3. File system tagging
4. Tagging files with file libraries

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).

The main two

There are two programs whose entire point is file system tagging: TagBot and Punakea.

TagBot ($20) provides you with a floating palette of tags for drag and drop tagging and a Finder contextual menu. Although you can double click a tag in the palette to open a Smart Folder for that tag, TagBot is primarily useful for tagging (rather than browsing or searching). Tags are stored in Spotlight comments using the popular &tag format (tag name with a “&” prefix). Unfortunately, this means that you can only use single word tags (so get ready to replace those spaces!).

TagBot is not an all-in-one tool, but may be the perfect companion to your other tagging tools; it fits particularly well into Quicksilver tagging systems (more on this later). If you’re using TagBot alone, FileSpot would be an excellent complement, because it uses the same format for tags and picks up searching and browsing where TagBot leaves off (besides having loads of other cool features).

Punakea (free) also uses Spotlight comments, but approaches them very differently: Punakea tags are surrounded by a truly horrific bunch of gobbledy-gook. Although this makes finding tagged files with Spotlight more onerous, it also allows Punakea to offer much more advanced tagging (including multiple word tags). Punakea provides a drag-and-drop sidebar for tagging that conveniently stays out of sight when not in use, and has an excellent cumulative tag cloud for browsing tagged files.

Despite some shortcomings, Punakea is well worth trying out because it is the only software that comes close to being an all-in-one solution for file system tagging. You also can’t beat the price, although the software is still technically in beta and may be buggy.

To be honest, I’m pretty torn between Punakea and TagBot and have not settled on one to use myself. If you prefer a simple tagging solution to supplement your folders and Spotlight use, then TagBot is likely the best solution. If you’d like to try using tagging as your only way of organizing documents (or want a great tag browsing interface), then Punakea is the answer.

Roll yer own

Outside of TagBot and Punakea, Quicksilver (free) is your best solution for file system tagging (it’s possible to use Applescript and LaunchBar for tagging, as well, but Quicksilver has Spotlight comment editing integrated). Some people also like to use Default Folder X ($34.95) to throw tags into the Spotlight comments when they are saving files (further streamlining the process). You may also find Hazel ($21.95) useful for managing files, or even assigning tags automatically, although it will require some creativity on your part to come up with useful rules.

If you’d like an in-depth walkthrough on using Quicksilver and Default Folder X to tag files, try the Apple Blog’s series on using metadata in OS X. Unfortunately, the series doesn’t have any internal navigation, but you can link to all five articles in the series from Tagamac’s tagging resources article.

Of course, you could also eschew all that fancy schmancy software stuff, and just tag files using the Finder’s Get Info window.

Rolling your own file system tagging can be very rewarding; after all, you have complete control over every step of the workflow, so you can craft it to suit yourself. However, it also requires the most energy, thought, and training. If you’d like to roll your own system with the least amount of effort, then you’re likely best off with a combination of Quicksilver, TagBot, and possibly FileSpot. Definitely check out the Apple Blog’s series mentioned above; it’s required reading for Quicksilver-based file system tagging.

But wait, there’s more!

Okay, I kind of lied when I said there were only two applications dedicated to file system tagging. The thing is, there are only two obviously good options. There is a third sort-of-good option, and a slew of stuff that’s unequivocally bad.

The third option is a Java application called Nucle Browser (free) and its companion, the McNucle server. This is actually a very promising project, not least because of its cross-platform nature and ability to remotely access your tagged file system. Of course, I can count the number of decent Java apps that I’ve used on one hand (and wouldn’t be impaired in said counting even if I lost a few fingers), but there you go.

Although my initial experiences with Nucle Browser were very negative, the most recent beta is much more useable. Of course, the double application server/client setup is annoying, as is the occasional unresponsiveness, long launch time, and fact that they store your IP address on their server (which is how you connect the Nucle Browser to the McNucle server). If you can get over these shortcomings, though, it definitely has potential. I wouldn’t recommend Nucle Browser for most users, but if the feature-set sounds intriguing feel free to download it and give it a whirl.

Finally, if you’re really a glutton for punishment, you could try out DropLight, DeskLamp, Branding Iron, or any number of Applescripts. I wouldn’t recommend it, though. Most of this software is scraping the bottom of the barrel, and some of it has somehow managed to bury itself beneath the barrel entirely.

If you’re comfortable defining your own workflow using multiple pieces of software, then you will likely find file system tagging useful and rewarding. If, however, you aren’t interested in putting that much effort into your tagging system or only need to tag a subset of your documents, you may find a file library more to your taste. I’ll be covering file libraries next, so stay tuned, or, if you don’t want my advice, check out file libraries on the software page.

Know of a better way to tag your file system? Let me know! I love to hear from readers, and I’m always looking for new software and workflows to try out.

Unfortunately, release notes are only available through the in-program Sparkle updating, so for details you’ll have to check for updates from within the program.

If you do much of anything that involves Spotlight, you owe it to yourself to at least try FileSpot. It is a very advanced search utility, and may be a key ingredient in any file system tagging you do. Additionally, there are some cool new features planned for upcoming versions that are definitely worth getting excited about. FileSpot is $20 shareware with a 30 day trial period and a 50% discount for owners of MoRU.

You can download the new beta via the FileSpot download page.

FileSpot has built-in support for tagging via Spotlight comments, which is nice to see. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like you can customize the tagging format, but this is still a program well worth checking out if you want something an interface a little more robust than Spotlight’s. It automatically gave me an “Open in Path Finder” contextual menu option instead of the standard Finder, too. Bonus points to Synthesis Studios for that.