(Archived) Notebook value question

[boberang 0]

If Notebooks were seperate database files, or could be open/closed individually, or had their own tags that only showed up in the list of tags when you selected the notebook I wouldn't ask this question.....but what is the value or reason for using notebooks over tags? As it exists now, isn't a notebook just a tag? Other than being in the "notebook" category, how is a notebook named "projext x" different than just using a tag named "project x" other than just a superset tag?

[engberg 89]

Notebooks are "exclusive" containers ... every note has exactly one notebook. This is similar to "folders" on operating systems or mail clients. Some people prefer to organize information based on this type of metaphor. Every note is IN a single notebook, so there's a strict separation between my "Cooking" notebook and my "Work" notebook. When you make a note, it is always placed into one notebook, so you don't ever have "un-notebooked" notes. When I have a notebook open, all of the notes I create just go into that notebook without me having to assign them explicitly.

Tags are "non-exclusive" labels that you can stick on a note. Notes may have any number of tags, including zero. Some people prefer to organize information based on this type of metaphor. Some of their content is unclassified, others has 5-10 different tags to aid in finding the note.

I know lots of people who use folders for organization and never use tags (e.g. in mail clients), and other people who throw everything into a single folder and have hundreds of tags to find their data. You should definitely use whichever of these UI metaphors suits your needs the best.

[boberang 0]

Thanks for the response. I probably used the wrong terminology but my calling notebooks a superset tag meant that they are unique, as you put it, as exclusive containers/folders such that there is a 1 notebook for every note. This is convenient, especially for those who use the folder filing system exclusively. I hope Notebooks gain in power though (you can open/close notebooks, have notebooks synch to some devices but not others, etc.) so that they are more unique yet.

Thanks again for the clarification. In Onenotes I have over a dozen notebooks with dozens of sections each and am trying to figure out how best to replace that with Evernote. It will likely be a hybrid of tags and notebooks but not sure in the current beta state that hybrid will be efficient.

I know Evernotes is going for a vast repository of information for your second brain, but just dumping all that data into a few containers and relying on only some tags (otherwise the list of tags would be vast) and searches is a scary proposition!

[engberg 89]

Thanks for the feedback. I definitely agree with you that organizational tools are very important. On the other hand, there's always a trade-off between the time you spend up front (organizing) compared to the time you save later (searching). It might be worth spending 4 hours organizing my notes if it saves me 8 hours of searching time later, but not if it only saves a total of 1 hour.

We definitely want to give people powerful tools for organizing, but we are also putting a lot of effort into the other side of the equation, to make searching faster and easier without hours of up-front work yourself. This means improvements in the image searching, full-text searching, attribute searching, result sorting, etc.

Phrased another way: Google lets me find the web page I want out of billions(?) of pages on the internet using a single text search box, in spite of the fact that I haven't tagged any of them in advance. (I've basically stopped bookmarking ... I found the page through Google once, I'm sure I can find it again.)

We'd like to provide similar power for you to find one of your thousands of notes without necessarily having to pre-organize them (if you don't want to).

[boberang 0]

Yes, I understand that (use search to find stuff) is the direction Evernote is going. And I surely hope it gets there, as the promise land of dumping all my stuff in a few containers, without much work organizing, and still being able to find what I need when I need it is very appealing.. With your analogy though somebody has tagged many of those web pages (metatags) which older search engines used or in the case of google at its base level, popularity by other sites linking to a site, to aid in the search results. With evernote there will not be that many tags and the search will be more beholden to the content of the note without the aid of many tags or other sites linking to gauge popularity. The trick won't be to show me the dozens and dozens and dozens of notes that meet a search criteria, the trick will be to show me those notes in such a way that what I am looking for is on top so I don't have to weed through all of them. I know, I know, the automatic attributes will help some here too. :-)

I hope it works. I didn't use Evernote 2 as I selected OneNotes over it for the common sense (to me) 3 ring binder over one big long tape methodology, but Evernotes 3's ability to be everywhere (home computers, work computers, over web at a coffee shop, on my mobile phone, etc. etc.) with the ability to get content to it easily is honestly a complete killer compared to other products. So if the organization gets a little better and the holy grail of don't sweat the organization but just search works, I and may other users will never be able to remember living without it!!!!

