The remaining advantages of tags over properties in Obsidian

[ryadaj]

Not a rebuttal, just some thoughts in reply to keep the convo going.

@writtenfool

yep, I’ll be forced to atomize

I feel this. There are subtle and not-so-subtle ways in which Obsidian encourages us to work in files vs. blocks:

• comparatively not great block referencing
  • see related feature request: Search: Copy context of search results and paste into note
• tag-based connections between notes sharing the same tag not shown in local graph the same way connections between notes sharing the same link are shown
  • see feature request: Show pages with similar tags in the local graph
• file properties but no block properties
  • Dataview becomes the solution here

@writtenfool

In my case, I run the risk of over assigning properties and then having to clean them up again

• This is exactly why I put up this FR: Properties Wrangler: Add a way to "Insert", "Rename" and "Remove" properties and values in all files. I am not confident that “today me” knows what “tomorrow me” will want or find accessible; this is also important given your next point; as the software advances, we’ll probably have changes to make:

@writtenfool

I am an Obsidian lifer because of the community. But I feel like the team needs to present some direction and guidance in this area. This is a significant inflection point.

And to this I must agree, and because of other sentimental reasons, like devs both being University of Waterloo alums, which is true of me. I also respect they are new parents probably feeling how I feel right now lol.

But it is true that (as with the majority of other tools these days), changes are incremental and IP has to be protected by not revealing too much. I understand this even if I don’t like it. But there are folks in this community who design their lives around use of this tool, so some I sympathize with the desire for more information since I myself, as a professional researcher, feel overwhelmed by the evolving capacity of Obsidian and the resulting changes I have to make to my flow.

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edit 2023-10-23 1545-50 - I am also seeing the writing on the wall with regards to files vs. blocks. The coming “Database” feature means files, not blocks. I’m not complaining. I think a Database feature would make Properties more meaningful and useful. Dataview is powerful, Datacore will be more powerful, and core Databases will be wonderful for my mental bandwidth if I use it (and hopefully Datacore and core Databases prove to be the same thing, with “Datacore” being a hint that Dataview is being sherlocked).

I will make an additional and final comment. A nested tag is equal to a Property. E.g., #genre/science-fiction is equal to

---
Genre: Science Fiction
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However, what is lost by using a property instead of a tag is what @ton mentions:

@ton

Another tag advantage is that I can use them inline, meaning they can reference a specific part / sentence in a note. In search that context is shown.

We also lose “clickable search” (one of @nickmilo’s original points in this topic) and finally, bulk editing and renaming via Tag Wrangler (can use Visual Studio Code “Replace in File” instead, but this is not user friendly or as convenient when attempting to conduct oneself entirely in Obsidian).

But what is gained by using a property instead is de-cluttering the content of a note and individual blocks of text, as well as reducing the overall number of tags in the vault which is nice for sanity.