⚡️ Ideas
Bruce F. Donnelly Bruce F. Donnelly Aug 23, 2023

Popup temporarily taking you to a canonical location to tag a node

Explain the problem as you see it

As I noted elsewhere, I understand why the Tana team opted for auto-initializing fields when nodes are created or tagged. Since nodes can appear by reference anywhere, it wouldn't do to have them change their contents with every context. On the other hand, I often want to add information in a more intuitive way. Tana is flexible, but it demands that users use disciplined workflows. In fact, users share workflows almost as they do templates. That is not necessarily conducive to right-brained thinking.

Why is this a problem for you?

When I compare and organize information, as I did in Tana while taking notes on policies regarding the homeless, I usually find it useful to work in live search. However, sometimes I want to enter the information in one location even though the its fields only auto-initialize properly in another context—typically a tree or a live search that I think of as "canonical."

Suggest a solution

When you tag something, for instance, #author, you get a popup that asks you if you want to create it under your "My books" node, which will ensure that everything auto-initializes properly. It prompts you to enter any information the node you are creating will inherit when it auto-initializes: in this case, you might be prompted to enter a #book. For instance, I might mention an idea about language from Orwell in my Today node. Then I tag him #author, and get taken to my list of books and authors. Once I'm there, I write out his full name and tag 1984#book as the source. When I'm done, I go back to the Today node, where I can place a reminder to finish filling things out. The UI interrupts me only enough to fill out the critical information. It would also be a mnemonic device reminding me of how I store information.

Behind the scenes, I imagine the "canonical" location I choose would be stored in a system field.

I've made a couple of suggestions that include the idea of a "canonical" location in which a tagged node should be created. I'm not including that as an actual suggestion since it is an idea latent in workflows. Many workflows include the idea of a "canonical" location without saying so specifically. What I mean is a user-defined location where tagging a node and filling in fields puts the information in the right place in the right hierarchy.