Searching the forum doesn’t seem to bring up an easy answer, or at least I haven’t found one.
I can view the tag definitions in a library by looking at “as Tags” view or bring up the Groups & Tags HUD. Is there a way of removing
a tag definition that is either in use or not (if in use, remove the tag from the documents, but not deleting the documents), and
a tag from a collection of documents (several highlighted or a group whose documents all contain the tag in question) without removing the tag definition itself and without removing the tag from other documents that are not selected or in the group currently selected.
I’ve tried deleting the tag definition using delete keys without success. The edit menu doesn’t provide a way. Right-click menu doesn’t provide a way. Dragging the tag off the window doesn’t work. What’s irritating is that I’ve been able to do it before, but I don’t know which of the random methods I was trying actually did it. (I’m also not sure whether documents disappeared when a I managed to remove a tag - don’t think so.)
Open the Tags group in the database, find the tag (it’s a subgroup of Tags). Delete it. The documents will not be deleted; the tag will; and the tag is removed from all documents on which it appeared.
The script below was originally posted in this thread, based on a suggestion of @acoyne’s. Now that I look at it, I think it could be a bit more elegant - but it works.
-- remove a tag from selected documents
-- based on a concept of @acoyne
-- http://www.devon-technologies.com/scripts/userforum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=10905&start=0
tell application "DEVONthink Pro"
activate
try
set theSelection to the selection
if theSelection is {} then error "Please select some contents."
set listTags to (name of every tag group of current database)
choose from list listTags with prompt {"Delete tag from \"" & name of current database & "\""} default items ""
-- choose from list listTags with prompt {"Delete tag from \"" & name of current database & "\""} default items "" with multiple selections allowed
set searchString to result as list
repeat with theItem in theSelection
set theTags to the tags of theItem as list
if searchString is in theTags then
set newTags to "" as list
repeat with thisTag in theTags
if thisTag is in searchString then
copy "" to the end of newTags
else
copy thisTag to the end of newTags
end if
end repeat
set the tags of theItem to newTags
end if
end repeat
on error error_message number error_number
if the error_number is not -128 then
try
display alert "DEVONthink Pro" message error_message as warning
on error number error_number
if error_number is -1708 then display dialog error_message buttons {"OK"} default button 1
end try
end if
end try
end tell
Thanks. I just wasn’t having luck finding answers before - I’ll have to pdf your comment and script and add it to DTPO for future reference! And I’ll add that script to the library.
