Rework of collaborative tags

[MorrisJobke]

• followup to Rework of collaborative tags (NC 12.0) #1465 (Nextcloud 12 part of this)

• Search/type-ahead should only bring up tags the user applied already (or has access to)
• Tags that are not assigned should not be visible (implied by pervious task) (If no file is tagged with a specific tag, that tag should be removed #586)
• Some information on the filter search page (Visualize useful synthetic information when user clicks 'Tags'  #2143)
• More prominent displaying of tags when used (Display tags next to file names #2838)

cc @jancborchardt @nickvergessen

[disaster123]

Would it be possible to get tag colors like the labels on github?

[gradinaruvasile]

Hi,
As referenced here:

https://help.nextcloud.com/t/how-to-tag-multiple-files/21769

I would like to add the request for an option to apply tags when multiple files are selected. That is a very useful feature if you have/add multiple files.

[disaster123]

+1

[gradinaruvasile]

Something like this would be nice

• tag option on the toolbar next to download link:
• if clicked, expand the tag input form on horizontally (or maybe add it on a new line below as it is its current function in the details pane?)

[disaster123]

• a listing of all tags for a file in the overview.

[jancborchardt]

@gradinaruvasile we will only have a listing of the tags in the row, comparable to Gmail. Adding and removing tags in the row would be too much and too noisy. That’s done via the sidebar.

@disaster123 that’s what we want to add, as said.

[disaster123]

@jancborchardt great - multiple colors or colors for tags would be great as well. If you have a lot of tags it gets very difficult to recognize them.

[jancborchardt]

@disaster123 that's a different topic, you could open a separate issue for that. :)

[disaster123]

@jancborchardt thanks added: #6778

[Spartachetto]

Given that the milestone has been postponed, maybe you could consider to include the following issues:

• Possibility to search system tags with a better query system Possibility to search system tags with a better query system #4851
• colored tags colored tags #6778
• Allow creating/modifying group tags in the admin UI Allow creating/modifying group tags in the admin UI #621

@MorrisJobke, perhaps?

in addition here (Better UI for managing and applying tags ? #4842) you find a sort of "general discussion" of some possible improvements on the tag system, just for reference

[MorrisJobke]

We just released the beta3 of Nextcloud 13. So also all of those are new features and enhancements and will not be included in 13 anymore. We cannot put everything in one release and delay it even more. Sorry for that.

[Spartachetto]

@MorrisJobke, I am afraid I did not manage to be clear...

I wrote "Given that the milestone has been postponed" meaning that, given that this overal issue on tags has been postponed to Nextcloud 14, maybe you could consider to include other pending feature requests on tags.

I had the impression that all the three feature request I suggested to include in the list for Nextcloud 14 were deemed "interesting enough". Maybe it could be handy to have them in this issue for you to keep track of them.

Said that, I am eager to use Nextcloud 13 and I cross my fingers for some features in Nextcloud 14... 😃

[MorrisJobke]

I had the impression that all the three feature request I suggested to include in the list for Nextcloud 14 were deemed "interesting enough". Maybe it could be handy to have them in this issue for you to keep track of them.

Ah :) Okay - I just moved it because it was already put into 13 and thus should be in 14 (at least we try to). We will have a look at the 14 stuff once we plan it. For new we finish 13 :)

[Spartachetto]

@MorrisJobke Is it the right time for ask you developers to have a look? A review of the tag functionalities to be developed in 14 could be done now.. .?

[spoorun]

Presumably Group tags, unlike personal tags, should be displayed on search/type-ahead, even if not applied by the User (or any user).
Rationale: Administrator may want a set of tags designed for all users, and to ensure consistency.
Also, it's easier for tags to be chosen by a User from a pre-prepared list, easing workflow.

[Klakla2]

tags are already some sort of metadata. I know there were already lots of ideas about file metadata, but nothing did it yet.
Could this tag system be extended to an optional tag = value system in the sense, that we can add metadata needed for correct citing like
author =
Original_Download_URL =
Original_Download_time =

or metadata needed to correlate any file with a geoposition(not only pictures)
Latitude=
Longitude=

gpxpod app would probably be easy to extend to show all files describing something within the selected area.

[Spartachetto]

@MorrisJobke I am trying to shamelessly bump up this tag overall issue...

Sorry for disturbing, but there are a lot of good proposals here.

In any case, thank you for your attention.. ..

[skaunov]

Search/type-ahead should only bring up tags the user applied already (or has access to)
Tags that are not assigned should not be visible (implied by pervious task) (#586)

Would be wonderful if it become an option. It's inspiring to see the tags across the system, and more than that it let people have more consistent tagging system. So when they will need to merge them they would have more similar classification.

