Some other important enhancements to "filters and tags":
a )
- Currently, the command EditTags isn't available but when the left pane has the focus already; thus, when you are editing your text (or even when the cursor is in it, without any editing there), you first must go to the left pane in order for the EditTags command having any effect. Of course, the command should be available from everywhere, without that unneccessary intermediate step. (If the programming language does not allow for this, it should allow to FETCH the triggering of the command (when in the editor pane e.g.) though, and TRANSMIT it to the left pane in order to be processed there.
- Exactly the same problem with the Edit Command, i.e. the command (=best on F2) for renaming the current item (or some shown attribute in the colums if tab focus is there - and that's indeed a practical thing indeed). It should NOT be necessary to go to the tree or filter pane first before pressing the F2 (or any other key / key combination triggering Edit) to be of effect.
- Same remark applies to some other functions only available, currently, when their "object" has focus, and doing nothing (i.e. not being transmitted to their natural focus object) when focus is elsewhere. Let's try to list those "orphaned" commands in order to have them triggering their function from anywhere.
b )
- Currently, it's very handy to scroll, in the filter view (just like in the tree view) from one item to another, by UpArrow and DownArrow; this way, it's very easy to see all those texts / contents of those items, belonging to any tag (or other attribute), just by Up and Down - indeed, that's why I so much LOVE that filter view, instead of the search function (in which up to now this easy scrolling from one hit to another is not possible yet).
But in order to jump to tree view, and there, precisely to the current filter view item, you have to:
- double-click on it with the mouse, or
- do the command ShowTree (which thankfully goes directly to that particular item in it indeed),
but it should be possible to go there not only by the special ShowTree command, but also by pressing just ENTER (this key currently not having any effect when focus is in filter view.
Even when filter view is in transferred to the command pane, instead of being in the left pane, this functionality by Enter would always be very handy since then the tree view would not necessary be displayed all the time (=thus automatically displaying the item also in the tree), but Enter in filter view would then SHOW the tree pane (if hidden at that time), so as to display the item at its tree position also.
This being only one of those multiple little things that can be easily done, but which, when they all smoothly work together, perfectly interwoven, will make MI a pleasure to work with: it'll be RUNNING instead of HURDLES.
Tags, Filters
Tags / Filtering again:
a )
Of course, upon discovering tag filtering was NOT "Whole Words Only", my first idea was that this could be a chance to do tag combining / hierarchical tagging not only for ordering reasons, but also on the filtering side: having a, ab, ac, ad, you could easily filter for "a", and you'd get a, ab, ac (but also ad even if you do not want to).
But there's a big problem to that, since MI does not differenciate between "ab" and "ba" then, so filtering for "a" would not only display a, ab, ac and so on, but also ba, cat, stha, and so on; in order to avoid this mess, you would be forced to use digits, instead of characters, for the first character, and then searching for "1" only would display this "grouped tags" of the "1 group", the same with "2" and so on (0 to 10 = 10 possible groups then), but this would be awkward to the eye and not mnemonic at all.
So, it has to be "Whole Words Only" since the current state of things does NOT bring us any advantages over that but only its drawbacks.
(I am aware of the fact that groups could be done another way, by also doing some special attribute; but this would make it necessary to use the filter dialog each time you're going after some tagging, and that would really be terrible. So we'll have to find another, easier way to realize filtering for tag combinations than clicking them together in the filter dialog, many seconds fiddling there each time.)
b )
The ShowTags list is sorted alphabetically (and if you use grouped tags like I do, that's very handy). Mouse right-clicking on any such tag in this list allows you for renaming that tag - that's VERY handy, having to rename manually hundreds of different tags would drive you crazy. But after renaming a tag, the list is only partly updated, i.e. the renamed tag is displayed, but at the old position in the alphabetical list, so the list is not really refreshed but after you display some other view and go back to the ShowTags view; of course the routine for refreshing the list should be triggered after the renaming routine has finished.
c )
When renaming tags, it's possible and even probable that they will have quite another position in the alphabet (cf. b)). This is not beautiful in the columns, and for clarity / clear arrangement there, it's very bad too. Thus, an alphabetical-sort routine should be available to look after that.
