Jump to content

(Archived) Feature Request - Outline/Tree View of Notes


Recommended Posts

I have used Ecco in the past and I have appreciated the efficiency of the Tree view of items.

I think a collapsible/expandable Tree view of the notes in Evernote would be a killer addition.

You could browse thousands of notes efficiently with a Tree view and it would add some organizational structure to the notes.

I don't think it would be hard to add the parent/child data to your schema.

thanks

Rand

Link to comment
  • Level 5*
I have used Ecco in the past and I have appreciated the efficiency of the Tree view of items.

I think a collapsible/expandable Tree view of the notes in Evernote would be a killer addition.

What would you base the hierarchy on? Isn't what you're looking for the same as adding folders, which doesn't seem to be something that Evernote is interested in? Or would you want a scheme based on currently available fields (a la group-by in MS Outlook, maybe)?

Evernote's already a killer app, in my opinion.

You could browse thousands of notes efficiently with a Tree view and it would add some organizational structure to the notes.

Maybe, but Evernote does pretty well with tags and searches.

I don't think it would be hard to add the parent/child data to your schema.

If you say so. Evernote certainly has the technical chops to do it, but I think that it's more a matter of the organizational design that they choose to employ.

~Jeff

Link to comment
it would add some organizational structure to the notes.

The tags & notebooks already do this. Also, the plain ol' basic search is pretty powerful, IME.

Although her physical beauty has been challenged by some, in another thread, many of us think EN is already killer.

Link to comment
  • 5 months later...

The original suggestion here is awesome! I find it difficult to believe that understanding how this request is so incredibly logical. Sure, if you are a light user, a few notebooks with a few hundred notes may be easy enough to search, but when you use it to have gigabytes of information, and it is set up to find only what you can remember to search for, you start losing access to information that you have stored.

Tree view essentially is mind mapping. I can follow a process that matches how I think. I don't think in 2 columns with thousands of tags. I think in branches. So with tree view, I can store store stuff right where it belongs and can be found again logically. I have over 3000 notes, and I am always looking for a product that offers a more logical, intuitive storage structure, without sacrificing the aspects of Evernote that are killer. Mind mapping for iPad is maturing, but the note capability is still in it's infancy. Evernote is not "killer" for me, I'm a professional who needs functionality, and I find it fairly functional. It seems to ne that the responses I've found on this subjects are somewhat jaded, and downplaying the lack of tree structure. Anyone who uses a computer knows darn well how needed nested folders are. If you could have only one folder depth in your computer it would be endlessly frustrating,

Another reason for tree structure, is for training purposes. If you use Evernote as a resource for employees to learn what you know, they cannot be expected to know what tags to search for. They need tree structure to lead them down lanes of thought, to remind them of available choices.

I have no intention of talking EN down, I desperately hope these suggestions help make a better product. To be honest, now tha Onenote is available for iPhone, you are not very far in the lead in my mind. The deciding factor for me is that I can get videos into my notes through EN.

Some please consider tree-view, or nested view seriously and quit responding with, "what do you mean?". If it just isn't going to happen, then tell us. If you don't understand what I'm saying then just imagine on your computer, going to Computer>User>Documents, and then imagine that you can have no more foders, and that you have 3000 documents from 100 different programs, and then find that one document that you forgot the name of. Wouldn't it help if you could look throuh more folders...Evernote>ideas for improvement>TREE VIEW

Link to comment
The original suggestion here is awesome! I find it difficult to believe that understanding how this request is so incredibly logical. Sure, if you are a light user, a few notebooks with a few hundred notes may be easy enough to search, but when you use it to have gigabytes of information, and it is set up to find only what you can remember to search for, you start losing access to information that you have stored.

FYI, I have over 38,000 notes in Evernote & my database is over 10 gb. I rarely have trouble finding notes I'm looking for. Occasionally, I do but that's normally b/c I didn't tag or use a keyword. IE, I have used a particular app for many years & the name has had a multitude of variations. NeatReceipts/Neat Receipts. Neatdesk/Neat Desk. Neatworks/Neatco, etc. So I use a tag for that so I don't have to include all the permutations as keywords or search on every permutation.

And yes, if you're going to be successfully organized, you do need to be able to remember (somewhat) what to search for. That's the way it is for every system, including manual/hard copy systems. Sometimes that's achieved by simply having a "I don't know where to file this" folder (manual/hard copy system) or notebook/tag (Evernote). I'm sure there are people who manually file hard copies of things & totally forget about it & they only run across it by manually going through all the folders. IMO, if you totally forget about it & only find it that way, then, while it's often fun to run across those things, the reality is that it really wasn't that important.