[ruudhein 29]

We'd like to provide similar power for you to find one of your thousands of notes without necessarily having to pre-organize them

I like that. I respect that. What I don't get is that knowing you're not a startup and already have the features we ask about you feel the only way to deliver the feature you describe (already present in 2.2) is to remove all other features from 2.2

The code is there man.... The auto assigned categories are there, working in EN3. You just don't expose that code and, once found, want to remove it.

To stick with your Google example... Did you notice they have a link to Advanced Search? Did you know I can search intitle, allintitle, inanchor, allinanchor, site:, filetype, - (minus) and + (plus) searches, phrase based and mix all of these?

Google doesn't think that to provide a search box or an I Feel Lucky box they need to remove advanced search: you do.

PS: still liking EN3. Great note taking application. Of course I already use Google for that. Free. No 100MB limit. Can even use https without calling it a premium feature.

[iafanasyev 1]

To stick with your Google example... Did you notice they have a link to Advanced Search? Did you know I can search intitle, allintitle, inanchor, allinanchor, site:, filetype, - (minus) and + (plus) searches, phrase based and mix all of these?

Just for completeness sake: Evernote also does support that: intitle:, tag:, todo:, created:, modified:, etc. prefixes in search queries, with optional "-" for negation (e.g. -tag:foo), phrase based (either exact word matches or word prefixes) and the mix of all of these in a single query (or saved search).

[ruudhein 29]

Thank you for the admonishment. I stand corrected. Juvenile as I am as a blogger and customer I had for a moment suspected I really do want those category features. Silly me.

I'm delighted at the explanation as to why you remove features, talking about them as if the development in the past would somehow impede your development of a less rich feature set right now.

[boberang 0]

I'm delighted at the explanation as to why you remove features, talking about them as if the development in the past would somehow impede your development of a less rich feature set right now.

I am probably stepping into a hornets nest I don't belong in and I have no ties to Evernote (other than trying it out a few years ago and again now in the beta to see if it meets my needs) but do have to say that having features could definitely extend the development timetable, even features that are currently existing. The more features you have, the more you have to test and keep working with new versions. Normally if they are features you want to keep in the product you don't see this as impeding development, but if they are features you don't see as your focus letting them slide out of the product for now (so you don't have to continually unit and system test them) can make sense. In no way am I suggesting they (Evernote as a compnay) are doing the right thing by apparently dropping organization features, just like I can't say adding them would support their plans for the product. I am not them.

I just know that as users you let a company know what you want. They have to take that information and weigh it against what they see as the market for their final product. 10 years from now maybe it will be obvious they made the right or wrong call.

I am also saying that it wouldn't be a matter of just leaving the code in to do the features of Evernote 2.2 in Evernote 3.0. That code would have to be tested and retested to ensure it works with the new enhancements of 3.0, and that takes time away from working on what they want 3.0 to be. As users we would NOT be happy if they left code in 3.0 for power users and then discovered later on there were problems with it and Evernote didn't have development staff to throw at the problem. In other words, they can't even half heartedly put (or leave in) features they don't want to fully support or don't see as their goal target. Doing so would be impeding development.

[ruudhein 29]

You're right... and I'm reacting to harsh to people who probably don't have a say in the whole thing either. My apologies, iafanasyev.

I'm passionate about EN. Have been recommending it to people since 2005? 2006? It's one of 2 essential knowledge apps I use intensely, daily.

I never needed "just" a note taker.

Anyway, it's clear that no amount of talking, requesting or moaning will change anything so.... whatever, I guess

[boberang 0]

Hey, you never know. If they have indeed decided to forego the organizational aspects as much as some fear they could always change their minds. And maybe towards the end of beta or start of rollout they will have another beta with more tools. Who knows.

BTW, what is your other essential knowledge app?

[ruudhein 29]

http://www.thebrain.com -- took some playing around with as at first I kept trying to impose hierarchical tree structures on it

[salgud 12]

http://www.thebrain.com -- took some playing around with as at first I kept trying to impose hierarchical tree structures on it

Those of us complaining about EN should look at what's going on over at "TheBrain". Their developers have no idea whatsoever how their users use their product.

[ruudhein 29]

Huh?