Fsnotes: [REQ] Support for tags

[gingerbeardman]

tags are metadata attached to a note that can be used for purposes of searching and categorising

Might make sense to use the macOS Finder tags rather than reinventing the wheel? Not sure how that would work on iOS?

Should also support:

• autocompletion of tags as you type one

Optionally:

• import tags from nvALT?

Might also need another window UI (split sidebar?) for tag browser to manage of tags:

• rename tag would rename tag in all documents that contain it
• delete tag would delete tag from all documents that contain it

References

• http://christiantietze.tumblr.com/post/1480460350/mass-edit-notes (detailed tags use cases)
• http://brettterpstra.com/2017/08/09/regarding-punctuated-tags/ (macOS Finder tags)
• http://rocketink.net/2013/01/my-nvalt-setup.html (example use of @ tags)
• https://github.com/scrod/nv/issues/6 (talk about tag editor)

[gingerbeardman]

Nice! Great start.

Not sure the app store will let through the "sex, drugs, rock and roll" placeholder text?

[glushchenko]

Not sure the app store will let through the "sex, drugs, rock and roll" placeholder text?

Who knows ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[gingerbeardman]

Working well.

Should the extra tag features have new issues?

[iandol]

Hi, I cannot migrate to FSNotes as I don't yet know how we can preserve NVAlt tags when importing notes from it? NVAlt stores tags in kMDItemOMUserTags but it seems FSNotes does not yet read this in even for notes copied into the Archive folder?

[jeff-h]

I wonder if a sufficiently clever shell script based on mdfind might be able to do the conversion?

Otherwise, perhaps FSNotes should provide an "Import from nvALT" feature? If so, I guess it would use https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundation/nsmetadataitem to fetch the tag metadata and apply them as finder tags like FSNotes does.

Your specific mention of kMDItemOMUserTags suggests you might have a good knowledge of this stuff. Hope so :) Any chance you know whether nvALT uses other metadata attributes other than this 'user tags' one?

[iandol]

Actually I found a simple script to do this: https://gist.github.com/scottstanfield/683fcf4a16ed39ff4e0711be05e5d77a

All it does is copy kMDItemOMUserTags to kMDItemUserTags and FSNotes can now read and use the tags fine (I applied it to the FSNotes Archive folder directly then restarted FSNotes). I still think getting FSNotes to support NVAlt tags by default (considering it aims to be a successor to it) would be useful for new potential users like me coming from NVAlt.

[jeff-h]

Nice find!

In your opinion, how would such a feature look in FSNotes? Perhaps a "Convert nvALT tags" button in Preferences > Advanced?

Alternatively, it could be done transparently/automatically; FSNotes would examine every file for kMDItemOMUserTags and if they are found, apply the tags to kMDItemUserTags without asking.

Automatic is always nice, except if it does stuff you don't want! In your case, after running the above script, do your old nvALT tags now show up in the finder sidebar, for example? Do you think most people would realise it will do this?

[iandol]

Actually I would have said do it automatically, but your important point about unexpected behaviour makes me realise that this probably should be optional. I suspect most users who have tagged their notes would want them searchable by macOS, but who knows?

[gingerbeardman]

I'd like tags to be more visible, and perhaps optionally choose to display a list of tags rather than a list of folders in the sidebar?

[lukaskawerau]

Would it be possible to show nested tags as a nested list? Notable and Bear do this and I find it very helpful.