I have to change cloud drive service yet again
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@Donahue said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
the benefit I see of tags over folders is while you can nest folders, there are times when I would want a file to have more than one tag, and folders or nested folders just wont cut it. I have a good example. We have CAD drawings for standardized parts that we use on several machines we manufacture. We are currently storing two separate (but equal) copies in two folders that are next to each other in the hierarchy. One folder contains all of the standard drawings, and the other folder contains everything categorized by type and keyword, much like a tag. But it's very stupid because there is a pretty high chance for someone to update one, but not the other. A shortcut would work, but they dont do that at the moment. But tags would be perfect. On our other drawings, we could have tags for customer, machine type, year, drawn by, etc. I can see how using tags would allow for seeing and searching the data any way you want. But folders are pretty limited in what they can do, and it all hinges on having a well thought out system, and usually ahead of time. Our primary drawings are all stored by year first, and then by drawing number, which is sort of like a project number. But the drawing number is baked into the file name, and we just have folders for years. In order to find the drawing we need, you have to consult some other document that can do all the cross referencing. Its a major pain. It would be heaven to be be able to do a search that said "show me all drawings related to customer A for Product B". I bet we could do that with tags, but not with folders. You could argue that you could just setup the folders to be by customer and then by product type, but then you wouldn't get a good search for "drawn in the year 2015". You can setup folders to make any one particular search type easy, but it becomes very hard to make a good search against something that the folder structure didn't account for.
TLDR, tags ware way more flexible.
Tags also don't have a problem with things "moving" as it isn't a location, but a tag. So someone retagging a document doesn't make it "move" to applications, it just changes when it is displayed via a filter.
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@scottalanmiller said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
@Donahue said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
the benefit I see of tags over folders is while you can nest folders, there are times when I would want a file to have more than one tag, and folders or nested folders just wont cut it. I have a good example. We have CAD drawings for standardized parts that we use on several machines we manufacture. We are currently storing two separate (but equal) copies in two folders that are next to each other in the hierarchy. One folder contains all of the standard drawings, and the other folder contains everything categorized by type and keyword, much like a tag. But it's very stupid because there is a pretty high chance for someone to update one, but not the other. A shortcut would work, but they dont do that at the moment. But tags would be perfect. On our other drawings, we could have tags for customer, machine type, year, drawn by, etc. I can see how using tags would allow for seeing and searching the data any way you want. But folders are pretty limited in what they can do, and it all hinges on having a well thought out system, and usually ahead of time. Our primary drawings are all stored by year first, and then by drawing number, which is sort of like a project number. But the drawing number is baked into the file name, and we just have folders for years. In order to find the drawing we need, you have to consult some other document that can do all the cross referencing. Its a major pain. It would be heaven to be be able to do a search that said "show me all drawings related to customer A for Product B". I bet we could do that with tags, but not with folders. You could argue that you could just setup the folders to be by customer and then by product type, but then you wouldn't get a good search for "drawn in the year 2015". You can setup folders to make any one particular search type easy, but it becomes very hard to make a good search against something that the folder structure didn't account for.
TLDR, tags ware way more flexible.
Tags also don't have a problem with things "moving" as it isn't a location, but a tag. So someone retagging a document doesn't make it "move" to applications, it just changes when it is displayed via a filter.
thats less of a point for us, our files dont move much. But they commonly would belong to probably at least half a dozen tags. Most of our folder structure is pretty poorly designed and just copied over from the times when those files existed only on a users local computer. It's hard to get 50 people to stop bad habits all at once. I have taken away the ability for people to make changes to probably the first few layers of our main storage share, but at some point the chaos resumes.
one thing I just thought of. Can you base file permissions on tags? we use folder permissions heavily.
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@Donahue said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
one thing I just thought of. Can you base file permissions on tags? we use folder permissions heavily.
Can, sure. But it depends on the mechanism doing it. At a high level, you can do anything with tags. Finding an implementation that does what you want, that's the challenge.
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@Dashrender said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
@black3dynamite said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
@Dashrender said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
@black3dynamite said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
@Donahue said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
I would like to know too. Is there a way to incorporate tags into a windows environment? Perhaps with something like NC?
You add tags on files. Right-click on the file and select properties. Select the Details tab. There you will see a Tags under Description.
Here is a PDF on my desktop, right click, properties, Details - I don't see a tag area.
It doesn't even work on txt files too. Must only be available for Office documents.
Doesn't work for MS Office files either - that are on the desktop at least.
That's not really an "Office" file that's just a csv. Convert it to an excel document and see what happens.
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@Dashrender said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
@black3dynamite said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
It works for me. But this a xlsx file
There it is. It must be an MS Office specific file.
