View bookmarks by labels (group by labels)

[mplebanski]

Imagine you are working on a large codebase and you are trying to trace down a bug no. 1234. You mark some places in the code (using label bug 1234), finally fix the bug and wait for tests to finish. In the meantime you could start working on a refactor in some module X and you need to make some bookmarks again to understand how this module is used. Those bookmarks would be named 'PR1234'.

Now this workflow results in bookmarks being intermingled with each other.

I'd love if the new side bar had an option to show bookmarks by labels and then by files. Bookmarks with no label would go to a group 'Others', 'Unlabeled' or something like this.

[mplebanski]

Or even better would be to introduce some tags and leave labels untouched, because one would like to give a bookmark a meaningful name like: "This is where X is constructed".

[alefragnani]

Hi @mplebanski ,

I'd love if the new side bar had an option to show bookmarks by labels and then by files. Bookmarks with no label would go to a group 'Others', 'Unlabeled' or something like this.

Do you mean sorted ascending/descending by label or grouped by similar labels. Because in your example, 1234 is similar to PR1234 (if you think about a regex)?

@mplebanski using tags would require adding another concept in bookmarks, but that's a valid idea too.

Hope this helps

[mplebanski]

Do you mean sorted ascending/descending by label or grouped by similar labels. Because in your example, 1234 is similar to PR1234 (if you think about a regex)?

I meant grouping by label, but after a bit of thinking on "sorting" I believe showing a sorted list of labels (sorted by name) is even better, since user can control the names, thus group them together in this list. Using sorted list one can even create logical subgroups by naming the labels right e.g.:

label_a
label_a_note
label_b

To sum up this feature request is about a new sorted labels view. one without grouping labels by files.

[alefragnani]

In this case, this issue could be combined with #183, which asks for "stack" ordering of bookmarks. But, I would say sort by ascending/descending is easier to achieve, because there is no need to store any additional info in the extension's data.

Hope this helps

[EmbeddedBacon]

I think the idea of group or categories would be very beneficial. I have a number of bookmarker that I set over the course of months based upon that task. I do have need to go back to those specific bookmarks when bugs are report, but it is hard to navigate though all the bookmarks I have created. If the sidebar for Bookmarks had the ability to create groups/categories with the sidebar would nice. By default when creating a new bookmark it would default to the group/category that is currently selected. Would need the ability to drag/drop bookmarks from one group/category in case I make a mistake and group/categorize the bookmark which is like to happen more times than not.

[jotabe-net]

The full Visual Studio, not VS Code, has the concept of bookmark folders. In the Bookmarks window, equivalent of VS Code sidebar, you can create a hierarchy of folders, and put the bookmarks inside them, so it's really easy to manage the grouping. It's not compulsory to either create folders or put the bookmarks inside them, in other words, you can create "plain bookmarks in the root". To support this it would be necessary to:

• support a folder syntax when creating the bookmark, something like Folder1/Subfolder 1.1/Bookmark in subfolder 1.1 or Bookmark in the root
• support the drag and drop, ant the tree view in the sidebar

The sidebar could look something like this:

Bookmark in the root
Other Bookmark in the root
-[Folder1]
  Bookmark in folder1
  -[Subfolder 1.1]
     Bookmark in subfolder 1.1
+[Folder2]
-[Folder3]
  +[Subfolder 3.1]

[phedlund113]

I can see the use of the sets or grouping of bookmarks. I have an issue i am tracking that i have 10 bookmarks for. I would find it nice to be able to group with a label so i can keep bookmarking with other issues and go back to previous issues when changes occur. I have tried the Label feature but that is not what i am after as far as bookmark organization.

The plugin is very useful as is so Im not throwing stones, just offering suggestions.

[phedlund113]

To clarify my request, in the sidebar the organization would be Group1 File1 Bookmark1 Bookmark2 File2 Bookmark1 File3 Bookmark1 Bookmark2 Bookmark3 Group2 File1 Bookmark1 Bookmark2 Where Group name could be defined but default would be Group (or set)

[sharabiania]

I would like to see a feature to organize the bookmarks in groups (same way as folders) and see them in the side bar like this:

fake-group-1
   bookmark-fake-label-1
   bookmark-fake-label-2

fake-group-2
   bookmark-fake-label-2
   bookmark-fake-label-3

The same way we can organize the bookmarks in the Visual Studio.

