Tag-Based File Manager

[ItzPvPNinja]

Lately I found a very nice project about a file manager that does not use simple folder structures but a rather smart tag-organisation. Because I'm not too good at explaining it, please look at the repo ( https://github.com/TagStudioDev/TagStudio ) or the YouTube video presenting the concept ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTQeMkYRMcw ).
While this project is by far not finished yet, i think the concept is definitely worth noticing and maybe you could implement something in nemo that works similar.
Please keep in mind that this is not about "simple tags" as in Apples "Finder" but about a structure concept which is able to organize files in a more structured way, folders could ever do.
Additionally I like the concept, that this Tag-Organization can still be used like the traditional Folder-Structure but adds the possibility to do more than just that.

[Jopp-gh]

Subscribed.
Here you can read about my proposal
https://github.com/orgs/linuxmint/discussions/430
Here a quick mockup:

[ItzPvPNinja]

that looks very promising. Especially the smarter often-visited thing might be powerful.
Nevertheless the extended tag functionality I described above (referring to the YT video) seems like a good addition to that.

[cplittlfield]

It's a cool concept, tags. If implemented, I can see that this feature would be useful for organizing text files, such as research studies that involve a number of different topics, and not just images.

After Pix stopped being useable, I started storing images in multiple categories by creating hard links to the same file in different directories (a feature of ext4 that I really like). The ability to add searchable tags would also be useful, since many people are afraid of the command line and don't want to bother with creating hard links. As far as images are concerned, the ability to edit and search exif data might be enough, but this is a feature that needs to be generalized to files beyond simply images.

[Jopp-gh]

I think tags are overlooked: after more than a decade and more, interfaces integrate tags more often, but it seems people are still not ready to organize data with tags, but prefer instead outdated and very manual clicking through a ton of folders.

Please add tags as navigation method to Nemo!

I want to suggest the devs of Mint to work on a prototype so you would see by yourself how powerful tags could be. Please see the links of the OP and my proposal too.

All the recent graphical redesign of Mint is nice, but only a secondary thing, bc themes are like clothes/"skins" only, nothing essential but very "variable" and should be more a personal thing than something the devs have to worry.

[Qronikarz]

but it seems people are still not ready to organize data with tags

People are not even ready to organize their data with folders and you are confused with why they do not want to tag, at the very least 5000+ files, manually? That's a reason why mobile gallery developers work on AI based tagging because most people just don't even know where the files are stored and have no time or patience to tag their whole library even if the program would support it.

I want to suggest the devs of Mint to work on a prototype so you would see by yourself how powerful tags could be

There is already a prototype: https://github.com/meowrch/nemo-tags
You just need to convince Mint's developers that it's something that should be included by default and I sincerely wish you good luck with that. After I failed to convince them that the file picker is something that needs their attention, I just moved to a different DE that recognized that problem and a different distribution where people don't immediately come at me with "that's not how that works and it will never work like that because that's stupid and linux is not windows so it doesn't need changing you just need a different mindset". Mint is still the distro I recommend to linux newbies, but I now add a little guidance on what to do and why is it like that.

Please see the links of the OP and my proposal too.

Once again. Your proposal is not about tags. Your proposal is about recent places. Gnome's Nautilus (or files with their plain naming) has recent files tab. KDE Plasma's Dolphin has recent files and recent places. Recent places is something that your proposal is the closest to. Now if the tags were added to Nemo and there was a way to count their usage and have a third section like "recent tags" then your proposal is basically done. But the fundamental thing is to convince developers that tags support itself is needed.

If you're curious, this is how tags work in KDE Plasma (one of the 2 linux desktops environments that support tagging by default):

Here I tagged one file with "art" and you can see it on both the file properties and in the tags section of dolphin. At the bottom of the dolphin window you can also see "recent files" and "recent places" though in my case they are empty since I disabled the history.

[Jopp-gh]

People are not even ready to organize their data with folders and you are confused with why they do not want to tag, at the very least 5000+ files, manually?

Tags are like flexible folders, but unlike folders tags can be modified on the fly. A flat file hierarchy (no folders) would needs tags, but if tags are alien to people... it tells me at least, that organization is for the most just bs as they don't care (to live in chaos). Not the way how everyday file management should work to be faster. I think tedious and manual is the norm "how things need to work" for many to be easy understandable/ useable.

Well, to make folder (tag) navigation accessible to all, most visited subdirectoriy names should be added by default as "tags". Of course with the ability to delete or modify tags (path shortcuts) and without touching the original folders, of course (folder tags = kind of alias). By the way, tagging makes only sense if you tag some important items, not the whole file system.