Still sucks, and makes it mostly useless. I wonder if OneDrive and ODfB support tags of any file type?
@coliver , right, that's what this post was.
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@Dashrender said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
@Dashrender said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
@black3dynamite said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
It works for me. But this a xlsx file
There it is. It must be an MS Office specific file.
Still sucks, and makes it mostly useless. I wonder if OneDrive and ODfB support tags of any file type?
@coliver , right, that's what this post was.
Sorry posted before I saw that.
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I do see benefits to tags. Maybe my brain is just too conditioned to folder structure to overcome some of my concerns about tags. I would love to poke around a mature manufacturing company's file server where tags had been solely used since it's inception.
@scottalanmiller Is the NextCloud tag implementation complete enough to not use folders at all? Does NTG use tags exclusively, or are there still folders?
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@bnrstnr said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
I do see benefits to tags. Maybe my brain is just too conditioned to folder structure to overcome some of my concerns about tags. I would love to poke around a mature manufacturing company's file server where tags had been solely used since it's inception.
Not sure there is such a thing.
The use of tags kinda goes along with getting rid of direct file storage access.
There was a discussion here a while ago about removing access to the network shared/data storage area directly. Instead users should only access that area via the app that uses that data. Basically like how iOS works.
Users will have an easier time with a transition if they are only looking through the structure through the lens of the application - of course, then you run into a problem I ran into... the user though it was a word file, when in fact it was an excel file, and well hilarity ensued.
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@bnrstnr said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
I do see benefits to tags. Maybe my brain is just too conditioned to folder structure to overcome some of my concerns about tags. I would love to poke around a mature manufacturing company's file server where tags had been solely used since it's inception.
@scottalanmiller Is the NextCloud tag implementation complete enough to not use folders at all? Does NTG use tags exclusively, or are there still folders?
NextCloud does not, AFAIK, use tags for security and it definitely does not use them for syncing determination. So folders are still needed, like on ML. But you can use tags to heavily reduce your folder usage to being for security, rather than for organization.
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@Dashrender said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
@bnrstnr said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
I do see benefits to tags. Maybe my brain is just too conditioned to folder structure to overcome some of my concerns about tags. I would love to poke around a mature manufacturing company's file server where tags had been solely used since it's inception.
Not sure there is such a thing.
The use of tags kinda goes along with getting rid of direct file storage access.
Only because all direct access systems are built around non-tagged access. If you built a new filesystem that was tagging-centric and a new explorer that handled tags natively, you'd see it completely differently.
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@scottalanmiller said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
@Dashrender said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
@bnrstnr said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
I do see benefits to tags. Maybe my brain is just too conditioned to folder structure to overcome some of my concerns about tags. I would love to poke around a mature manufacturing company's file server where tags had been solely used since it's inception.
Not sure there is such a thing.
The use of tags kinda goes along with getting rid of direct file storage access.
Only because all direct access systems are built around non-tagged access. If you built a new filesystem that was tagging-centric and a new explorer that handled tags natively, you'd see it completely differently.
True - but would it really end up being much better than what we have today? It might be a little better, but in many cases it could completely confuse people - I could totally see someone deleting all files with a shared tag thinking they were no longer needed, when in fact many could have multiple tags and are needed still for those other tags.
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@Dashrender said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
@scottalanmiller said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
@Dashrender said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
@bnrstnr said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
I do see benefits to tags. Maybe my brain is just too conditioned to folder structure to overcome some of my concerns about tags. I would love to poke around a mature manufacturing company's file server where tags had been solely used since it's inception.
Not sure there is such a thing.
The use of tags kinda goes along with getting rid of direct file storage access.
Only because all direct access systems are built around non-tagged access. If you built a new filesystem that was tagging-centric and a new explorer that handled tags natively, you'd see it completely differently.
True - but would it really end up being much better than what we have today? It might be a little better, but in many cases it could completely confuse people - I could totally see someone deleting all files with a shared tag thinking they were no longer needed, when in fact many could have multiple tags and are needed still for those other tags.
What we have today already completely confuses people. Tags can do anything folders can do, but easier. So confusion would have no reason to be worse. Folders are all negatives, I see no benefit, including familiarity, to folders. Because folders CAN be used as a tagging mechanism. I truly believe you can make a "proof" of this showing that tags, because they can replicate folders, cannot be worse ever. They can only be equal or better.
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@scottalanmiller said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
@Dashrender said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
@scottalanmiller said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
@Dashrender said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
@bnrstnr said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
I do see benefits to tags. Maybe my brain is just too conditioned to folder structure to overcome some of my concerns about tags. I would love to poke around a mature manufacturing company's file server where tags had been solely used since it's inception.
Not sure there is such a thing.
The use of tags kinda goes along with getting rid of direct file storage access.
