# Why? It's very inconvenient to locate right sub-categories when posting
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-its-very-inconvenient-to-locate-right-sub-categories-when-posting/37576
**Category:** Feature
**Created:** [Janeiro 7, 2016, 6:45am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-its-very-inconvenient-to-locate-right-sub-categories-when-posting/37576 "2016-01-07T06:45:50Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@M\_c\_Tau](https://meta.discourse.org/u/M_c_Tau)
#### Post date: [Janeiro 7, 2016, 6:45am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-its-very-inconvenient-to-locate-right-sub-categories-when-posting/37576/1 "2016-01-07T06:45:50Z")
Hi
I think it is so cool and logical when reader feels so clear and logical to find topic in targeted categories because the main categories and sub-categories are classified in 2 different fields.
But when member want to post a new thread, it’s like a mess if the forums contains many main categories and corresponding sub-categories. I just suppose it is so much better if we classified them in different fields like when readers are able to select them clearly and conveniently from the homepage.
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [Janeiro 7, 2016, 7:03am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-its-very-inconvenient-to-locate-right-sub-categories-when-posting/37576/2 "2016-01-07T07:03:58Z")
There are other topics about this, with proposed mock ups of two drop downs, but in practice there has not been much demand for this.
- if you have so many categories that selecting one is super complicated enough to warrant two drop downs, you probably have too many categories for users to understand anyway
- if you really need 100 categories, typing is still the fastest way to select them, a drop down becomes not so useful
- in places where people “need” a thousand categories, they usually mean tags, and we support tags, which are much better for lightweight ad hoc groupings of topics
Categories are like walls, build 4 and you have a nice house.. build 40 and you have a maze.
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### Author:  [@anon82356247](https://meta.discourse.org/u/anon82356247)
#### Post date: [Janeiro 7, 2016, 7:19am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-its-very-inconvenient-to-locate-right-sub-categories-when-posting/37576/3 "2016-01-07T07:19:32Z")
> [@codinghorror](#):
>
> Categories are like walls, build 4 and you have a nice house.. build 40 and you have a maze.
I love it! Well said!
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### Author:  [@M\_c\_Tau](https://meta.discourse.org/u/M_c_Tau)
#### Post date: [Janeiro 7, 2016, 8:10am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-its-very-inconvenient-to-locate-right-sub-categories-when-posting/37576/4 "2016-01-07T08:10:33Z")
Not too many main categories. For example: Apple Device contains: iPad, iPhone, iPad, Macbook pro, Macbook air,..
Mac OS X we have OS X 10.8, 10.9, 10.10 and 10.11.
A forums should have more categories then a blog. For just a few categories, you actually limit the field of demand. Even discourse meta, it not not really easy to find right categories to post new thread. Just my idea. Discourse is still a best forums platform.
Thanks
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [Janeiro 7, 2016, 9:07am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-its-very-inconvenient-to-locate-right-sub-categories-when-posting/37576/5 "2016-01-07T09:07:41Z")
Most of the items you listed should be tags, not categories.
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### Author:  [@ccdw](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ccdw)
#### Post date: [Janeiro 7, 2016, 9:37am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-its-very-inconvenient-to-locate-right-sub-categories-when-posting/37576/6 "2016-01-07T09:37:46Z")
Excuse me butting in OP.
> [@codinghorror](#):
>
> Most of the items you listed should be tags, not categories.
I’d like to be able to combine tags when using the tags or search page as I believe this would open up lots of UX possibilities, not least being able to easily add [Isotope](http://isotope.metafizzy.co/v1/demos/combination-filters.html) like combination filters functionality - although within a single column so that contextual links were preserved between comments.
In saying that, I am new to Discourse so probably am not aware of all of the ramifications of the above, but I think it’s safe to say if we could be offered more granular searching and filtering, it would open up a lot more client side user configuration options ([for example)](https://meta.discourse.org/t/is-carousel-possible-in-a-post/31134/4) and take a lot of development load off of the core team.
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [Janeiro 7, 2016, 9:53am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-its-very-inconvenient-to-locate-right-sub-categories-when-posting/37576/7 "2016-01-07T09:53:22Z")
Correct, tags and categories can be used together.
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### Author:  [@ccdw](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ccdw)
#### Post date: [Janeiro 7, 2016, 10:16am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-its-very-inconvenient-to-locate-right-sub-categories-when-posting/37576/8 "2016-01-07T10:16:17Z")
Thanks.
How would I go about doing that? For example, if I wanted to only show posts in my BMW category that had tags of say X AND Y or X OR Y.
Is that possible?
I know there is a tag dropdown, but from what I saw that doesn’t restrict tags to the current category.
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### Author:  [@johnmuhl](https://meta.discourse.org/u/johnmuhl)
#### Post date: [Janeiro 7, 2016, 3:40pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-its-very-inconvenient-to-locate-right-sub-categories-when-posting/37576/9 "2016-01-07T15:40:43Z")
Search supports `category:abc` and `tag:xyz` which you can combine like:
[https://meta.discourse.org/search?q=category%3Asupport%20tag%3Ajavascript](https://meta.discourse.org/search?q=category%3Asupport%20tag%3Ajavascript)
to find all of the support topics tagged with javascript.
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### Author:  [@erlend\_sh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/erlend_sh)
#### Post date: [Janeiro 7, 2016, 3:43pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-its-very-inconvenient-to-locate-right-sub-categories-when-posting/37576/10 "2016-01-07T15:43:08Z")
> [@ccdw](#):
>
> How would I go about doing that? For example, if I wanted to only show posts in my BMW category that had tags of say X AND Y or X OR Y.
It’s possible to filter for “topics with CategoryA AND TagA”, as described here:
> [@Filter topic with specific tag inside single category](https://meta.discourse.org/t/filter-topic-with-specific-tag-inside-single-category/21916/5):
>
> It seems this is possible now, to a certain extent. Example on meta: [https://meta.discourse.org/tags/c/feature/docker](https://meta.discourse.org/tags/c/feature/docker)[https://meta.discourse.org/tags/c/dev/docker](https://meta.discourse.org/tags/c/dev/docker) Here on Meta we’ve got Show a dropdown to filter a topic list by tag. turned off, which makes sense for the site in general but results in a somewhat awkward display for a (not-meant-to-be-used-here) URL like this, since you’ll have to look at the recurring category to realise that you’re filtered to not just a s…
It is not yet possible to do _combinations_ of tags though, nor is it possible to do and/or combinations. You can continue the conversation of tags filtering in the topic linked above.
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### Author:  [@ccdw](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ccdw)
#### Post date: [Janeiro 7, 2016, 7:10pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-its-very-inconvenient-to-locate-right-sub-categories-when-posting/37576/11 "2016-01-07T19:10:46Z")
Thanks for answers @johnmuhl and @erlend_sh . Very useful.
Although:
> [@erlend\_sh](#):
>
> It is not yet possible to do _combinations_ of tags though, nor is it possible to do and/or combinations. You can continue the conversation of tags filtering in the topic linked above.
It appears you can combine tags - as in:
Filter by [javascript and plugins](https://meta.discourse.org/search?q=%20%20tag%3Ajavascript%20tag%3Aplugins%20) - also works when combined with a single Cat and will output json too. Very useful for filtering clientside.
Thanks again.