Hello Serg,
and welcome to the forum

"Serg" wrote:
I downloaded Tabbles couple days before and it looks as a very promising application.
While UI is nice but in case of hundreds of tags it becomes really inconvenient.
It there a plan (a chance) to build (may be alternative ? for those who interested in productivity more than in nice looking) a l pain grid interface:
– Tabbles become rows in a grid;
– Files in browsed takes only one row in a greed ? file name, location on the disk and tags assigned.
– All these grids are normal scrollable grids ? up and down arrows which completely redraw the window are slow and inconvenient.

We’re thinking of having a more conventional GUI for the main window… btw, you can already hide the tabbles on the main window. They’re showed only in the files windows.
We’re also considering showing the files in a grid in the file windows (this one is probably gonna happen soon).
You should try using the search field in the main window, you can use it to quickly filter the visible tabbles.

"Serg" wrote:
And another suggestion ? please give me an ability not to tag files on selected drives. I have huge external drive which I do not need to tag at all. But Tagges periodically run background process to scan this drive; I kill it and Tagges runs it again. And I can?t delete the table for this drive.
Is there a way to kill this process permanently and/or delete this drive from Tabbles?

Tabbles doesn’t scan any drive: I assume you’re talking about the one-click tagging and there are some rules that get trigged by some file in that drive.
Here is a workaround: click the "auto-tagging rules" (or "Edit" > auto-tagging rules) button and have a look at the predefined rules there. You have a bunch of "When a file is created and the filetype is "something"", there you can whethere edit them and add the condition "and is in this folder" (setting "c:" for instance) or you can delete them all at once. I suggest you only delete the rules relative to the files that you think may trigger the rules in that drive (such as .mp3?) It would be cool if you tell us which one they were… and if you get this fixed at all.

Also, if you check the beta section and install the 1.3.9RC1, you’ll find the updated manual in it that explains a bit more how the auto-tagging (and one-click) rules work.

Anyway good point! We’ll write this down 🙂

"Andrea" wrote:

And another suggestion ? please give me an ability not to tag files on selected drives. I have huge external drive which I do not need to tag at all. But Tagges periodically run background process to scan this drive; I kill it and Tagges runs it again. And I can?t delete the table for this drive.
Is there a way to kill this process permanently and/or delete this drive from Tabbles?

Tabbles doesn’t scan any drive: I assume you’re talking about the one-click tagging and there are some rules that get trigged by some file in that drive.

Actually Andrea, it kinda does… This sounds like something I talked to Maurizio a couple months ago and is not associated with the auto-tagging rules but with the way Tabbles detects attached drives. As I understand it, Tabbles checks for drives every so often (which has something to do with how Tabbles keeps up with file changes not done via Tabbles?).

Anyways, as a result you can’t hide any of the drive tabbles, or rather you can hide them until you reboot the program or otherwise cause Tabbles to redetect, then boom, they’re back. Kind of a pain for me too, but as I recall, Maurizio said there was nothing to be done because of the drive detection routines.

I don’t think it actually runs any background processes on the drives, though it may look like it. When you browse drives in Tabbles it shows the "its a folder" and extension tabbles on the files, the tabbles don’t ‘stick’ though unless you access the folder or open the file. Only then does Tabbles take note of it and it becomes part of your "all tagged files" list and is added to the file count.

As I understand it, Tabbles checks for drives every so often (which has something to do with how Tabbles keeps up with file changes not done via Tabbles?).

Tabble does not check for drives periodically anymore. It once did though. Now it just listens to messages sent by Windows. (Windows sends messages like "this drive has just been attached /detached". In response to such messages, Tabbles creates disk-tabbles.)

Anyways, as a result you can’t hide any of the drive tabbles, or rather you can hide them until you reboot the program or otherwise cause Tabbles to redetect, then boom, they’re back. Kind of a pain for me too, but as I recall, Maurizio said there was nothing to be done because of the drive detection routines.

When you attach a drive, I need to give you a way to browse it with Tabbles. Currently this is accomplished by showing a disk-tabble which you can open.

I don’t think it actually runs any background processes on the drives, though it may look like it.

It seems there is a bug somewhere. I recall you told me that, from time to time, for no apparent reason, Tabbles starts scanning a disk recursively (applying rules recursively to folder C:, something like that). Now Serg seems to have the same problem. I don’t see why this should happen. Tabbles currently only scans a folder when it is created. (This is necessary because some rules might need to be applied to files in subfolders). Since root folders such as C: or D: are never created, Tabbles should never scan them. If it does, I need to understand why.

Could you tell me if this rescanning of root folders only happens for removable drives, or also for fixed drives?

@serg:

While UI is nice but in case of hundreds of tags it becomes really inconvenient.

I assume you refer to the main window (aka desktop) becoming cluttered.

Are you aware you can hide tabbles from the main window?

It there a plan (a chance) to build (may be alternative ? for those who interested in productivity more than in nice looking) a l pain grid interface:
– Tabbles become rows in a grid;

Could you explain what problem would this solve? (Are you aware of the function which arranges tabbles by name? This creates a sequential layout, only more compact than the one you suggest.)

– Files in browsed takes only one row in a greed ? file name, location on the disk and tags assigned.

Again, what problem would this solve?

– All these grids are normal scrollable grids ? up and down arrows which completely redraw the window are slow and inconvenient.

That’s very difficult to achieve since in general the list could contain thousands of files. So the list-item for those files cannot exist in memory at the same time. Hence the current solution which only allows you to page down.

But Tagges periodically run background process to scan this drive; I kill it and Tagges runs it again.

This looks like a bug. Could you be more precise? Do you mean that, from time to time, in the "active tasks" window, you see an entry "applying rules recursively to folder F:"? (where F: is the drive letter).

Does this rescanning only happen for the removable drive? Does this only happen when you attach it, or also some other time?

And I can?t delete the table for this drive.

Why do you feel the need to delete the disk-tabble? Only as a workaround for the above bug, of for some other reason?

"Maurizio" wrote:

And I can?t delete the table for this drive.

Why do you feel the need to delete the disk-tabble? Only as a workaround for the above bug, of for some other reason?

::sigh:: I won’t speak for Serge, of course, but there are a good bunch of reasons to be able to permanently hide a drive tabble, some of which I noted when we first talked about this. First and foremost is that on my system I have my drives sliced up so that I have 6 drive letters for HDs alone, add 1 more for the CD/DVD and 2 more for thumb drives and you get 9. Tabbles does not need to see my music HD, the OS partition, the OS restore partition, 1 of the thumb drive partitions, and the CD/DVD (for now), so in essence there are at least 5 drives I really don’t need nor want to see.

Put that in a business environment; say I get an assistant to do my evening tabbling and I’ve set up a file, print, and fax servers, also chopped up. Now we have several -more- drive tabbles and if my assistant is particularly ditzy and forgets where the files are they’re categorizing are then every folder and file they access in their search gets added to the main db file count and tossed into the ‘all tagged files’ category…

Also, eventually you will need to look at file and db security in a business environment and hiding drive tabbles is a pretty basic foundation of that.

ok guys, point taken 🙂

P.S.: the external hard-drive spinning, it’s not because of Tabbles: me and Maurizio tried independently with different OS (3 for me and one for him) and both got a negative results…