New Feature: Priority Field

[tpotter 2]

Please add a priority field to notes and let me sort them by priority. The current sort options are useless one you have lots of notes. A priority sort would be much more useful.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Please add a priority field to notes and let me sort them by priority. The current sort options are useless one you have lots of notes. A priority sort would be much more useful.

You could create a tag (gasp!) for your priority items.

The current sort options work wonderfully with my 26,800+ notes.

[jbenson2 2,149]

BurgersNFries said:

You could create a tag (gasp!) for your priority items.

That was my initial reaction as well, but when I tested it, I found I could not sort by the priority level

I created 3 tags based on importance:

Priority A

Priority B

Priority C

Then I searched for tag:Priority*

But I could not sort the results by the priority level.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

But you could search for all three tags & even make that a saved search. Sort results by tag name & there you go.

[jbenson2 2,149]

BurgerNFries said:

But you could search for all three tags & even make that a saved search. Sort results by tag name & there you go.

No, I don't think so. The search seems easy enough. Just search for TAG:Priority*

But the sort is the problem. The tags are sorted alphabetically for each note. Most notes will have multiple tags.

So the note to buy milk tagged with Grocery & Priority B will get listed before the note to see the doctor tagged with Medical & Priority A.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

BurgerNFries said:

But you could search for all three tags & even make that a saved search. Sort results by tag name & there you go.

No, I don't think so. The search seems easy enough. Just search for TAG:Priority*

But the sort is the problem. The tags are sorted alphabetically for each note. Most notes will have multiple tags.

So the note to buy milk tagged with Grocery & Priority B will get listed before the note to see the doctor tagged with Medical & Priority A.

Ok, you could preface Priority tags with underscore. There are all kinds of options to do this. Even notebooks. Put all the priority A stuff in Priority A notebook. Priority B stuff in Priority B notebook. Tag all notes in priority A notebook & priority B notebook with "priority things."

Or...if it's too much of a hassle, even use a real live to do manager.

[jbenson2 2,149]

BurgerNFries said:

Ok, you could preface Priority tags with underscore. There are all kinds of options to do this. Even notebooks. Put all the priority A stuff in Priority A notebook. Priority B stuff in Priority B notebook. Tag all notes in priority A notebook & priority B notebook with "priority things."

Or...if it's too much of a hassle, even use a real live to do manager.

I appreciate the suggestions. I am not keen on adding a Priority Column as suggested by the original poster. I want Evernote to stay trim and lean. I hate seeing all the demands for additional stuff to clutter up the program and increase the chance of data corruption. I hope that Evernote staff are rigorously examining the impact on the program caused by all these exotic requests such as PhotoShop capabilities, or Excel features, or PowerPoint editing. Let a 3rd party handle those items and charge the users who really want it.

The problem with underscore used as a tag preface is that there is no definitive answer from Evernote Help Sources on what special characters are acceptable across all the different devices. I'd like to see something that clarifies the subject and says "Only Alphanumeric characters can be used", or something like that.

The multiple notebook solution is a bit clunky. I try to keep the number of notebooks to a minimum.

The last suggestion is probably the best - use a dedicated Task Manager program.

[JMichaelTest 19]

. . . I hate seeing all the demands for additional stuff to clutter up the program and increase the chance of data corruption. I hope that Evernote staff are rigorously examining the impact on the program caused by all these exotic requests such as PhotoShop capabilities, or Excel features, or PowerPoint editing. Let a 3rd party handle those items and charge the users who really want it. . .

We all have to recognize that with 4M users of EN worldwide, there are going to be users, maybe even lots of users, who want to use EN in ways different from they way we do. One person's garbage is another's treasure. :-)

Well designed databases can handle data structures much more complicated than EN without any danger of "corruption". IMO this is a red herring and I don't see any value in raising issues like this. It goes without saying that the EN development team must ensure such basics as database integrity and robustness when making all changes.

So I don't see any point in arguing against proposed new features just because you don't want it, or out of unfounded fears.

Just my 2c.

[jbenson2 2,149]

Well designed databases can handle data structures much more complicated than EN without any danger of "corruption". IMO this is a red herring and I don't see any value in raising issues like this.

Over the past 4 months, I have had many Evernote crashes. Usually 2-3 every week.

Total of 6 Support Requests with several re-installs and downloads from the cloud and a final suggestion to revert back to 3.1 make me a bit nervous about database integrity.

It goes without saying that the EN development team must ensure such basics as database integrity and robustness when making all changes.

Sorry, but I disagree. I don't consider it as an unfounded fear. It is critical and has should not be swept under the rug.

[JMichaelTest 19]

Over the past 4 months, I have had many Evernote crashes. Usually 2-3 every week.

Total of 6 Support Requests with several re-installs and downloads from the cloud and a final suggestion to revert back to 3.1 make me a bit nervous about database integrity. . .

So the real issue is stability and robustness of the current design, irrespective of adding or not adding new features.

2-3 crashes per week is very scary. :shock:

What EN client/version and OS are you running?

[jbenson2 2,149]

2-3 crashes per week is very scary.

I agree 100%

With the assistance of the Support Staff, I have been all over the map with my Windows 7.0 Evernote. 3.5, to 3.6 down to 3.1 and then up to the beta 3.6 with a complete 3 hour downloads from the cloud each time.

[digital monkey 0]

Wow, I can't believe that some sort of priority sorting feature has been requested here for over 4 years and nothing yet has been done. Anyone listening to customers? This seems like a very basic feature to add, customers are asking for it, and wasting time trying to find work arounds. Why not just do it? Has anyone heard an explanation from Evernote directly?

[jefito 5,598]

I think it's obvious: if it was as easy to do as you seem to think that it is, and they wanted to do it (i.e, thought it was as important/basic/critical as you think it is), they would have done it already. When you make the software, you get to choose what goes in it; users can decide whether or not it suits their needs.

[digital monkey 0]

Yep. It looks to me that they are more interested in making nice office desk accessories and business card wallets than actually making superior software and implementing the features that their customers are asking for. #WrongPriorities #LackofFocus

[JMichaelTX 4,118]

Software developers, just like car manufacturers, get to choose what to put into their product.  However, it is common sense and shown over time that if you don't provide a product that your customers want, you will ultimately go out of business, or become irrelevant.

 

Evernote's search features are a big step backwards to what has been provided for years, even decades.  For a long time now database searches (which is what Evernote does) have provided for full boolean searches, and the ability to include multilevel sorting as part of the search/query statement.  Evernote Searches, and Saved Searches, don't even provide for one level of sorting, much less multilevel.  Yes, you have very limited sort options that can be applied AFTER the search, but that is NOT the same as having a Saved Search that includes the sort.

 

Having said that, I don't really expect Evernote to make any significant changes to their buggy, inconsistent search since they are now off trying to come up with new cool, wondrous features that will "bend the universe" (whatever that means).