“Focus on Tag” feature (workspace-like workflow)

General
42

Sorry for the long comment, but I took some time to read the whole discussion and I honestly do not understand the argument for keeping “external” tags visible.

If someone chooses to enable Focus on Tag, it is specifically because they do not want notes, tags, or private information from other areas to be exposed while they are working inside a specific context, like a work workspace. For that reason, I think the sidebar should only show the children of the focused tag.

The only exception I can imagine is inside individual notes. For example, if a note contains #work/invoices, #personal/taxes, and #finance/expenses, and I am currently focused on #work, then the other tags could maybe still be shown in a dimmed or visually different way. That would make it clear that the note is also connected to things outside the current workspace, without breaking the focused view in the sidebar. Clicking one of those links could prompt the user to deactivate focus mode, or to add a new tag to it (as mentioned below) :slight_smile:

In general, since this would be a completely optional feature, I think people who are not interested in this behavior could simply leave it turned off. That is why I do not really see the issue with making the focused experience actually behave in a strict and coherent way.

As a possible middle ground, I mentioned in a previous post the idea of being able to focus on multiple tags at the same time. In that model, the sidebar would show only the branches related to the selected focus tags, and not every other unrelated tag in the system. To me, that feels much more consistent with the purpose of the feature.

Also, I am really happy that this possibility is being seriously considered. For me, it is probably the most important feature after note versioning.

[Edit] I think I do understand the concern from the other side. If you rely heavily on cross-referencing tags across different areas, hiding external tags might feel like losing visibility on those connections. Bear’s tagging system is powerful precisely because a single note can belong to multiple contexts at once, and a strict focus mode could make that less obvious. I get that. I just think that if someone is explicitly choosing to activate Focus on Tag, they are accepting that tradeoff, and the feature should respect that intent. The multi-tag focus idea could also help here, since you could always widen the scope if you need to see more connections.

1 Like
43

The only real problem with managing notes in Bear is the kilometer-long, overly complex tags that we’re forced to use to create some kind of order in the sidebar, while at the same time making note writing more cumbersome. This kind of tagging is terrible. It has nothing to do with minimalism or simplicity. Smart folders — the term I keep repeating like a mantra…

1 Like
44

Would Focus on Tag reduce the first level tags and make second level tags as first level tags? Say:
#personal/health, #personal/finances would results in #health, #finances?

If so, this would make multi level hierarchies more manageable and usable.

45

I think you misunderstood those of us who wants the tags “outside the hierarchy” of the focused tag to be shown. We do not want to see the tags of other other areas, but ALL the tags of the focused area. We want exactly what you describe here:

Because these tags belong to the focused area and should be shown therefore.

For the same reason I want a limited search that reduces the search to those notes that contain the focused tag. Why should I search for or inside notes that doesn’t contain the focused tag?

With external tags I mean those tags that are also in that notes that contain the focused tag. I hope it’s clear now

46

I think I know what you want. That’s what called “drilling down” in Mac finder. But I am afraid that such a feature has nothing to do with workspaces. Actually that’s what some people want. I think we are not discussing here what the best realization of a certain feature is but about two different features.

47

Thanks for the clarification! I think we might actually be closer than it seemed.

Just to make sure I understand correctly: are you saying that external tags should be visible inside the note body, or also in the sidebar?

If you mean inside the note body, then I fully agree, and I think that would be relatively straightforward as long as external tags are visually distinguishable from focused ones.

If you also mean showing them in the sidebar though, I think that could get confusing pretty quickly, since the sidebar would end up mixing focused and unfocused tags in a way that defeats the purpose of the feature.

48

@ffmich @PowerNap

No, I want to see tags outside the hierarchy definitely in the sidebar. Yes, we entered the discussion with completely different assumptions about how the feature would be implemented.

Exactly that helped me to understand what the reason was for misunderstandings on both sides:

Yes, you are absolutely right here: mixing outside tags with the subtags of the focused tags (ordered by alphabet) indeed would be horrible. That’s not what I wanted and that’s also something that I wouldn’t like at all. I, on the other hand, had always assumed that the “focused” tag would continue to be displayed in the sidebar. @hqlmmst asked if the second-level-tags of the focused tag would become the first-level-tags in the sidebar after focusing. So that point indeed was not clear for some of us.

If that was the reason for the discussion, then it should be perfectly possible to reach an agreement that isn’t really an agreement at all, because nobody has to give anything up.

Actually I like to see the second-level-tags as first-level-tags. That comes closest to what workspaces offers. Also showing the so-called “tags outside of hierarchy” comes closest to what workspaces mean.

The simplest solution would be to display both the subtags of the selected tag and the tags outside the hierarchy. But they should be shown separately. First the tags within the hierarchy, and below them the tags outside the hierarchy. And the two should be visually separated by increasing the spacing between the two blocks slightly, just as the ‘Notes’ block is currently separated from the tag tree.

