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Submitted by lucasd on 2010/09/24 19:59

Hello all,

I'm just getting my feet on the ground with IQ (having great results so far with task management and foreign language word databases). So it may be a bit premature for me to be posting in the "Suggestions" forum, but here, for what it's worth, is my idea:

Basically, I am looking for a more efficient way to implement tagging (of word lists, for instance). So far, I've been using this method:

1. Add tags inline in the Item text in the form "@tag"

2. Create a grid with the filter "Item LIKE "*@tag*"

This works well, but given that it's probably a common sort of task, I'm wondering about automating it a bit more. My suggestion would be to have an option to turn on automatic tag processing. The user would be able to define the delimiter (e.g, "@"). Then, tag grids would automatically be created for each tag, showing all items containing the particular tag. This way, if I use 50 different tags in a database, I don't have to create manually 50 different grids to view the items associated with each tag. Does this make sense?

I confess I don't fully understand the "Smart Fields" feature yet, so if that's something I should be using (or if there's some other solution), please let me know.

Thanks!

Lucas D

Comments

Hi Lucas.

All suggestions are welcome on this forum no matter how new you are. This is a welcoming forum.

Some specifics:

unless I'm mistaken, I don't think it is possible to automate the creation of grids in the way I think you mean & I've never heard it discussed so I'm not sure that it's in the pipeline... which doesn't mean it won't be.
In IQ the concept of "tagging' is -- AFAIK -- a way to create a temporary list; not what you are doing.
I'm not sure that you are currently using IQ to it's full advantage with the approach you've outlined. Perhaps you could upload a capture of your view(s) as it might make your workflow easier to conceptualize.
Automation is possible via smart folders wherein certain words can automatically (or manually) assign and item to a specified field. I don't know if this would be helpful but it doesn't apply to automatically creating grids in the way I think you mean it. However, one or two clicks on the assigned field in the property pane will bring up a grid with all those specified items w/o creating a filter. This might be automated by a macro from a third party program.
There are some very smart people on this forum (not moi) who are very experienced with equations & automation. I'm sure they will come flocking to your assistance. And I will be as interested as you to see what they come up with.

Hi Lucas

I like the idea of automatic grid creation - could make for a lot of grids but at some stage a tree view is planned for the list of grids so that needn't be a problem.

I'm no expert on tagging - I do use wikitags but they have their quirks and limitations (currently at any rate - they basically not that user friendly if you want to give an item multiple tags). You dont mention them so I give a link in case you not familiar Wikitags. I recently created links to 40 or so wikitags - clicking on a link will open all the items with that wikitag in a 'Scratch' grid. Making all those links was a bit of a slog though :-)

I dont know will the following seem like a workaround but it's more a case of me thinking out loud:--

If you are going to be using a limited number of tags, you could create a grid for each one (ok this is a slog but once off). This creates a yes/no field for each grid - you could create a form (that shows in the properties pane) with all these yes/no tag fields - this would make it relatively easy to apply tags (OTOH, not as easy as just typing!)

Actually for a discussion about tags see this post (& following ones) www.sqlnotes.net/drupal5/index.php

I think it's still pretty open how tagging might be implemented (?). I know Armando in particular (& maybe others) use 'simple' text tags for which they then filter - but that involves a filter for each tag which brings us back to your suggestion

PS as Jan says 'Tagging' - as seen in the context menu - is actually a way of selecting a bunch of items. It will I think be renamed at some stage

PPS I presume you would be giving items multiple tags?

Thanks very much Jan and Tom for your suggestions! Great that there is an active user community here. It's been a busy week and I haven't had the time to fully explore this issue yet, but definitely I'm adding to my IQ todo list to learn more about "Smart Folders". I also got a bit sidetracked with a secondary issue/bug which I eventually sorted out, but which I'll post about separately. But anyway, I aim to be back with a more complete follow-up soon.

All the best,

Lucas

Ahh, I should study smart folders a bit more myself - different from tagging but can be helpful.

I actually use colour a lot myself and have a colour code in some grids -

e.g. from one grid:-

1. Grey = File, in progress
2. Blue = Done
3. Yellow = Change Request
5. Powder = Changed / new web version
6. Green = Approved
7. Dark Blue = Ignore [defunct]

most of that is automated in the snese colour changes related to a field being ticked e.g. 'Done' is default; 'Changed' is a yes/no field that changes the items colour; etc. etc.)

This may clash with colouring based on duedate/priority which I dont really use

[quote=lucasd]

I'm just getting my feet on the ground with IQ (having great results so far with task management and foreign language word databases).

[/quote]

I'm interested in the set-up of the foreign language word database. Would you care to comment/screenshot, etc?

You may want to start another topic, since this gets off-topic here. Thanks