This is a short and simple guide on using Tagsistant for the first time.

Since Tagsistant is a file system, the first operation you have to do is to mount it on a specified mount point. This operation is done with the command:

$ tagsistant <mount_point>

After doing that, the directory <mount_point> will be managed by Tagsistant. As an example, we'll use the tags directory in our home directory:

$ tagsistant ~/tags

Our new Tagsistant managed space is now empty and we can start creating some tags:

$ mkdir ~/tags/mom

$ mkdir ~/tags/dad

$ mkdir ~/tags/my_sister

We have now three tags describing members of our family. Of course the name of the tags is up to you. Now, let assume we have a collection of photos about our family. We can simply save the photos with mom in the proper tag directory, and so for the photos with the other members. After doing our tagging, listing the contents of the three directories will show photos depicting our relatives. That's what we expect from a traditional file system. But here enters Tagsistant.

What about all the photos with dad and mom only? It's easy:

$ ls ~/tags/dad/AND/mom/

That's it! Basically this query could be translated into: show me all the photos tagged with both dad and mom tags. So if a photo is only tagged dad or mom, that photo will not show up in the results. To ask for all the photos tagged dad or mom we use the OR operator:

$ ls ~/tags/dad/OR/mom/ 

As you may have already noticed, when you list the contents of a path ending with a tag, like ~/tags/dad/ and ~/tags/dad/AND/mom/, together with the files are listed two special directories: the AND and OR operators. That's a feature introduced to let file managers browse the archive without requiring keyboard typing.