Yeah that faded icon thing threw me for *ages*. I think it is coloured according to the average rating for the books in that subgroup. No rating it is totally greyed out etc, I recall there is a way to turn it off, as I confess to finding it a bit distracting to have the whole tag browser coloured in this way.
The plus is there because you can ctrl+click on other items within the tag browser to get them included in the search, so it becomes a bit "or" clause or "and" clause depending on the "Match" combobox down near the bottom. Clicking on the plus again to turn it into a minus makes it a "not" search.
So right now your search will be something like #type:"=journal article". Click on it again and it will become not #type:"=journal article"
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