[Usability] About virtual folders

[Maurizio Colucci <maurizio colucci gmail com>]

Hello,

I haven't read any discussion, or concrete plan, about virtual folders
a-la Vista. Or labels a-la gmail. Do you like the feature?

I think it would be so useful to be able to create labels (e.g.
"already printed", "important", "very good", "by William Shakespeare",
"to dispatch") and to be able to associate files with labels. Then,
with nautilus, you should of course be able to see all files with a
given label, regardless of their location. Also the file-open dialog
should be modified to exploit that.

Currently, as a workaround, I simply attach keywords to the filenames,
like this:

   the-origin-of-the-species----DARWIN---ALREADY-PRINTED--VERY-GOOD.txt

The uppercase letters are the labels. Then, with gnome-search-tool, I
can retrieve the list I need. Unfortunately, the search is annoying to
do, because I have to type the labels by hand. Also, I have to insert
a root folder to start the search. Also, there is no indexing to speed
up the search. And finally, the output listing is not easy to manage:
its items are not "first-class citizens", like the files I see in
nautilus. I cannot, say, decide the program to open the file. Or move
it to a specific folder.

Looking forward to your opinions, sincerely

Maurizio