Using Text Tags to Your Advantage

Questions & Suggestions
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###Using Text Tags to Your Advantage

###Quick Summary

  • The Benefit of Tags
  • How you can Use Text Tags in your content
  • How to Use in Script documents
  • How to Use in KM Macros
  • Request: Use Author Text Tags in Your Macros
    Author.@YourForumName

If you want to more easily find macros of interest, and enable others to find your macros, please read on. :smile:

While a few people don't care for tags, I'm a huge fan of them.
Why?
Because they enable quick and accurate searching across almost all boundaries.

I learned something new from my good friend Chris (@ccstone) (which I very often do) about tags: You can more easily find your script files (on your Mac) if you include text tags in the body of the script document, like Chris does:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Auth: Christopher Stone
# dCre: 2015/07/25 03:06
# dMod: 2015/07/25 03:19
# Appl: Keyboard Maestro & System Events
# Task: Set Focus to Group List
# Libs: None
# Osax: None
# Tags: @Applescript, @Script, @System_Events, @Keyboard_Maestro, @Focus, @Group_List
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This enables you to use Mac Spotlight and/or Finder Search to quickly find the script of interest:

###Spotlight Search of my entire Mac drive

Pasted image692×446 104 KB

Note that is has found these text tags in a variety of documents:

  • Evernote notes
  • AppleScript script files
  • Outlook messages

Wow!

OR, if I want to limit the search to a folder (and its sub-folders), I can use Finder Search:

###Finder Search of Specific Folder

BTW, for those of you that use Script Debugger 6, use of text tags in the "Open Quickly" (powered by Spotlight) works very well.

So, effective immediately, I am including text tags in all of my script files.

But wait! There's more ...

What about Keyboard Maestro?

Guess what? A KM Editor search finds these same text tags in embedded Execute Script Actions!

For example, a search for the "@Focus" tag finds the Macro that includes Chris' script "Set Focus to Macro List":

###KM Editor Search

This means we can add text tags to the ReleaseNotes Comment to facilitate finding macros of interest. For example, I just added these tags to my latest macro:
"[KM] UPLOAD Macro to New or Existing Topic"

TAGS:  @KM, @Macro, @Upload, @Forum, @Tool

How cool is that !?!?!? :sunglasses:

But wait!!! There's still MORE . . .

A search that I often want/need to do is to find Macros written by a specific person, like @ccstone and @DanThomas. Unfortunately, KM Macros do NOT have an "Author" field, so there is no way I can accurately do this.

Then it occured to me that all of us have KM forum names that we reference with an "@" symbol.
So, maybe I could just search the KM Editor for, say, "@ccstone". Well, that sort of works, but has two major shortcomings:

  1. I sometimes refer to other KM forum members even if they did not author the macro
  2. Some macros authored by them have their normal name, but not their forum name, so they macro is not found

###Macro Author ID

So, I suggest this: If you write a Macro, put this special tag in the top Comment which is for ReleaseNotes or Attribution:

Author.@<YourForumName>

as in:

Author.@JMichaelTX

This enables a KM Editor search using this special author tag.
For example: Author.@DanThomas

Notice here I just typed "author.dan" and the macros were found.
Also notice that this macro was co-authored by Chris, so I have also included the tag Author.@ccstone. This means I would find this Macro searching for either author tag.

There may be other, better, naming conventions for the KM Macro author tag, and I'm open to suggestions. I would just really like for us to develop a consensus, and then all follow that convention.

Even if the author does not include the author tag, you can always add it after you download the macro, which is what I have done for macros by @ccstone and @DanThomas.

I hope you will find this topic helpful, and please feel free to critique, and add and improve as you see fit.

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@JMichaelTX - I’m going to recommend something that I think you already know, but since you didn’t do it this time, it’s worth mentioning.

Always start your post with what you want people to know or do. Give them the details afterwards.

If you put the details first, many people (usually including myself) won’t read far enough to find the part you really wanted to get across.

So start the post with “I suggest we all put a special tag…”. Then give people the reasons.

Again, I think you already know this. But I learned this lesson with business emails. People skim. Hit 'em up at the start. They may never get farther than that!

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You're right Dan, on both points.

  • I do know that, and have used it for decades
  • Most people don't read past the first 2 or 3 sentences, unless you capture their interest/curiosity.

Back when I was in the Space business, I pioneered the use of a one-page max Executive Summary for all reports, especially those that would need top management attention. Even with that, the top 2-3 sentences hit the major points.

Thanks for the reminder. I'll update my OP with a Summary.

1 Like
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@DanThomas, thanks for the critique on form.
Any thoughts on content?

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Well, one thing is, you could always put this stuff in yourself, after you import someone's macro...