3 replies to this topic

[Tachi]

One feature I have wished for in Evernote since switching to using it as my primary note taking solution is auto-linking between notes in the same notebook. When the title of an existing note exists within another note the text becomes a link to it.

This is a feature I love in Tomboy (which I used when taking notes in college). It allowed me to take notes in class with very little effort because I didn't have to maintain a lot of structure in my notebooks as it automatically centralized all information on any idea and linked to information whenever it was mentioned. Each idea would be its own note, and in my lecture notes I would mention the title/name of an idea and the text would automatically link to it.

A contrived example:
To set the stage I took both software engineering and a program analyst course in college. And this example takes place in a lecture dedicated to software design and theory.

I would be taking notes in the lecture about a specific program we're examining. The professor would mention several design patterns used in the program as we examine the source code. Instead of explaining these patterns in my lecture notes I simply record the name of the pattern. If I already have a note on a pattern mentioned in my notebook the text in my lecture note would automatically become a link to the note explaining the design pattern. If the note for the design pattern did not already exist and I create a note at a later date by that name my lecture notes would then automatically link to them.

[GrumpyMonkey]

Hi. Welcome to the forums!

I am not sure it is technically feasible, because Evernote has a lot of platforms, allows for notes with the same titles, and does not yet support note link creation on mobile clients. Basically, it is a very different model than personal wikis. However, I would sure like to see this feature as well

[Tachi]

Thanks for your reply and your welcome.

That is very true and it may not be possible given the current implementation. And from my impression of Evernote you are exactly right in saying that Evernote wasn't intended to have a wiki style to it. However I figured I would give my suggestion as this is the only feature, in my opinion, in Tomboy that makes it superior to Evernote for note taking. If Evernote did (could) adopt this feature it would completely eclipse that personal wiki niche making pretty much all other note applications obsolete by comparison. But as you say it just may not be possible.

[GrumpyMonkey]

Yep. I agree. I really like the ease of use you find with VoodooPad (iOS and OSX), BladeWiki, and other personal wiki products. The generation of links to every instance of a word or phrase once a note with that word or phrase is created could be a powerful way to create "synapses" in our "external brains". Let's hope it becomes possible someday. Do external brains dream of electric sheep?