This is an excerpt from an email I was writing to a SimpleMap user. I was going to ask their opinion on whether to add a Tags field to locations, but I ended up not needing any convincing. Expect a Tags field in 1.2! In the meantime, here’s some insight into how my brain works when I develop.
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I was going to change the way Categories work a little. Right now the category name is actually what’s inserted into the database record for a location. In the categories table, each category has an ID number, and I was going to link to that from the locations database instead. That way, when you change the name of a category, it will be changed across all the locations in that category. I could also let the user reassign those locations to a different category automatically.
This would make matching the category in a search a little more painful to code. It also still limits each location to one category.
My mission with SimpleMap is to keep it really simple… like I’ve said in a blog post or two, I won’t be adding any major features for a while after I release 1.2, because I want to make this plugin as streamlined as possible before it gets any bigger.
Would adding a Tags field, like you mentioned in your email, be a little too busy? I like that it would allow another search dimension, and that it would be unrestrained as to what you type in it (multiple tags, huge phrases, numbers, wouldn’t matter). My only concern is making things too complicated.
Then again, WordPress uses both categories and tags for posts, and people using this plugin already use WordPress. So I think I’ve answered my own question.
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