File editor redesign​

One major improvement coming with version 1.8.6 is the redesigning of the file edit functionality. Now you are not forced anymore to confirm every time the saving of a file. And if you have already edited some file, a star will appear behind the file extension, letting you to know this. Since the start is present, editing of title or adding of tags will be impossible until you save your changes.

Add existing file​

There is also a new entry in the file create menu, allowing you to import a file to the current opened directory in TagSpaces. Technically this functionality is just copying the selected file in your current folder. This functionality is currently available only for the desktop version, and will come soon to the Android and the WebDAV versions.

Export tag groups​

A feature requested from many users is the possibility to export of the tag groups from a TagSpaces installation, so it can be transferred to other devices. So now this is possible now in the general tab in settings dialog. There you will find a button called "Export Tag Groups as JSON".

New JSON viewer and editor​

We implemented also a simple viewer and editor for JSON files, based on the json editor project.

And yes, here you can edit also the JSON file with the tag groups exported from the application. So you can customize the tags you want to distribute.

In order to see how you import the JSON file with the tag groups, read this blog post. In addition, now all tag groups will be imported and not only the first tag group as in version 1.8.5.

Drag & Drop of files in TagSpaces​

Drag and drop of files to directories and drag and drop of tags from files to files is available again since it was broken in the previous release.

Miscellaneous changes​

We have done also some changes in the dialogs of the application, hoping to increase the overall usability of the product. Now all input text boxes have a validator, which is making the input box red if the input does not comply with requirement. It describes also the given requirement.

We are now automatically focusing the first input field in a dialog, enabling the user to immediately start typing. In addition we rework the color chooser dialog allowing the choose convinietly any color.

Another big change comming with this release is the making of the Chrome extension read-only and renaming it to TagSpaces Lite. This step is needed due the phasing out of the NPAPI functionality in the Chrome browser, making the renaming of files in Chrome impossible. So from now on TagSpaces in Chrome can be used only for browsing of your local content, if you wish to have the previous functionality you have to install the TagSpaces application for your platform (Windwos, Linux or Mac).

In adding initial russian translations was added thanks to darvin and ijon and TagSpaces can now open BMP files. We have integrated a so called natural sorting for the columns of the perspectiveList. Last but not least we added tow new key bindings for edit document ctrl+e and adding tags ctrl+t to current file selection.

Version 1.8.5 was released some weeks ago, and now is a high time to present the major new features provided by it.

Files drag and drop​

One major new functionality is the ability to import files in TagSpaces by dragging them from your native file manager or desktop to TagSpaces.

After dropping of the file(s) in the currently opened folder, a dialog appears, where the user can choose between copying and moving of the dropped files.

The same dialog can be triggered manually by a toolbar button emphasized in the next screenshot with a red line. This way the user can move or copy the currently selected file to a some other location.

File duplication​

Starting with this version it is possible to duplicate files. The operation can be triggered in the menu of the currently opened file. To the name of the newly create file will be added the current date and time.

Example: some title [important].txt will be duplicated as some title_20140825-074432 [important].txt

Bookmark management​

One other small addition to this version is the implementation of a viewer for .url, .website and .desktop files. This is basically enabling you to use TagSpaces as a bookmark manager. .url files can be created for example in Windows by dragging and dropping over the desktop a website from your browser. .desktop files are the alternative to the .url files in Ubuntu.

Once you open such a file, a button with an URL will be shown in the viewer, allowing you to open this URL in your default browser.

Transfer tag groups between devices​

Another long awaited feature was delivered with this release, allowing you to transfer easily tag groups and tags between different installations of TagSpaces (on different devices). It is currently not started by default and have to be activated in the experimental tab of the settings.

Once activated, by opening of a location, TagSpaces will try to find and load the tsm.json from the .ts folder which should be placed in the root of your location. The tsm.json files, should be in the following format:

{
  "app": "TagSpaces",
  "release": "1.8.5",
  "version": "1",
  "tagGroups": [
    {
      "title": "TagGroup 1",
      "key": "TGT1",
      "expanded": true,
      "children": [
        {
          "type": "plain",
          "title": "Tag1",
          "color": "#7bd148",
          "textcolor": "#ffffff"
        },
        {
          "type": "plain",
          "title": "Tag2",
          "color": "#7bd148",
          "textcolor": "#ffffff"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

After successfully loading of the file a new tag group called "TagGroup 1" containing the tags "Tag1" und "Tag2" will be added to your tag library. In the next release of TagSpaces we are planning a TagGroup export functionality, with which the user can easily create tsm.json files.

