'Tags' Discussion - why not allow more than one at a time?

[Grant]

Tags are not what I expected, and if I was designing MLO, I would give them a different use than they have now.  I am wondering what others think:  

• Would anybody else find being able to have multiple tags useful?  And how would you use them?

Here is my PoV:

Currently tags are 'more flexible flags', in that

• you can only have one (like flags),
• you can filter on either type, but
• you can choose any (more meaningful) text

I propose that Tags should have more added value.  Key to this would be to allow multiple tags.

But 'then they would be just like contexts'  you say?

Functionally, yes.  But 'Contexts'  are to identify when at task is applicable - eg to a person, place, etc.    'Tags'  are for 'content', or 'information'  we might say.

For example, I might create a task with the context @Office, :Susan, so when I am in the office, I will see that I should see if I can talk to Susan.   And if I used the context ':Susan' with other tasks, I can find back everything I should talk to her about.

Limiting contexts, and staying consistent, provides an important and manageable way to compactly structure  task views. You do not want too may Contexts.

But I often want to know what 'meaning' is contained in a task, so I can use my tasks to add value to all my work, or so they can be used in other ways, eg when we use the @googlecalendar tag to sync with that calendar. 

Or I want to use Tags as a kind of 'Sandbox' to temporarily filter on a special case, or idea

Sure, I can then use a Tag.  But what if also wanted note that task had 'Art' as a topic, and it related to my 'Hobby' and it already had the tag liking it to my google calendar?   I can not add those to the Tag field right now.  And I certainly do not want to add yet more Contexts to my already long list - since these aspects are temporary, and not the focal point of the task, still they are relevant to something else I am doing maybe.

Does this make sense? 

[Dwight Arthur]

On October 23, 2021 04:18:30 Grant <grant837@gmail.com> wrote:

But what if also wanted note that task had 'Art' as a topic, and it related to my 'Hobby' and it already had the tag liking it to my google calendar?   I can not add those to the Tag field right now.  

But you can.

Just type into the tag field "hobby; art"

Then you can filter on 

Texttag contains art AND Texttag contains hobby

Be sure to keep your tags unique. If you have tags smart, department, Arthur  and artificial, a filter on  "contains art" will match all of them as they all contain "art"

Also note that the semicolon isn't required and doesn't do anything, i just added it for human legibility

I don't know much about calendar sync, it's possy that it requires a tag that cannot coexist with other tags. If so I would request calendar sync be enhanced to permit coexistence

-Dwight

[Grant]

@dewight said " If so I would request calendar sync be enhanced to permit coexistence "

I got around to testing the co-existence of the Google Calendar tag with others, and alas, its not possible.   I will request the co-existance, as you suggested. 

For the rest, you are right, I can just use a separated list and filter on the work I want.  That probably is good enough.  Still, someday it would be nice if tags would get the same type of functionality as contexts... at least it would be handy for my way of organizing things.. and maybe others...

Cheers