I thought this would be great - I could tag all my patent documents and graphics with "patent" and then I could always quickly find what I need to be working on or saved data.
Tagging is done within the Explorer in a pane below the folder, like this.
Clicking on the box after "Tags:" prompts you to select an existing tag or create your own. So far so good.
The more I played around with Tags, though, the less useful they seemed. Apparently you can't tag everything. Tag-supported files include Office files and image files - these are the ones I've tested so far. No tag support for .txt or .rtf files. Wha wha wha? I prefer to do quick documents in Textpad, not Word, so most of my quick work is untaggable.
While that's not a dealbreaker, it's a little disappointing.
I was also planning on using Tags to help me organize all my data, especially with patent files, benchmark results, etc. The more I thought about it I realized it wasn't exactly like I had wanted.
For instance, I put all patent work in a folder, \patents, with subfolders for specific projects or topics. What would be the point of me tagging all my graphics with "patent" if they are already organized in patent folders? If I needed them, I already know where they are. I'm going to have to tag with subtopics, but the files should already be in subfolders, theoretically already "tagged" by placement.
I could definitely see the benefit of being able to search for all benchmark results for AMD X2 5000+ processors (tagged as AMD, 5000, etc), but since I've done a lot of work on pre-Vista/pre-tag-enabled systems, I've named my result files with specific details in the filename to help with sending them to the correct people.
A plus for Tags is group-tagging. If I didn't want to go through and rename all my vacation photos from IMG0001 - IMG4165 to discrete names I could just select all of them and tag them "Seattle, June 2006" and move on to the next batch. I like that.
I guess it comes down to your preference - do you want to organize by folders and filenames, or by Tags? Or am I missing something? How would you use Tags, and do you think they have a benefit over foldername/filename organization?
4 comments:
Why don't you just switch to Word as your editor. It fits, you are the biggest Microsoft fan boy I know... ;-)
I have too many Macs to be the biggest MS fan boy!
Just got my pro bono copy of Vista Business and Office Pro 07 in the mail today. I will let you know what the unwashed masses think.
Sweet! I'd like to know what you think about the new interface, especially Office's Ribbon.
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