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Keyboard Shortcut for Tags


DaveS

Idea

Whenever I create a new note the first thing I do is title it and the second is to assign one or more tags. Unfortunately, after typing the title there's no way of getting to the tags box using the keyboard. I have to switch to the mouse to activate the tag box. And then when I'm done choosing tags I have to once more switch to the mouse to move into the body of the text. (I'm back on the keyboard because I type a few characters to quickly find the desired tag(s).)

This is an awkward workflow for something that I do repeatedly all day long.

I'm aware that Ctrl+Alt+T will bring up a modal tag dialog but using this limited dialog is even less convenient than clicking with the mouse.

Can we please have a keyboard shortcut for tags? Maybe Tab/Shift-Tab to jump between parts of the UI? Or, at the least, send the focus to the tags box after entering a note title.

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17 replies to this idea

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37 minutes ago, Don Dz said:

If you are referring to being stuck in the tag field without the mouse since ESC doesn't work, Alt-F4 still works, should take you back to your previous screen without a mouse.

Thanks for the suggestion, Don, but I was referring navigation within the new note window. 

  1. After creating a new note the body of the note has the focus. To enter a title I have to first click in the title field.
  2. Then, I can press F3 to get directly into the tag field. That's great, one click saved.
  3. Finally, I have to click again to get back to the body text field.

Am I the only one who creates new notes this way? It seems like it would be a common workflow.

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4 hours ago, CalS said:
  • F2 will take you from tags or body to title
  • Tab will take you from title to body
  • F3 will take you from title or body to tags

F2 and F3 will also work from the Note List, Search Notes, and the Left Panel, though F2 will need to be pressed twice from the Left Panel.

Tab will move the focus forwards from the Left Panel to Search Notes, Note List, Title, ending at the Body.

Shift tab will cycle back between Title, Note List, Search Notes, Left Panel, and back to the Title, in a loop. 

This could help with using fewer hotkeys.

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On 7/12/2018 at 3:34 PM, DaveS said:

This is an awkward workflow for something that I do repeatedly all day long.

FYI

  • F2 will take you from tags or body to title
  • Tab will take you from title to body
  • F3 will take you from title or body to tags

So your workflow, if you wanted to stay the same,

  1. New note
  2. F2 to enter title
  3. F3 to enter tags, hitting enter after each tag lets you enter the next one
  4. F2 Tab to go to the body.

Or per the above change the focus in new notes to be the title, then F3 and enter tags followed by F2 Tab.

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3 minutes ago, Don Dz said:

One more suggestion, to save you yet another step, you could  accept the system's default decision to make the first line of the body the title, that way you don't have to go to the title field at all. 

That way you also don't have to set the focus to the title field by default.

Another great idea! 

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One more suggestion, to save you yet another step, you could  accept the system's default decision to make the first line of the body the title, that way you don't have to go to the title field at all. 

That way you also don't have to set the focus to the title field by default.

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4 hours ago, gustavgi said:

In options' Note you can change to have the title be in focus when creating a new note.

When you have entered the tag just press Ctrl+B (for Bold) twice (to also Unbold), and you will have jumped to the body text field.

Wow, another little-known secret! Thanks so much! You and Don Dz have really helped me to streamline my daily workflow.

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12 hours ago, Don Dz said:

... if you prefer to do it without the mouse, you could first set the focus of the new note to the title by default in Options, then tab to the body, and finally F3 to the tag . 

Oh, that's great! I had no idea that was an option. 

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8 hours ago, DaveS said:

Thanks for the suggestion, Don, but I was referring navigation within the new note window. 

  1. After creating a new note the body of the note has the focus. To enter a title I have to first click in the title field.
  2. Then, I can press F3 to get directly into the tag field. That's great, one click saved.
  3. Finally, I have to click again to get back to the body text field.

Am I the only one who creates new notes this way? It seems like it would be a common workflow.

In options' Note you can change to have the title be in focus when creating a new note.

When you have entered the tag just press Ctrl+B (for Bold) twice (to also Unbold), and you will have jumped to the body text field.

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On 7/14/2018 at 10:36 PM, DaveS said:

Thanks for the suggestion, Don, but I was referring navigation within the new note window. 

  1. After creating a new note the body of the note has the focus. To enter a title I have to first click in the title field.
  2. Then, I can press F3 to get directly into the tag field. That's great, one click saved.
  3. Finally, I have to click again to get back to the body text field.

