(Archived) Note Count for Nested Tags

[efang 0]

Hello, first time poster, new Evernote user here.  But, as I am getting used to my new Evernote system (which is a sort of stripped down GTD I guess), I noticed that when I have nested tags, the note count total shows up as "(0)" for the parent tag. Is there a way to change this to reflect the total note count of all child tags? Obviously not a dire change, but one that seems simple enough depending on how you've implemented your tagging system.

[jefito 5,598]

Not sure that Evernote supports this type of operation. The tags are displayed in a hierarchy, but logically they are entirely independent, like say for the purposes of searching, where you might expect that if you search for tag A, you will pick up all notes that contain children of A, whether A is present or not.

[efang 0]

Yeah I understand that. Gmail actually has this same issue. I'm not sure if having no tag be special is an organizational paradigm, or if its just a result of trying to keep the code simpler. Either way it's a bit misleading to allow for hierarchical tagging without allowing the tags to actually be  hierarchical (same goes for Gmail).

[jefito 5,598]

It's a conscious choice that they made when they figured out that more than 20 or more tags cannot be displayed very well/conveniently in a list. It would be great if there were support for using the tag hierarchy in search (and I've suggested just such a feature), but it's not been implemented.

 

Some folks instead implement a scheme whereby they build hierarchical tag names, that they can then take advantage of in search.For example:

Places

Places.France

Places.France.Paris

Places.Boston

etc.

 

Now you can search for all the places in France using the search tag:Places.France*. Not for everyone, but I can see the utility.

[efang 0]

It's a conscious choice that they made when they figured out that more than 20 or more tags cannot be displayed very well/conveniently in a list.

 

I could be wrong, but that seems like an argument FOR hierarchical tagging. Instead of viewing all your tags at once, you can just list the parent tags. I suppose what you're suggested though is just to scrap all tag views and only focus on the search feature. That's understandable. For me, however, I like to be able to see the hierarchy because it reflects how I'm organizing things in my head.

 

My guess is that, just like Gmail, this model of having all tags be equal was a programming choice for simplicity supported by an ad hoc argument of why it's actually MORE convenient for the end user.

 

Your suggested fix seems reasonable, though fairly inconvenient (as you probably know).

 

If you've asked for it in the past and nothing has happened, it looks like this isn't going to happen.

[jefito 5,598]

They opted for a purely cosmetic tree representation for tags. It's not an argument for or against, it's just what Evernote chose.

 

I think that the tree view of tags is fine as-is (though I usually keep it collapsed); I do think that what I call semantic tags (tag search that uses the hierarchy) would be useful. This is not a suggested fix (since I don't think that anything's actually broken); it's a suggested enhancement of tags as they exist to make tag searching better. I have no idea what you would be inconvenient about it.

 

I suggested it, but I understand that Evernote has lots of stuff on their plate, and features can take time to make it to the top of priority, get implemented and be rolled out. If they did implement it, that would be cool, because I think that it would immediately be useful. If not, that's fine, too.

[efang 0]

Fair enough. I was saying the hack fix of "Places.France.Paris" type tags would be inconvenient  Obviously it would be good if the ability to search tags based on the tree structure was part of Evernote. Probably if they did that though, keeping track of associated note counts would be a smaller fix (or enhancement).

[jefito 5,598]

Oh yeah. That one. Yeah, the maintenance makes it unappealing for me. That wasn't my system, but some folks use it, and one nice thing about it is that it makes AND/OR searching with tags doable to a larger degree than currently. For example, "tag:restaurant tag:Places.US.Maine.*", would return all restaurants in Maine (i.e. all notes tagged with "restaurant" and ("Places.US.Maine.Portland" or "Places.US.Maine.Augusta" or "Places.US.Maine.Freeport" etc.). You get the idea.

 

My original thought was here: http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/15173-shouldnt-selecting-a-parent-tag-search-child-tags/?p=74067.

 

Not sure how easy/difficult it would be to make changes w.r.t. note counts.