Metadata on the Desktop

There are 3 major components to metadata organization and codification on the desktop

• User input: This is probably the aspect most lagged over in the metadata world, with tons of new programs for search and retrevial popping up, we still haven't incorporated the core ideas of metadata input into the user workflow. There was a Summer of Code project to integrate Leaftag with nautilus called EmblemTags. It never got off the ground.

  One approach is to collect metadata automatically. An example of this can be seen in the SWISH project. This project bases its data collection on the VIBElog tool (mentioned in this list), a tool which logs particular MS Windows events. The log can then be used by other tools to provide additional information.

• Storage and Indexing: Here we already have a wealth of options including the extremely powerful Beagle and the light and agile tracker. There was a great conceptual implementation of something like this a year or so back called Gnome Storage but seeing as its been in a broken state for some time now, its probably not much use for actual implementation, but we could pull ideas from it.

• Retrieval and Presentation: Again, this is a place were we already have some cool head starts, but nothing seems to be getting off the ground. Lots of generic search tools, lots of file browsers, why haven't we made them one? Fully integrated viewing and seamless searching of metadata would be the ideal game here. Again, look at what Gnome Storage planned to do.