Release of allTags 2.8.2
2021-12-11


2.8.2 is a patch release with a couple of fixes and improvements.

Smaller fixes and improvements

  • Improved tag sorting behavior in sidebar - tags are now also sorted by alphabet when count is equal
  • Fixed application stuck after computer wakes up from sleep mode
  • Updated French translation
  • Updated GO to 1.17.3
  • Updated Electron to 16.0.2
  • Updated ImageMagick to 7.1.0-17

For feedback you can contact us directly or use our subreddit.

Warm regards,

Gabriel, developer

Release of allTags 2.8.1
2021-01-17


2.8.1 is a patch release with a couple of fixes and a new community translation.

New translation: French

A very helpful user has provided us with a new community translation for french, which is now available for anyone to use.

Smaller fixes and improvements

  • Changed row visibility calculation in list views to avoid unnecessary redraws when rows have different heights
  • Fixed duplicate file feature marking files that are in the trash
  • Updated ImageMagick to 7.0.10.57

For feedback you can contact us directly or use our subreddit.

Warm regards,

Gabriel, developer

Release of allTags 2.8
2020-11-09


allTags 2.8 is now available with a couple of fixes and a long requested feature...

Duplicate file detection

By comparing hash values of active file versions, allTags will detect and notify you about duplicates. This will work automatically on existing data sets after upgrading to this version.

New translation: russian

For a while now, a dedicated user has provided us with a russian translation of allTags. We planned to release 2.8 sooner but got delayed. Nevertheless, today we are happy to provide another community translation.

Smaller fixes and improvements

  • Updating server sync logic to prepare for next server release
  • Multiple tags within a single namespace are now displayed more cleanly (comma is connected to last item in line, not first item in next line)
  • Updated backend with GO 1.15.4
  • Updated Electron to 10.1.5

For feedback you can contact us directly or use our subreddit.

Warm regards,

Gabriel, developer

allTags 2.7.2 patch release
2020-03-05


We have a small patch update for you today. Bigger features are currently being worked on but we did not want to delay this release any further, because...

We have our first community translation: Simplified Chinese

Thanks to the effort of a dedicated user, there is now a third translation available for allTags. We also got permission to package the translation file with the regular release. As we have received quite a bit of feedback from chinese users, we hope that this translation will make using allTags better for them.

There are also a few minor updates and improvements, most notably the ability to export files with unicode characters (chinese, cyrillic, ...).

For feedback you can contact us directly or use our subreddit.

Warm regards,

Gabriel, developer

allTags 2.7 & first server release!
2019-12-08


Today, we have some major news, starting with...

allTags Server

For the first time, we are releasing a version of allTags Server to the public. With 2.7 you can connect to and synchronize allTags with a central server. This enables teams and larger organizations to use allTags as a collaborative file management system.

However, as we want to make sure that your data is 100% safe, we are not yet ready to announce a production ready version for allTags Server. It has been in use for many months and gone through many iterations. We are releasing a beta version, available for anyone for testing and providing feedback. With more field experience, we will decide when allTags Server is ready for real data.

If you are interested in participating in the beta, you can download and install allTags Server with this link. By default, it is limited to 3 concurrent users. We will provide unlimited additional keys for this beta period, just let us know how many you need. With the release of a production ready version, we are going to charge for concurrent users to finance the long-term development of allTags. 3 concurrent users will stay free indefinitely. Click here to learn more.

Tag namespaces

Besides the server release, allTags 2.7 gets a long-needed tagging feature - tag namespaces! It is now possible to namespace tags by using this syntax: "namespace:tag1,tag2,tag3"

Namespaces enable association between tags in views, are automatically grouped and can be searched for. You can describe common attributes of movies, like format or language. Location tags can be namespaced to help describe fotographs. We are sure that you will find even more useful cases for this feature.

Tag namespaces are new to 2.7 and will be further improved in future releases.

Better list view processing

Working with larger lists is now much faster in 2.7. As items are rendered in full detail only if they are visible on screen, you do not need to specificy a result limit anymore. This enables faster navigation and bulk editing for up to the maximum of 1000 objects.

This improvement does not work yet for grid views, but might be extented in the future.

Consolidated documentation

allTags and allTags Server now have proper documentation, which can be viewed on the website as well as locally on the client. It will be extented with time to cover more features and common questions.

