RE: [xml-dev] Meta-somethingorother (was the semantic web mega-permathread thing)

["Joshua Allen" <joshuaa@microsoft.com>]

> > Most of your files already have metadata.  Right-click on any movie,
> > picture, word processing, or other similar file.  Select
"properties".
> > You will be able to access a boatload of metadata like "author",
"time
> > recorded", "last update".
> 
> That's it, not more than that? Gee I expected more like, for instance,
> unifying the index with the actual file meta-data. Maybe a limited
list of
> keywords associated to the file (off course not all, just in case you

Of course; you get lots of cool features.  I thought you were asking how
WinFS actually obtains the metadata.

As far as accessing and using the metadata; you get a number of ways.
It's all stored and indexed in the same place, and the list of
properties, etc. is all available.  You can execute queries over the
data using built-in search UI, using a query language from the APIs, or
data binding to the storage in Windows UI.  You can grab items and
traverse properties programmatically, etc.  So, yes, you can do a lot
with it once it is exposed through WinFS rather than stuck in each file.