Tags and categories
Two ways to classify a capsule, one free-form and one from a fixed list.
A capsule can carry tags and categories. They look similar and do different jobs.
- Tags are yours. You invent them, and there is no list to pick from.
- Categories come from a fixed taxonomy. You choose from what exists, and anything else is refused.
Use tags for how you think. Use categories when you want a capsule to sit in a shelf everyone shares.
Tags
Add up to twenty tags to a capsule.
Tags are normalized before they are stored, so "Foo Bar" and "foo-bar" become the same tag rather than two. That means you cannot accidentally split a group in half by capitalising it differently.
A few tags cannot be stored and are dropped:
- anything purely numeric, such as
1972 - anything with no letters or digits left after normalizing, such as
!!!
If a tag is dropped, or you exceed twenty, the rest still save and you are told what happened. The write does not fail.
Suggestions as you type
The tag box suggests tags as you type. Suggestions come only from capsules you can already read, so tag names from other people's capsules never appear, even though the underlying tag list is shared.
Categories
Add up to ten categories, chosen from the curated taxonomy. An unknown category is rejected outright, and the error names the value that was wrong.
That strictness is the point: categories are only useful for grouping if everyone is using the same words.
Replacing rather than adding
When you edit a capsule and supply tags or categories, the list you send replaces what was there. Send an empty list to clear them. Leave the field out entirely to keep them as they are.