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Is there any way to exclude tags from a search? The more I use diigo, the more I find I need this--for instance, bookmarks from tag A but not tag B (ie, not also tagged B--to get a list of items tagged A, Tagged A and C, etc., but not A and B). The only option I can find in the advanced search is to exclude the word B everywhere--but I want some pages with the word B in them--just not if they are tagged B. Am I making sense?
If there is not currently a way to do this, I really hope one is implemented--as I said, it would be really useful.
+1!
It's *exactly* the feature I miss the most in every tagging environment, Google, delicious, whatever.
Logical operations ("and", "and not", "or") seems to me such an obviously handy, no not handy, *needed* feature when working with tags that I'm really surprised it's ignored by almost all developers.
The only service I found that implements this is Simpy - which has however its minuses on other features -, and in Google mail and bookmarks you can use the search field to write a proper search string (but this is quite far from being an elegant solution...).
Yes, there is a way to exclude tags from search results. The advanced search is somewhat hidden now. It used to be more easily accessible in previous versions of Diigo. See this reply here from me to find out how to get to the advanced search:
http://groups.diigo.com/Diigo_HQ/forum/topic/how-do-i-search-for-bookmarks-with-tag1-or-tag2-or-tag3-5139
Once you are in the advanced search field, you can use boolean operators.
For example, if you would like to get results that contain tag A and B but not tag C, then you could achieve this by any of the following methods:
a) Write tag:(tag A AND tag B NOT tag C) in the advanced search field and click "Search".
b) Open the collapsible menu by clicking on "Advanced" next to the "Search" button.
Then enter into the field named "with the words in Tags":
tag A and tag B NOT tag C
and click "Search".
Note that if you use multi-word tags, you have to use quotation marks in your search too. I didn't use those in the above examples because tag A, tag B, tag C can be anything.
Thank you so much! You really helped me out. I don't know how I missed the fact that we coulod use boolean operators. ^^;
Oliver S. wrote:
> Yes, there is a way to exclude tags from search results. The advanced search is somewhat hidden now. It used to be more easily accessible in previous versions of Diigo. See this reply here from me to find out how to get to the advanced search:
> http://groups.diigo.com/Diigo_HQ/forum/topic/how-do-i-search-for-bookmarks-with-tag1-or-tag2-or-tag3-5139
>
> Once you are in the advanced search field, you can use boolean operators.
>
> For example, if you would like to get results that contain tag A and B but not tag C, then you could achieve this by any of the following methods:
>
> a) Write tag:(tag A AND tag B NOT tag C) in the advanced search field and click "Search".
> b) Open the collapsible menu by clicking on "Advanced" next to the "Search" button.
> Then enter into the field named "with the words in Tags":
> tag A and tag B NOT tag C
> and click "Search".
>
> Note that if you use multi-word tags, you have to use quotation marks in your search too. I didn't use those in the above examples because tag A, tag B, tag C can be anything.
That would be good news, but I just tried the feature and it's buggy: the results are correct, I think, but only a subset of the related tags is shown, and it doesn't work with tags starting with "-".
And even if it worked it would fall into my "inelegant solution" category.
To be really useful it should be implemented as buttons aside the related tags, the same way "AND" is currently managed (of course boolean constructors in the search field would be a nice plus, anyway).
I would also just like to add my support for this feature as I've also talked with someone who felt this feature was important.
To be honest, I'm not sure whether a full export or this feature is the most sought after feature I've heard but both definitely seems to be must haves especially for a service as feature full as Diigo where people expect more powerful ways to handle all the data that they have saved.
Ellen H. wrote:
> Is there any way to exclude tags from a search? The more I use diigo, the more I find I need this--for instance, bookmarks from tag A but not tag B (ie, not also tagged B--to get a list of items tagged A, Tagged A and C, etc., but not A and B). The only option I can find in the advanced search is to exclude the word B everywhere--but I want some pages with the word B in them--just not if they are tagged B. Am I making sense?
>
> If there is not currently a way to do this, I really hope one is implemented--as I said, it would be really useful.
Emanuele Rusconi wrote:
> That would be good news, but I just tried the feature and it's buggy: the results are correct,
> I think, but only a subset of the related tags is shown, and it doesn't work with tags starting with "-".
Hmmm, I couldn't reproduce the problem with the results only showing a subset of related tags, which of course doesn't mean that a different set of tags can cause that problem.
Another thing: Can you give me an example of a tag starting with a hyphen? I can't think of one, because I only have hyphens within tags but never in front of them.
> And even if it worked it would fall into my "inelegant solution" category.
> To be really useful it should be implemented as buttons aside the related tags,
> the same way "AND" is currently managed (of course boolean constructors in the search
> field would be a nice plus, anyway).
Yes, I agree, that would be very useful.
Oliver S. wrote:
> Another thing: Can you give me an example of a tag starting with a hyphen? I can't think of one, because I only have hyphens within tags but never in front of them.
I use some "service tags" like -tmp-, -personal-, -meta-.
Now they are _tmp, _personal, _meta :-)
Emanuele Rusconi wrote:
> Oliver S. wrote:
> > Another thing: Can you give me an example of a tag starting with a hyphen? I can't think of one, because I only have hyphens within tags but never in front of them.
>
> I use some "service tags" like -tmp-, -personal-, -meta-.
> Now they are _tmp, _personal, _meta :-)
OK, I can now see the use for that. It's also good to see you found a workaround.