Note: In order to distribute the tsm.json file to other devices and since .ts is a hidden folder, allow your sync software to include hidded files while syncing.

Note: Please consider this feature as experimental and not production ready.

Miscellaneous changes​

In the dropdown menu of a tag group the users will find now a "Sort Tag Group" functionality. This command will sort the tags in the current tag group alphabetically. This could be useful if you have tag groups with many tags.

In addition spanish (thanks to gjasso) and initial ukrainian (thanks to 235) translations were added to the project. And now if you create a new file in TagSpaces it will be opened automatically in edit mode.

We just released version 1.8.3 of TagSpaces including the following enhancement:

• New translations added:
  • brazilian-portuguese thanks to thiagomoreira & MichelW
  • portuguese thanks to duarteframos
  • japanese thanks to Solbianca
  • french thanks to Lewis31
  • slovak thanks to Robert Hartl
• Adding the ability to export the folder structure in CSV format to the list perspective
• Adding delete directory functionality, now you are able to delete empty directories in the appication
• Adding rename directory functionality

This week we released version 1.8.1 of TagSpaces, featuring the following improvements and bugfixes:

• We added Chinese as a new language for TagSpaces, here many thanks thanks to AngelinDark. We added also Bulgarian language, which is currently 50% translated.
• Technology Preview of a WebDAV Edition was included in this release, allowing you to host your own TagSpaces on top of a WebDAV server such as ownCloud.
• marked integrated as a new markdown rendering library in the viewerMD, supporting github flavored markdown and tables.
• We enhanced TagSpaces to be able to open files from the command lines, allowing you to associate certain file types to be opened with the application by default
• In the installation packages for OS X, Ubuntu and Android we associate markdown and mhtml files with TagSpaces.
• A download functionality was added, allowing you to save a file locally if you are using the webdav version or just to save a file under another name/location on your device.

• adding top menu for the native applications, allowing you to access quickly basic functionalities

• now it is possible to add keybinding to a tag, which makes file tagging very easy. After adding a key shortcut to a tag, a small keyboard icon will be visible in front of the tag in tag group, reminding you of the shortcut existence (see the ratings screenshot).

• adding a new tag group with rating tags e.g. 1star. Using the previously described new feature you can now rate for example pictures with the keybindings from t 1 to t 5

• The tags of the current file are now listed in it properties dialog.

• New keybindings for showing tag libraries (s t) and directory navigator (s f) added, enabling you a quick switch between this two panels.
• Implementing clean tags functionality, allowing you to remove all the currently assigned tags from the selected files, as requested in #65. This feature could be useful if you want to send somebody a file per email, but you don't want to send your tags as well.

• Fixing #68 - showing files from hidden directories fixed
• Fixing #62 - issue where the UI was not refreshed after file deletion.
• The file types in the settings dialog are now sorted alphabetically.

Motivation​

Almost since the very first releases of TagSpaces back in the 2013, many users did requested a server based version of TagSpaces. They wanted to use the convinient tagging workflow of TagSpaces on their self hosted ownCloud or in general WebDAV instances. So starting from today this is possible, TagSpaces can now run on servers and once installed you can access your files from anywhere.

Installation​

In order to test the hosted version you need a working WebDAV server. The current release was tested with success on ownCloud which is based itself on the sabre/dav WebDAV server. On Ubuntu my installation steps are the following:

• Install Apache
• Install ownCloud or any other WebDAV server
• Unzip the hosted version of TagSpaces somewhere in the www root folder of Apache. Currently the TagSpaces should be on the same host/ip and using the same port as the WebDAV server. This is so because of the XSS prevention integrated in the modern internet browsers.
• Assuming ownCloud is installed in /var/www/owncloud and TagSpaces in /var/www/tagspaces you have to type something like this in your terminal:

cd /var/www
sudo chmod -R 755 tagspaces
sudo chown -R your_www_group:your_www_user tagspaces

• Open your browser and enter: 127.0.0.1/tagspaces. The TagSpaces UI should be loaded.
• Create a new location with the following path: /owncloud/remote.php/webdav
• Give a name to your location and save.
• A dialog for credentials entering will appear. Enter here your ownCloud username and password.
• That's all, you can now browse your ownCloud files in TagSpaces.