On the other hand, I would understand that some / many people do NOT want to have their carefully arranged tags order in the tag column rearranged in any way by an automatism: It's possible to do some "action tag" (= "Review", "Look up" or other) in first place, or some special tag in last place, without wanting them to be shuffled around against your will (= without your being forced into renaming them to something at the beginning or at the end of the alphabet, just in order for them to be left alone by that automatism).
And I suppose that even people who would be thankful for this automatism for most of their stuff, would not want it to be triggered automatically, in order to AVOID it to be applied to some particular topic of theirs.
This way, it seems to me that there just should be a COMMAND RearrangeTabs (alphabetically, and in the current topic) that could be triggered manually whenever the user wants to have his tags put in order (again), e.g. after renaming tags, or even when he does not want to fiddle with the position of that particular tag whenever he adds tags to his items, but wants to have them (re)arranged in alphabetical order nevertheless.
No misunderstanding, please, for fast readers: I am NOT speaking of sorting the items by tags in the tag column, I AM speaking of sorting the tags between themselves, for each item separately, and without any changing of the order of the items between themselves.
d )
That dialog "EditTags - (separate with space)". I understand that brand-new users would be helped by that "- separate with space" part, but then, brand-new users would NOT FIND the EditTags command in the first place, so that "help" is no help to them - and every user who did some 2 or 3 times tagging (my tags in 2 or 3 months now go into the thousands), would very much like to have the possibility to NOT be presented with that "- (separate with space)" thing, it's too diverting, to "ugly", too "not-clear-screen". So this hint to separate with space belongs at a prominent place in the help file and into the introductory pages, in bold, but not into the dialog.
a )
Of course, upon discovering tag filtering was NOT "Whole Words Only", my first idea was that this could be a chance to do tag combining / hierarchical tagging not only for ordering reasons, but also on the filtering side: having a, ab, ac, ad, you could easily filter for "a", and you'd get a, ab, ac (but also ad even if you do not want to).
But there's a big problem to that, since MI does not differenciate between "ab" and "ba" then, so filtering for "a" would not only display a, ab, ac and so on, but also ba, cat, stha, and so on; in order to avoid this mess, you would be forced to use digits, instead of characters, for the first character, and then searching for "1" only would display this "grouped tags" of the "1 group", the same with "2" and so on (0 to 10 = 10 possible groups then), but this would be awkward to the eye and not mnemonic at all.
So, it has to be "Whole Words Only" since the current state of things does NOT bring us any advantages over that but only its drawbacks.
(I am aware of the fact that groups could be done another way, by also doing some special attribute; but this would make it necessary to use the filter dialog each time you're going after some tagging, and that would really be terrible. So we'll have to find another, easier way to realize filtering for tag combinations than clicking them together in the filter dialog, many seconds fiddling there each time.)
b )
The ShowTags list is sorted alphabetically (and if you use grouped tags like I do, that's very handy). Mouse right-clicking on any such tag in this list allows you for renaming that tag - that's VERY handy, having to rename manually hundreds of different tags would drive you crazy. But after renaming a tag, the list is only partly updated, i.e. the renamed tag is displayed, but at the old position in the alphabetical list, so the list is not really refreshed but after you display some other view and go back to the ShowTags view; of course the routine for refreshing the list should be triggered after the renaming routine has finished.
c )
When renaming tags, it's possible and even probable that they will have quite another position in the alphabet (cf. b)). This is not beautiful in the columns, and for clarity / clear arrangement there, it's very bad too. Thus, an alphabetical-sort routine should be available to look after that.
On the other hand, I would understand that some / many people do NOT want to have their carefully arranged tags order in the tag column rearranged in any way by an automatism: It's possible to do some "action tag" (= "Review", "Look up" or other) in first place, or some special tag in last place, without wanting them to be shuffled around against your will (= without your being forced into renaming them to something at the beginning or at the end of the alphabet, just in order for them to be left alone by that automatism).
And I suppose that even people who would be thankful for this automatism for most of their stuff, would not want it to be triggered automatically, in order to AVOID it to be applied to some particular topic of theirs.
