I'm a big fan of the Tag widget. I use it every day when looking at logs or some other collections data. Unfortunately, up until now, clicking on a tag would use the search bar to filter down your collection, which means you couldn't use the search bar directly.
We fixed this by introducing Chips as a way to encapsulate queries without using the search bar.
Now, when you click on a Tag or a Reference widget, a chip corresponding to your widget's query will be added to the toolbar, leaving your search bar free for further filtering.