• It is interesting to mention that you can open also your ownCloud contacts by creating a location with a path like /owncloud/remote.php/carddav/addressbooks/ilian/contacts. This does not make currently much sense, because you only see a list with VCF files, but who knows perhaps somebody will write a contacts perspective and VCF viewer for TagSpaces someday.

Download​

The current version can of the WebDAV version can be downloaded from here. Please note, that current status of the implementation is a technology preview, which is NOT suitable for production use yet !!!.

Last week we released version 1.8.0 of TagSpaces with two major improvement:

Multilanguage support​

The first new languages beside english are:

• German - thanks to Claudius Ellsel
• Italian - thanks to mc128k

Any other translations are welcome on the Transifex's project for TagSpaces.

Configurable keyboard shortcuts​

As you can see from the screenshot you are able to create google mail like shortcuts as g r. You can also add two or more shortcut to a single action by simple separating with , as in left,up

As usual, you can find the full changelog of this release on the github

Recently I gave a talk on the quantified self meetup in Munich. In this talk I presented how TagSpaces can be used to manage your health data. Please find here the slides from this talk:

And here is the complete presentation transcript:

TagSpaces

• Free your health data from the tracking apps and devices!
• (or how to use your file system as a database)
• by Ilian Sapundshiev @ilianste  Munich QS Meetup at [20140320]

Table of Content

• Motivation
• Envisioned Solution
• What is TagSpaces?
• My "Health Data" Workflow
• Supported platforms

Motivation

• Issues with health / quantified self data:
• many apps on many devices (smartphones, tablets, laptops)
• many intelligent devices (smart watches, bluetooth scales, wristbands)
• many health web portals
• all this leads to a segmentation of your data
• your data is mostly vendor locked
• and you don't really know how your data is used

Envisioned Solution

• What I really needed:
• Universal hub for health data management
• Cross device sync and portable data
• Abilities for visualization and analysis
• No Backend ->No Login -> No Cloud

What is TagSpaces?

• What is TagSpaces ?
• Use cases - File Management
• Use cases - File Preview
• Ok, we were here already ...
• Use cases - File Tagging
• File System as a Database
• Sync Tagged Files Between Devices
• Use cases - File Editing / Note-Taking / Evernote
• TagSpaces as of v1.7

What is TagSpaces ?

• it is open source and extensible platform for personal data management
• it let you organize, tag and browse your local files, photos and documents on many platforms.
• project initiated in 2013 by me

• official website: tagspaces.org

• source hosted on github.com/uggrock/tagspaces

• build with HTML5, JS, Cordova, Node-Webkit

Use cases - File Management

• create files (plain text, html, markdown)
• create directories
• rename files
• move files (drag&drop)
• delete files

Use cases - File Preview

• TagSpaces can open over 50 different file types such as:
• Images (PNG, BMP, JPG, GIF), Videos and Audio (MP3, OGG)
• Documents (PDF, ODF, ODT, ODS, ODP, MARKDOWN)
• Sourcecode (C, Java, C++, Javascript, PHP, Ruby, XML)

Ok, we were here already ...