There is already a prototype: https://github.com/meowrch/nemo-tags

Wow, super cool prototype, need to try it out. Thanks so much for sharing!

After I failed to convince them that the file picker is something that needs their attention, I just moved to a different DE that recognized that problem

You say it. To convince others to improve or fix bugs, even if suggestions are sound, is a hard task. Wow, moved to a different DE? Sounds sad, Mint is for sure great for Linux newcomers. Still I see it stable and with a palette of tools I really appreciate. A OS shouldn't get in our way, but be instead, easy to configure so that we don't have to fight with technical issues and our OS. To install some OS isn't our goal, but be able to actually produce our work with as less technical friction as possible.

Two weeks ago I checked out:
https://github.com/orgs/linuxmint/discussions/1084#discussioncomment-18544956
And found a modern window tiler. Now I couldn't live anymore without, (Bizarre this isn't part of Nemo Mint by default) now Nemo Mint feels like upgraded. So, commenting here isn't always a waste of time.

Thanks for your comment @Qronikarz!

[Qronikarz]

most visited subdirectoriy names should be added by default as "tags"

That's still "recent places" not tags.

Of course with the ability to delete or modify tags (path shortcuts) and without touching the original folders, of course (folder tags = kind of alias)

There is an experimental file browser which tags files according to what folders they are in: https://codeberg.org/kramo/hyperplane. However last release was in March 2024 and it was archived in March of this year.

Folders are not tags. Folders can be made into tags, but after that they are tags and not folders. If I remember correctly, TagStudio has a macro to convert folders into tags while keeping the folder structure untouched. Problem with hyperplane above is when you need to tag files with more tags. You suddenly need 10 nested folders. And if you need to rename a tag then you need to find all the folders with old name and rename them.

By the way, tagging makes only sense if you tag some important items, not the whole file system.

You still need to be able to tag every file type. There are already programs that experience in singular types: media, text, bookmarks, games (https://github.com/Qronikarz/TagsResearch/blob/main/components/softwarelist.md). File browser needs to be able to tag all files because you never know which file somebody will deem important. Designers tend to use Eagle to tag their whole libraries which can be 10 000 files and more, but it's just for media.

Still I see it stable and with a palette of tools I really appreciate

Problem for me was that it was too stable. When even a DE that is known for their minimal approach to features has this problem fixed then something is not right. Ironically Cinnamon is visually turning more and more into that DE. But like I said, I'm still gonna recommend Mint to newbies. There are things even I miss right now - mostly package management and software store along with kernel management. It's better on Cinnamon than on KDE Plasma's Discover.

So, commenting here isn't always a waste of time.

In most cases it is. Mint developers have their own priorities and discussions rarely tend to matter. I remember during one beta how many people had to chime in to convince them to make dark theme switch also theme flatpak by default. You can just sort:top and filter:all the Mint discussions and check how many of them made it into default Mint, how many end with "available as extension" or worse nothing at all. At some point you gotta recognize things are not going to change and make the jump. If it works for other people great, I am no longer a part of it though.

[Jopp-gh]

There is already a prototype: https://github.com/meowrch/nemo-tags

I see, this one is very nice but it is basically how tagging works on Mac. As a decade long use of Mac, I didn't like that way to tag.
I build a similar code project in pure bash and that one works nicely, still this way to tag isn't what I'm looking for in Nemo.

There is an experimental file browser which tags files according to what folders they are in: https://codeberg.org/kramo/hyperplane. However last release was in March 2024 and it was archived in March of this year.

Hyper plane is similar to Punakea, that was a very lovely Mac app, with simple but effective tag navigation, I loved it. But now I'm on Linux and file navigation feels like stepping back and losing time with rudimentary browser navigation buttons and clicking, digging into lots of nested folders, too manual. Just horrible.

There are already programs that experience in singular types: media, text, bookmarks, games (https://github.com/Qronikarz/TagsResearch/blob/main/components/softwarelist.md)

Interesting, need to take a look!

[Qronikarz]

While this project is by far not finished yet, i think the concept is definitely worth noticing and maybe you could implement something in nemo that works similar.

There's absolutely no chance that a tag system so complex as TagStudio will ever get added to Mint's Nemo. I follow this project from before it was even open-sourced and it is still in alpha. If TagStudio itself is not close finishing its goals then making something similar in Nemo is not possible.
The closest you could do that is to make nemo dependent on TagStudio as some kind of API to handle tagging, but at that point why not use TagStudio directly?