[Trac] Tags

[Muness Alrubaie]

On Tue, 4 Jan 2005 19:06:38 +0100, Christopher Lenz <cmlenz at gmx.de> wrote:
> Hi Muness,
> 
> first, I think your work on tags in the trac wiki is pretty
> interesting. This is IMHO something that could go into Trac proper
> after the concept is worked out.

Can we put a list together of what we should work out?  Or you can
feel free to post to the dev.muness.textdriven.com tags/Improvements
wiki entry.

> 
> Am 04.01.2005 um 16:51 schrieb Muness Alrubaie:
> > Alexey,
> >
> > 1) Some people prefer tag, others category, and others still label.  I
> > don't have a preference.  (The terms I think of is "overlapping
> > namespaces", but I don't think that'd ever be widely accepted.)  This
> > can be configurable so that people can use whichever terminology they
> > prefer.  Does that sound reasonable?
> 
> Please no, let's just agree on one term. While it's tempting to create
> options for every situation where different people have different
> opinions, it's the road to chaos ;-)
> 
> I personally prefer "tags", as used by Flickr and del.icio.us. "Labels"
> is okay.

I vote for tags as well.  Again, I don't care much.

> 
> > 2) I started with organizing things hierarchically, hence the "/" all
> > over the place.  I think tagging/labelling/categorizing can do
> > everything hierarchies can do, but have not been inclined to actually
> > go ahead and make all hierarchical entries flat.  This may be the best
> > thing to do.  What would be nice if I had a whole bunch of content to
> > tag and see how to best do things.  (Labels with hierarchies or labels
> > with no hierarchies.)
> 
> I see the value of hierarchical wiki names in easier linking to
> subpages. For example from "SomePage" I should be able to link to
> "SomePage/SubPageOne" simply by writing "/SubPageOne". Note that that
> improves both the readability and the writability of long page names,
> also compared to a flat namespace where I'd have to write
> "SomePageSubPageOne". (This sort of shortcut linking isn't currently
> implemented in Trac, but I really think it should be.)

Agreed.  However, I think Chris Beck is right.  "/" would be weird. 
"./" makes more sense to me.  I've started implementing this as a
macro.

I am already using shortcuts in labels. "." refers to self and .0
refers to top hierarchical element (SomePage in "SomePage/SubPageOne")
for example.  Maybe we should create a list of shortcuts and make them
work both in wiki references and labeling.

An added advantage of using shortcuts is easier refactoring.

> 
> Generally I think tags/labels are often used in addition to hierarchy
> for organizing information.

Using them together makes sense.  Hierarchies are for more obvious or
primary classifications.  Labels do everything else.

> 
> One thing I wonder about is whether tags should really be limited to
> wiki pages. Why not allow tagging of e.g. tickets and changesets?
> Possibly replacing the already existing keywords for tickets?

I've thought of that.  Since I was new to Trac I really haven't had
much of a chance to explore the API it exposes to see if tickets and
changesets could be similarly tagged.

Also does the reverse make sense: should we allow using a ticket as a tag?

> 
> Cheers,
> Chris
> --
> Christopher Lenz
> /=/ cmlenz at gmx.de
> 
> 


Muness

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