This way, it seems to me that there just should be a COMMAND RearrangeTabs (alphabetically, and in the current topic) that could be triggered manually whenever the user wants to have his tags put in order (again), e.g. after renaming tags, or even when he does not want to fiddle with the position of that particular tag whenever he adds tags to his items, but wants to have them (re)arranged in alphabetical order nevertheless.
No misunderstanding, please, for fast readers: I am NOT speaking of sorting the items by tags in the tag column, I AM speaking of sorting the tags between themselves, for each item separately, and without any changing of the order of the items between themselves.
d )
That dialog "EditTags - (separate with space)". I understand that brand-new users would be helped by that "- separate with space" part, but then, brand-new users would NOT FIND the EditTags command in the first place, so that "help" is no help to them - and every user who did some 2 or 3 times tagging (my tags in 2 or 3 months now go into the thousands), would very much like to have the possibility to NOT be presented with that "- (separate with space)" thing, it's too diverting, to "ugly", too "not-clear-screen". So this hint to separate with space belongs at a prominent place in the help file and into the introductory pages, in bold, but not into the dialog.
a )
To avoid misunderstandings - I did not explain correctly this aspect - it is indeed possible to do AND combinations for tags (or other attributes) by using the filter dialog.
You do "tag is ab" AND (=new line) "tag is cd", and this will give you just THOSE items in which BOTH tags, ab and cd, are present.
You could store a filter "2" for this two tags, and you could store a filter "3" for three tags, and so on, and then, in order to display such combinations, you must indeed do the "EditFilter" command and "manually" do the changes, for that tags you want to display.
Thus, you would change the "ab" to "mn" and the "cd" to "xy" or whatever, or even leave alone one of the two.
But this implies a lot of fiddling around altogether, so a quicker way to display tag combinations should be available.
b )
I would propose this way:
"QuickTags" (=displays quick dialog)
ab cd Enter
= AND
and
"QuickTags"
ab,cd Enter
= OR
This would be perfect if you could apply parentheses, but let's face it, the above-mentioned solution would be TREMENDOUS, even without such boolean logic first hand.
c )
Back to a ), i.e. back to the EditFilter dialog. Did I say so before? Important point: At this time, this command is NOT assignable to any key / key combination, so you have to click with the mouse on the button...
And that button is NOT at the same place for every topic, depending on the width of the filter pane, thus even a macro (with most macro programs, mine included) would not be reliable.
Thus, it is important, as a very first step, that the EditFilter dialog be enabled to be triggered by key / key combination.
d )
Did I say so before? We have the same problem as with c ), for the SearchOptions field ("Search in: This Branch / This Topic / Open Topics / All Topics / etc."), available up to now ONLY by mouse click (and that is, on a very tiny spot on the screen).
That function also should be accessible by key / key combination, since even when your macro program DOES mouse clicks (reliably), whenever you use MI on different computers / with different screens (e.g. the portable version, or on the road with your notebook, at the office with an additional screen, at home with yet another additional screen), the screen resolutions might not be the same, and this way, your mouse will not click onto the right spot on all screens you use.
e )
VERY IMPORTANT
The "Whole word only" character of tags IS preserved when doing filtering by the filter dialog (= so when you do a filter "tag is a" AND "tag is ab", only those items will be shown that contain either a or ab, but not items containing tags ac, ad, ea, fa, or whatever), so what I discovered in the ViewTags pane is just a bug that can quickly be deleted since the function is programmed the right way.
This will allow us very soon to do those "global" 1-character tags explained above and sooo handy to implement a "Getting Things Done" or any other action / agenda system.
To avoid misunderstandings - I did not explain correctly this aspect - it is indeed possible to do AND combinations for tags (or other attributes) by using the filter dialog.
You do "tag is ab" AND (=new line) "tag is cd", and this will give you just THOSE items in which BOTH tags, ab and cd, are present.
You could store a filter "2" for this two tags, and you could store a filter "3" for three tags, and so on, and then, in order to display such combinations, you must indeed do the "EditFilter" command and "manually" do the changes, for that tags you want to display.
Thus, you would change the "ab" to "mn" and the "cd" to "xy" or whatever, or even leave alone one of the two.