Improvements

Some requested improvements have been implemented:

  • Objects can now be deleted immediately, without having to be put into the trash bin first.
  • Displayed file name length can now be configured for different views.

Bug fixes

  • PDF thumbnail generation now works with newer Ghostscript versions (9.27 and later).
  • Video thumbnails are now also created for video files that are very short (< 3 seconds).
  • Tag ordering has been fixed in cases where objects had identical tags.

Even though new server releases take development resources, we are committed to improving allTags itself now and in the future. For feedback regarding allTags Server, and allTags in general, you can contact us directly or use our subreddit.

Warm regards,

Gabriel, developer

Release of allTags 2.6
2019-08-06


Version 2.6 is ready. This update brings new features and new ways of using allTags. Let´s jump right in.

Complete overhaul of external links

For a while now, it has been possible to link external files or websites via the URL object type. This allowed for tagging of resources without having to import them to allTags. Very useful for static content that does not need versioning, like videos or large archives. Unfortunately, URL objects had to be created one by one and they would not support thumbnails or other basic meta data.

This has changed! In 2.6 'URL objects' were renamed to 'link objects' and are now first-class citizens in allTags. Links to files have thumbnail support, bulk creation via drag&drop and some file meta data (name, extension). You can also still link other resources, like websites or network shares but, for now, thumbnails and other meta data is only fetched for file links.

For users coming from allTags 2.1 and older: Due to technical limitations, using your own browser for allTags will not allow drag&drop creation of file links. This function requires allTags shell and is disabled otherwise.

With link objects, you can now easily drag&drop a huge video folder and bulk create taggable links. Helping with this is...

Video thumbnail support

By including libraries from the FFmpeg project, allTags 2.6 can offer thumbnails for many video formats. Already existing video files or links to external video files will generate thumbnail automatically on next access.

Proxy support and server development update

Currently only relevant for update checks, the new proxy support will enable use of allTags Server in some company environments when it is ready. We still need more time for testing, polishing and documentation before allTags Server is finished, but we are basically done adding features.

Fixes and improvements

  • A bug in 2.5 caused new file objects to not take over the file modification time. This was fixed.
  • Exporting a file multiple times could cause a loop where the exported file was constantly overwritten. This was fixed.
  • The drag&drop interface was updated to allow for choosing between file import (default) or file linking (to create new link objects).
  • The update check was limited to once daily.
  • Improvements to the internal database (better indexing) for faster responses in larger instances.

For feedback and questions you can use the allTags subreddit, link: Link to subreddit

Warm regards,

Gabriel, developer

Release of allTags 2.5
2019-06-01


A new minor version has been released today. allTags 2.5 brings a couple new features, loads of bug fixes, improvements as well as backend changes for the future server release. Some sneak peeks at the end of this post. But for now, lets look at the changes.

New function: File version import for existing objects

A very common use case: You export a file to share with someone over e-mail. A new file version is sent back and you want to apply the changes. In allTags 2.5 you can import a new file version for any existing file object. Just drag&drop the new file over the object in the object details window. This will generate a new file version for this object. If you are unhappy with the change, you can recover an older file version via the object history.

Major increase in import speed for many file types

Thumbnails are now generated in parallel to files being imported. This greatly improves import speed for affected file types (mostly images, PDF documents). Depending on your system, you can expect between a 5x and 10x speed increase.

Fixes and changes to 'current objects' view

Up until now, the way allTags tracked objects being accessed was not very intuitive, which caused some confusion. This was changed significantly in this version. Every access, regardless of object type, is tracked simply with a timestamp. In the improved 'opened objects' view, you can easily identify, which objects were accessed and when. You can also display the timestamp of last access (via 'visible properties') and also sort and filter by it.

Improvements to object packs

Though a very specific use case, object packs can be useful when dealing with lots of similar files. In 2.5, handling of object packs was improved, giving more information when creating or changing them. You also have control over which tags are taken over from added objects. Many fixes were applied for accessing and navigating within object packs.

