[Nepomuk] The Semantic Desktop Wants You: Use tags (and other metadata) everywhere

[Evgeny Egorochkin]

В сообщении от Понедельник 26 октября 2009 14:11:20 автор Stefanos Harhalakis 
написал:
> Regarding this post:
> http://dot.kde.org/2009/10/22/semantic-desktop-wants-you
> 
> Here is a wild idea (that I also partially suggested to the N900 people):
> 
> -----
> 
> Vision:
> 
> * Provide more humane file handling
> * Allow a user to locate files not by filesystem location but by tags, type
> and other metadata. Most important are the tags
> * Allow applications to locate files/data by tags
> 
> -----
> 
> Sample schenarios:
> 
> * Visit kde-look and download a wallpaper. Save it wherever you like and
>  tag it as "wallpaper". After that, whenever you visit desktop settings you
>  could be presented with all images in your disk(s) that are tagged as
>  "wallpaper". Perhaps sort them by reverse date or have a view where most
>  recent "appropriately tagged files" are listed and immediately find the
>  last wallpaper.
> 
> * Download an audio file (e.g. mp3) and tag it as "music". After that
>  amarok can automatically include all files that are tagged as "music"
> 
> * Download a couple of PDF files: One is tagged as PHD, another as KDE-tech
> and another as Request-form. Whenever you attempt to open a PDF file (from
> okular) you lookup for all "PHD" files (plus the recent "appropriately
>  tagged files" feature) and voila.
> 
> -----

There was an attempt to do metadata-aware load/save dialogs by GSoC students. 
Not sure it's an exact copy but it's close.

> How to do it (as far as I can think of it):
> 
> * Be persuaded (and persuade others too) that file tags are essential in
>  file handling.

Hopefully this is already done.

> * Introduce the concept of file type. This is required in many places. This
> does not have to do with "PDF" etc. It may be more convenient to have
> Document/PDF (a'la. mime-type).

This is one of core concepts of Nepomuk File Ontology

> * Introduce namespaces for tags. There can be a "System" namespace to serve
> some system activities with (fixed tags (System:wallpaper,
>  System:KDM_Theme, System:Plasma_Applet, etc...).
> 
> * Provide a two-way file handling (open/save/etc) dialog: Imagine the well-
> known "open file" dialog with two tabs: One for "file-based" file handling
>  and one for "tag-based" or "semantic" file handling. Thus we will be able
>  to locate files either the old way or using tags (and other criteria)

We have something like this in playground.

> * Extend core applications/settings to auto-lookup files by tags. E.g. the
> wallpaper handling.

Makes sense.

> * Allow helper apps / plugins to extend the act of file tagging. For
>  example, a plugin could suggest tags based on its own critera (source of
>  download, file type, file name, current application, user settings,
>  etc...)

Not sure we are ready to propose something that would actually work, but would 
be nice.

> * Perhaps: Allow for "file searchers" / "locators" (a.k.a. dynamic tags).
> Imagine that existing (static) tagging is just a plugin and there can be
>  other such plugins with dynamic capabilities. A plugin for example could
>  lookup "wallpaper" tagged files in web-sites. Another one could
>  auto-search DVDs, USB sticks, external disks, etc. A third one could
>  locate images that are URLs from kopete's history and either list them
>  under a predefined tag (App:Kopete) or under more dynamic/automatic tags
>  (Type:Image, Image_Size:1920x1200, Light:Dark).

Everything except for using external search engines is entirely possible atm, 
but somebody has to write the code.

-- Evgeny