I guess the near future solution might be to simply add additional information to the raw data of a document… or otherwise known as ‘tags’. The advantage is clear - it’s an operating system built-in feature that stores tag(s) within it’s own file-data and does not require a separate database.
I’ve recently looked into OSX Mavericks and it’s TAGS system and I think the most difficult task is to come up with a default set of useful tags that fits ones needs. After that, most parts can be automated with the help of additional tools:
TAGGING FILES --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
• Hazel monitors folders and automatically processes files by moving, renaming, tagging… them according to user-defined rules.
• NameMangler is a powerful tool to rename file-names and file-metadata in an easy, fast, and very flexible way.
• Keyboard Shortcut: ‘System Preferences’ → ‘Keyboard’ → ‘Shortcuts’ → ‘App Shortcuts’ → add ‘Finder.app’ and create ‘Tags…’ with your preferred key combination.
FINDING FILES --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
• SpotLight and Finder support the [font=Courier]tag:[/font] element in combination with standard keywords and boolean operators.
• HoudahSpot gives you the ability to search for files whilst looking for names, content, tags, dates… based on your criteria.
• MDLS and MDFIND are command-line tool that lists the metadata attributes for a specified file.