[bug]: Label categories can be selected in the label selection modal of already existing issues

[antond15]

Is there an existing issue for this?

• [X] I have searched the existing issues

Current behavior

When you want to add a label to an already created issue, you can also choose labels that are categories of other labels.

The expected behavior is that it shouldn't be possible to select categories, as is the case during issue creation (see image below)

Steps to reproduce

1. Create a label category
2. Create an issue
3. Add a label to the newly created issue (after creating it, not during creation)
4. See that you can also select the labels that are supposed to be a category

Environment

Production

Browser

Google Chrome

Variant

Self-hosted

Version

v0.23.1

[blusrc]

• Labels are not sorted properly. See below. ANL-ES jumped to another category and [Analytics] category is below the labels inside of it.

[theparthacus]

• Labels are not sorted properly. See below. ANL-ES jumped to another category and [Analytics] category is below the labels inside of it.

this looks like a bug. we will fix this. @pushya22, this is for you.

[theparthacus]

Is there an existing issue for this?

• [x] I have searched the existing issues

Current behavior

When you want to add a label to an already created issue, you can also choose labels that are categories of other labels.

The expected behavior is that it shouldn't be possible to select categories, as is the case during issue creation (see image below)

so far we have operated on the assumption that the parent, which is also a label, should also be possible to apply to an issue. imagine when you just want to filter by the parent, not individual children. that parent label should come in handy. in most internal use cases, especially for work management ones, we use a combination of labels, one of which is almost always the parent.

the current behavior keeps it flexible for both use cases—when you want the parent and when you don't. maybe if we fix this bug, it will get a little easier to know which one is a parent and which one is a child so you can apply them selectively? or are you seeing situations where the parent being a label is confusing folks? could you talk about a little more?

[antond15]

@theparthacus It's already not possible to select categories when creating an issue (see my first image), which suggests that it's the intended behavior. Labels are designed in a way that you can apply multiple of them to the same issue.

Just make another category used for categorizing issues. Or better, use the tools already available in Plane to categorize issues - projects and modules.

[theparthacus]

@theparthacus It's already not possible to select categories when creating an issue (see my first image), which suggests that it's the intended behavior.

do you mean it is possible to apply the parents or the categories as labels? because that is the intended behavior, yes.

[antond15]

do you mean it is possible to apply the parents or the categories as labels? because that is the intended behavior, yes.

No, I mean:

It's already not possible to select categories when creating an issue (see my first image).

It doesn't make any sense to use categories as labels itself, but whatever. A toggle option somewhere in settings might be better, since some people don't understand the usecase of labels.

[theparthacus]

It doesn't make any sense to use categories as labels itself, but whatever.

alright. think of this use case, as an example. you have a category or a parent called Blog. its children are Announcements, Feature breakdowns, Education, Round-ups, and How-tos. think of a team that's posting to your company's blog with just three members handling everything. one of them is a lead.

all three label their issues or tasks with just one of the children post. for the lead to see which tasks on the board are just Blog posts, they have to select five labels. instead, they can just select Blog and see all relevant issues in a cycle or a module. and this is just with five labels. imagine twenty or more in a category as often happens with ITSM or Ops.

what you want is a good nesting hierarchy shown visually and the option to not apply labels. that's there. the visual hierarchy, we will work on soon.