The Problem
As you accumulate drafts, the inbox can become cluttered, so it becomes hard to separate what you have and have not processed. You may have drafts you are still working on and are not ready to archive, but you also don’t want to be considered part of your unprocessed inbox counts.
The Solution
Tag those items you want to leave in the inbox, and use the “untagged” meta-tag in filters and workspaces to focus your view of the draft list.
Background on Workspaces
Workspaces are a powerful feature that allows you to create custom sets of filters and display options for the draft list to get different views of your drafts. Think of them like macros you apply to the draft list.
Common uses include things like creating a “Journal Entries” workspace that shows only drafts that have been assigned the “journal” tag, so you can easily view the content with that tag.
Drafts also includes a couple of meta-tags that can be used to filter your list:
- “untagged” which will filter out any drafts that have a tag (any tag) assigned.
- “tagged” which will show only drafts with one or more tags (any tags) assigned.
These meta-tags can be used to help processing by limiting your inbox views. This article is going to discuss using the “untagged” option in a workspace to keep your inbox and app badges under control.
Install the “Untagged” Workspace
To get started, install the example “Untagged” workspace from the Drafts Directory.
The only key option in this workspace, is the “Tag Filter” value of “untagged”.
You can edit the workspace to change any other sort or display options in the workspace to your liking. See the workspaces article in the User Guide for details.
After installing, try applying the workspace by selecting it in the workspace selector:
- iOS: Tap the drop-down workspace (downward pointing chevron) at the top right of the draft list, and select “Untagged”
- Mac: Select “Untagged” from the workspaces drop-down menu at the top of the draft list (or from the “Workspaces” menu in the main menu).
Your draft list will now show only drafts with no tags assigned. All folder tabs (inbox, flagged, archive, etc.) will be filtered as well.
Use this workspace when you want to get a clear view of what drafts you have not assigned tags or otherwise filed away.
Use “untagged” in your Default Workspace
Drafts has one special workspace called the Default workspace, which controls the view of the draft list which is applied when the (x) clear filters option is used to reset the draft list.
If you keep a lot of drafts filed away and want an easy way to only see the drafts in your inbox you have not yet tagged, it can be a good option to use the tag filter “untagged” in your default workspace, so that clearing filters always gives you this focused view of your inbox.
To update your default workspace, configure all the options in the list to your preferences, and return to list options (...) and select “Save as Default”.
While you are updating the “Default” workspace, change any sort and display options to your preferences and these will be applied when you use the
[x]clear button as well.
Filter the App Badge
Drafts has the option to show an app badge on the app icon displaying a count of items in your inbox. If you are filing away items by assigning tags, this count might not accurately reflect your unprocessed items.
The app badge count can also be based on a workspace, so it can be useful to visit “Notifications” settings and select your new “Untagged” workspace as the filter, and the app badge will now only count untagged drafts in your inbox. See the User Guide for details on configuring badges.
