#21

The same is true for links, no? They auto fill using fuzzy searches.

#22

I would actually really love for tags to a) show up in the network visual and b) to be able to filter notes based on tags without the extra step of opening back links.

For my current research project, I use tags for things like really broad categorization. For example:
What country is this note about/relevant to? And thus I use #Congo, #Trinidad, #Burma, etc

Given the global scope of my case studies, it would be a immensely helpful to look at the network and see geographic patterns and distribution of my notes.

I also use tags for themes like #regulations and #protests.

Some folks have said above they like not having tags in the network. Could it perhaps be toggle option or plug in?

1 Like
#23

I feel dumb for asking, but why not use pages for this? Nothing’s stopping you from having quasi-tag pages. You can even use special symbols (e.g., emoji) to designate a “page type” metadata, like [[🌍 Congo]]. Then they’ll show up in the graph as you desire.

Agnostic to this discussion: filtering options are on the roadmap!

2 Likes
#24

Just one note about that. If you use special symbols in your page name, you might experience syncing issues with apps like Dropbox.

The little red X shows it refusing to sync:
image

3 Likes
#25

Good flag! Yes, it depends on the symbol. Test your options first!

#26

To start with, I don’t want a pile of empty pages for no other reason than to reverse engineer a mechanism that has become an organizational norm everywhere from social media and blogs to citation managers and qualitative analysis.

Another reason is compatibility. While lots of things that are norms aren’t that useful, using the same #tags allows me to similarly categorize and cross reference materials in multiple programs on my PC.

And then there is my other stated reason above,

to be able to filter notes based on tags without the extra step of opening back links.

I imagine that many people who switch to using markdown or plaintext notetaking methods have similar motivations at the start: prizing portability, flexibility, simplicity, and efficiency. Reducing redundancy is probably been my greatest motivator.

And yes, I did try using pages instead of tags for a few days last week, just in case I wasn’t giving it a fair chance.

1 Like
#27

Sure. For what it’s worth, I suspect what you’re hoping for is in the cards. I was just offering an option that might’ve worked for you in the meantime.

To be clear, though, I think your ideas are different from the OP here. The root idea of this thread is to collapse the tags and pages feature, such that users would only get pages.

2 Likes
#28

Great idea. I’m finding I end up having #tag and [[tag]], using the later to provide context or info on the presence of #tag in a note. Being able to remove that second step would be great :+1:

Having a ‘Tags are Pages’ toggle with it defaulting to no (current state) would keep everyone happy.

4 Likes
#29

Instead of spending developer time on this, you could also just not use tags, or wrap your tags in [[#square brackets]].

Creating a toggle for this would be like creating a preference for whether text can be bolded. Sure, if there were infinite development resources…

4 Likes
#30

Doesn’t this create a link to a header within a note?

1 Like
#31

Good point. Not sure what happens if said doesn’t exist…

Alternatively, one could use a different symbol: [[⨳ A tag page]].

1 Like
#32

But then the tag pane is made useless?

#33

Not too fast. Mentioned in this thread:

#34

Oooops, that was meant to be in response to @ryanjamurphy. Converting tags to pages with [[]] links removes them from the tag pane.

1 Like
#35

I’m not sure what your point is, sorry. The OP wants tags to be pages. No tags pane there either.

#36

I don’t see any mention of removing any existing tag functionality.

1 Like
#37

Me neither, but the implementation implications are unclear. If tags are pages, why is there a tag pane? Are tag-pages special pages that show up only in the tag pane? If so, they are no longer tags to me. I suspect you won’t find unity on that in the user base.

Again, this idea is conceptually muddled. This may seem like “just make tags pages,” but there are no justs in design.

1 Like
#38

I agree that it is lacking scope and thorough justification. Examining it further, the tag pane itself is a plugin while tags themselves are nothing more than a CSS selector, essentially. This request would make more sense as a plugin (providing the API would allow for this functionality) rather than a built-in feature.

1 Like
#39

OP here.

For people curious to see how a system where tags and pages are both regular links might look see RoamResearch and RemNote.
Their approach was to make them both first-class citizens, and then differentiate between them where appropriate.

To answer some concerns:

  1. Speciality of tags/extra functionality - all “special” functionality can still remain, simply treat the links that start with a hashtag-# as a tag. Tag panel can show links that begin with a hashtag.
  2. Graph view polluted by tags or not needed - graph view can easily distinguish between links that start with a hashtag. No reason graph view cannot have an option to “show tags” or “hide tags”.
  3. Tags are “different” from pages fundamentally/philosophically - that distinction can still remain, simply based on the syntax - #tag will “mean” a tag. [[page]] will mean a page. However, some people may choose to use these differently and don’t need to make this semantic distinction.
  4. Why not do it via [[#tag]] or some other specialized syntax? Because it increases the complexity of my notes and adds to the noise.

Again, this feature request is to make it part of obsidian, without compromising on existing functionality but only adding additional features. Everything possible with tag system now will still be possible with tags as pages.

Hopefully this clarifies my position, but I’m by no means suggesting that this is the best and the only way for this to work. I just want to bring this to devs attention as I think it will improve the software.

15 Likes
#40

I don’t mean to spam/self-promote, but I created a Feature Request that I think is very relevant to this request: [ Copy page links from Tag and Backlinks Panes to clipboard

The idea being that you could extract links to any page that appears in the current Backlinks Pane or is associated with a tag in the Tags Panel. You use #tags or [[links]] to your preference, and then easily create a summary page as is requested here. Check it out and lend support if you think it would be useful!

1 Like