One use case is, in large projects when I work on multiple tickets, I want to be able to categorize base on the Tickets:

ticket-id-1
  bookmark-1
  bookmark-2

...

[evgeny-goldin]

Found Favorites extension - https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=kdcro101.favorites. Not quite bookmarks, but lets one organize files into grouped favorites.

Still following and +1-ing this thread as well!

[smallscript]

Found Favorites extension - https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=kdcro101.favorites. Not quite bookmarks, but lets one organize files into grouped favorites.

Still following and +1-ing this thread as well!

I agree with the Visual Appeal and Interaction Patterns that the above "Favorites" extension offers. If it allowed me to Ctrl-K create bookmarks to files, then it would probably be my ideal answer. (assuming it was 'stable" min-bug issues).

[mihaibrana]

Became a patron to support adding this feature. Considering the number of users you have, I know adding a bit of wind in your sails will eventually trickle down to everybody! Go go Alessandro! :D 👯

BTW: a good first start on this feature could simply be adding a button that shows ALL bookmarks without ANY grouping, sorted by label (or by path for those that don't have a label).

[alefragnani]

Thanks @mihaibrana ! I’ll be launching a poll in upcoming days, to have a better idea of which directions to take on upcoming releases, so it would be great if you add your vote/comment, when available.

About your suggestion, in the recent release you amost have this. There is a new View as List option in the sidebar, which simply removes the File node, and displays all bookmarks in the root level. No, it doesn’t have any sort yet, but it’s on the way.

[pltrant]

Found Favorites extension - https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=kdcro101.favorites. Not quite bookmarks, but lets one organize files into grouped favorites.

Still following and +1-ing this thread as well!

Thanks for sharing this extension. This is exactly what I need (the ability to bookmark/tag specific files, then sort them in a list with groups). Ideally, I was hoping this was a feature of the Bookmarks extension itself, but the Favorites extension will work until the former can also gain similar functionality. It boils down to needing the ability to easy tag files, then organize them in logical groups for easy review/recall.

[alefragnani]

About this feature in particular, I have a mixed feelings when compared to #254 .

I mean, if I add a Tag concept to bookmarks, similar to what I did with my Projects Manager extension (more details https://github.com/alefragnani/vscode-project-manager/issues/50#issuecomment-769053196), is it still necessary to have a group by label?

Sure, things like Sort by Label option in Side Bar/Command Palette could still be available, just like #435 (Sort by Filename) will be in the future.

[thekashifmalik]

I too was looking for exactly this feature, i.e. the ability to group bookmarks. It doesn't matter what you call that concept but some sort of manual grouping would be very helpful in my workflow and makes sense as the number of bookmarks grow.

[atxsinn3r]

+1 for this feature. To me grouping is important because I use bookmarks for noting bugs, and I need to categorize them in bug types, or some kind of group like "looks funny." Also when I triage them, I may need to move some of the bookmarks into another category named "Invalid" (so that I remember I looked at them). Basically I use bookmarks like you would with a browser's bookmarks.

[nkay08]

About this feature in particular, I have a mixed feelings when compared to #254 .

I mean, if I add a Tag concept to bookmarks, similar to what I did with my Projects Manager extension (more details alefragnani/vscode-project-manager#50 (comment)), is it still necessary to have a group by label?

Sure, things like Sort by Label option in Side Bar/Command Palette could still be available, just like #435 (Sort by Filename) will be in the future.

I also would like an option to manually group or tag my bookmarks, as I am working on different tasks.

The way the tags work in your Projects Manager is good and translating that feature to the Bookmarks extension would be great and very helpful.

[ckx]

I would also very much appreciate grouping. My current workaround is to do my own tagging in the bookmark label:

I don't like this very much, but it's better than nothing I guess. Maybe a search/filter would be helpful in combination with this approach.

[manuel-jasso]

Hi! I would like to upvote this feature request, I like Bookmarks very much, but when you're jumping across different projects, not having a way to group bookmarks is very limiting. There are workarounds or other not so good extensions, but I would rather see the most popular Bookmarks extension incorporate this feature. Whether you decide to do it as "folders" or as "tags" and the semantics, that's an implementation detail and up to you. Thank you!