Tags are bits of text inserted into directly into post files either by Ode itself or the installed addins. They can be used to used to store information relevant to the post, and instructions to control the behavior of the script.

Individual tags are a single line of text and have the following the general form:

tag prefix literal : tag source/addin name : tag name  : tag value

!--jump--!

tag prefix literal - All tags start with the string 'tag'

tag source/addin name - All tags should include the name of the source addin so that it's easy to match each tag with the associated addin.

tag name - Addins may support more than one tag. The name identifies a specific tag. Though more than one add may use the same tag name(s), the combination of addin name : tag name should be unique among all addins. This correctly implies that no two addins should have the same name. (For the time being we'll resolve naming conflicts a case by case basis.)

tag value - the corresponding value of the named tag.

Earlier today I posted about tags related to two addins:

1. Indexette
2. Twitterer

To see these tags in action watch this screencast I recorded while creating this post (and publishing it to twitter).

This is just a little of what can be done with addins and tags. Ode will be released soon. In the meantime, I'd love to know what you think.

By the way, I'm considering changing the name of this feature from 'tags' to something else because the term 'tag' is strongly associated with another idea. In fact, I'm planning on implementing this sort of tag myself. If only for that reason I'd like to refer to this as something else. Any suggestions?