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REQUEST: Extend Note Link to support saved searches


drtimhill

Idea

Hi,

I like the "Note Link" feature of Evernote as it lets me add links to relevant notes in external documents and even aliases I store in project folders. But each Note Link is limited to linking to a *single* note. It would be GREAT if I could create a Note Link that linked to a SET of notes. Specifically, it would be great to allow the creation of Note Links (and hence external URLs) that referenced a saved search in Evernote. That way, I could create external links that referenced pretty much any set of notes I want.

Why? Because often I mix stuff outside of Evernote with stuff within Evernote (external files, projects etc), and it would be nice to be able to easily have an alias I could click that would open EN and show me exactly the set of notes related to that project. Of course, I could create a notebook or tag for the project, but that's not quite as flexible as having an alias I can double-click that will gather just the right set of notes together.

Thoughts anyone?

--Tim

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19 replies to this idea

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  • Level 5

If anyone has any workarounds for this I would be interested to see them.

I save all my searches into 5 Evernote notes.

My search examples - date / time

My search examples - things / acronyms

My search examples - places

My search examples - people

and

My search examples - search grammar rules

I use a saved search icon to find these 5 notes instantly. It is located in my favorite bar at the top (intitle:"My search examples"). This allows me to copy and edit a search to meet new criteria.

I add a description under the more complex saved searches - example:

notebook:Politics "Consumer Protection Safety Improvement Act" -tag:acro-CPSIA -tag:x

Description: CPSIA: Consumer Protection Safety Improvement Act

For Windows users, BitQwik.com just added a saved search capability. I can see the day when I will no longer rely on my saved searches inside Evernote and only use BitQwik for my Evernote searches.

The use of 3rd party developers makes a lot of sense. I prefer to have Evernote avoid some of the often mentioned software-bloat creations (advanced outlining, photography editing, creative word processing formatting, location mapping, spreadsheet capabilities, etc.).

Let other developers cater to the specialized needs of users and keep Evernote lean and fast.

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+1

 

Love drtimhill idea!

 

Evernote is a bit kludgy on saving and organizing searches. Scaling a saved-search and tagging system beyond a few notes gets bulky. So it would be a huge relief to give us links and let us organize them in our own notes or external apps.

 

This would be especially helpful in Evernote Business, where multiple people would benefit from a browsing/learning, wiki type experience.  Users learn more that way about how the system is architected, what tags to use, what notebooks to put stuff in. As it is now, everyone needs more training on our tagging and notebook workflow, and people more often refer to our tagging strategy doc.

 

The best tagging and saved search implementation I’ve seen is in Adobe Lightroom.  Although LR doesn’t give us url’s into its app, it does let us have collection sets which is basically an hierarchical folder structure of links and smart searches, so notes (photos in LR) can be viewed from multiple places.

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Hey there! I rarely push feature requests... so I will put my credits in here: +3 from my side! 

This simple "link to searches"-Feature will be a powerful thing! For me it's the "missing link" to finish my Task and Reference System! Please think about it... could this feature be such a big deal to implement? Even than it's worth it!

 

Cheers

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I want this, too.
 

I'd like to add a vote for this feature, here's how I'd use it...

 

For each of my projects I have a single note that is an overview where I capture overview-type thinking about the project.

 

For every note that relates to a project, I tag it with a tag that is the project name.

 

While it's possible for me to copy note links for all of the notes that relate to a project into the overview note - to get a list of related notes, it's cumbersome and rarely worthwhile. What would be worthwhile would be to add a link to a search for all notes tagged with the project name. Then my "list" would be dynamic and capture every item I tag with the project name.

 

The way I do it now is to go to the tags manager and scroll or search to find the tag, but it's not very elegant. Another feature that would make that workflow easier is a pop-out tag manager, but that's for another thread.

 

This is pretty much exactly how I want to use it as well. It would make life a lot easier. Please, Evernote, consider implementing this feature.

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If this is still not implemented (and it seems that way), than that is incredible! I think I don't even need to explain the enormous improvement in workflow for people really using Evernote for managing their complex working day. Please Evernote, step up your game!

