Labels exist because of a problem that shows up around the fifth screen.
Without them, a playlist would have to name the screens it plays on. Add a screen and you edit every playlist that should reach it. Retire one and you edit them again. With twenty screens and ten playlists that is two hundred relationships somebody has to maintain by hand.
A label breaks that. A playlist says “I play on warehouse”. A screen says “I am warehouse”. Neither knows the other exists.
What it gets you
Adding a screen is one action. Give it the label and every playlist targeting that label reaches it. Nothing else is edited.
Retiring a screen is one action. Take the label off, or delete the screen.
Changing what a group shows is one action. Point a different playlist at the label.
The relationship is visible from both ends. A screen shows its labels; a playlist shows what it targets; and searching a label name in either list shows everything carrying it.
A screen can carry several
That is the part people underuse. A screen in reception at the Frankfurt site can be frankfurt and reception at once.
You then get the combinations without inventing them: a playlist for frankfurt reaches it, a playlist for reception reaches it, and both can be true at the same time. Two labels on a hundred screens describes far more groupings than a hundred bespoke ones.
The three kinds
| Kind | Where it comes from |
|---|---|
| Custom | You create it. This is what “label” usually means |
| Screen | Created automatically for every screen, named after that screen |
| System | Built in. All Screens is the one you will see |
Only custom labels are yours to create, rename, and delete. The other two exist so that “this one screen” and “every screen” are expressible in the same way as any group, rather than being special cases. See Kinds of label.
Where labels are not used
Labels connect screens and playlists. They are not folders for your content library, which has folders of its own, and they do not group people, workspaces, or apps.