For me, that would actually be the perfect solution, wouldn’t it?

49

So, imagining the following notes in a scenario where #work is the focused tag

Lorem ipsum...

#work/invoices/2026
#personal/taxes (dimmed)

Lorem ipsum 2...

#work/to-review
#important (dimmed)
#todo (dimmed)

You are proposing a sidebar like this, where under an “external” section (just to explain me, not a design proposal :D), you’d see all the other tags present in notes within the #work focus that aren’t subtags of #work:

#work (focused)
  + #invoices
  |    + #2026
  |    
  + #to-review

#external
  + #personal
  |    + #taxes
  |
  + #important
  + #todo

While I’d prefer to just not show external tags at all, I can also be comfortable with this design (I can just keep #external closed). It might be a bit tricky on the development side because every time you enter a focus, Bear would need to scan all the tags across every note in that focus to build the “external” tree dynamically.

50

That’s what I meant that none of both side has to give anything up. :wink: Actually I like that even more than my first imagination of the feature in which the focused parent tag appears in the sidebar. I assume #work and #external are just descriptors in your mockup?

Just out of curiosity: Why don’t you need to see a tag like #important as long as it appears in notes that are in #work?

Seeing all tags also means you only need to leave the focused tag if you want to focus a different one or view the full list. The #important tag in the focused view would have the advantage of showing you only those notes that contain #work. If the external tags weren’t displayed, 1. you’d have to go back to the full view and 2. you’d have all notes tagged #important in the notes list list, even those outside of #work. That would be cumbersome and would contradict the basic idea of workspaces, which you don’t have to leave to access notes that are expected to be found there.

Or just imagine it the other way round: you tap the #important tag and it shows you all your important notes across all categories (f.e. #work, #university, #home). How could you not need something like that? :wink:

I am happy that all the misunderstandings have been cleared up and a solution is possible that satisfy both sides. I am eager to hear what the devs say.

1 Like
51

I took ffmichs example to create a quick and dirty mockup to show what I consider as ideal.

(Please ignore the separator line and just imagine it’s a slightly wider gap. Please also ignore the folder icons)

Mockup
Mockup922×1024 76.7 KB

The red button at the very top is meant to indicate which tag you’re currently focusing on. It’s clear that this could look better than in my mock-up :smiley: Or you could rename the “Notes” section to “Notes (#work)”. Why not?

My aim with the mock-up was to show that the block containing the sections (Notes and its children, Archive, Trash) should also be displayed. This has several advantages:

- It’s very reminiscent of Bear and what users are familiar with from the app. Therefore the closest to what folks expected of real workspaces.

- You can search for all notes with the focused tag by clicking on ‘Notes’ and searching within the notes list.

- Many users who want a better overview in the archive can first focus on a tag and then search through a filtered list of notes under ‘Archive’.

@Matteo @trix180 @rexikan What do you think? :sweat_smile:

1 Like
52

Actually, the more we discuss, the more I realize I was overthinking this.

The whole feature can be simplified to one principle:

“Behave as if the database only contains notes containing the focused tag or its subtags.”

That’s it. When #work is focused:

  • Search → only searches notes containing #work

  • All Notes → only shows notes containing #work

  • Sidebar → shows all tags present in those notes (including #important, #todo, etc.)

What made me overthink was Matteo’s phrase

I interpreted it too literally. But if we follow the “filtered database” mental model, the sidebar should naturally show all tags that exist within that subset, not just the subtags of the focused tag.

So yes I would want to see #important if it appears in my #work notes. My earlier position was wrong.

1 Like
53

My big mistake was not to have seen what you mean with mixing of internal and external tags.

I think exactly that offers a consistent user experience: never mind if a tag is focused on or not, bear remains as what it always was: adding a tag to a note makes that tag appear in the sidebar; clicking on a tag within a note selects that tag in the sidebar; the familiar view with the sections (Notes, Untagged, Today, Pinned …) remains unchanged.

At the very beginning of the discussion I wrote that the focus-on-tag-feature is not able to offer what proper workspaces do. But I have to take that back now. It does indeed do that, and offers even more besides. Even the fact that you have to pay attention to top-level tags to define areas/workspaces is no longer a drawback, because many logical and structural tags such as #country/…, #bookmark, #priority/high or #status/to_review would be located outside the hierarchy of focused tag anyway.

By the way, here a slightly changed mockup to show what I mean with indicating focus mode by renaming and maybe recoloring the “Notes”-node:

Screenshot 2026-03-15 at 10.29.50
Screenshot 2026-03-15 at 10.29.50468×828 26.9 KB

Actually in the mockup just a way to leave the focus mode is missing. Maybe a leave or go back icon between window controls traffic lights and settings-icon?