Q: I hate the new tags in Mavericks, need coloured folders!!

Grrregerrr wrote:

 

auapplemac, iansca and many others, we're on the same wavelength. It's not really surprising when you consider how professionals think and work.

Yes, you are exactly right. Those of us who develop software for a living are not professionals. Those of us who manage projects are not professionals.

Is there a way to organize/catagorize tags? I use Evernote which allows nested folders of tags, and I have developed an extensive collection of tags in Evernote, all neatly organized within nested folders. I make minimal use of folders in Evernote because of the difficulty in managing folders within Evernote.

I'm considering swiching from Evernote file storage (with tags) to the Finder (with folders and tags). But, I don't think I could manage my tag collection without some way to catagorize them. Does tag catagorization exist in Mavericks?

thanks!

Sunday afternoon and its icy out in New York City, so I'll just muse a little here for my own and perhaps one or two others' amusement. It may be educational.

I've been tracking this thread since the get-go, have put in my two bits here and at Apple's gripesite. I kind of do expect a fix, because I'm confident that someone or more from Apple are monitoring the traffic here, with some 650 replies, which is probably no more than 1 percent of all of the actual people who are discontented, so if there are 5 or 10 thousand people out there who want labels back, there will either be an Apple fix, or a third-party cheapware or freeware hack more focused on the issue than is Pathfinder, which I tried and, like a lot of non-career-computer users, found that Pathfinder scared me.

I do know enough about computer programming to know that this is a relatively simple fix which Apple could fix it it wants to. So, we'll have to see what happens, a 3rd party fix or Apple's.

Now as for functionality, what users need to understand is that the two systems meet different needs, or different types of users. People who use labels, like me, have a need to spot something right away, without a lot of searching. I have folders full of color-labled files, and color-labled folders, that grade their contents as red for hot and needing immediate attention, yellow for in-process and the like. That's great for tracking a work in progress, like different chapters in a report. Reports are a lot of what I do for a living.

Tags, on the other hand, are for users who need to sort through large numbers of files that may be scattered throughout their system or file structure, or even within a sizeable folder of files. They can categorize all the files on say, abstract paintings with one color tag, and all the files with realistic paintings on another, and all the files with paintings in oil, and all the files with paintings in watercolors. Using multiple tags, they can then quickly assemble a group of files that contain only abstract paintings in watercolors, for example, That's handy if you'bve accumulated hundreds of such files and they aren't all grouped together or aliased together. Tags are the key component in what used to be called a sorting mechanism, and in the days of paper-based card files--anyone old enough to remember those?--you could use holes punched in the tabs to "keyhole sort" a filebox of cards and shake out all the ones that didn't meet one of the criteria, successively, until you had just the cards that you needed. Long way to do things, and long way, here, to explain them.

Now Apple could, if it wanted, combine the two features nicely, simply by extending the color dot all the way across the file lable. Then you have both worlds, if you want them: visual color coding--and I do hope along with some others here that Apple will extend the available spectrum of colors quite a bit; and sorting. Each community might find it handy. But it probably won't happen, because as soon as Apple did that, there would be a whole bunch of complaints from the community that has now become hooked on tags!

Keep on truckin'

Happy New Year

DABbio wrote:

 

Sunday afternoon and its icy out in New York City, so I'll just muse a little here for my own and perhaps one or two others' amusement. It may be educational.

 

I've been tracking this thread since the get-go, have put in my two bits here and at Apple's gripesite. I kind of do expect a fix, because I'm confident that someone or more from Apple are monitoring the traffic here, with some 650 replies, which is probably no more than 1 percent of all of the actual people who are discontented,

Guessing tends to weaken your argument, neither you or I have any idea how many people are discontented, but we do share one fact. Some are. Picking a percentage that can not be supported will inevitably bring challenges, challenges that can not be answered without further speculation. And so it goes.

Actually, C, guessing is an essential part of scientific research. For example, based on the small sampling of extrasolar planets found so far, competent astronomers "speculate" that there are 40 billion earth-size planets orbiting the habitable zone of stars in our Milky Way galaxy alone. No one expects to confirm this by counting any time soon, but it's not a weak argument to bet about.

With 60 milllion Mac users out there, even if only .01 percent (1 person in 10,000) complain, my speculation about the total number of color label mourners is low by an order of magnitude, so I'm going to up my speculative number to 50,000 malcontents-- if I haven't got my arithmatic wrong, which often happens!

I warned you that I had free time this afternoon.

DABbio wrote:

 

Actually, C, guessing is an essential part of scientific research.

Theorizing is important, mistakes are essential.

DABbio wrote:

 

They can categorize all the files on say, abstract paintings with one color tag, and all the files with realistic paintings on another

Why colors?  Tag abstract paintings as "abstract" and realistic paintings as "realistic"  And as you sugest, use a second tag such as "oil" and "watercolor"

Apple tried to make Labels backward compatible with Tags.  All Labels was was colored files, and only one color (of a total of 8) was allowed -- very limited in functionality.   As your example shows, much more can be done with Tags.

C, I completely agree with you. Please note, however, that I never make misteaks. <-

OK, Tony, but "more" does not necessarily mean "better."  I like tags too, but labels just exactly met the need for a large group of users who are not necessarily adept or interested in adopting a more complex classification system, as well as users like me, who are comfortable in either a color-labeling or a tagging environment, depending on need.

DABbio wrote:

 

OK, Tony, but "more" does not necessarily mean "better."

Your example of filing (taging) artwork does show it as "better". 

Something like that cannot be done with Labels.

Also, the number of replies (which is misleading, the number of individuals pro and con would be more meaningful), will not in and of itself sway what Apple does in future releases,  For example, there was a much bigger uproar over the removal of the floppy drive.

There are few absolutes in this business. It's customer-dependent, at least to some extent. Some customers don't use, need or want tags and sorting. Therefore, such a system is not "better" for those users. Whereas CD/DVD drives expanded on the identical function that floppies had carried out--and I agree that the wailing was enormous anyway--tags as currently structured do not do the old job well at all.

You're right about the number of replies not representing the number of individuals. I'm still comfortable with a guesstimate of 10s of thousands of discontented label-seekers, however.

DABbio wrote:

 

You're right about the number of replies not representing the number of individuals. I'm still comfortable with a guesstimate of 10s of thousands of discontented label-seekers, however.

I won't disagree about that estimate, but I can find you that many who are discontented about most things, I could probably find that many who (despite the facts) think that Elvis is alive.

DABbio wrote:

 

There are few absolutes in this business. It's customer-dependent, at least to some extent.

That's a real absolute!! ........to some extent.

Enjoy the weather over there

Pete

C, you mean that Elvis is not alive?...

Have you seen him lately