Upcoming Feature: Inventory Improvements - Tags (or Labels) (Page 1 of 3)

The one big thing is that I would love to be able to tag cards as being in specific decks.  So when I'm searching for that one foil copy of a particular card I have, I can look at my Inventory and find out exactly which deck it is in, or if it isn't in a deck at all.

If I can't directly choose a deck, then just being able to type in its name would be sufficient enough.

As a person who uses Gmail, the idea of tags seems like a very good implementation. There are two things I would like to see implemented:

1. Quick access to a specific tag. The way I imagine it is having all my tags (or possible just some that I select?) visible under my Inventory button on the left, the same way I have all my decks below that. I should be able to organise them into folders (like the decks), and when I click on one it would show the cards in my inventory with that tag.

2. Exclusive tags, i.e. tags that are automatically excluded from my inventory unless specifically mentioned. I know that the Inventory button is intended to show every card in my collection, but I keep my Rebecca Guay collection strictly separate from all my other cards, so when I search through my Inventory I would prefer not to see those at all, by default, with the option, of course, of making them visible if need be.

I was thinking that you would have folders underneath the main inventory category.  The folders could automatically apply the tag of the folder name to all cards added within that folder.  This would let you easily filter down to specific tags, or you could browse from the top level to view all cards.  You could have an option to specify which inventory folders were public vs. private, with folders inheriting properties from those above (with an option to override).

This would let you have portions be public vs. private.  If you had an option for each folder as being eligible for deck building, then that would let you exclude certain cards from check to see whether you have enough cards available.

Not too sure yet... I'd lean in favor of adding predefined tags for that, people will want to search for signed or gold bordered cards with the filters etc.

Expanding on my post above, now that I have more time, here is an example of how I would like to structure my collection with tags:

Inventory (top level -- set default options to private and not available for building decks)
|-Collection (uses default options set at top level of inventory)
  |-Sets
  |-Promos
  |-Precons
|-Cube (uses default options set at top level of inventory)
|-Decks (uses default options set at top level of inventory)
  |-EDH
    |-Mayael
    |-Sedris
    |-Trostani
  |-Standard
    |-BW Enchantments
    |-UGw Control
  |-Legacy
    |-Turbo Eldrazi
    |-Delver
  |-Modern
    |-BW Liliana
    |-RDW
  |-Casual
    |-Wolves
  |-World Champs
  |-Vanguard (override default to set to public)
  |-Planechase (override default to set to public)
|-Deckbuilding (override default to make available for building decks)
  |-EDH
  |-Standard
  |-Eternal
|-Trade Binders (override default to make public and available for building decks)
  |-Foils
  |-Standard
  |-Eternal
|-Misc. (override default to make public and available for building decks)

After writing out all of this, I've realized a few things:

1. I would really like to tag my wishlist so that I know whether I am looking for a particular card for my Cube section, for a particular deck, or for my Deckbuilding section.

2.  This setup would let me set the various inventory subsections so that a card in a deck or in my Collection section is not available for building other decks.  If I was OK with shifting cards between decks then I could set my Decks section (or even specific decks) so that cards listed there are available for building decks.  Then I would know whether I need to trade for more copies of a card.

3.  Ideally I would also be able to have a single card present with multiple top level tags within my inventory.  Say that The Abyss is tagged with both Collection and Cube, this would let me know that I'm am borrowing a card from my Collection section to temporarily play in my cube.  Once I'm done with the card in my cube, I would know which section to return it to.

4.  Similarly, by selecting the proper tag (say Decks -> EDH -> Mayael), I would get a listing of all matching cards and be able to remove that particular tag.  That would remove the full path of the tag (Decks -> EDH -> Mayael), but would leave any other tags on the cards.  I could then refile those cards based on any tags still present (so it would be great to see this list of cards again, grouped by the remaining tags).

5.  In addition to being able to search for specific tags, I would like to be able to search for cards with no tag set.  I'm sure that some cards would slip through with no tag set, or removing a specific deck tag from a card might leave no tags left.  I'd also like to be able to search for multiple tags, such as 'Collection->Sets' combined with 'Decks', to see where I'm borrowing cards.

Based on the information in your initial post here, I think that your proposal would largely let me do what I want to do.  If you are able to add the 'available for decks' options to cards, and that you're able to nest tags, then I think your proposal covers 98% of what I would like.

The more I think about it the more I think having both free from labels and additional inventories under the same game group would be the best solution.

Additional inventories provides a way to keep collections you want completely separate, separated. This solves the problems like the guy that keeps his Rebecca Guay cards separate, or if you manage a personal inventory and a community inventory. This is for groupings of cards that won't intermingle with one another.

Free form labels applied at individual card level would handle the bulk of everything else. This solves your problem of people asking "I have a card with X property, how do I mark that in deckbox?" For instance gold bordered, artist proofs, non-artist signed, or draft stamped can be easily handled with the labels.

