Creating a db that is searchable by tags

[muchobrento]

Default Searchable Tagged List


Here's a total newbie problem that I could use some help on:

I'm trying to create a list of items that allows me to tag each item with essentially unlimited tags and perhaps a limited number of other fields. Later, I'd like to be able to search that list for specific items by the tags that they have. Finally, I'd like to either export or copy/paste the results.

Easy, right? Not for me : )

Can anybody help me out?

MuchoBrento

[Ruegen]

Default Searchable Tagged List
Here's a total newbie problem that I could use some help on:

I'm trying to create a list of items that allows me to tag each item with essentially unlimited tags and perhaps a limited number of other fields. Later, I'd like to be able to search that list for specific items by the tags that they have. Finally, I'd like to either export or copy/paste the results.

Easy, right? Not for me : )

Can anybody help me out?

MuchoBrento

You could do this in multiple ways

You could have a text field in your table that stores tags separated by commas then have a function that parses those tags into an array (to which you could do more with)

or you could have a many to many field which allows for more than one tag description attached to more than one record

so records 1,5,234,4556 could have the same tag "happy" as well as "foo"

imagine the field would be

"foo, happy, sad, angry" etc

then view all records that match either.

tends to get a bit messy with many to many though....

if you parse you can use a like ** in the field of comma separated field and have the database look for any records that match from that field - you would be limited by the text field limit as to how many tags you could add

where as having a separate table that allows you to add rows with a foreign ID of the item and a foreign id of the tag (tags would be added previously in another table or later - more work)

I've never had a need to do this but I would like to find out what the others recommend....

[Ruegen]

[muchobrento]

Ruegen-

thanks for the reply. I gotta admit that even what you just said is a bit too advanced for me. Is there a way that we can simplify it? To give you an idea of how new I am, I haven't even created an Access file since I was in college (12 years ago).

Mucho

[Ruegen]

Ruegen-

thanks for the reply. I gotta admit that even what you just said is a bit too advanced for me. Is there a way that we can simplify it? To give you an idea of how new I am, I haven't even created an Access file since I was in college (12 years ago).

Mucho

Tags in general, website or other, are not easy. Tags on a website probably uses a similar trick but instead of VBA you're dealing with PHP (a language that handles SQL) & HTML to do the same thing with a database (since a website that uses tags is actually a database with blog entries as rows in a table).

Think of it this way. A tag is a query of stuff - a query of what?

You have to query something - you'd have to say "anything with this, show it to me"

That is what access is, databases etc.

So an SQL statement is "SELECT" this stuff "FROM" this "Table" but only show stuff "WHERE" this "FIELD" matches whatever.

If you open up a query's SQL in access just to see the code and you will see it starts with "SELECT".

Let me know what you need me to simplify in my explanation and I will do so to help.