Option to define the hierarchical tag structure once

Use case or problem

Let’s say I have a very large number of tagged notes and I want structure the tags hierarchically. Currently, I have to modify every instance of the tags individually.

For instance, if I have two tags tag1 and tag 2 and I want to see the hierarchical structure tag1/tag2 in the tag pane, I have to modify every existing instance of tag2 into tag1/tag2. Otherwise, I see both tag2 and tag1/tag2 in the tag pane, they’re treated as two distinct entities.

Proposed solution

Add an option to create the hierarchical tag structure once.

Something like tag1//tag2 could create an implicit hierarchical relationship between the tag entities which would automatically apply to all instances of those tags.

This way, I’d just have to create a single note for the entire hierarchical tag structure.

With the implicit relationship established, tagging a note with tag2 would be equivalent with tag1/tag2, without having to explicitly write it. This would also reduce visual clutter.

Because Obsidian use plain text files you can use any software to bulk change data in the files. I’ve used Atom - free editor:

and Find in project function to perform similar to your tasks
I have got now ~1800 files and ~100 tags. This tool helped me significantly.

@danitrusca
I think, one of reasons for introducing nested tags was to allow namespacing.
E.g. to treat #category1/tag2 as different from #category2/tag2, different from #tag2.

Somebody might write you some plugin/script which does:

For each file/block/line/...
	If file/block/line/... contains #tag2, then:
		Remove #tag1
		Replace #tag2 by #tag1/tag2

If you do not want that, you will realy need to do global search and replace in some text editor.

I think, suggested implicit relationships could be declared and analyzed in Neo4j Graph View Plugin which parses file contents independently of Obsidian parser AFAIK. Author @Emile would just need to include tags as recognized relationships. I do not use tags and I think they are not processed now.