Anyone who uses a computer knows darn well how needed nested folders are. If you could have only one folder depth in your computer it would be endlessly frustrating,

You really do need to think outside the box. It has been illustrated many times on this board how using tags produces the same results as using nested "folders".

Link to comment
  • Level 5*
The original suggestion here is awesome! I find it difficult to believe that understanding how this request is so incredibly logical. Sure, if you are a light user, a few notebooks with a few hundred notes may be easy enough to search, but when you use it to have gigabytes of information, and it is set up to find only what you can remember to search for, you start losing access to information that you have stored.

The hierarchical vs. tag structure has been discussed many times on the forum; forum search can help you find more on the topic if you're interested. To summarize my take: you do not need a strict hierarchical storage structure to be able to retrieve information from the note database -- tagging systems are more flexible in my opinion. I speak as someone who works in a world where our base source code tree is gigabytes in size, so hierarchies are very familiar. Point a new developer at it, and they'd be lost for weeks, probably months trying to figure out how everything hangs together; even experienced folks sometimes get stuck clicking up and down directory trees trying to find what they're looking for. Tags give you the ability to create associations between disparately stored but conceptually related items. You cannot replicate that with strict hierarchies. That being said, you can go a pretty far distance modeling hierarchical organization using tags.; a number of frequent forum users have described their systems here (jbenson for one).

Tree view essentially is mind mapping. I can follow a process that matches how I think. I don't think in 2 columns with thousands of tags. I think in branches. So with tree view, I can store store stuff right where it belongs and can be found again logically. I have over 3000 notes, and I am always looking for a product that offers a more logical, intuitive storage structure, without sacrificing the aspects of Evernote that are killer. Mind mapping for iPad is maturing, but the note capability is still in it's infancy. Evernote is not "killer" for me, I'm a professional who needs functionality, and I find it fairly functional. It seems to ne that the responses I've found on this subjects are somewhat jaded, and downplaying the lack of tree structure. Anyone who uses a computer knows darn well how needed nested folders are. If you could have only one folder depth in your computer it would be endlessly frustrating,

Funny you should mention mind-mapping. My idea of how the mind works is not strictly hierarchically at all, but rather associatively. Tree-view is *not* mind-mapping to me -- I think of neural nets, not neural trees. I can't think of anyone who thinks strictly hierarchically (that's not to say that they don't exist, and it can certainly be handy to be able to think that way in my line of work). The lack of tree structure is not limiting to me, so I don't downplay it; however, I do recognize that tags are not for everyone, so Evernote might not be the best tool for everyone.

Another reason for tree structure, is for training purposes. If you use Evernote as a resource for employees to learn what you know, they cannot be expected to know what tags to search for. They need tree structure to lead them down lanes of thought, to remind them of available choices.

Interesting application, but I doubt that bare trees give a novice any more information than a tag tree. Tags are usually created because they represent some important concept; Evernote's tags can also be organized in trees as well. I am guessing that a novice would appreciate conceptual understanding of a bunch of notes rather than just a strict hierarchy.

Some please consider tree-view, or nested view seriously and quit responding with, "what do you mean?". If it just isn't going to happen, then tell us. If you don't understand what I'm saying then just imagine on your computer, going to Computer>User>Documents, and then imagine that you can have no more foders, and that you have 3000 documents from 100 different programs, and then find that one document that you forgot the name of. Wouldn't it help if you could look throuh more folders...Evernote>ideas for improvement>TREE VIEW

Not sure where you get the bit about "what do you mean?": hierarchy and tree views are pretty well understood by everybody, Evernote included. Actually, when you think about it, the Yahoo way of web search (mainly hierarchical) failed, and the Google way (associative) won; that's over billions and billions of files.

By the way, BurgersNFries and I are users just like you, not employees -- we don't have input into the Evernote development process. But we've been around awhile, and I can say that I've not heard much, if any, interest on Evernote's part in implementing tree views, unlike, say, note linking, which they have talked about for a long time, and delivered recently. My usual approach to features like this is that you need to learn to use Evernote as it exists today, rather than hoping on a feature that may never come.

