Select for empty field in indexTags?

[simbun]

(10-11-2020 10:46)simoncn Wrote:  A better solution would be to add support in indexTags for something like:

Category=Classical:Classical Library^etc:any_name_you_want^:Default

If you're going to look at this, would be good to consider:

• Is there some way this syntax could also allow you to use Category itself as a simple index? I may want one value as a quick filter, but may not want to create as many filters as there are values for the rest.
• Rather than addressing the missing value option here in the automatic selection syntax, would it not be better to address it as .default('String constant'). I think this has been requested before, and it would then work as a simple index too.
  

[simoncn]

Thanks for these suggestions.

I understand the reason for the first but it might be difficult to implement. You can do this at present by using "default" to populate another tag. I will need to investigate what can be done simply and efficiently.

The second is a good suggestion and probably easier to implement than what I had in mind.

[simbun]

(11-11-2020 18:22)simoncn Wrote:  I understand the reason for the first but it might be difficult to implement. You can do this at present by using "default" to populate another tag.

I think the use case I described was the only other reason you'd want to duplicate a single tag, hence trying to squeeze it in somehow, but the proposed syntax does address a lot of the use cases and is elegant.

How about having the ability to do something like:
CLASSICAL_CATEGORY.default={CATEGORY=Classical}
So CLASSICAL_CATEGORY is only populated with the 'Classical' values from the CATEGORY tag (just trying to avoid duplicating the whole tag)?

With this and .default={"String constant"} the OP could have efficiently (without duplicating the full tag every time) achieved everything he needed without using tagUpdate or the proposed tagIndex changes (not that I'm suggesting you don't do them).

I'll stop now :-)