New feature: Tag view / edit your tags
I've added a new feature—a "Tag view" for "Your library", alongside the List and Shelf views.
The Tag view replaces the Tags tab. Like the tab, it shows your tags alphabetically, or by frequency and allows you to jump to a tag in your catalog.
But the tag view also allows you to edit your tags, "gardening them" in a very satisfying way. You can rename tags, delete tags or add tags. For example, from the tag view you can add "history" and "greece" everywhere you use the tag "greek history." Editing is done in a lightbox, and "ajaxes" the changes back onto the screen with the "yellow fade technique."
The technical infrastructure here is going to key to the upcoming (really) collections feature. Collections, which I think I'll call "sets," will turn the Tag view into "Sets/Tags." (Anyway, that's the plan!)
Let me know what you think about the new feature here, or on Talk.
The Tag view replaces the Tags tab. Like the tab, it shows your tags alphabetically, or by frequency and allows you to jump to a tag in your catalog.
But the tag view also allows you to edit your tags, "gardening them" in a very satisfying way. You can rename tags, delete tags or add tags. For example, from the tag view you can add "history" and "greece" everywhere you use the tag "greek history." Editing is done in a lightbox, and "ajaxes" the changes back onto the screen with the "yellow fade technique."
The technical infrastructure here is going to key to the upcoming (really) collections feature. Collections, which I think I'll call "sets," will turn the Tag view into "Sets/Tags." (Anyway, that's the plan!)
Let me know what you think about the new feature here, or on Talk.
Labels: new feature, tags
posted by Tim at 2:10 AM
21 Comments:
This might sound paradoxical, but 'sets' sound mentally clunky to me. You have a collection of books, but a set (?) of books - not so much.
I suppose part of your concern is that 'set' saves some space on the UI!
You found me out!
Sets is Flickr-ish, though.
Flickr also uses the term "collections" - they use it to mean "a set of sets". Basically, a set can contain photos, but not other sets. A collection can contain sets, but not photos.
ARH. POWEREDIT is still down. Please bring it back!
The existing feature is good, but P/E allowed selecting an assortment of (or all) books which have no other tags in common, this can't be done with the new system?!
Excellent feature. Thanks!
If there was a "no tags" tag, would that be enough, or do you want it for the other Power Edit features, like deleting books?
TIM: assuming your comment was asking me, all of my books have tags, and it's the ability to tag a page of search results that I use P/E for most.
I think I've only ever used P/E for additg tags.
THere seem to be a lot of very weird things happening within tags now. I've gained tags that I've never entered, search results don't sort, tags read 0 on the edit page .... please look into this ASAP. (I'm on IE7XP if it makes any odds.)
search - internal catalog search from the catalog page if it makes a difference
This is a great feature...makes it so easy to consolidate all those redundant tags and clean up shop! Thanks.
Great work but I think you should now get some sleep!
reading_foc:
Can we move this to Talk. (See bottom of post.) It's going to be hard to do detailed conversation here since there's no good notification system. Anyway, I'm working through issues over there with users. It's possible what they say will inform your problem too.
Haven't played with it a lot yet but I like it already.
A small tradeoff: although this makes editing and rationalizing tags VERY easy (and I had to do a lot of that once I was done tagging my whole library), it also adds a step to the process of pulling up a separate browser tab that shows me all my tags in one place, which I always do when I'm entering new books, so that I can check to make sure I'm using the correct tags (did I call it "American revolution and founding" or just "American founding"? etc.). (And the spacing means that more scrolling is involved in that operation, too -- but that's okay because this is visually easier to handle overall.)
What's the rationale for making this into an option accessed from within the Your Library tab rather than having a separate Tags/Sets tab? That'd be the best of both worlds from my POV.
Thanks in any case, no matter how it plays out the net gain is huge!
Thank you, for this tag feature. I have work with it today and I like it very much. Good work, Tim!
Two big points, and a smaller one.
Point the first: The page itself. I like the new version, especially having the option to go to the site-wide tag page as well as my own. I also like having a quick way of seeing which books I haven't gotten around to tagging.
Point the second: Finding the page. This is bad. Very bad. Tags isn't really a "view" in the way that Lists and Covers are. It's more of a subset of one's library. Having the only way of getting to my tags being a button next to the other two views is counterintuitive to me. Perhaps the "Your tags" tab could be reinstated, only closer to the "Your library" and "Add books" tabs?
Point the miniature: What to call the sets/collections? You could, of course, call them what del.icio.us calls them: "Bundles."
I didn't know where else to post this, but I hope you've seen the nice write-up about LibraryThing and tagging in the latest issue of Public Libraries, the PLA bi-monthly magazine. It's part of a piece by Sharon Cosentino titled "Folksonomies."
1. You have WAY too much fun at work!
2. I can't wait to play with this! Thanks!
For me, this is the BEST feature. I love this! I have tons of tags and I update them regularly. This is better than Power Edit for what I do...I don't have to go find 200 books and then put in a tag and take out a tag...I just change the tag on the tag page!
If I could kiss you, I would. :D
Hmmm...
ok, is a hug less creepy? :D
I am loving the ease of use, as I really enjoy "tag gardening"! I approve of keeping the "Tags" tab--it's just handy in too many ways to get rid of.
As for "sets", I assume we're talking about adding some sort of virtual tags that would link to all books in a particular series? I think a lot of people add those tags themselves, so it seems logical to me. As for terminology, I prefer "sets" over "collections". All the books I own are my collection; all the volumes of The Lord of the Rings make a "set".
Thanks, great feature!!!! Although have you considered that those of us with a bit of OCD might become tagaholics? Not me of course.... {Now,let me think, did I tag that as OCD or ocd or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder?}
You found me out!Sets is Flickr-ish, though.Sincerely yours markedone.
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