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I'd like to add a vote for this feature, here's how I'd use it...

 

For each of my projects I have a single note that is an overview where I capture overview-type thinking about the project.

 

For every note that relates to a project, I tag it with a tag that is the project name.

 

While it's possible for me to copy note links for all of the notes that relate to a project into the overview note - to get a list of related notes, it's cumbersome and rarely worthwhile. What would be worthwhile would be to add a link to a search for all notes tagged with the project name. Then my "list" would be dynamic and capture every item I tag with the project name.

 

The way I do it now is to go to the tags manager and scroll or search to find the tag, but it's not very elegant. Another feature that would make that workflow easier is a pop-out tag manager, but that's for another thread.

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If anyone has any workarounds for this I would be interested to see them.

I save all my searches into 5 Evernote notes.

My search examples - date / time

My search examples - things / acronyms

My search examples - places

My search examples - people

and

My search examples - search grammar rules

I use a saved search icon to find these 5 notes instantly. It is located in my favorite bar at the top (intitle:"My search examples"). This allows me to copy and edit a search to meet new criteria.

I add a description under the more complex saved searches - example:

notebook:Politics "Consumer Protection Safety Improvement Act" -tag:acro-CPSIA -tag:x

Description: CPSIA: Consumer Protection Safety Improvement Act

For Windows users, BitQwik.com just added a saved search capability. I can see the day when I will no longer rely on my saved searches inside Evernote and only use BitQwik for my Evernote searches.

The use of 3rd party developers makes a lot of sense. I prefer to have Evernote avoid some of the often mentioned software-bloat creations (advanced outlining, photography editing, creative word processing formatting, location mapping, spreadsheet capabilities, etc.).

Let other developers cater to the specialized needs of users and keep Evernote lean and fast.

Thanks for the reply jbenson2, I have downloaded BitQwick and will have a play with it. So if I understand you correctly you copy your text string saved searches into the search box to execute them?

Thanks

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I would like to add my voice and support for this request. I manage items largley by project and so have project master notes that look like this:

1. Next Actions

notebook:Actions tag:@Work tag:".Project Name" tag:#Next

notebook:Actions tag:@Work tag:".Project Name" tag:#Pending

2. Project Diary

Link

3. Project Support

Link

It would be helpful to have a link to click rather than a string (notebook:Actions tag:@Work tag:".Project Name" tag:#Next) that I copy and paste into the search bar.

I could create a saved search for these but want to limit the number of saved searches for efficiencies sake. It would considerably speed up my workflow to be able to add a saved search link to a note allowing me to see it only in the context withing which it is required.

If anyone has any workarounds for this I would be interested to see them.

Thanks

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I want to add my vote for this functionality. Basically what is needed by a lot of people (doing a quick google search) is the same ability that you can do on the "favorites" bar added to individual notes. I can drop a "note", "tag", or "notebook" onto the "favorites" bar for quick link access. Besides needing more space then is available on the "favorites" bar, I have several lengthy individual "workflow/process" notes that would benefit from having all 3 types of links inline. Ideally it would be as easy as it already is to drag the 3 types to the "favorites" bar. Just add the same ability to drop any of the 3 types directly into an individual note. The "note" type is already supported so just need to add the other 2 types. Thanks.

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  • Level 5*
As you wish. I felt it would have made a valuable addition to Evernote and it's ability to link into many more workflows, rather than being an "island" app. And I won't debate the URL issue, I stand by my interpretation that an URL references a dataset, not a "page" (today many URLs are never expressed directly as pages as they yield data that is consumed elsewhere such as web services), so arguing from that to "Evernote doesnt need it" seems somewhat odd.

Just to be clear, I think it's really OK to make suggestions, and I know that Evernote appreciates them, and I trust Evernote to evaluate them on their own with or without our help, and I also appreciate the specific notion that it's useful to be able to refer to related groups of notes via a single mechanism (whether link, tag, notebook, search, or whatever). All of that is by way of saying thanks for taking the time and effort to make a suggestion (and defend it against cranks, too).

