Sort order for symbols in note titles in v10?

[aukirk 367]

Has anyone figured out what the sort order is for symbols in note titles in Evernote 10... or if it is even consistent?  I use symbols before my note titles and notebook names to create the sort order I want, but have not been able to figure out what is going on in v10.  I have been hesitant to put a lot of time into it, since it seems inconsistent and buggy.  Also, it is really hard to test, since the sort order for saved search results takes several minutes to refresh before showing when you resort the list.

At a minimum, I know that they are different.  Here is what I have found from my non-exhaustive testing of Evernote v10.5 (did not test every symbol, but just based on the ones I was already using in notes/notesbooks)

Notebook Symbol Sort Order:  This seems pretty consistent with what it has been in the older version, and how ASCII symbols are supposed to sort with letters/numbers.

• "-"
• "."
• "@"
• "*"
• "/"
• "&"
• "#"
• "%"
• "^"
• "+"
• "="
• ">"
• "~"
• "$"
• Numbers (1-9)
• Letters

 

Note List Symbol Sort Order:  However, when sorting a note list, there are several differences in the sort order in Evernote v10...  Here is what I have seen based on some limited testing when a note title starts with...

 

• "!"
• "#"
• "$"
• "+"
• "-"
• "/"
• Numbers (i.e. 1 through 9)
• "="
• ">"
• "?"
• "@"
• "["
• Letters (A to Z)
• "~"

The odd and frustrating thing about this for me is that "~" is all of a sudden way down at the bottom after all letters, and why are the numbers showing up in the middle?

 

I generally use symbols to sort by title in my saved search results for different sets of reminders (putting the tasks/reminders into the context where I want them on the list).  I guess I could consider replacing all symbols with a series of numbers, or maybe short codes of 2-3 letters based on the context. 

 

[AlbertR 519]

Strange. There was a already similar discussion around tags (before EN-10 😉)

Because of this (and the fact that I cannot remember the sort of special characters at all), I decided to not rely on any order based on cryptic signs. I use a combination of a character to mark the type of anything (but not to sort) and a following number to sort within that type. Example (based on tags):

• ">" generally means "ToDo".  So ">0-actual", ">1-next", ">2-anytime", ">9-wait" are the tags to specify when something is to do.
• "<" generally means "belongs to year". So "<2018", "<2019", ... are tags to define to which era a note belongs to

Another possibility to get notes in list sorted by time is to use the creation and the reminder time carefully. Both can be set at any time and will not be changed automatically by EN with any operation. Doing so, the creation time is always the time, an activity has startet whereas reminder time points to either a specific deadline or the date of an event.

See also:

• https://discussion.evernote.com/forums/topic/116502-sort-notes-using-and-so-on
• https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/114779-using-tags-to-implement-dynamic-todo-lists/

 

[AlbertR 519]

Oups, completely annoying. Here are results from Legacy and EN-10 (both on Windows).

• Note titles marked with "******" are not according to ASCII in Legacy (left screenshot)
  • ... it makes some sense: "-" is very important, "~+<=>" might be used to weighten something
     
• But sort oder on EN-10 is neither ASCII nor Legacy-mode... (on the right)
  • cannot find a reason for moving most characters to other positions
  • only "_" might be by thought: it is the only special character that is NOT ignored while searching - it's a very special character for EN since ever 😉

 

[aukirk 367]

@AlbertR thanks so much for sharing... can you clarify which is Legacy vs v10?

[AlbertR 519]

It's simply the old version that you are used to use before EN-10 😉

https://help.evernote.com/hc/de/articles/360052560314-Alte-Version-von-Evernote-installieren

Hope this links works for you as being outside Germany... If not, ask Mrs. Google "evernote download legacy"

[PinkElephant 8,066]

It works - if it looks strange and does not read in nice plain English, language settings are at the bottom of the web page. It switches the content to the chosen language as well.

[aukirk 367]

No, I understand what Legacy is, I meant which of the two screenshots with the list is Legacy and which is the new Evernote v10?  Re-reading your comments, I think you mean the left is Legacy and right is Evernote v10.  I misread before