Link to comment
If you don't understand what I'm saying then just imagine on your computer, going to Computer>User>Documents, and then imagine that you can have no more foders, and that you have 3000 documents from 100 different programs, and then find that one document that you forgot the name of. Wouldn't it help if you could look throuh more folders...Evernote>ideas for improvement>TREE VIEW

This comparison between notes in Evernote and files in the computer is very interesting to me.

I am enjoying the intuitive, non-hierarchical structure of Evernote very much. On my computer there are about 20,000 files, arranged in folders, subfolders, sub subfolders, etc. You know it. Sometimes reaching a file by digging down the tree is logical but frustrating. So I asked myself, if the pooling system works so nicely with notes, why not with filenames. At that time there were only heavy, slow indexing programs, until I discovered Everything ( http://www.voidtools.com/), the analog of Evernote in the filename world. Small, lightning fast, indexing of filenames only (without the file content), updating on the fly, and free too..

So I started to use the non-hierarchical approach on my file system. Right now I work with not more than 3 levels of folder hierarchy, mostly 2 levels, but I use more thoughtful file names than before, each with several keywords, such that it can be found by Everything. Compared with my faithful file manager, I am using Everything more and more frequently for locating files, and liking this very much. Thus it seems that it is more a conceptual question than technical, and the pooling concept can be applied, at least partly, to the file system in our computers as well.

Link to comment

This comparison between notes in Evernote and files in the computer is very interesting to me.

I am enjoying the intuitive, non-hierarchical structure of Evernote very much. On my computer there are about 20,000 files, arranged in folders, subfolders, sub subfolders, etc. You know it. Sometimes reaching a file by digging down the tree is logical but frustrating. So I asked myself, if the pooling system works so nicely with notes, why not with filenames. At that time there were only heavy, slow indexing programs, until I discovered Everything ( http://www.voidtools.com/), the analog of Evernote in the filename world. Small, lightning fast, indexing of filenames only (without the file content), updating on the fly, and free too..

So I started to use the non-hierarchical approach on my file system. Right now I work with not more than 3 levels of folder hierarchy, mostly 2 levels, but I use more thoughtful file names than before, each with several keywords, such that it can be found by Everything. Compared with my faithful file manager, I am using Everything more and more frequently for locating files, and liking this very much. Thus it seems that it is more a conceptual question than technical, and the pooling concept can be applied, at least partly, to the file system in our computers as well.

I AGREE!!! I always have to chuckle when people say that the current EN structure is fine if you have only a few notes but that when you get thousands, you won't be able to find anything! The exact structure they are asking for is the structure that is such a hindrance when you have a lot of files, IME.

Thank you for the link to Everything. I've used Locate32 (which sounds like it does the same thing as Everything) for years and love it. I use it very often. I have several true drives & three virtual drives (Truecrypted containers mounted as drives). It's so nice to type bnf.exb in the Locate32 search bar & within seconds, find any & all occurrences of that file! But Locate32 doesn't update real time & with all my drives & files, it takes ~15-20 minutes to update the database. No biggie, but kind of a PITA if you need to get something quickly that is a newly added file from the last time you updated the database. So I will take a look at Everything. Thanks again!

Link to comment
  • 2 weeks later...
BurgersNFries wrote:

..So I will take a look at Everything. Thanks again!

BurgersNFries,

I glad I could help you for a change!. I do not know how you and Jeff find the time for writing all those posts. But the support that I get from the two of you is invaluable to me, and may I add to all of us in the forum. The deep and wide knowledge, the eloquent writing, and the kindness and patience even when replying to rude posts - all that is so much appriciated! :)

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

smagliva wrote:

In the Everything forum there was an interesting post about organizing files based on tags alone: http://www.skytopia.com/project/article ... ystem.html

smagliva,

Thanks for the link. "Towards A Single Folder Filesystem" - that's what we really need. However people are so used to the hierarchical folder system.. Even in EN there is much left to be done in tools for true, effective keywards/tags search. So I am afraid that it will take some time before we will see file managers fully adapted to the single-folder approach. But on the other hand, in our fast everchanging world - who knows..

Link to comment
  • 2 years later...

I started this thread a couple of years ago.

The advantage of the tree structure is that it allows you to "SEE" the organization of notes efficiently and navigate through the notes efficiently.

 

It is not about searching,  Evernote does that very well now.

 

I recently heard about RIghtNote which offers a tree view of notes and offers a sync with Evernote.

I will have to test it out.

 

I still wish Evernote would offer a TREE VIEW of NOTES.

Link to comment

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...