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organizing tags, subtags, parent tags, and child tags


hostricity

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First: I've seen reference to tags, subtags, parent tags, and child tags. Is "child tag" simply a different term for a "sub tag"?

As I understand it, the only thing that subtags do is allow you to view them hierarchicaly in the left panel. Is this correct?

Am I also correct that I must assign all of the applicable tags in the hierarchy individually? It appears that if I don't do that, the only way I can access notes based on the hierarchy is through the Left Panel. In other words, I can't search by the top level tag and see the notes tagged with the child tag unless I have assigned both the top level tag and the child tag to each note.

If the above is correct, I'd like to see some additional subtag functionality:

I would like (assuming I'm not missing it) is that when viewing a note, the tags would be listed in hierarchy order rather than alphabetically.

Same goes for the note list view, so that when you sort by tag, the sort would be in hierarchical order.

An option that would assign the higher level tags in the hierarchy automatically when I assign a subtag to a note.

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  • Level 5*

Child tag is the same as sub tag, yes. The hierarchical organization of tags is for viewing and organization; no meaning is associated with parent/child tags with respect to search, unless you put it there by virtue of a tag naming scheme. You must assign tags individually, yes; you do not get the parent tags automatically.

Not everyone wants semantic subtags, but it's certainly been discussed here, if you care to search the forums.

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  • Level 5

As I understand it, the only thing that subtags do is allow you to view them hierarchicaly in the left panel. Is this correct?

No. There are several things you can do with child level tags. Let's take an example of companies using tags with the parent tag COMPANY and the child prefix tag COM-.

COMPANY

COM-Carbonite

COM-Ford

COM-NetFlix

COM-Target

COM-Vanguard

If I only wanted to see all the COM- tags, I would call up the tags with Ctrl + Alt + T and type COM-.

All my COM- tags would be viewable in alphabetical order.

Am I also correct that I must assign all of the applicable tags in the hierarchy individually? It appears that if I don't do that, the only way I can access notes based on the hierarchy is through the Left Panel. In other words, I can't search by the top level tag and see the notes tagged with the child tag unless I have assigned both the top level tag and the child tag to each note.

No. If you want to see all notes that are under the COMPANY tag, just search for tag:COM-*

By the way, I usually keep the left panel hidden with F10. I seldom have a need to look at or use the left panel. Maybe once a week to do some housecleaning.

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Thank you for the quick response. Honestly, I'm not sure if that's it or not. This one is Mac only and I'm on Windows.

If this is the only tag manipulator, Tag Maven must be it.

However, it looks like the thing generates tags based on a frequency analysis of word occurence or something similar. The last thing I want at the moment is automated tag proliferation. My current thinking is that a proper searching strategy should reduce the need for large numbers of tags.

I can see the usefulness for something like this if you want to spur creativity or get a high level view of the content in your database.

All I want at the moment is a little more effective tag hierarchy management, not the rather scary, "Go from zero tags, to hundreds or thousands of useful tags in minutes, and all you do is enter your Evernote account name." mentioned in Tag Maven's description.

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Indeed. I want rules that assign tags automatically, but not to create new ones. I'll be happy to do that by myself.

Exactly.

I'd like automatic assignment of higher level tags when a sub-tag is added to a note (with an option to toggle the auto assignment on or off), and I'd like to see the tags ordered by hierarchy instead of alpha in the notes list and the note view. Maybe: Parent Tag: Child Tag, Independent Tag nstead of Child Tag, Independent Tag, Parent Tag - which would be the current alpha order.

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  • Level 5*

i don't use sub tags, semantic or otherwise, everyone has their own methods and workflow, of course. automatic parent tagging might convince me to revisit the feature, though. i also like the idea of suggested tags (like the suggested title feature we have now).

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i don't use sub tags, semantic or otherwise, everyone has their own methods and workflow, of course. automatic parent tagging might convince me to revisit the feature, though. i also like the idea of suggested tags (like the suggested title feature we have now).

I use the left panel at lot at the moment. If I find I don't use it as much as time goes on, I might contert to naming my tags hierarchially and drop the sub tags, since the only place they are of any benefit is to collapse the left panel.

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  • 1 year later...

This speaks of a feature I would greatly like. For instance, I have a lot of material in many foreign languages, and I might tag one in Chinese with the tags "languages" and "Chinese". I do this sort of thing extensively for more granular searching, so I can see all language material or limit it to Chinese. It would be nice to have a way to tell evernote that all things labeled Chinese should also be labeled languages.

 

--charlie

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I can see some problems with that being automatic. Suppose you also kept notes on restaurants in Evernote and tagged some by region/cuisine. Your Chinese restaurant notes would also end up being tagged "languages".It's this sort of thing that makes me not a fan of automatic tagging. The Chrome clipper does it and it's very annoying when it (frequently) gets it wrong.