[Spartachetto]

@skjnldsv I am mentioning you because I've seen that you are involved in several related topics (e.g.: metadata, sidebar).

Maybe a bird's eye look at this issue (both the original text and the different proposals in the comments) could be useful to verify if all the suggestions are still of interest and if some of them conflict or could be resolved with the other ongoing work.

I still think that there are a lot of really useful proposals here....

Sorry to disturb!

[skjnldsv]

No worries! @Spartachetto :)
I think they are. We did lots f changes around, but in the end we did not change anything from the tags yet ;)

I think we have to migrate them to vue and we'd be able to improve them a lot.
But they're too connected with Files and as long as Files isn't migrated to Vue, this is gonna be complicated for some tasks :'(

[matiasdelellis]

Hi everyone,
I write here, because I can't believe that no one reported it.. 😅
I understand that you call it "Collaborative Tags", but in general the users do not know that the these tags are shared among all the users..
In my case, my users expect the face recognition app add person's tags to image files. Although I have my doubts (Performance, I cannot contextualize these labels) I admit that it would be great, to see them in the photos application, However, my main question is about privacy. 🤔

So, just an example. If you tag your ex in an image, your couple should know??? A new tags with the name or nickname will be appears to them. 😞

[caseyhoward]

As the only user of my Nextcloud instance I was very surprised when my tags showed up under my user account and my admin account. Definitely not what I expected and I thought I did something wrong, but I couldn't find a way to make them user specific. Seems like a major privacy issue to me. Luckily I'm the only user. The fact that you also can't tag multiple files at once makes me wonder if this is a feature that's actually used.

Anyway, this is off topic, but as a non-business user it appears that Nextcloud isn't exactly the solution I was looking for. I do like being able to browse my files remotely so I'm eventually just going pull all my files out of Nextcloud and mount them as external storage. This way I can still use my files like normal on my home network (symlinks instead of tags, nextcloud doesn't support symlinks either) and use Nextcloud purely for accessing my files remotely. It just seems that too many of the features are useful for enterprises only and tend to get in the way.

[skaunov]

Not much to report from my point of view. *Tags are public*, because they're collaborative and you can reuse other people categorization ideas, and share things aligned together. So the solution for your case is to highlight for users that tags are public.

…

On 2020-08-06 02:53, matiasdelellis wrote: Hi everyone, I write here, because I can't believe that no one reported it.. 😅 I understand that you call it "Collaborative Tags", but in general the users do not know that the these tags are shared among all the users.. In my case, my users expect the face recognition app add person's tags to image files. Although I have my doubts (Performance, I cannot contextualize these labels) I admit that it would be great, to see them in the photos application, However, my main question is about privacy. 🤔 So, just an example. If you tag your ex in an image, your couple should know??? A new tags with the name or nickname will be appears to them. 😞 — You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#4699 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/APXLOT2I2I57EPRVJKUVJWDR7HWHLANCNFSM4DKC5X3A>.

[matiasdelellis]

Hi @skaunov
Sorry, maybe I wrote a lot but did not summarize my idea. I understand that they are "collaborative tags", but absolutely any user knows this until they accidentally (1) find the preferences in settings pane..

Collaborative tags

Collaborative tags are available for all users. Restricted tags are visible to users but cannot be assigned by them.

OK. More or less clear with this message? Well .. I tell you that this is an administrator preference, so users don't read this. 😞

Invisible tags are for internal use, since users cannot see or assign them.

p.s: I still don't know what makes the invisible. option.. 🤔

Well .. To close my idea. We are in the report named "Rework of collaborative tags", so I understand that it is a good place to propose changes.

Improvement proposal:: Please IMHO it would be nice to add the option to make or create tags private to the user.

Thanks,

EDIT: Here a fairly descriptive example of the problem. matiasdelellis/facerecognition#292 (comment) 😉

Note:

1. In my case, knowing of its existence, I looked for it and believe that it was difficult for me to find it

[DanScharon]

Not much to report from my point of view. Tags are public, because
they're collaborative and you can reuse other people categorization
ideas, and share things aligned together. So the solution for your case
is to highlight for users that tags are public.

"collaborative" in its meaning doesn't necessarily expand the scope to all users of an instance. It does make a difference to share tags, say, within a team of 20, or with all 10,000 users of your instance. You see my point?

[skaunov]

Your point was clear before clarification. Please, enhance features as you like. I just want to show that as soon as user see that **tags are public** than there is no problem with ut all. Btw, for me ideal way to use tags would be kind of *hashtags module*, which could just take tags for files from it name and content. It's looks quite complex to do, but it would make content management next level powerfull.

