Suggestion: Folders please!

My players are complaining in D&D 4.0 because the token action bar gets hard to use when the bar gets too big and you can't find what you need. It would be nice if you could make folders we can place the token actions in folders. We could use that to organize our at-wills, encounters, dailies, skill checks, basic attacks, etc. Also adding folders to the character section would be nice for DMs who now have to look at a huge list of unorganized monsters and players.

You can use tags to organize your handouts and character sheets. As for the token actions... I only put the most often used powers there. Everything else is quickly accessed by holding down alt and double clicking on the token.

Maybe, but typing or scrolling aren't nearly as efficient organization methods as folders are.

You don't have to type the tags out to search. Click the little tag button next to the search box and it brings up a list of all your tags.

Good to know. It's still more clicks than a folder, but it's a workaround for the characters. Would still like action token folders.

Considering the action bar was unlikely to have been intended for so many abilities on it... it's one nice workaround. And on another note, folders for handouts/sheets is highly unlikely, it's been mentioned before, many times. The developers seem to favor the tagging system, at least for the time being, does't mean things won't change in the future. Personally I prefer tagging, and essentially it's no different than folders. Let's assume you wanted folders for players, npcs, and enemies. With tags you can tag them with said tag. If you further folder it by region, monster type, or even race, again just add tag accordingly. Then lets got further and do level range, or attack type, or even defensive capabilities or intelligence. Guess what? tag it! Now here's where the benefit of tags comes in over folders. Let's say you got an enemy Goblin @ lvl 13 who is aggressive, humanoid intelligence, and is found in a forested valley Here's the catch which folder do you put him in? the one for enemies, goblins, aggressive, humanoids, lvl 10-20, or forested valley? Sure you can dupe him to have him in all the appropriate folders/sub-folders, but with tags said goblin automatically comes up in all those categories. In a nutshell folders are good for sorting based on a single search criteria, tags are good for multiple search criterias.

Tags have the drawback of requiring you to remember the tagging system (names) where folders are visually oriented. I prefer folders myself since I cannot ever remember names.

Gauss, you can click the little tag icon next to the search box and it will bring up a list of all your tags.

How did I guess that would be pointed out? :) I was referencing tags in general. Not any particular tag subsystem used in Roll20. Additionally, the solution you mentioned only applies to one tag subsystem used in Roll20. Others (such as images) do not have a method to bring up a list of tags. In any case, my point still stands. I have to remember the names, or in the case of the character sheets/handouts which names apply to which sheets. Visual references still work better for me and other visually oriented people. :)

the only thing needed then is to add that tag icon's functionality to the asset library. Also maybe add the entire tagging system to the jukebox

I definitely support folder solution.

You tell em Gauss!!! :)

In any case, my point still stands. I have to remember the names, or in the case of the character sheets/handouts which names apply to which sheets. Visual references still work better for me and other visually oriented people. :) Maybe, but that doesn't scale well. I feel there's a ceiling of what I can do because of the lack of organizational abilities like folders. If you only have 40 "characters" Then yes it might not be so bad to find your 5 players throughout the list and pick them out to drag on the map. But what about when you have more and more sessions, and more campaigns at the same time? It'd be a huge pain to pick them out of 400, or 4000. The folder solution would scale and not make us reluctant to create more because we don't want it to be a pain in the ass to find things down the road.

Tag your players character sheets with a unique tag like oh... pc-sheets and you can type that into the search box and boom. You're only seeing those character sheets/journal entries.

You two keep saying that HoneyBadger and I are both failing to see your point, well the matter of fact is you are definitely failing to see ours. ANYTHING you would use to sort as a folder can still be used to sort via tags. In fact digital folders are nothing more than tags to begin with. Even physical folders are a tagging system. All a folder is, is something that keeps a group of items together. However without the tag on that folder, then the folder itself is virtually meaningless. Sure the stuff is still grouped together but what good does it do anyone if you don't know what in particular those items have in common. The only problem here is actually not that tags are unorganized compared to folders, in fact tags are multidimensional organization. The problem actually lays with you the GM, you failed to realize how you wanted your things organized, or that you even needed it organized until you already had too many assets to handle. So now you just want a quick and simple way to clean up the mess, however what you fail to realize is that converting a tag system with a folder system requires re-coding and work on a already overworked, under staffed, group, instead of them focusing their attention elsewhere. When in reality if you didn't take the time to complain about how much a folder system is better, and instead started tagging your sheets, you would either a, realize how much better tagging actually is, or b had everything organized for a quick search whenever you need it. Also you saying a folder solution would scale is highly inaccurate. Lets bring out a real world example... Only so many folders will fit in a single cabinet drawer, every cabinet only has so many drawers, every room can only hold so many cabinets, only so many rooms fit in a single building... and so on. See what I'm getting at? Yes and now you'll complain this is digital not physical so it doesn't apply. Well lets say in fact you did have folders but you had them sorted by Items, Players, NPCs, and Enemies. Now how do you find a specific NPC of a specific race or gender in a specific region? Oh you open the NPC folder, guess what you have 400+ NPCs in there, how do you find the specific one? It's the same problem you are complaining that folders will fix, however it's inside your little folder, now what? You try to remember the NPC's name? Wasn't one of your earlier complaints trying to remember what tags you actually used? Now if you think of tags as folders, it makes sense. Oh I need that one NPC, ok so I tagged it as an NPC, as a female, and as a dwarf. I also tagged her with not only her name but that she's from Moria. What else could I say? Well if she has a certain profession, class, and/or family. More tags. But wait later in the campaign you intend to have her betray the party? Wait but now she's an enemy not a NPC. With tags she can be both, with folders, not likely. Sure folders are a quick and easy way or organization, but it is also highly limiting. Tags are more adaptive and expansive, however harder to maintain. Basically unless you tag as you go, tagging is a pain, but when you do they are a lot more powerful. Do you seriously think any commercial website would get very far if they put the products into folders? Some of them may look like they do, but I got news for you, that's tagging.