My quibble on the semantics of 'link' is based in what seems like pretty widely applied usage of things link-like, but I'll only push that metaphoric rock up the hill for so long, and admit that that concept can be stretched to accommodate other meanings like yours. The flip side of this, though, is that practically speaking, that would be a change to Evernote of some scale, so you wouldn't see it any time soon. I also think that the multi-target links proposed might be awkward to manage, but there's plenty of awkwardness going around, and that wouldn't be fatal, if they were really useful. In the meantime, there are things you can do with the existing clients that will accomplish much the same thing, though not in the same way, and if you haven't tried them, it might be worthwhile giving them a look -- the AppleScript environment seems a lot more approachable than what's available on other platforms, including Windows, which is what I use.

Just as a point of contrast, though, I'd propose a slightly different mechanism. Rather than explicitly linking to notes, I'd propose a sort of active search that you could embed in a note, similar to a link, but when clicked, activates the client that would activate with the note link, and executes the link target as a search. So rather than having a note link like:

<a href="evernote:///view/470215/s5/b04fb763-248a-4e2b-1d47-44712e795cbd/b14fb763-248a-4e2b-bd46-447310e795cbd/" style="color:#69aa35">Evernote Activity Bug</a>

(that's what comes out of ENML), maybe something like this:

<a href="evernote:///search/notebook:work tag:ToDo/" style="color:#6935aa">Work Todo's</a>

Personally, I think that my idea has about as much chance as yours of getting implemented; I just generally operate with search more naturally than with links, in Evernote at least.

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As you wish. I felt it would have made a valuable addition to Evernote and it's ability to link into many more workflows, rather than being an "island" app. And I won't debate the URL issue, I stand by my interpretation that an URL references a dataset, not a "page" (today many URLs are never expressed directly as pages as they yield data that is consumed elsewhere such as web services), so arguing from that to "Evernote doesnt need it" seems somewhat odd.

I can't add anything to the debate about the technicalities, but I would also value this ability. I would love to be able to link to tagged notes, effectively the ability to put mirrors of a tag name into notes. Right now I can see all notes grouped by a tag by clicking that tag in the tag tree. If I could click something within a note to perform the same function, that would be great. I don't know whether it's feasible or not, since I know less about this stuff than either of you.

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Having a link that points to multiple notes is antithetical to the idea of links are we typically understand them (think a web URL, for an example). I doubt that Evernote will implement link that point to multiple notes, particularly when tags work today, and are readily applicable to this sort of problem.

Well, I think you miss the point a bit.

Well, I think that I don't. Let's see:

The functionality I'm looking for is the ability to quickly open Evernote with a set of notes relevant to a specific project. Today, I can easily create an external Mac alias that (via a Note Link) opens EN with a specific note, but I'm looking for a quick way to do the same with a SET of notes. Tags and saved searches are a way to do from WITHIN evernote, but they dont provide a way to embed a "see this..." type of reference into EN from OUTSIDE the EN application. If the URL syntax supported the ability to reference a smart search then I could create a "see this stuff..." type link in any external app that supported URLs.

I would check out AppleScript support for interacting with the Evernote Mac client here: http://dev.evernote....hapters/Mac.php. It appears that you can trigger search queries from outside of Evernote.

As for URLs not supporting >1 page, I disagree: many many URLs reference datasets rather than single pages (think any number of URLs that embody a query or search), and that's all I'm suggesting for EN. Doesn't seem like rocket science to me.

No, actually; I never said "supporting" one page, I said "pointing" to one page, a not insignificant difference. A link refers to one location only, what resides at that location may in turn ref to other locations. The fact that that page may load others is besides the point. The analogue in Evernote would be to link to a note that contains note links to other notes. You link directly to the first thing, but only indirectly to the others. And you can do this in Evernote, today.

I don't believe that you need links for this stuff.

As you wish. I felt it would have made a valuable addition to Evernote and it's ability to link into many more workflows, rather than being an "island" app. And I won't debate the URL issue, I stand by my interpretation that an URL references a dataset, not a "page" (today many URLs are never expressed directly as pages as they yield data that is consumed elsewhere such as web services), so arguing from that to "Evernote doesnt need it" seems somewhat odd.