…

On 2020-08-06 16:45, Daniel Scharon wrote: Not much to report from my point of view. /Tags are public/, because they're collaborative and you can reuse other people categorization ideas, and share things aligned together. So the solution for your case is to highlight for users that tags are public. "collaborative" in its meaning doesn't necessarily expand the scope to /all/ users of an instance. It does make a difference to share tags, say, within a team of 20, or with /all/ 10,000 users of your instance. You see my point? — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#4699 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/APXLOTY24E4HGEGBYLGWULDR7KXXNANCNFSM4DKC5X3A>.

[sualko]

I just want to show that as soon as user see that tags are public
than there is no problem with ut all.

Since tags are editable by everyone, I think this is a huge issue. @jancborchardt can you try to push this issue, because I think it's a pretty bad UX if all your tags got renamed my someone else.

[mapeze]

My considerations about this issue:

What would be a great step forward is to have a collaborative web based file manager that supports 1:n relationships on file (visual) structure. That's the summary. And I would say, sooner or later the collaborative file managers will switch to the 1:n logic. The "folders" concept, inherited from the physical view used before the digital era, give us a 1:1 relationship.

The naming of the functionality "tag" denotes that this is viewed as only a patch of the problem. I would rename the concept to something like "routes". A file can be reached from multiple routes. A file manager should show us the routes, and no anymore the folder concept. The old school folder concept would then be a special case of the 1:n structure. All the files would physically be in the same folder of the base system.

The big problem I see is how to live together with base systems who live with 1:1 logic. For example, ¿how to manage backups or to synchronize files in desktop clients?

Maybe, this comment contribution in short term is close to nothing... But, as a person who have though many hours on that issue, I wanted to share my point of view.

[Spartachetto]

@MorrisJobke , @skjnldsv (hoping that you're still the right persons...)

This issue is becoming a bit the kitchen sink of the suggestions about tags. It is full (IMHO) of good ideas yet they are all mixed together and it'll take some work to split them...
Do you think there is something that can be done?
For example I'd split the discussion on public versus private tags started by matiasdelellis in another thread...

Let me know if I can help somehow

[rickyelopez]

Just discovered this feature and this thread, and I think the topics discussed above can be split into two general categories:

1. Privacy/Security
   • Configure tag visibility for different users and groups
   • Configure tag modifiability for different users and groups
2. Functionality improvements
   • Tag colouring
   • Tag searching/filtering
   • Tag assignment improvements
   • Tag management improvements

For me, point 1 is more important, but presumably this will vary for everyone. Seems like maybe this could be split out into two issues and handled separately in whichever order is most preferred? Not that I'm really entitled to an opinion here, I'd just really like to be able to control tag visibility :)

[schneif2]

I just want to show that as soon as user see that tags are public
than there is no problem with ut all.

Since tags are editable by everyone, I think this is a huge issue. @jancborchardt can you try to push this issue, because I think it's a pretty bad UX if all your tags got renamed my someone else.

Currently i´m facing this issue as well. It would be great if some collaborative tags can be defined by Admin or other Groups and e.g. only creator or admin can change it again. When you use collaborative tags with many users you may think they are wrong or misspelled and when you change them others will affected by this. Everyone should be able to use the tags at files, but can not rename the tag.

[godfuture]

As the only user of my Nextcloud instance I was very surprised when my tags showed up under my user account and my admin account. Definitely not what I expected and I thought I did something wrong, but I couldn't find a way to make them user specific. Seems like a major privacy issue to me. Luckily I'm the only user. The fact that you also can't tag multiple files at once makes me wonder if this is a feature that's actually used.

Exactly my thoughts. Once I misspelled a tag and it was created on-the-fly in the tag bar. After that I had a hard time deleting it. Very strange user experience.

I think it would be much better if there was a tag editor to manage tags. There you could see which public and private tags exist. Instead of creating tags on-the-fly in the tag bar, you have to intentionally create a tag first in the tag manager. When creating the tag, you choose if this tag is private or public. After creating the tag, you can choose it in the tag bar. This means: the tag bar in files app is read-only. This prevents shitty data due to spelling mistakes and reduces the list of unwanted tags being shared by default. The result is a cleaner environment and better control over data.

[delacosta456]

hi
Nice ongoing work
It may imply a lot of issue to resolve but wouldn't it be interested to have possibility to limit "collaborative tags" usage to allowed list of Groups ?
Actually anybody can assign restricted tag which may result to a lot of tags (on files /folder) difficult to understand / manage.

Thanks

[shu0406]

At school we have the problem that pupils can use and delete tags even if they do not have writing rights in that folder. So first step should be that the collaborative tags should respect given rights (write, delete) for every group.