Use cases - File Tagging

• TagSpaces uses the file name for saving the tags
• tags are saved after the following schema:
• file title [tag1 tag2 tag3].extension
• example: img_2343 [USA beach miami].jpg
• example: meeting [bmw 20140214 john].html

File System as a Database

• No database locking
• Findabilty - with the search capabilities of your operating system
• Easy to synchronize between devices (just work in a dropbox folder)

Sync Tagged Files Between Devices

• Dropbox offers a great way to sync tagged files across multiple devices

Use cases - File Editing / Note-Taking / Evernote

• TagSpaces can also edit some text file types
• HTML
• Markdown
• Text Files
• Sourcecode (C, Java, C++, Javascript, PHP, Ruby, XML)

TagSpaces as of v1.7

My "Health Data" Workflow

• Collecting the data
• Organizing the data
• Live Demo
• Visualizing my weight
• Adding new weight data entry
• Conclusions

Collecting the data

• taking screenshots from your after every measurement
• using the export functionality of your device (if available)
• e.g. my scale has usb port so I can export all the data in CSV
• taking photos of the device (if it shows the result of the measurement)

Organizing the data

• Once a week collect all the screenshots / photos
• Organize and tag those screenshots in 10 minutes
• Convert your CSV to tagged files (easy with scripts)

Live Demo

Visualizing my weight

• Feature currently in development

Adding new weight data entry

• Feature currently in development

Conclusions

• You can experiment with many kind of devices and apps
• While letting you stay not vendor locket
• Not suitable for measurements happening to often
• It is still heavy manual approach
• It needs optimizations, eventually OCR for automatic tagging

Supported platforms

• Download it from tagspaces.org/downloads for:

• Windows
• Mac OS
• Linux/Ubuntu
• Android
• Firefox
• Chrome
• iOS

Windows

• Native 32bit Application

Mac OS X

• Native 32bit Application

Linux/Ubuntu

• Native 32bit and 64bit Applications

Android

• App available in the Google's Play Store

Firefox

• Available as Add On

Chrome

• Available as Extension

iOS

• iOS release is coming soon

The End

Thank You! Questions?

Ilian Sapundshiev @ilianste

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These days there is a real temptation and it’s funny in some strange way to categorize things not only in real life but also in the digital space. To define and categorize music, movies, books, games and another things is catchy. The problem is, that it’s very subjective. For instance, for somebody one book can be "science fiction" but for another "alternate history". It’s based on someone else’s subjectivity.

Tagging and tags is fresh and better alternative of categorizing and grouping things. Tagging allows people to call thing with their own words. They don’t need to conform with keywords or categories in internet created by somebody else. Allow them to describe what they’re seeing in their own words, to imbue the experience with their own meaning. Tagging spares of your time, it creates a variety of tags in different sites and can make the searching for a specific song or a movie or a book or whatever you’re looking for much more easy and faster.

Tags are personal thing. Tagging something is your emotional response and not simply a taxonomic decision. With using tags, people have the control to define things in the web - not only for music, literature, games and movies, but also public websites, data repositories and consultations. Tagging is a new indirect way of control to express your mind and to call things your way - you can call it a "form of freedom of speech" if you want to go that far. Tagging is a power to create your own genres in movies and music for example.

There is also some negative side of tagging and tags - the photos. Not everybody is pleased when is tagged in a photo without his permission- mostly on Facebook. But at the same time tagging is the best way to group and categorize all of your large amount of photos scattered in different folders in the hard drives.

Despite the fact that the version number looks as a minor release, it offers some bugfixes. It also has the following new features:

• The main improvement is supporting of ODF files (e.g. ODT, ODS, ODG, ODP). For this feature I have used a library from the webodf.org. Unfortunately due some security restrictions it have to be disabled in the chrome and the firefox extensions.

• Starting of the application in the last opened location is another feature, requested by many users.
• The following key bindings were also added:
  • ctrl+r / command+r - reloads the current document
  • ctrl+s / command+s - saves the current document if opened for editing
  • esc - closes the current document
  • alt-enter - shows the document properties
• "Send to" functionality is a cool feature added for the Android users, so now you can send any file to some other Android application like for example your email client.

• And finally, a support for the Google's WEBP image format (not for Firefox) was added.

I added a new page on tagspaces.org yesterday, describing the currently supported file types, which can be opened and edited in the application. As of today TagSpaces supports more than 50 file types. In the near future I am planning to support opening of EPUB (e-books) and formats from the Open Document Format (ODF) such as ODS (spreadsheet), ODT (text documents), ODP (presentations) and ODG (graphics). What do you think - which formats should be also supported in TagSpaces?