Tagspaces for owncloud

I am aware this is not a new idea but with the creation of nextCloud I would like to check if there is any willing to integrated more with tagspaces: Sync with ownCloud · Issue #52 · tagspaces/tagspaces · GitHub or add similar functionality to nextCloud. Recently sidecar file support was added to tagspaces Pro. Tagspaces has a hosted version as well that support the reading of these sidecar files though WebDav and works quite nice together with ownCloud. Tagspaces also has support for thumbnail generation. I am still experimenting with this but I do like the tagging features a lot. I know the favorite flag has been introduced in ownCloud 8 and it still has to be supported in the Gallery app. Tagging has been introduced in ownCloud 9 but I am still missing many features, for example:

  • Bulk edit/update tags
  • More easy way to add/edit tag (currently it is only possible in the file properties)
  • Tag support for the gallery app (filter albums/photos based on tags)
  • Custom color for tags
  • Grouping of tags
  • Multi-platform support: making it easy to use tags also on the desktop (tagspaces saves the tags in the filename and/or sidecar files) which can be used both online and in the desktop app)
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I’m not familiar with TagSpaces, although personally I adore tag based organisation (if I had my way, I’d have no folders anywhere, and everything would be tag based).

I actually already filed ownCloud issues for some of the things you’re talking about in your bullets above, as well as integrating / syncing tags from the client’s operating system (such as KDE’s tagging system) and sharing by tag.

Certainly, all of this functionality would be welcome in a more mature tagging system on Nextcloud. The only thing that concerns me is the mention on TagSPace’s website that “The application persists the tags in the file names.” If I want to tag all my files, is it really necessary to have the file name of every single file be altered? What does it actually change them to? Like “Mydocument.odt” > “MyDocument #work #projectx #confidential.odt”? If so, I could see some potential issues with sharing those files with other people. Maybe I’m misunderstanding something though, as I’m not familiar with TagSpaces…

Yes the way tagspaces originally works is that it is adding tags to the filename. So you get filenames like IMG_20160409_181054[work][projectx].jpg. Some users love this idea and for sure it has its advantages because of the simplicity. Other users complained about this a lot. Quite recently support for sidecar files was added in the paid Pro version. Those sidecar files (including tags in json format, extracted file properties like exif data for a photo info in txt format and generated thumbnails) are stored in a hidden .ts folder and this is for example where it can imagine some kind of integration with nextCloud.

Interesting. So, it sounds like in addition to creating say, a TagSpaces app, we’d need to look at modifying the files app, to ensure that when we moved files, that we also moved their sidecar files.

Is it possible to have it only us the .ts files, and not alter the actual files themselves? Personally, I would find that much more palatable, as I don’t like the idea of altering users files (other than things like ID3 / EXIF / metatags etc ) across the board, especially if it’s without getting explicit consent.

In theory yes, but also tagspaces is still being developed. This is the answer I got from the developer regarding .ts sidecar support for the hosting-edition: https://github.com/tagspaces/tagspaces/issues/447
Similar to nextcloud it will depend on the amount of money they receive from for example the pro version and/or how much the devs like to feature request :slight_smile:

TagSpaces features a set of basic file management operations such as rename, create, move and delete file. This includes proper handling of the sidecar files. It is true though that if you move the files in any other way (for example using the files app) you end up with orphan sidecar files and tags being lost. This is again where a more closer integration need to happen.

Rather than thinking about modifying Nextcloud to suit the workings of one proprietary client, wouldn’t it be better to get the clients to plug into Nextcloud’s metadata standard?

The website says it’s AGPL… not that it alters your main point about getting TagSPaces to plug in to Nextcloud, rather than the other way around.

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I should say, though, that I’m very much in favour of clients plugging in to NC’s metadata. I’m a Linux user, and the ideal for me would be for the actual file managers to integrate with NC in this way. In fact, I’d like to see this more than any other feature on my desktop. A server that allows me to define the metadata of my data, so that I can organise it in any way I wish on my desktop, would really be the holy grail.

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Agreed. Personally, I’ve always loved the idea of using tagging everywhere on my local files, but I’ve never actually used KDE’s biult in tagging framework. Why? Because currently there’s no way to make those tags consistent across reinstalls / migrations of the operating system, so any work I do tagging everything would generally be lost on a fairly regular basis.

I would love it so very, very much, if I could just tag in Dolphin / Digikam any file (not just images) and have Nextcloud back up those tags when the files are synced.

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if only Nextcloud could use the Tagspaces technique to inline the tags in the filename like [tag0][tag1], then we’d have the holy grail of desktop tags and cloud tags working. Anybody working on this? This is a simple method and solves a great deal. It’s not a perfect method at all, but it helps very very much.

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Personally I’d rather a combination of Baloo / Tracker integration, metatags (such as EXIF) where available and sidecar files as a backup and for files where tags in the metadata ust isn’t an option. That said, anything that worked consistently across multiple devices would be a step forward.

wouldn’t it be a simple solution to let Nextcloud read tags as filename[tag0][tag1].extension? The tag is part of the filename and is universally transferable.

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It’d be nice to use Tagspaces as a drop-in replacement for the default Files and Gallery apps within Nextcloud. Obviously that would require a lot of work, but I think it would be awesome, even ignoring all of the tag functionality differences.

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Update, Tagspaces is in the midst of a re-design as mentioned on issue #659 so we might see progress on this. Webdav access is currently broken with Tagspaces, but the Nextcloud team is offering assistance. FYI, I’m also hopeful that the open source web clipper tool issue # 1 from Tagspaces will be adapted for use by Nextcloud on Chrome and Firefox.

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I think the real value is the ability to really add value to the data set by leveraging tagging in a meaningful way. For example, while not open, like what the following group is trying: https://tabbles.net/quick-intro/

This not only helps in organizing our data, but allows for other possibilities working with the data itself. For example, checklists, workflows, data retention, with inclusive and exclusive queries.