Smaller fixes and improvements

  • Added navigation elements for going forward and backward through the application. A refresh button was also added.
  • New 'next page' shortcuts were added to list and grid views.
  • The object history is now processed better to show a more condensed but equally informative view of events.
  • Some improvements to navigational UI elements like dropdown page selectors were made.
  • Changing the case of a tag name would cause this tag to become unaccessible. This was fixed.
  • Sometimes, when creating a new file version, the corresponding thumbnail would not update. This should not happen anymore.

A sneak peek at the current development progress

For feedback and questions you can use the allTags subreddit, link: Link to subreddit

Warm regards,

Gabriel, developer

Release of allTags 2.4
2019-03-29


Another release! This time we have some often requested features and a few quality of life improvements.

Thumbnail support for PDF and other file types

One of the most requested features so far. With 2.4, allTags can now offer thumbnails for PDF, text files (such as .txt, .html, etc.) and many more image types (.webp, .gif, .psd, .xcf, etc.).

Most work is done by the excellent ImageMagick set of applications, which can gracefully be included inside of allTags. To create PDF thumbnails however, there must be a version of Ghostscript installed on your system.

Processing PDFs is a hard task and Ghostscript produced very good results for everything I threw at it. Please make sure, you have Ghostscript installed, if you want to have PDF thumbnails.

Better thumbnail handling in general

If you want to change the quality of thumbnails, you can now delete the thumbnail cache in settings. This will cause allTags to dynamically recreate thumbnails while you use the application. Missing thumbnails, like for PDF files that were not supported in the past, are now automatically created.

Smaller fixes and improvements

  • Thumbnails are not being cached between instances any more.
  • Tags can now be toggled in the grid view to show the image preview unobstructed.
  • Many small, visual improvements for object views and sub windows.

That´s it for 2.4. For feedback and questions you can use the allTags subreddit, link: Link to subreddit

Warm regards,

Gabriel, developer

Release of allTags 2.3
2019-01-23


Welcome to allTags 2.3. This release focuses on quality-of-life improvements and bug fixes. It was delayed as development effort is currently being put towards collaboration features within allTags. Click here, if you want to learn more about it.
Now to the new stuff inside 2.3.

Major improvements to the grid-view

The grid-view has been redesigned (again) to have less clutter and better image previews.

The basic grid-view layout has also been changed. When you disable 'Align to grid', images stop following a fixed grid and use their original proportions. This type of layout is generally called a masonry-layout and works well with images that use different aspect ratios.

Lastly, the grid-view receives a zoom function. Somebody asked for it, it was put in and now it feels like it should have always been there. Thank you for requesting this feature, I don´t want to miss it now.

Object event history changes

The object history has mostly been used to view and recover older file versions. With this release, allTags now tracks changes to object meta data, such as URLs, file names and tags. To keep everything nice and readable, the events are aggregated to show a summary, when appropriate.

Small improvements

  • By clicking on any entry in the upload tracker window, you can now jump directly to the files that were uploaded.
  • The shell was adjusted to look more like traditional applications. It now also shows the window focus state.
  • Pack objects are now handled similar to zip-files, with the contents being opened up separately.
  • Recovering an older file version now creates a new version instead of overwriting the latest one.

Bug fixes

  • The working/loading indicator would often not pop-up when the GUI was busy. Not any more.
  • The page selector now actually shows the correct page when navigating backwards through the application.
  • Broken mouse-over texts were re-enabled.

This release took more than twice as long as releases in the past. Even as development time is spent on collaboration features, I recognize that not everybody cares for those. Therefore I want to make sure, that regular releases still have nice things for people who just want to deal with their own, personal files. I hope that a good balance can be struck in the coming months.

For feedback and questions you can use the allTags subreddit, link: Link to subreddit

Warm regards,

Gabriel, developer

Release of allTags 2.2
2018-11-06


After getting many requests, I am happy to announce that allTags 2.2 now includes its own, native shell.

Introducing allTags Shell

By working with the very useful Electron framework, allTags can now behave similar to a native application. It will run within its own window and can be handled like any other application.

If you prefer the old way, you can select 'Use default browser as interface [...]' during the installation wizard; this will cause allTags to run just as before. Users of the portable version can also choose between running allTags (the old browser interface) or allTagsShell (the new, native shell).

A new interface

While doing work on the native shell, I wanted to improve the usability and space efficiency of the user interface so that it more closely matches native applications. The result is a partly rewritten user interface.

