Asset tagging for easy searching in FGU

[notrealdan]

I'd like to share my solution to help tag maps (and other assets) that works well with the new Assets search in FGU.

I have tons of maps, mostly from various Patreons and other sources, and they all have their own mostly unhelpful filename conventions, making it very difficult to find the right map when I need it.

I'm going through all of them with a tool called TagSpaces, tagging them with notable features about each asset. TagSpaces Community Edition (which is free, open-source, and cross-platform) adds keyword tags to filenames, making the tags easily searchable from within FGU. Most other tagging tools I've found only store the tags in filesystem metadata or a separate file or database, making the tags useless for FGU. There's a paid "Pro" version also, but I haven't found the need for the extra features.

For example, say you have a dozen "campsite" maps from various sources, some with similar features, but all different, and all stored in different sub-folders. One is map called "campsite.jpg" which is a map of a campsite in a winter scene, near a bridge that crosses a river. I would tag that map with these keywords:
camp
river
bridge
winter

TagSpaces would then rename "campsite.jpg" to be:
campsite[camp river bridge winter].jpg

Repeat for all other assets. Yes, this is still time-consuming, but worth it in the end, and the tool helps make it a bit easier.

Then I can easily search in FGU Assets for "winter camp" and find this map (and others that match those tags) without having to remember where each is. If you're good with your tagging, you can easily find the one with the features you want when you need it.

While you could of course do this manually, it's easier to use a tool like this to do bulk tagging. Plus it's less prone to typos and other mistakes. Since the tagging is simply done in the filename, it doesn't matter if I move the files around, even to other systems. The tags naturally go along with the file, and don't rely on TagSpaces to exist wherever the file goes.

I hope this helps!

[Zacchaeus]

Nice; thanks for sharing.