NOTOC (introduced in v1.4)

Before introducing the new parametric tags, let's review what we have before:

These are tags in the classic sense. They do what is usually expected of tags to do: they attach user defined attributes to entries and they do it in an all-or-none fashion. An entry is either tagged or not (hence the name boolean).

For example, if we attach a boolean tag called “hot” to an entry, the related day is marked as a hot day but it is not clear how hot it is. That's because a boolean system is very limited in real life situations.

In a boolean system, the only way to differentiate the degrees of “hotness” would be creating several tags related to the concept of temperature —such as “hotter”, “hot++”, “extremely hot”, etc…— which is rather impractical.

With parametric tags, it is possible to give numeric values to tags to clarify the amount, rate or degree of the entry with respect to them.

Continuing from the previous example, instead of a boolean tag called “hot”, we can create an parametric tag “temperature” and specify the actual temperatures as its value for individual entries:

Lifeograph now recognizes expressions in the form of

<TAG NAME> = <VALUE>

. (Appending the unit is not required.)

Parametric tags have two types called cumulative and average that handle values from multiple entries differently. This is especially important for the graphs where values of days are combined to calculate the value of a month or a year.

Values of cumulative tags are summed to get the combined value. Example use cases:

<gallery mode=“packed”> Image:graph_expenditures.png|Money spent in months Image:graph_cycling.png|Kilometers traveled with bicycle </gallery>

For some phenomena, summing individual values does not make any sense as they continue to occur whether we tag them or not. The values we give for them are mere measurements for a specific time. For such phenomena, combined value of multiple tags is calculated by taking the average, as the name <strike>implies</strike> states. Example use cases:

<gallery mode=“packed”> Image:graph_temperature.png|Highest temperatures measured Image:graph_weight.png|Tracking the success of a diet </gallery>

Type and unit of a parametric tag as well as the type of its graph (monthly or yearly) can be edited in the related tag's view:

1. Click the tag's name to open its view.
2. Select the desired type from the list: Boolean, Cumulative, or Average
3. Optionally enter a unit (can also be selected from the unit presets)
4. Change the time divisions: Monthly or Yearly