Though no change is popular with everybody, I hope that the new interface will be an improvement for the vast majority of users.

Object packs to combine objects

An object pack is used when you need to handle, e. g. tag and find, many objects as if they were a single object. This follows use cases of people tagging many individual objects the same, without the need for differentiating between them. Some examples:

  • Pages or volumes of comics or mangas.
  • Chapters of text books.
  • Collections of photographs, which are not worth tagging individually.

Object packs should not be used as a form of category. Their content cannot be searched and they cannot be nested (an object pack cannot include other object packs). As they serve very specific use cases, I am very interested to learn, how this feature is received.

Improvements and fixes

  • The object grid view was changed to show more tags with less clutter. It also got an option to show images uncut, meaning that their full proportions are used for previews. Other file types are now represented by a file type preview image instead of the old no-preview-available placeholder.
  • Container handling was improved, moving the default container selection to the container menu inside the menu bar. There were also a couple of bugs in relation to pinned objects and containers that were fixed.
  • New objects can now be assigned to a container during creation.

The entire change log can be viewed here: Link

allTags subreddit

Following a suggestion, I have created a subreddit, where new releases and announcements will also be posted so that anybody can start or join a discussion. Feel free to post anything allTags related there.
Link to allTags subreddit

Thank you for sticking with, or being interested in, this humble file manager,

Gabriel, developer

Release of allTags 2.1
2018-10-05


Today, allTags 2.1 has been released. This new, minor version fixes many outstanding issues, greatly increases stability during heavy write operations and improves tag handling.

New tag input

Tag handling is basically the raison d'etre of allTags. Version 2.1 replaces the old tag input method and brings in a new, consolidated tag input. It allows for faster tag input (and removal), reduces the required screen space and allows for more control of what is displayed.

Better stability and better handling during heavy writes

This version improves backend stability considerably. You can now import/upload larger and multiple file sets at once without the application locking up or producing errors. A new progress tracker has been added to show running and completed tasks.

allTags now also handles access of existing content during heavy write operations (like when uploading many small files) much more gracefully. You should now be able to use allTags with close to the original performance even when adding thousands of files.

Improved object list view

After updating the object grid view last version, the list view gets some love. It will show less icons by default, blending in actions when they become useful. It also now includes shortcuts to some often used bulk actions, like opening all files on the page.

Many more small improvements and bug fixes are part of this release, so please update to this version to get the best experience using allTags.

Thank you and warm regards,

Gabriel, developer

Introducing allTags 2.0
2018-09-07


I am happy to announce the release of the next major version of allTags. 2.0 includes many improvements, bug fixes and of course, new features. So let´s get to them.

New major feature: Containers

With containers, allTags supports the separation of data within a single instance. While it was always possible to manage big datasets of different kinds by using tags, now you can dynamically switch between datasets. You can manage your entire data at once or focus on subsets. For example, if allowed, your work and private files can live and be managed in the same instance.

New feature: Separate storage paths

In allTags 2.0, you have the option of separating files via storage paths. With big filesets, storage space can become an issue. With the introduction of containers, it is now possible to divide files between devices, like hard drives or network shares. While separated by storage path, you can still manage all your file objects simultaneously in allTags.

Improvements: Grid view & thumbnails

  • The grid view has been redesigned to allow for more images to be handled and now works better on different screen sizes.
  • With better grid view, you can now choose to increase size and quality of thumbnails. Newly added images will then look much better, though will take longer to import and their thumbnails will need more space.

General improvements

  • The versioning function was improved, allowing you to open read-only copies of older versions to check and compare before you decide whether to recover a file.
  • Many client side scripts were replaced with modern CSS standards. This should result in better performance in larger views.

Bug fixes

  • Many annoying bugs have been squashed, including the one that resets the current scroll position, when changing tags or opening an object. This one was on my naughty list for a while ;)
  • Switching between instances is now faster as a lingering database transaction caused a connection time out.

The entire change log can be viewed here: Link

The road ahead

Containers in allTags is a major new feature, which, although well tested, will be further improved in coming versions. The plan for the next major release is, to focus on making allTags work in team environments as I see many potential benefits of ditching file systems for collaborative work in teams.

Thank you for using or being interested in allTags. Critic, feature suggestions or any other feedback is very welcome.

Warm regards,

Gabriel, developer