Those 2 requested features are really important to better structure notes, make tags more powerful and more likely to use. It also makes searching for notes alot more powerful.
In order to make this first request work, the hierarchy of notes should change(I bet there is a more elegant solution): 1. Heading or Blank, 2. Tags, 3. Rest - alternative would be make Tags always on Top and having the ability to toggle the visibility OR keep the new hierachy and make the tags toggle aswell. My first request is: Having the used Tags on a set space on top of every note. It will make moving from one to another tag or make connections with other tags faster and also more hassle free. A plus-symbol in that area that opens up to writing own tag & give options of most used ones. All under the concept, that when exporting the note it goes down into a flat markdown file
Make the searching actually a āsearcherā. Right now it is only searching for the heading of the notes. This is really really annoying. I need place special words into the heading to make it searchable when I forgot about it. It should also search content-based of the inside of notes(of course not the locked ones). And maybe give a button to search in combination with then specified tags.
Iām eager to hear if those are actually fine ideas and have the chance to being implemented into Bear
Another idea is to search for emoticons instead of tags, titles, key words, or other searchable items. In this example, anytime I have a note related to travel plans, I have the tag #travel, but then I also have the emoticon that I can search with.
Okay, first, I have to say that I find a little strange that you need ābasic must haveā features after more than 2 years of use. But:
1 - Strongly disagree. I like Bearās free form, on the contrary, instead of shoving me into a predetermined format. I guess what you want is YAML, which is actually implemented in the app. I donāt know if itās foldable and if tags are recognised there, but if not, I suppose implementing that would take care of your need without breaking the use for others who hate YAML like myself.
2 - I struggled to understand ā you mean Quick Open, right? If so I agree that full search would be most welcome, and some of us also request improvements such as consistency between search algorithms in favour of the most powerful ones ( https://community.bear.app/t/search-and-wiki-linking-algorithms-are-inconsistent/ )
I couldnāt agree more with KillerWhale. What I appreciate so much about Bear is the ability to write tags anywhere and have them displayed. This offers many possibilities. Everyone can create their own conventions. For example, I like to use the option of tagging below a heading. For me, this means tagging the section below the heading. Sometimes I use tags like bookmarks to quickly jump to specific paragraphs. The possibilities are therefore endless.
I write tags that are intended to indicate that they refer to the entire note directly below the title. I assume that is primarily what you are interested in? In that case, there is no reason not to proceed with the simplest and most obvious solution.
In this context, I would like to remind of an annoyment in regard to tagging by drag&drop:
Thanks for the input
Okay firstly, my recommendation was having a fixed structure on top, but as I said I guess there are better solutions to implent being able to create Tags and a section for that faster with a plus-button without having a fixed place.
@KillerWhale Secondly, yes I was i was talking about the cmd+o command. Having more feature and āfullā search inside of notes and not just the headings of notes!
And about only giving this request now after two years is that I quietly dealt with it as it didnāt seem to make me slower dramatically. But as Iām now searching for alternatives giving me a better and more in depth sorting I wanted to give at least 2 points out the way that bothers me about this app to give the app the opportunity to be better in the future. I will look into it and will decide when the new yearly-payement is coming near if I will continue using this App or change for good.
Nope, not a section either. The free form integration of tags throughout the text works very well for many of us.
What you want is simply YAML. Good news, Bear recognises YAML. Bad news, it does not seem to recognise tags there and the section is not foldable, but I think that could be a feature request, and people have discussed YAML uses here: YAML front matter uses in bear
You cannot say ānopeā. I mean you can but doesnāt make your point really believable. You can talk about yourself. And who is āusā. I guess there is a āusā behind my opion aswellā¦
I guess thatās what I want. But Bear has more issues when it comes to real sorting etc.
I switched for now, imported all my notes there and it is looking pretty good
Iām saying Ā« nope Ā» because what youāre asking runs counter to the way the app is working and another person has echoed this sentiment in this thread, since Ā« us Ā».
I have actually indicated how what youāre asking should work with what we have, and the feature requests that are needed: tags in YAML, foldable YAML section. But hey, youāve moved on a mere two days after posting those requests, okay; good luck then.
Personally, Iād love to see a bit more open-mindedness in regard to ideas surrounding tag handling. I love this app, but I definitely have my issues with it (despite also being a satisfied customer for multiple years).
