mercs

A simple GUI to view & edit xattrs (extended file attributes) in Python+Qt, using xattr (v0.9.6) library.

What does "MERCS" stand for?

"Metadata Edit? Right-click: Save."

It's part of a metadata/annotation environment, where one can literally access any data (metadata+payload) as easy as "right-click-edit-save" 😄 Working title: AHAlodeck by August

What are xattrs?

xattrs is a term for "Extended File Attributes" (EAs): key/value metadata stored in the filesystem (<- That's where filename/path and timestamps are stored now). MERCS accesses these EAs, and shows them as simple key/value set in an editable table.

What's the plan?

This is a very hacky, and not well-coded proof-of-concept UI for editing filesystem EAs. The plan is to extend MERCS functionalities as follows:

• Add search/filter capabilities
• Add display hierarchy as-tree options (like a file-manager)
• Regroup on-the-fly by patterns
• Interpret URIs in values as "linked-data-objects"
• Support graph-queries (RDF?)

Have fun! 🍰

Known Issues

Currently, mercs will close itself immediately if a file has no attributes yet set. So you need to use setfattr to give it an initial value - and then use mercs to add more.

Screenshots

A 0-Byte file containing only metadata, shown in 2 different tools:

Recoll (search tool) showing that MERCS really looks at the same filesystem data (xattrs)

MERCS as right-click custom config in file-manager (Thunar XFCE4)