Howto: Enable Tagging in Ubuntu Gutsy in 4 simple steps

Today marks the release of Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon. One brand new feature of gutsy is that tracker, a desktop indexer like google dektop, runs by default. Tracker also supports taxonomy for your files and folders but this feature is not yet integrated into gnome. But wait…you can have it anyway in a few simple steps:

1. Install python-nautilus package:

sudo aptitude install python-nautilus

2. Download “Tags-Tab”-Extension and move it to .nautilus/python-extensions (you may have to creat this folder)
3. Restart Nautilus:
   Alt+F2 and type in killall nautilus
   Now you can start tagging files and folders. Simply right-click on the item you want to tag, go to the “Tag”-tap and insert your tags.
4. Setup Searchfolders
   In order to have your tagged items on your hand when ever you need them, simply go to nautilus click on the search button and type:
   tag:[tagname]
   Then go to File->Save search…

Voila, now you can start reorganizing your desktop with tags. I “implemented” some sort of GTD-System with a “next”-tag for files I want to work on in the next days.

Update 29.10.07: User k20878 notes that if this did not work for you, you should try to make both the .py and .pyc files in the
extensions directory executable.

Update 16.02.08: The download link should work again.