Only because all direct access systems are built around non-tagged access. If you built a new filesystem that was tagging-centric and a new explorer that handled tags natively, you'd see it completely differently.
True - but would it really end up being much better than what we have today? It might be a little better, but in many cases it could completely confuse people - I could totally see someone deleting all files with a shared tag thinking they were no longer needed, when in fact many could have multiple tags and are needed still for those other tags.
What we have today already completely confuses people. Tags can do anything folders can do, but easier. So confusion would have no reason to be worse. Folders are all negatives, I see no benefit, including familiarity, to folders. Because folders CAN be used as a tagging mechanism. I truly believe you can make a "proof" of this showing that tags, because they can replicate folders, cannot be worse ever. They can only be equal or better.
My example gives a reason of how it can be worse. Delete every file with tag - 'old isp' and you might delete things that you didn't want to delete. In a folder situation, you know you are only deleting these items in this folder, in this view. typically in a folder situation you're creating multiple copies to solve this issue (or in rare cases using lnks - which would result in the same problem as deleting a tag).
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is there a system that can display tags in a way that would look like folders to the user? Like a way to change your view to see the files organized by tag 2 instead of tag 1? I use this perspective change all the time in SQL, and I would love something equivalent in a file system using tags.
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Boy I would hope so - just like these forums do. Click on tags at the top - you then see a list of the tags currently in use, click one and see all things with that tag. or type in a tag, etc.
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@Donahue said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
is there a system that can display tags in a way that would look like folders to the user? Like a way to change your view to see the files organized by tag 2 instead of tag 1? I use this perspective change all the time in SQL, and I would love something equivalent in a file system using tags.
There is a way to write a system to do that, but no one makes one today.
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@Dashrender said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
@scottalanmiller said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
@Dashrender said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
@scottalanmiller said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
@Dashrender said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
@bnrstnr said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
I do see benefits to tags. Maybe my brain is just too conditioned to folder structure to overcome some of my concerns about tags. I would love to poke around a mature manufacturing company's file server where tags had been solely used since it's inception.
Not sure there is such a thing.
The use of tags kinda goes along with getting rid of direct file storage access.
Only because all direct access systems are built around non-tagged access. If you built a new filesystem that was tagging-centric and a new explorer that handled tags natively, you'd see it completely differently.
True - but would it really end up being much better than what we have today? It might be a little better, but in many cases it could completely confuse people - I could totally see someone deleting all files with a shared tag thinking they were no longer needed, when in fact many could have multiple tags and are needed still for those other tags.
What we have today already completely confuses people. Tags can do anything folders can do, but easier. So confusion would have no reason to be worse. Folders are all negatives, I see no benefit, including familiarity, to folders. Because folders CAN be used as a tagging mechanism. I truly believe you can make a "proof" of this showing that tags, because they can replicate folders, cannot be worse ever. They can only be equal or better.
My example gives a reason of how it can be worse. Delete every file with tag - 'old isp' and you might delete things that you didn't want to delete. In a folder situation, you know you are only deleting these items in this folder, in this view. typically in a folder situation you're creating multiple copies to solve this issue (or in rare cases using lnks - which would result in the same problem as deleting a tag).
I don't see how that is different. In both cases you made a tag and deleted everything associated with it. Equally dangerous, equally confusing. In both cases it is just this view.
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@scottalanmiller said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
@Donahue said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
is there a system that can display tags in a way that would look like folders to the user? Like a way to change your view to see the files organized by tag 2 instead of tag 1? I use this perspective change all the time in SQL, and I would love something equivalent in a file system using tags.
There is a way to write a system to do that, but no one makes one today.
well get on that @scottalanmiller, the world is apparently waiting
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@Donahue said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
@scottalanmiller said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
@Donahue said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
is there a system that can display tags in a way that would look like folders to the user? Like a way to change your view to see the files organized by tag 2 instead of tag 1? I use this perspective change all the time in SQL, and I would love something equivalent in a file system using tags.
There is a way to write a system to do that, but no one makes one today.
well get on that @scottalanmiller, the world is apparently waiting
I guess so! Time to reinvent the local filesystem abstraction!
It really is needed.
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@scottalanmiller said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
@Donahue said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
@scottalanmiller said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
@Donahue said in I have to change cloud drive service yet again:
is there a system that can display tags in a way that would look like folders to the user? Like a way to change your view to see the files organized by tag 2 instead of tag 1? I use this perspective change all the time in SQL, and I would love something equivalent in a file system using tags.
There is a way to write a system to do that, but no one makes one today.
well get on that @scottalanmiller, the world is apparently waiting
I guess so! Time to reinvent the local filesystem abstraction!
It really is needed.
Agreed... though - is there any money in it?
