I have been considering changing one of my databases to a flat structure with tag based approach, which would rely heavily on the Tags Filter to find files.
This database contains mainly bookmarks and PDF exports of webpages, across various topics.
It would be very useful if this filter could display tags grouped.
I’ve recently discovered a bookmarking platform called TagPacker which implements very well.
Here is an example of the demo in their website.
On the right there’s the filter, with the tags grouped. (They call these groups “tagpacks”).
In my case, whenever I save a bookmark in DEVONthink, I assign:
- A single tag indicating the content type of webpage (examples: Article, Blog post, Interview, Tutorial, Video, etc)
- A single tag indicating the consumption status (To read / watch, Read / watched)
- One or more tags indicating the topics
I achieved this by having created the tags “Type” and “Status”, excluded them from tagging, and created the appropriate child tags under each of them.
Currently, my topic tags don’t have a parent tag.
I use the Tags Filter in list view, but the tags are all displayed mixed together in a long list. So to bring some order, I prefixed all the child tags of Type with "1-Type: " and the child tags of Status with "2-Status: ". This way, the tags filter shows:
- 1-Type: Article
- 1-Type: Blog post
- …
- 1-Type: Video
- 2-Status: Read / watched
- 2-Status: To read / watch
- Topic 1
- Topic 2
- …
This is the closest I can achieve to having my tags grouped.
Some disadvantages of this are:
- The more tags of type “Type” I have, the more my topic tags will be pushed down in the list, and require scrolling down.
- The prefixes add “visual noise”
It would very useful to really be able to group them, just like TagPacker.
It could be a configurable option along the lines of “Use tags excluded from tagging to group its subtags in Tags Filter”.
Is this something that DEVONtechnologies would consider?