But this implies a lot of fiddling around altogether, so a quicker way to display tag combinations should be available.
b )
I would propose this way:
"QuickTags" (=displays quick dialog)
ab cd Enter
= AND
and
"QuickTags"
ab,cd Enter
= OR
This would be perfect if you could apply parentheses, but let's face it, the above-mentioned solution would be TREMENDOUS, even without such boolean logic first hand.
c )
Back to a ), i.e. back to the EditFilter dialog. Did I say so before? Important point: At this time, this command is NOT assignable to any key / key combination, so you have to click with the mouse on the button...
And that button is NOT at the same place for every topic, depending on the width of the filter pane, thus even a macro (with most macro programs, mine included) would not be reliable.
Thus, it is important, as a very first step, that the EditFilter dialog be enabled to be triggered by key / key combination.
d )
Did I say so before? We have the same problem as with c ), for the SearchOptions field ("Search in: This Branch / This Topic / Open Topics / All Topics / etc."), available up to now ONLY by mouse click (and that is, on a very tiny spot on the screen).
That function also should be accessible by key / key combination, since even when your macro program DOES mouse clicks (reliably), whenever you use MI on different computers / with different screens (e.g. the portable version, or on the road with your notebook, at the office with an additional screen, at home with yet another additional screen), the screen resolutions might not be the same, and this way, your mouse will not click onto the right spot on all screens you use.
e )
VERY IMPORTANT
The "Whole word only" character of tags IS preserved when doing filtering by the filter dialog (= so when you do a filter "tag is a" AND "tag is ab", only those items will be shown that contain either a or ab, but not items containing tags ac, ad, ea, fa, or whatever), so what I discovered in the ViewTags pane is just a bug that can quickly be deleted since the function is programmed the right way.
This will allow us very soon to do those "global" 1-character tags explained above and sooo handy to implement a "Getting Things Done" or any other action / agenda system.
Reminder of an Important Thing
There is no reliable macro possible for inserting tags since sometimes there is just one Return necessary - and the second one would trigger a new - but unwanted - item, which then you would have to delete manually, and in other cases, you need the second Return.
And since most of the time you do not know for sure if you have used your tag in that specific topic yet or not yet there, even when doing tags manually, you do it very slowly, in order to avoid to trigger the creation of an unwanted new item (= by your second Return) - so not only most of the time you need to do TWO Returns instead of one, but on top of that, you cannot even do them in a row, but you must be careful, doing the second one several seconds after the first (= allowing you for spotting MI's reaction to the first Return first): that's so awful....
Thus, we are in very bad need of that option / toggle "show tags' proposals yes / no", by which "no" those proposals would not be shown, allowing for the first and only Return / Enter to insert the new tag (and closing the tag window) definitely.
There is no reliable macro possible for inserting tags since sometimes there is just one Return necessary - and the second one would trigger a new - but unwanted - item, which then you would have to delete manually, and in other cases, you need the second Return.
And since most of the time you do not know for sure if you have used your tag in that specific topic yet or not yet there, even when doing tags manually, you do it very slowly, in order to avoid to trigger the creation of an unwanted new item (= by your second Return) - so not only most of the time you need to do TWO Returns instead of one, but on top of that, you cannot even do them in a row, but you must be careful, doing the second one several seconds after the first (= allowing you for spotting MI's reaction to the first Return first): that's so awful....
Thus, we are in very bad need of that option / toggle "show tags' proposals yes / no", by which "no" those proposals would not be shown, allowing for the first and only Return / Enter to insert the new tag (and closing the tag window) definitely.
Not finding some posts, I am aware that I've never posted them. Thus, they are not in chronological order, i.e. I might have said something, later, that surpasses them partially, but then, their very essence is always important, you just have to put them into perspective of what I've might say lately. Here's one:
I
At this time, filtering is possible for one topic at the same time only.
I understand that by searching, there is a "global filtering" possibility.
Why would we need it? For doing PROJECTS, of course: I ever we do a project topic, we have that old problem that at this time, it is not possible yet to have clones from other topics there, which would be the real thing indeed (I am aware that NO other software, at my knowing, does this yet, we'll have to have another look at this another day since MI would be state of the art then - I know it's difficult but I am thinking of an implementation way that could be done without too much programming...).
