[Trac] Tags

[Muness Alrubaie]

I've implemented tagging support for Trac.  I was able to do so
without having to modify Trac itself and did the whole thing through
macros.

The implementation is documented at
http://dev.muness.textdriven.com/trac.cgi/wiki/tags .  Here's a
snippet:

-----------
Tags are like hierarchically organized wiki entries, however with them
you can categorize a wiki entry under multiple tags and not just under
one hierarchy. You can then search for wiki entries categorized under
a tag or a collection of tags. In other words, tags provide a faceted
classification system for the Trac wiki.

As an added bonus, tags are linked to the wiki entry of the same name,
allowing you to describe them explicitly under the wiki entry of the
same name. This allows for a flexible means for establishing the
context of wiki entries. Besides this, tags also make it incredibly
easy to create todo lists or indexes.

Tags don't have to be predefined. As long as there are wiki entries
categorized under a tag, it'll be automatically created.

Tags are similar to labels in gmail, tags in the social bookmark
manager, del.icio.us and the photo sharing site, Flickr and WikiMedia
categories. They are substantially different than the latter because
tags are intimately tied with wiki entries of the same name, whereas
WikiMedia Categories are just indexes.
-----------

In a wiki, tagging can be substantially more useful than tagging under
other contexts (e.g. email, bookmarks or photos).  This is because
each tag can be associated with its namesake wiki entry, hence
providing a way to not only categorize wiki entries but to also define
them.

I've also posted a blog entry on this over at
http://muness.blogspot.com/2005/01/tags-for-trac.html .

I am hoping you agree that this is as powerful and low cost (in terms
of user adoption) as I do.  If so, I am hoping we can roll this
additional feature into the next release of Trac.  I don't believe any
other wiki implementation has anything like this.

Please take the time to read the documentation and examples and let me
know what you think.


Muness Alrubaie


--
See my blog at http://muness.blogspot.com