Am I the only one who creates new notes this way? It seems like it would be a common workflow.

That makes perfect sense and I do something similar, but if you prefer to do it without the mouse, you could first set the focus of the new note to the title by default in Options, then tab to the body, and finally F3 to the tag . 

It would alter your flow a little, but it would work without the mouse. 

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14 minutes ago, DaveS said:

Unfortunately, the Title-Tag-Text workflow for a new note still requires two mouse clicks. Would sure love to see a way to streamline that.

If you are referring to being stuck in the tag field without the mouse since ESC doesn't work, Alt-F4 still works, should take you back to your previous screen without a mouse.

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3 hours ago, gustavgi said:

F3 is the keyboard shortcut for assigning tags.

Alternatively you can use Ctrl+Q, type the name of the tag, and drag and drop the tag into the note. 

Oh, that's great, thanks so much @gustavgi! Great to remember Ctrl+Q, too, it can be a big help!

F3 means one mouse click less. Unfortunately, the Title-Tag-Text workflow for a new note still requires two mouse clicks. Would sure love to see a way to streamline that.

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3 hours ago, gustavgi said:

F3 is the keyboard shortcut for assigning tags.

Alternatively you can use Ctrl+Q, type the name of the tag, and drag and drop the tag into the note. 

Wow, I was not aware about F3, I don't see it in the main menu or in the right click menu, or in the search grammar help.  I wonder in what help page was that gem buried.

With F3, there is no need for Ctrl-Alt-T, in fact that interface is rather clumsy by comparison with F3.

I forgot about Ctrl+Q, but it doesn't work well in my case, if you type a single character, it only shows searches, not tags, you need to type at least 2 characters to show tags, and even then mixed with searches and book names, so the prefix tagging some of us use doesn't work well with Ctrl-Q.

Needless to say, problem solved.  ? 

EDIT: Had to google it to find the source:

https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/209004807-What-are-the-keyboard-shortcuts-in-Evernote-for-Windows-

 

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Nice, it drives me to implement an even smaller AHK scriptlet that simply opens the Assign Tags dialog and changes its title to a hint-line which type of tags should be assigned to every note. Because I've clustered my tags with prefix charcters, it's very easy to locate tags and mark them by clicking <space>.

Here's the script:

#b::
    Send ^!t
    Sleep 1000
    WinSetTitle, Assign Tags, , Assign Tags:   >When   =Type   !Project   ~From

and the dialog after pressing <windows>B

image.png.665afc46aedf961c459c4530f613ea3a.png

Hope this helps me to not forget important tags in future ?

 

 

image.png

image.png

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Just for fun,  I decided to cook up a quick script to see if it would work, I tested it to work, though it has some specific assumptions (uses Winkey-B as a hotkey, just for this example)

#b::
Send ^!t
Sleep 100
Send -3
; -3 is the prefix of one of several numbered tags I have, you would change this to whatever system you use.
Sleep 100
Send {return}
Sleep 100
Send {tab}{tab}
Sleep 100
Send {return}
return

-----------------------------------------------------------------

The assumption I used is that you want one specific tag repeatedly, this could be modified to wait for manual selection instead.

I have a group of tags organized with the following prefixes:

-1

-2

-3

-4

etc

Hence the way I created the script for simplicity.  Manually, this particular group of tags can be called by typing the single dash character in the tag field. 

I hope this is of some help.

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Thanks, Don. I'll think about using the pop-up dialog box. And your other suggestion about the AutoHotkey approach sounds like it might work even better for me (but not as conveniently as regular keyboard access to the Tags box ?).

Cheers,

Dave

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Strange that the thumbs up thingy is not working . . .

A temporary solution is to mark your tags with special prefixes.  I have some tags that begin with a dash  (-), some with +, other with a period, etc.

Then when pressing Ctrl-Alt-T, click on "Hide unassigned tags" (this will stick so you don't have to click it anymore), after that, every time you click Ctrl-Alt-T again and type your special character, a much smaller group of tags will appear, which you can easily navigate with the keyboard.

If they implement your idea, I would prefer a check box in options for whether Tab/Shift-Tab will stop on the tag field or skip it like it does now, but for now this might work for you.

If you don't mind going to the trouble to create an AutoHotkey script, you can create a hotkey for your frequently used tags, using my suggestion above as a base for reducing the number of key strokes.

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