(Archived) ISSUE: AutoComplete of Tag on Favorites Bar is Unexpected in EN Mac

[JMichaelTX 4,119]

The AutoComplete behavior of the Tag dropdown on the Favorites Bar in EN Mac 3.0.7 Beta 5 is unexpected, not helpful, and inconsistent with the AutoComplete in the Tags section on the Note.

The AutoComplete on the Fav Bar searches for the first occurrence of a Tag that CONTAINS the characters that are typed.

The AutoComplete on the Note searches for the first occurrence of a Tag the BEGINS with the characters that are typed.

For Example, suppose I have the following Tags:

• Announcement
  
• Evernote
  
  • EN.Mac
    
  • EN.Win
    

When I am adding Tags to a Note, and I type "en" it displays a dropdown list starting with "EN.Mac", which is exactly what I would expect.

But when I type "en" into the Fav Bar Tag filter, it first selects "Announcement", which is unexpected.

EXPECTED BEHAVIOR:

• As I type into the Tag filter on the Fav Bar, it will search/select the first Tag that BEGINS with the characters that I type.
  

While this would be only a minor inconvenience if you have a few tags, when you have more than about 20 (I have around 200), it is a major problem since you may not even be able to see the Tag of interest without scrolling.

I think it is fair to say that very few people would be looking for a Tag by typing character in the middle of the Tag name. IMO, the most intuitive behavior is the same that is used on the Note Tags field.

I'm not sure if the same issue exists in EN Win. But if it does, please change both EN Mac and EN Win to behave as I describe above under "Expected Behavior".

Thanks.

[May 268]

I actually have completely opposite opinion in this case...

In your example "en" is a very broad search term, replacing it with "evernote" would probably solve the problem of getting too many results. sure, typing things like "en" or "a" would show too many results but you can use more precise search terms to solve this.

I have a lot of tags which contain phrases instead of a single word. E.g. "apps-evernote", "Amazon Kindle books" and etc. and I want to find them by typing any word from a phrase instead of having to remember the exact beginning... E.g. I want to type "kindle" and find "Amazon Kindle books" and so on.

I actually prefer the way the Fav Bar works and dislike how assigning tags works on the desktop. The problem is that you have to remember the beginning of the tag's name. And if you don't remember the beginning of the tag's name exactly then you're pretty much out of luck. That's not helpful in my view. I don't see it as a useful feature. I'm surprised you find it useful!

[JMichaelTX 4,119]

I have a lot of tags which contain phrases instead of a single word. E.g. "apps-evernote", "Amazon Kindle books" and etc. and I want to find them by typing any word from a phrase instead of having to remember the exact beginning... E.g. I want to type "kindle" and find "Amazon Kindle books" and so on.

It is quite different to find tags who have a "word" that begin with the typed text as opposed to finding tags with the characters inside of a word in the Tag.

I would still prefer that the Fav Bar work like the Tags field on the Note, but I would be OK with a compromise like this:

• First, search for Tags that START with the characters typed
  
• If none are found, then search for Tags that have a word that STARTS with the characters typed.
  

Your thoughts?

[May 268]

yeah, that'd be perfect,i.e. to prioritize the tags that begin with the search term and list them at the top

[peterfmartin 221]

I brought up a very similar issue in January. It still bothers me that the Mac client, web client, and Chrome clipper all have different ways of auto-completing tags. This is just my way of saying that, although I don't have the favorites bar (since I use Snow Leopard), I sympathize with JMichael's point and second the call for consistent tag auto-completing across and within clients. I don't understand why Evernote has implemented this in so many different ways.

I would still prefer that the Fav Bar work like the Tags field on the Note, but I would be OK with a compromise like this:

• First, search for Tags that START with the characters typed
  
• If none are found, then search for Tags that have a word that STARTS with the characters typed.
  

Your thoughts?

FWIW, my thoughts are that I hope this is not implemented. I hope Evernote instead implements across all platform just the first bullet point: auto-completing with tags that start with the typed letter(s) and nothing else (as the Mac note auto-complete currently does). Short of that, I hope Evernote implements just the second bullet point: auto-completing with tags that contain any word that starts with the typed letter(s). I think the hybrid solution JMichael suggested would be more confusing than anything else. But we still very much agree in spirit that inconsistent auto-completing is the worst way to do it.