Automatically adjust parent tags after child tags are reorganized

[sailr7]

THE PROBLEM
One of the distinct differentiators of Standard Notes is that the software allows for hierarchical drill-down of notes based on a tree of tags. A parent tag includes the notes of a child tag, and you can narrow the search of notes by moving down the tag tree. However, when reorganizing tag relationships and moving a child tag to another tag family, the parent-child drill-down capabilities do not get updated and subsequently get lost. Furthermore, the old and irrelevant parent tags remain.

For example, suppose I start with a other -> sales tag tree, and then later (as I develop a continually growing cluster of other business and marketing-related notes) I decide to move the sales tag to a business -> marketing -> sales tag tree. In Standard Notes currently, after doing this I will not automatically be able to see the notes tagged as sales when I click on the business or the marketing tags. This drill-down capability is lost. Additionally, the tag other remains connected to the notes related to sales even though this tag is no longer relevant. If I want to change this behavior I have to manually tag the new parent tags and un-tag the old parent tags, and when dealing with thousands of notes, this becomes a major hassle.

Organically building clusters of notes, and reorganizing them as the set of notes grows, should be made easier in Standard Notes.

THE SOLUTION
To solve this problem, Standard Notes needs to make a distinction between Direct Tags and Parent Tags, and specifically address behavior for each.

• Direct Tags are tags that the user has directly selected to be associated with the note. The user can change or modify them at any time (just normal tagging behavior in Standard Notes), and these tags will not change unless the user manually changes them.
• Parent tags are tags that are automatically attributed to a note because they are parent tags to a Direct Tag. This ensures the hierarchical drill-down remains intact. If the structure of a Direct Tag is modified, the Parent Tags are automatically updated to reflect the updated tag structure.

Additional Details

• A Parent Tag can also be a Direct Tag if the user manually selects it and adds to it a note. If this is done, then this tag will not be removed from the note even if the user changes the tag structure.
• In the UI, Standard Notes doesn't need to show Parent Tags individually for a note because it is already shown in the tree for the child tag (e.g., #business/marketing/sales). It only needs to show Direct Tags.

FINAL COMMENTS
As articulated in Standard Notes's Longevity Statement, Standard Notes values simplicity in its structure and design. The above tagging system is significantly more intuitive and simple. It will also enable more flexible and organic growth of the tagging hierarchy, with less manual effort on behalf of the user. I believe the hierarchical tagging system is a major differentiator compared to other note-taking software, and making this adjustment will further improve Standard Notes's functionality above competition.