Absent any folder support, Iām reliant on nested tags (this is, indeed, the āBear Wayā). And just like the OP of this thread, I prefer to have these at the top of my note. Iāve settled on this structure:
Some tags can make sense in-line within the body of a note. However, thatās never going to be the case for a string like ā#1-Projects/My Project#ā ā¦ which is why I have a āsectionā at the top of my note for them. The app is kind enough to support drag-and-drop for tags, but this results in new tags appearing at the BOTTOM of my notes, while I (like many others) prefer them at the top.
Using YAML Frontmatter for tags is a cool idea in theory, but as of today, this isnāt supported by Bear. Frankly, Iād welcome this as an option too!
Dragging a note to a tag on the sidebar puts the tag at the bottom, and any other method of adding a tag changes the modified date of the note. At a minimum, I would like to see a way to put tags at the top instead of the bottom, while respecting inline tags. Ideally, we could further manage tags without changing the modified date of the note.
ā¦ and any other method of adding a tag changes the modified date of the note.
Thatās a great point which I hadnāt considered (I sort by creation date, so I hadnāt noticed this)! I guess this is the type of dilemma which naturally emerges when content and metadata get merged as Bear does.
Hereās hoping Tag Management gets some love from the devs in the future!
Tags being pushed at the top requires inside manipulation of the file or a different presentation of the note content that what is inside the file, which, it seems to me, runs very counter to Bearās transparency. Which is why YAML most certainly is the way to go: it does not move data around, itās at the top already; it simply requires
a ātagā property that would be recognised by the Bear engine and
folding.
Noteplan does this gracefully, and I think that would be the way to go:
I would make a distinction here: placing a tag at the top of a note does not mean using yaml or any other special places for it. As I already wrote in another thread, the second line of a note is a good choice because the first line before it always represents the title in Bear.
PowerNapās screenshot imo shows the way to go. Those top tags are at the same time inline but in a semantical sense at TOP. No different representation of tags is therefore needed.
To be fair, adding tags to YAML frontmatter would ALSO modify the noteās content and likely move data around. This section is part of the note too (delimited by --- on the noteās first line and again at the end of the section). Additionally, the devs have expressed concerns about the user-friendliness of this idea.
Personally, Iād love support for tags in YAML frontmatter! But I also recognize that it may feel too technical for some users. In my ideal world the app would offer three options:
Append auto-tags (current behavior)
Prepend auto-tags (the suggestion in this and other threads; consistent with Bearās current design philosophy)
Store auto-tags in YAML frontmatter (more technical; appears to be something the devs have been reluctant to adopt)
One inconsistency I notice with tags below the titular H1: they do not render in the note previews (preferred) but if you put any additional text on the same line, they render in the preview with that text.
Eg.,
# Title
#tag1 #tag2 [[related]] [link](https://...)
Iād like to be able to do this without seeing anything on the ātags + linksā line in the note previews
I would love to hear thoughts of the developers about the topic tags!
I like those idea mention here alot!
ALSO
Iām back with TWO new āmust-havesā that Iām also missing:
templates. Basic form of making notes in a set system that requires a base layer of sorting. Examples are Journaling and Journaling Prompts or feedback-talks or smth else that would benefit from prompts to work better and faster. I donāt want to have notes that are used as templates to copy out from. This destroys the flow of creating content fast when Ideas struck.
Sharing. I know that Bear seems to be the very personal and only for themself kind of system, so this may go against that. But I just want to have shared files with others. Examples are shopping-list, planning a trip or to-doās for a set topic. Nothing fancy. Just one note that is shared to work together on.
Lets see what the feedback to those āmust-havesā are
make the tags sorting freely movable. I have a specific sorting that donāt work with alphabetical sorting. I need to put 01-ā¦, 02-,03- infront to make that work. The same would be for subtags, also wrong order for me. That gets very confusing and frustrating very fast. The most important tags are at the top, so make that possible
I do not only want bears own symbols to choose from. Maybe make it possible to use normal emojis but all with the tint of the current used theme in bear. That would allow for higher customization and more of the own style
When moving a subtag from one tag to another, make them change the Tag automatically. For safety after asking if you want to move it. So from xyz/01 to abc/01 automatically.
I can tell you we intend to provide an option to decide if new tags, or tags generated by drag & drop, are created at the bottom of the note or below the title.
We think having the tags in YAML frontmatter recognised as Bearās tags generates confusion about the tags present in the note. In general, providing a fixed place or a āmetaā field for tags, along with the current tag system, is not a good design choice in our opinion.
Mind, dragging and dropping a note on a tag or using the right-click menu to remove a tag doesnāt alter the modification date of the note.
that I can search with.
