How can I add meta data to text files by using “file-props.el”

Question

I have a large number of text files with notes, and would like to add meta data (tags and comments) to each file, and display them when using dired. I am using windows 10, and emacs 25.0.93.1 (x86_w64-mingw32).

So I have installed file-props.el for this purpose, with file-props.el in my load path and the following lines added to my init.el file:

(require 'file-props)
(file-props-load-properties)
(file-props-dired-activate-display)
(file-props-dired-setup-keybindings)

But when I try using the

file-props-add-to-current-file (when inside a text file) or

file-props-dired-add-tags (when having marked a text file in dired)

I get the following error message:

Can anybody see whats wrong in my use of file-props? Thanks in advance for any help!

Are there other functions than file-props to add meta data to text files, when working in emacs?

Answer 1

(The error message is telling you that something expected a list and instead was passed a symbol (that names the file). Turn on debug-on-error, so you can see what the calling function is. Then use C-h f for that function, to see how it should be called instead.)

---

I can't speak to file-props.el. But I can speak to this:

Are there other functions than file-props to add meta data to text files, when working in emacs?

Bookmark+ provides tons of functions for adding tags to and removing tags from autofile bookmarks, which means arbitrary files.

Tags are arbitrary names (strings), by default, but they can have associated values that are Lisp objects of any kind. That is, a tag is metadata of the most general sort.

---

In addition to tags, a bookmark (and thus a file) can have an annotation, which is a general textual description. The metadata of an annotation can be stored within the bookmark, or it can be external (which is useful when it is long). An external annotation can be a file, a URL, or another bookmark.