Searching on the presence or absence of a label can help with cataloging. Folks doing this might use a label "Bin-A", "Box B", or "Alliances Binder"

You could use labels to show cards that are currently in a deck. Having a way to mark all cards on your deck building screen with a label or remove a label would be a nice feature to go along with this, but that would require working the deck builder to allow naming specific cards that are in the deck not just card names.

Labels can help with the different artworks on cards as well. You can label cards (or a number of cards) with "Picture A", "Picture B", etc. Allowing you know know how many cards of a specific picture you've got.

Bottom line the free form labels would do the buck of the work. Additional inventories would be nice as well for those few that manage multiple physically separate inventories that never mingle.

So combining these things together you might get something that looks like:
2 Thallid,  Fallen Empires, Played, English, {Deck:G FE Thallids} {Box 3} {Pic A}
1 Thallid,  Fallen Empires Played, English, {Deck:G FE Thallids} {Box 3} {Pic B}
1 Thallid,  Fallen Empires, Played, English, {Artist-Proof} {Binder Proofs}
1 Thallid,  Time Spiral, Played, English, {On loan: John} {Box 8}
3 Thallid,  Time Spiral, Played, English, {Box 8}

You might consider in the inventory search screen to condense the duplicate names into one row and have a drop down arrow or plus sign thing that shows details for that card grouping.
So the top level might be

  Count   Name                 Type                  Cost / Color
+ 6       Sporesower Thallid   Creature - Fungus     3GG
+ 19       Thallid             Creature - Fungus     G
+ 4       Thallid Devourer     Creature - Fungus     2G
+ 1       Thallid Germinator   Creature - Fungus     2G

When you click the + you might get something like:

  Count   Name                 Type                  Cost / Color
+ 6       Sporesower Thallid   Creature - Fungus     3GG
- 19       Thallid              Creature - Fungus     G
     Count    Name        Details                               Tags
     2         Thallid,  Fallen Empires Played, English        {Deck:G FE Thallids} {Box 3} {Pic A}
     1         Thallid,  Fallen Empires Played, English        {Deck:G FE Thallids} {Box 3} {Pic B}
     1         Thallid,  Fallen Empires Played, English        {Artist-Proof} {Binder Proofs}
     11        Thallid, Fallen Empires  Played, English
     1         Thallid,  Time Spiral    Played, English        {On loan: John} {Box 8}
     3         Thallid,  Time Spiral    Played, English        {Box 8}
+ 4       Thallid Devourer     Creature - Fungus     2G
+ 1       Thallid Germinator   Creature - Fungus     2G

I also think that it should be possible to make some labels public, and some private.

For example: "Misprint" or "Currently Trading" I'd want public, but "Shelf 2, Box 5" or "Garage" I'd want private.

Last edited by Chaim (2014-05-21 03:52:45)

The more I think about this the more I also lean towards the "multiple inventory boxes" idea, and not so much in favor of freehand labels as a primary means of organization.

I'll try to write some of my thoughts and describe a possible implementation in the following couple of days. I'll post it here for your critique

The search in general needs an overhaul but in it's current state, yes you would need to allow multiple filters for the freeform tags. That would allow you to do searches such as this tag, but not that tag. You'd need to know which gets priority though if you have a card with two tags.

I really want to see the additional inventories but I also really want to see the free form tags. The inventories alone won't suffice for everything. That would keep things *to* distinct for some cases. The tags don't keep things distinct enough in some cases. Both seem to be a good mix and could solve most wants.

I could see saved searches being handy but I don't see how they would give any true value to tagging or labeling in any meaningful way beyond the generalized searching. This would be better saved for when the search and filter gets a good looking at.

Would this be better solved by just having a free form notes field on the card?

I thought I read something last night about assigning tags or moving cards between inventories in bulk, but don't see it today. This would be a really nifty feature though, especially when setting up. I could see this coming in handy during block rotations and you need to move all your older cards to another inventory or update block related tags. Maybe moving in bulk between inventories could be accomplished with a "trade" but might be better served with an actual function with options to preserve tags and other identifying information about the cards being moved.

I disagree with this. In my view the point of an inventory would be that those cards are physically distinct. If you needed to view groups of cards together at once you would most likely be better served with tags. If you look at how the inventories are configured now you're not going to be mixing warhammer and magic together and looking through them as a single collection or single search result, they're that distinct. Extra inventories of one game should remain that distinct. In my viewpoint it should be right down to including decks, searches, tradelists, & wishlists. Inventories would represent separate and individual real world collections that one maintains, not "sub-collections" or parts of an overall whole.

If there's an option for a freeform notes field then personally I would "tag" cards like this "Misprint", then use the notes section to identify and describe the actual type of misprint that occurred for the card. This would allow you to search for your tag and flip through all your misprint cards as one grouping. The notes would help identify markings for a specific card without making the tags overly specific. Hmm, photo notes/attachments anyone?