Tags are somethings you put on things, while folders are somethings you put things in. There's a conceptual difference. The tags could over-rule folders (i.e. search for all things across folders), while the folders are mostly to make it so that when I open my library I don't get overwhelmed by an endless flow of tokens sorted by time added. I want to be able to select all the items I want to see at the same time and just drag them into a folder. -- I get that this might never happen, but I do miss being able to do that. That's all.

You can use tags as if they were folders. Just pick your folder scheme and give every item exactly one tag. When tagging images in your library, you can click multiple items and add tags to them all at once. I notice that you can't do this with characters. So perhaps your requirements would be met if tags on characters and other things to work as simply and easily as they do with images? I suggest trying out the tagging system on images and seeing what you think of it, because it's implemented in a much more sophisticated manner there. Edit: Note that you could request further improvements to tags that would make them more like folders while being generally useful for everyone and not requiring the devs to make and maintain two different systems. For example, you could ask to be able to easily find all objects not currently tagged, which would simulate the root folder of a folder system.

Dave W. said: In fact digital folders are nothing more than tags to begin with. Actually, they're not. Directories are themselves a special type of file, which points at all of the files (and, if the system supports it, subdirectories) "contained" within it. This is true in FAT, NTFS, and Unix-type filesystems. There are some special cases depending on the filesystem architecture (for example, I believe in NTFS a file under 512 bytes may be stored within the directory file, and a directory file under 512 bytes may be stored in the master file table), but directories are not tags. An organization system using tags has each object holding onto its tags, which are then queried against. An organization system using directories has each directory holding onto its objects, which are then searched through as a tree structure. If you use a tagging system to simulate a directory system, you're inverting the control: rather than a directory knowing what objects it contains, the objects know what directories they're in. Please note that this post makes no attempt to analyze which organization scheme is superior.

I believe there is some defensiveness here. I'm not asking that they remove the tag system. I'm just asking they ALSO include folders so I can sort through stuff with my mouse if I like. But more importantly than characters is the token actions. Drop down folders for skill lists and action types would be epicly convenient. What I'm asking would only add more options to those who play, not remove them, so I'm not sure why there's so much opposition to this suggestion.

Dave, the important difference tags and folders is not really about implementation. It is about the difference in human processing. There are people who are visual processors and there are people that use some other form of processing. I am a visual processor. I barely remember anyone's names let alone the name of an image I uploaded. With tags I have to either remember the name or select from potentially hundreds of tags to find what I want. To even 'drill down' the number of tags I would have to remember the first name (something which I may or may not remember). With folders I can simply go where I placed it. I have visual references to know where it is. Its like remembering an address. Some people remember the address, others remember the actual location, some do both. In my case, I wont ever remember the address but I can pretty easily find any place I have ever been to, even if I have only been there once. If you use tags you start by finding the "big" name, then you go to a "smaller name", and then a "specific name". You need to remember all of the associations involved. However, if you use folders you are not required to remember any association. The reminder is visually oriented. You see the folder name or location, go AHA! and then click on it. Then you repeat the process on the next level. Someday, I hope the Devs add a folder system to work in combination with the tagging system. Until then I upload whatever I need on the fly because the current system is 100% unusable for my type of information processing. If I need duplicates of something I just copy/paste it. P.S. At one time I did make a concerted effort to use the tagging system with my Star Fleet Battles icons. It was a colossal failure. I have hundreds of SFB images and it was impossible to find any of them using the search function even with 4 layers of tags. Adding a list of tags (such as in the character sheets) would just make it a massive list and until you narrow the focus you would have to remember the 1st, 2nd, and probably 3rd tier name-associations before you got to a small enough list to really see and then select what you want. Compared to that folders are vastly simpler for visual processors.

+1 I don't really have much to add just that the feature would be helpful.