--Tim

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  • Level 5*

Having a link that points to multiple notes is antithetical to the idea of links are we typically understand them (think a web URL, for an example). I doubt that Evernote will implement link that point to multiple notes, particularly when tags work today, and are readily applicable to this sort of problem.

Well, I think you miss the point a bit.

Well, I think that I don't. Let's see:

The functionality I'm looking for is the ability to quickly open Evernote with a set of notes relevant to a specific project. Today, I can easily create an external Mac alias that (via a Note Link) opens EN with a specific note, but I'm looking for a quick way to do the same with a SET of notes. Tags and saved searches are a way to do from WITHIN evernote, but they dont provide a way to embed a "see this..." type of reference into EN from OUTSIDE the EN application. If the URL syntax supported the ability to reference a smart search then I could create a "see this stuff..." type link in any external app that supported URLs.

I would check out AppleScript support for interacting with the Evernote Mac client here: http://dev.evernote.com/documentation/local/chapters/Mac.php. It appears that you can trigger search queries from outside of Evernote.

As for URLs not supporting >1 page, I disagree: many many URLs reference datasets rather than single pages (think any number of URLs that embody a query or search), and that's all I'm suggesting for EN. Doesn't seem like rocket science to me.

No, actually; I never said "supporting" one page, I said "pointing" to one page, a not insignificant difference. A link refers to one location only, what resides at that location may in turn ref to other locations. The fact that that page may load others is besides the point. The analogue in Evernote would be to link to a note that contains note links to other notes. You link directly to the first thing, but only indirectly to the others. And you can do this in Evernote, today.

I don't believe that you need links for this stuff.

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Having a link that points to multiple notes is antithetical to the idea of links are we typically understand them (think a web URL, for an example). I doubt that Evernote will implement link that point to multiple notes, particularly when tags work today, and are readily applicable to this sort of problem.

Well, I think you miss the point a bit. The functionality I'm looking for is the ability to quickly open Evernote with a set of notes relevant to a specific project. Today, I can easily create an external Mac alias that (via a Note Link) opens EN with a specific note, but I'm looking for a quick way to do the same with a SET of notes. Tags and saved searches are a way to do from WITHIN evernote, but they dont provide a way to embed a "see this..." type of reference into EN from OUTSIDE the EN application. If the URL syntax supported the ability to reference a smart search then I could create a "see this stuff..." type link in any external app that supported URLs.

As for URLs not supporting >1 page, I disagree: many many URLs reference datasets rather than single pages (think any number of URLs that embody a query or search), and that's all I'm suggesting for EN. Doesn't seem like rocket science to me.

--Tim

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  • Level 5

Hi,

I like the "Note Link" feature of Evernote as it lets me add links to relevant notes in external documents and even aliases I store in project folders. But each Note Link is limited to linking to a *single* note. It would be GREAT if I could create a Note Link that linked to a SET of notes. Specifically, it would be great to allow the creation of Note Links (and hence external URLs) that referenced a saved search in Evernote. That way, I could create external links that referenced pretty much any set of notes I want.

Why? Because often I mix stuff outside of Evernote with stuff within Evernote (external files, projects etc), and it would be nice to be able to easily have an alias I could click that would open EN and show me exactly the set of notes related to that project. Of course, I could create a notebook or tag for the project, but that's not quite as flexible as having an alias I can double-click that will gather just the right set of notes together.

Thoughts anyone?

--Tim

Don't know if it is available with the Mac Evernote, but I find the favorite bar (Shift + F10) in the Windows version to be awesome.

I've posted some of my frequent searches up there. And that lets me shut down the entire left column (F10) for more viewable content area.

My favorite buttons include: Future Stuff, Actions Pending, Notes with no tags, Notes with my saved searches, and a few other dedicated to my setup.

.

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  • Level 5*

Having a link that points to multiple notes is antithetical to the idea of links are we typically understand them (think a web URL, for an example). I doubt that Evernote will implement link that point to multiple notes, particularly when tags work today, and are readily applicable to this sort of problem.

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