From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Christian Moe Subject: Re: "Tag hierarchy" idea Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2011 09:27:38 +0100 Message-ID: <4D885D7A.70804@christianmoe.com> References: Reply-To: mail@christianmoe.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: Received: from [140.186.70.92] (port=54765 helo=eggs.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1Q1wsy-0003AX-Qp for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Tue, 22 Mar 2011 04:24:21 -0400 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Q1wsx-0008Rx-Eh for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Tue, 22 Mar 2011 04:24:16 -0400 Received: from mars.hitrost.net ([91.185.211.18]:53827) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Q1wsx-0008Rr-3M for emacs-orgmode@gnu.org; Tue, 22 Mar 2011 04:24:15 -0400 In-Reply-To: List-Id: "General discussions about Org-mode." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Sender: emacs-orgmode-bounces+geo-emacs-orgmode=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-orgmode-bounces+geo-emacs-orgmode=m.gmane.org@gnu.org To: John Tait Cc: emacs-orgmode@gnu.org Hi, There was some discussion of tag hierarchies in this thread: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.orgmode/31882 It was largely inconclusive, except that it would be hard to implement. Noone took the ball and ran with it, but then noone came up with a strong use case or specification, either. Anyway, I recommend a look at that thread before continuing it here. Yours, Christian On 3/22/11 12:09 AM, John Tait wrote: > Hi all > > This is my first post. First, I'd like to thank all the org-mode > developers for a great tool. > > I'm a technical editor. I am facinated by the pros and cons of > structured documents with regard to their ease of use and power. I > think that they are probably far too restrictive and cumbersome > (looking at you, DITA) for the average technical document. > Nevertheless, the idea of modular documents is an appealing one to me. > I like conditional text features (e.g. in LyX). > > In org-mode, I really really love selective export (include/exclude > tags) and using #+INCLUDE: for including other files. This gives me > enormous flexibility, with zero DITA pain. > > May I propose an additional feature? I haven't seen anything like it > published anywhere, though maybe I am using the incorrect search > terms. (I am getting enormous vertigo and time-travel sickness reading > up on Lisp, XML, DITA, etc.) > > It's a pretty basic idea, but I hope you can take a moment to weigh up > its potential. > > We could assign tags to hierarchies of other tags. > > > #+TAG-NEST: (colour(red green blue)) > #+TAG-NEST: (type(colour size)) > #+TAG-NEST: (car(type price)) > > or maybe like this. I'd leave it up to someone with actual programming > experience and a logical mind (my productive programming was PASCAL in > 1991) to suggest a rigorous system that makes sense. > > #+TAG-NEST: colour > red:green:blue > #+TAG-NEST: type > colour:size > #+TAG-NEST: car > type:price > > The point of this would be that selecting, say, "colour" as a tag > would bring along "red", "green", and "blue" along with it. The tag > "type" would bring "colour", "red", "green", "blue" and "size" with it. > > The power of this would be that hierarchies could be adjusted and > manipulated as necessary. > > Since there is no one definitive way to tag real world objects and > ideas into nice nested boxes (thanks, AI research), we could adjust > any tag hierarchies to suit experience and changing priorities. Even > hierarchies could just be thrown away without affecting existing tags > too much, since tagged headings could just be selected/excluded as usual. > > This way, we can use concept hierarchies as the disposable > conveniences that they are, without getting locked into them. Looking > at stuff like XSLT transformation for XML, that'd be worth avoiding. > > Maybe there is some logical lispy reason why this couldn't work, but I > hope this is worthy of your consideration. > > John > > ------ > > While I am here (sorry), I couldn't get #+FILETAGS: to work in > org-version 7.4. > > For example, if I export a file (to html) File1.org with > "#+EXPORT_EXCLUDE_TAGS: john", and then I include File2.org, I can see > File2.org included as part the export of File1 as expected. If I then > set "#+FILETAGS: :john:" in File2, I'd expect File2 to now be > excluded, but it still appears. If I then tag a File2 heading as say > "* Heading :john:", then it won't appear in the File1 export, as > expected. Am I missing something? >