Why would this be so important? Since, let's say, you have a lawyer or other legal professional or some member of the higher middle management. He would have SOURCES, and he would be interested to have his sources together, for example, in law, suit / trial law, civil law, criminal law, competition law, public law, industrial law / labor law, environmental law, compulsory execution law, and many other subjects - for all these he would have a topic in MI, or divide them into different sub topics.
And then, law evoluates. So he would have to keep up these REFERENCE topics, with the help of his secretary or all by his own, that doesn't matter.
And in each legal CASE, he would need some of this reference.
Generally speaking, he would need the civil and trial law "everywhere", so he would not bother to clone / reference all their content in his particular projects = case topics; he would KNOW where to reach out for this "general info".
But then, in each legal case, he would need some PARTICULAR info, for his trial strategy e.g., or for the natural contents of the case in question itself. How to access these particular info bits in his MI projects?
No way, up to know, just ^c there and ^v here, but then, he would NOT have automatically-updated info bits, they would be "dead" ones: Neither good, nor elegant.
II
Only from the filter pane / from your filtering results list there is the possibility for columns and to print and to export, nothing of this is possible from search results list. So the first step would be to make it possible to pour search results into a filter results list, with the tags and other attributes; and from then, to make it possible to pour the search results list into a new topic - or, much better, into ANY given open topic, just as you would do a selection or ^a, ^c, ^v of any other group of items in any other topic.
This would at least give the (intermediate) possibility to have bunches of UN-synchronized items in any given (new) topic, from any source topic(s) - at this time, you would be forced to copy manually each item / items group one by one into your target topic, "items group" meaning here some manually selected items in the source topics, but NOT automatically-selected items, by specific tags (or tag combinations), and THIS would be very handy indeed.
III
I imagine some filtering from various sources, and then pouring the results into a new tree - and they would be synchronized...
I
At this time, filtering is possible for one topic at the same time only.
I understand that by searching, there is a "global filtering" possibility.
Why would we need it? For doing PROJECTS, of course: I ever we do a project topic, we have that old problem that at this time, it is not possible yet to have clones from other topics there, which would be the real thing indeed (I am aware that NO other software, at my knowing, does this yet, we'll have to have another look at this another day since MI would be state of the art then - I know it's difficult but I am thinking of an implementation way that could be done without too much programming...).
Why would this be so important? Since, let's say, you have a lawyer or other legal professional or some member of the higher middle management. He would have SOURCES, and he would be interested to have his sources together, for example, in law, suit / trial law, civil law, criminal law, competition law, public law, industrial law / labor law, environmental law, compulsory execution law, and many other subjects - for all these he would have a topic in MI, or divide them into different sub topics.
And then, law evoluates. So he would have to keep up these REFERENCE topics, with the help of his secretary or all by his own, that doesn't matter.
And in each legal CASE, he would need some of this reference.
Generally speaking, he would need the civil and trial law "everywhere", so he would not bother to clone / reference all their content in his particular projects = case topics; he would KNOW where to reach out for this "general info".
But then, in each legal case, he would need some PARTICULAR info, for his trial strategy e.g., or for the natural contents of the case in question itself. How to access these particular info bits in his MI projects?
No way, up to know, just ^c there and ^v here, but then, he would NOT have automatically-updated info bits, they would be "dead" ones: Neither good, nor elegant.
II
Only from the filter pane / from your filtering results list there is the possibility for columns and to print and to export, nothing of this is possible from search results list. So the first step would be to make it possible to pour search results into a filter results list, with the tags and other attributes; and from then, to make it possible to pour the search results list into a new topic - or, much better, into ANY given open topic, just as you would do a selection or ^a, ^c, ^v of any other group of items in any other topic.
This would at least give the (intermediate) possibility to have bunches of UN-synchronized items in any given (new) topic, from any source topic(s) - at this time, you would be forced to copy manually each item / items group one by one into your target topic, "items group" meaning here some manually selected items in the source topics, but NOT automatically-selected items, by specific tags (or tag combinations), and THIS would be very handy indeed.
III
I imagine some filtering from various sources, and then pouring the results into a new tree - and they would be synchronized...