[tracydigigirl]

Well, ladies, I've finished tagging all of my supplies and I'm so excited to get going with my new organized system.

Here a few observations as I finished and began using the system:
1 - When I was done, I was surprised to find that almost 5,000 of my image files were alpha files. To keep from having to scroll through all of them when I'm looking for a cool alpha, I created another keyword called 'AlphaPreview' and tagged the preview files. This cut that search number down dramatically and is completely sufficient for the purpose.

2 - I went back and changed each of the two word+ keyword tags to eliminate spaces and characters. 'Tags Labels' became 'TagsLabels' There is no particular reason for this rather than instinct telling me that it could matter later down the road.

This new system makes changes so simple that it was loads of fun. All I had to do was create a new keyword (TagsLabels) and do the search using the old keyword. Then with all files selected, I clicked one keyword and un-clicked the other. When all files had been written to, I simply deleted the now un-used keyword. Simple!

3 - My 'Miscellaneous' tag represented alot of files, too. I was surprised to learn how many stars and arrows I had so I created two subcategories for those two keywords and cut down the 'misc' group dramatically.

4 - I discovered that if you right-click a keyword from the keyword panel, you'll see 'Find' in the drop-down list. Clicking this will bring up the Find dialog with that keyword prefilled in the search fields. Click Find and off you go. (Be certain to verify the search folder first!)

5 - Speaking to the 'wonkiness' of Bridge mentioned earlier in this thread, I only ran into two instances of this behavior and both times it was due to a defective file. After opening the folder, when the thumbnail tried to load, Bridge would shut down. I identified the corrupted file and either fixed or removed it and the problem ceased. I've tagged over 20,000 files and this only happened with two files.

Here's my favorite part...when I was completely done, I decided to move all of my scrapbooking stuff to my portable hard drive to speed up my laptop. All I had to do was drag-and-drop in Finder, wait an hour for 35Gb to copy (!), and Voila! All files, along with keywords were moved. No sweat!

I really expect that this system will evolve and perfect over time as my needs and preferences change. I love that this system is so perfectly suited to these anticipated changes.

Unless there are questions, this is my last anticipated update. I sincerely hope that this has helped some of you. It's been great fun for me!