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I'll have to look at Chrome clipper. I don't expect the feature to be forced on anyone. My only hope is that you could initiate and break the link between tags. But to address the concern you mentioned, there could be a feature that applies a tag by itself ignoring links, like a following asterisk, "food" "Chinese*" or whatever, maybe a configurable termination sequence. A person who would naysay the feature apparently doesn't need it :-p Those of us who do would find a way.

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A person who would naysay the feature apparently doesn't need it :-p Those of us who do would find a way.

 

I didn't "naysay" it. I merely pointed out a potential logistical problem with automatic tagging. 

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  • Level 5*

I like the idea of automatic tagging myself, but I doubt we will have much configurability, because that isn't how Evernote rolls.

If you are like me, and don't necessarily expect the tags (or any other automated feature) to be perfect (chinese restaurants might get tagged with chinese language tags), then this is potentially a huge time saver, and possibly even "discovery" of notes you had forgotten to tag.

Hopefully, like related notes, they'd try to make it smart and work with the existing content to make better decisions. It is a lot easier to delete a few straggler tags than it is to go through youraccount and track down everything that you want tagged.

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  • 1 year later...

Is there a way to do this

 

China

Religions

Buddhism

Taoism

Islam

...

Geography

...

India

Religions

Buddhism

Hinduism

Islam

Jainism

...

Geography

...

 

When I try to add Religions to India, EN tells me I already have Religions.  Or must one devise a dotted numbering scheme.

 

Thanks RP

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When I try to add Religions to India, EN tells me I already have Religions.  Or must one devise a dotted numbering scheme.

The tag names that comprise the tag tree for an account must be unique, so they cannot reside in more than one place in the tree. It's one of the drawbacks of trying to replicate a hierarchical folder structure using tags.

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When I try to add Religions to India, EN tells me I already have Religions.  Or must one devise a dotted numbering scheme.

The tag names that comprise the tag tree for an account must be unique, so they cannot reside in more than one place in the tree. It's one of the drawbacks of trying to replicate a hierarchical folder structure using tags.

 

 

 

@jefito - thanks ;)

 

However, I'm not trying to replicate a folder tree.  Leaving aside hard and symbolic linking, a file can only exist in one folder.  I would have thought Notebook Stacks would be more suitable for replicating a folder structure, in that a Note can only be in one Notebook.

 

What I want to do with Tags is closer to a taxonomy or controlled vocabulary.

 

RP

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  • Level 5*

As Jeff said, a tag name can only have one occurrence and, for that matter, a notebook name can only have one occurrence.  So if you want the "same" tag name nested, you need a prefix or a suffix in the tag name.  China.Religion or Religion.China.  

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You can create a tag "China Religions", but I prefer to have two generic tags "China" and "Religions" that together become more specific. I like this approach because searching for just "Religions" to me ~should~ bring up as much about religions as possible, it's a generic search, and if I want to hone my search to a specific area, I use another tag to limit. This makes a lot of my single tags very generic when alone -- but I don't mind, it works for me. But to use this approach, the religions tag shouldn't be a child of some other tag, because when you tag something with a child tag it automatically implies all of the parents. In my case, I have two tags, "image" and "pic" -- a "pic" is always an image, so it would make sense for me to nest the pic tag. But something about "Religions" isn't going to necessarily apply to some specific country. It could go under "Beliefs", etc.

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Personally I don't use the prefix tag method.  I would create a tag for each country and then a tag for each section and then double tag each note.  Fits how I think and work.  But for those who like and want nested tags, the prefix method works the best, IMO.

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  • Level 5

Thanks everyone for your thoughts. 

 

So nested tags is really just a way of grouping tags, somehow I got it into my head that it was more than that - but I couldn't make it do more than that :lol:

 

RP

 

 

Yes, there is more to nesting than just grouping. If you have a lot of tags, the nesting allows you to manage and group them easily. I have many tags for companies I deal with. (Evernote permits 100,000 tags per account.) 

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If I did not nest my tags, they would be difficult to find and look like this:

 

other tag
ACD Systems
other tag
other tag
Hewlett Packard
other tags
other tags
Rogers Dental Center
other tag
Wells Fargo
other tag
 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But when they are nested they are more obvious and easy to find:
 
other tag
other tag
Company
ACD Systems
Hewlett Packard
Rogers Dental Center
Wells Fargo
other tag
other tag
 
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And to make the tagging process for notes easier, faster, and more accurate, I add a 3-character prefix. INS- for my nested insurance tags, PER- for my nested personal tags, GOV- for my nested government tags, FAM- for my nested family tags. Here is COM- for some of my nested company tags:
 
other tag
other tag
Company
com-ACD-Systems
com-Hewlett-Packard
com-Rogers-Dental-Center
com-Wells-Fargo
other tag
other tag
 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And because I have a lot of company tags, I like the ability to collapse the tag list to view just the parent level.

It looks like this:

 

other tag
other tag
>Company
other tag
other tag
 
 
There are other benefits to nesting. But if you try this, don't try to share notebooks or create a 2nd Evernote account  because Evernote does not support the transfer of nested tag structure to other accounts. Everything is reverted to a flat format.
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