Content Folders! WE NEED FOLDERS!

[Thomas Ryan]

Originally Posted by Alisa

If you're managing your files via your computer and a USB connection, you can just drag files into the folders and there you go. However, that's limiting since it can only be in one folder. You could copy it, I suppose, but keeping your bookmarks, etc.

I agree with you that tags and queries by tags seem to be a superset of folders, and more flexible.

One nice thing about tags vs. folders shows up when you consider USB. Via USB someone can create folders from their desktop. When USB is unplugged the folder scheme could be "imported" into the Kindle SW as "tags", along with any other tags the user has created. As you point out this even works with nested folders. There are some edge cases to consider if names collide. I also would think some complexity arises if a user tries to modify one these implied/auto tags on the Kindle (need to propagate change back to file system?); perhaps disallow that.

With this scheme - folder folks mostly get what they want from a functional perspective, but maybe it doesn't look like "folders" on Kindle. Taggers have what they want - those that don't want to organize aren't forced to.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Thomas Ryan

I
With this scheme - folder folks mostly get what they want from a functional perspective, but maybe it doesn't look like "folders" on Kindle. Taggers have what they want - those that don't want to organize aren't forced to.

But you have to have tag levels then to get the same functionality. Or what would happens when you have 200 tags? You will get a flat list to choose from and that is not so good. What you need is tags with different priority or level to be able to get the same functionality (and more) as in using folders.

[Thomas Ryan]

Originally Posted by tompe

But you have to have tag levels then to get the same functionality. Or what would heppen when you have 200 tags? You will get a flat list to choose from and that is not so good. What you need id tags with different priority or level to get be able to get the same functionality (and more) as in using folders.

Exactly. However, presentation (pick and choose from a list) is a different issue than a discussion about how best to model the semantics or the structure of a pile of e-books. For English, I can imagine a UI presentation where all presented lists are a maximum length of 26 regardless of whether the list came from too many tags or too many same-level folders in one sub-directory.

Aside - at some point my conference calls end and I have to do real work.
I'll suggest that there may be diminishing return here. (AM vs. FM, AC vs. DC, emacs vs. vi,...) But, I'll think about it some more.

[jael]

A workaround exists to simulate tags using notes and search. We've been playing with it in one of Amazon's Kindle forums. It's kludgy but does the job for both Kindles 1 and 2.

Essentially, all you do is add the tag(s) as a note, and then search on them. You have to wait for indexing to occur (or force it), but then you can use the tags as search keywords and presto - a list!

The thread about it at Amazon's forum is at:

http://www.amazon.com/Solution-Findi...sin=B000FI73MA

Hope this helps someone!

[badgoodDeb]

So this means I have to initally open every book I download? Hmmm. I wonder if some of the mobi headers would be seen? If a category was put into some form of mobi comment, would the kindle's search engine find it?

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by tompe

Yes they do if you do not have priority between the tags. If I want to have main categories and then different possible sub-categories for each main category then this is impossible to represent with ordinary tags but trivial to represent using folders.

So, you say what makes tags more usable is what's bad about tags. That's the exact problem with folder. You have to define a taxonomy and stick with it. What if an ebook would fit in two places in your folder scheme?

EVERY tags is a main category. VERY tag is a sub-category. That's the whole point. You can choose at any time where you want to start. Today you might want to start at a genre tag, tomorrow you might want to start at UNREAD tag, the next day you might want to start with the Publisher tag.

BOb

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by tompe

But you have to have tag levels then to get the same functionality. Or what would happens when you have 200 tags? You will get a flat list to choose from and that is not so good. What you need is tags with different priority or level to be able to get the same functionality (and more) as in using folders.

So, categorize your tags by starting them with a number or letter.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

So this means I have to initally open every book I download? Hmmm. I wonder if some of the mobi headers would be seen? If a category was put into some form of mobi comment, would the kindle's search engine find it?

What do you mean? The kindle knows what books were added and indexes them. It could gather the tags during this process. You wouldn't have to open them all first.

BOb

[badgoodDeb]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

What do you mean? The kindle knows what books were added and indexes them. It could gather the tags during this process. You wouldn't have to open them all first.

BOb

So where do they get added? (The discussion I saw earlier today was about opening each book and doing an "annotate", which the kindle could search on. Maybe this is a separate discussion.) Where are your tags coming from?

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

So where do they get added? (The discussion I saw earlier today was about opening each book and doing an "annotate", which the kindle could search on. Maybe this is a separate discussion.) Where are your tags coming from?

Well, that's a question. But the process would be similar to putting into a folder. You still have to specify where to put the book right? Although I think I see what you are saying, how would you add tags to a book?

I guess when you d/l a book it would have no tags on it. You would need to choose it from the home page, and perhaps choose menu, then tags. But, wouldn't you have to do this with folders to.

I guess with folders you would could connect to your PC and move files around. But, it Kindle did add tags I am sure kovid would come up with a way to add the tag info to the kindle, the same way calibre puts sony ebooks into collections.

BOb

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

What do you mean? The kindle knows what books were added and indexes them. It could gather the tags during this process. You wouldn't have to open them all first.

BOb

I think Deb's referring to the simulated tag deal that jael mentioned a few posts up.

[badgoodDeb]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

I think Deb's referring to the simulated tag deal that jael mentioned a few posts up.

Yeah -- I didn't realize you were talking about a theoretical tag. Sorry. Was thinking of something currently possible to do.

I *could* however, currently, just search on the word "murder" and find a reasonably good selection of that genre!

[stevenmoy]

Did Jeff Bezos ever publicly address organization feature for Kindle? I know Steve Jobs love boosting how OS X with the whole digital hub argument. I wonder if Jeff Bezos would response if Charlie Rose ask him that.

[Alisa]

Originally Posted by pilotbob

I guess when you d/l a book it would have no tags on it. You would need to choose it from the home page, and perhaps choose menu, then tags. But, wouldn't you have to do this with folders to.

They could also give you the book with a pre-set genre tag that corresponds to their store categories and you could add your own or replace it. They could even give it an UNREAD tag and change it to READ when you were done. This would give some very basic organization to people who didn't want to bother but still leave customization open to geeks like us.

[moxy789]

Originally Posted by badgoodDeb

So where do they get added? (The discussion I saw earlier today was about opening each book and doing an "annotate", which the kindle could search on. Maybe this is a separate discussion.) Where are your tags coming from?

Were you perhaps referring to my previous post

I just got my Kindle 2 today and a possible fix to the no folder problems occurred to me. As a crude tagging system, I tried to add a note at the beginning of each book containing the tags. Then, I could go over to My Clippings and search "T:Mystery" and a list of books I had noted with T:Mystery would be returned.

I'm not suggesting that it's the ideal solution. I realize it's cumbersome to go through each book, but since I'm new to the e-reader world I don't mind crudely "tagging" each of the few books I do have and making it a habit for future downloads. FYI, if you were to try something similar I've found it simpler to just do tag searches right from the Home display.