GTK File Chooser: Managing files via tags

[James Rayner <iphitus gmail com>]

Hey,

This is a concept I thought of this afternoon, it's a slightly
different way of managing files, and one that I think could be quite
popular. This isnt a replacement for a directory tree, but more
something that can be implemented at a software level and complement
it quite nicely.

If anyone here has used del.icio.us, flickr or technorati in the past,
you would know how it arranges things, via tags. Each item has a range
of one word tags.

I considered using this approach for files this afternoon, and quickly
created this mockup in glade.

https://iphitus.no-ip.org/images/gtktag.png

You save a file. You type in tags when saving the file. Those tags are
available in the side pane along with bookmarks. You click a tag, the
file chooser lists all items that are tagged with that. The tags of
all the files could be stored in some sort of file in the user's home
directory.

By having tags like that, implemented in the GTK file chooser, they
would become immediately accessable to every GTK app out there that
uses it. Gimp, Gaim, Abiword, Firefox, Gnumeric, etc. Think of how
much more effective a way of managing files it would be. You'd no
longer be searching for a file, or wondering where you saved it, so
long as you tagged it right, you'd be fine, hit the tag, pick the
file.

Is anyone else interested in this idea and possibly implementing it?

James Rayner

-- 
iphitus - www.iphitus.tk