(Archived) 250 notebooks 99 saved searches?

[mdave 1]

Now that we have 250 notebooks, may we please have more saved searches? This is especially critical for getting any utility out of the mobile interface, especially for users with a large number of notes.

I currently use a "phone" tag for each notebook which gets applied to notes that I determine that I want to access mobile. I create 2 searches for each notebook: one for the notebook, and one for the notebook items with a "phone" tag. It's not practically to use an all notebooks phone tag (although I do), because even the number of those notes is too high to manage mobile.

I also have a few handfuls of GTD tags and other tags that are content and context related.

I've not come close to maxing out notebooks or tags, but I am on a daily basis hitting the sync error: too many saved searches.

Thanks.

[jefito 5,589]

I'm guessing that you won't see support for more searches until Evernote provides a way to organize them better, similar to the 100 notebook limit not changing until Stacks were implemented across the major clients.

~Jeff

[jbenson2 2,147]

My solution for organizing more more than 250 saved searches:

The most popular searches are in the normal Saved Search area. My first Saved Search finds the following 4 notebooks:

I have 4 notebooks that contain saved searches for:

• Data + Time
  Things
  Places
  People

The Date + Time Notebook contain searches like:

Personal info created in November or December 2008

• notebook:personal created:20081101 -created:20090101

Notes created between 1st April 2008 and 31st March 2009

• created:20080401 -created:20090401

Relative to Wednesday, 31 October 2007, 13:30:56

• day - would evaluate to: Wednesday, 31 October 2007, 00:00:00
  day-1 - would evaluate to: Tuesday, 30 October 2007, 00:00:00
  day-14 - would evaluate to: Wednesday, 17 October 2007, 00:00:00
  week - would evaluate to: Sunday, 28 October 2007, 00:00:00
  week-2 - would evaluate to: Sunday, 14 October 2007, 00:00:00
  month - would evaluate to: Monday, 1 October 2007, 00:00:00
  month-1 - would evaluate to: Monday, 1 September 2007, 00:00:00
  year - would evaluate to: Monday, 1 January 2007, 00:00:00
  year-1 - would evaluate to: Sunday, 1 January 2006, 00:00:00
  

The People notebook contains family members as well as many politicians

To find missing family tags

• 
  JLB* -tag:"Fam-JLB" -tag:x
  DLB* -tag:"Fam-DLB" -tag:x
  BEB* -tag:"Fam-BEB" -tag:x
  PBB* -tag:"Fam-PBB" -tag:x
  WPB* -tag:"Fam-WPB" -tag:x

• notebook:Politics Ahmadinejad -tag:"Ahmadinejad Mahmoud" -tag:x
  notebook:Politics Biden -tag:"Biden Joe" -tag:x
  notebook:Politics Dodd -tag:"Dodd Chris" -tag:x
  notebook:Politics Geithner -tag:"Geithner Timothy" -tag:x
  

[mdave 1]

Thanks for sharing that. How does that help you when using the mobile interface? I only know of the saved search popup as a means of filtering from there.

As far as any concern developers may have over the user managing a long flat list of searches, I would rather deal with a longer list, than with not having enough to even assign one per notebook. The expedience of one click for frequently-used searching certainly outweighs the encumbrance of having to make a couple of flicks of the scroll wheel to hone in on the desired search.

Because the mobile interface only supports filtering by saved searching and not tagging, and not complex searching (filtering on a saved search) I've currently configured:

44 relative date searches

6 relative date GTD searches

5 GTD context searches

5 GTD tag searches

That leaves me less than 40 for all of my other uses.

[jbenson2 2,147]

Thanks for sharing that. How does that help you when using the mobile interface?

I don't have a problem with the mobile or the web versions because I don't use them.

• The screen is too small on a mobile
  6 minute load time for Firefox handicaps the web

[mdave 1]

Thanks for sharing that. How does that help you when using the mobile interface?

I don't have a problem with the mobile or the web versions because I don't use them.

• The screen is too small on a mobile
  6 minute load time for Firefox handicaps the web

I'm posting using a WAP browser on an Env Touch phone while sitting in my doctor's office. I sure appreciated that I was able to pull up the address on EN mobile... and that I was able to use a saved search for the "notebook name" and "phone tag".

[jbenson2 2,147]

I'm posting using a WAP browser on an Env Touch phone while sitting in my doctor's office. I sure appreciated that I was able to pull up the address on EN mobile... and that I was able to use a saved search for the "notebook name" and "phone tag".

That is a nice feature. Unfortunately, my Blackberry phone display is too small for my eyesight. But I do carry an iPod Touch and it has Evernote. I have some of my important notes (family address note) as a Starred item so I don't need WiFi. After looking at the iPhones, Droids, and other smart phones, I think I will change to a new phone next year. A good part of my decision will be based on comments like yours.

IBM posted a video of what to expect in 5 years from now.

The mobiles will be everywhere. It looks like Evernote jumped on the mobile bandwagon at the right time. It won't be long before people start asking for a 3-D version of their notes and videos on Evernote.

[mdave 1]

I have been exploiting mobile data since the first generation of Motorola email pagers in the 90s. I was the first T-Mobile customer on a black and white Sidekick in Colorado, and after three generations of that device, migrated to the Windows Mobile platform. Totally out of character, when the iPhone came out, I abandoned full PDA, and downgraded straight past smart phone to the dumbed-down BREW OS.

So, my mobile experience is for the most part limited to web-based interfaces for email, calendar, RSS, and now, Evernote. And I use the web interface to manage my GTD, as a text note-taker (with a favorites hyperlink to Quick Note), and to access stored files (usually for emailing to colleagues and clients). (I could mention that I use a web page of my mobile favorites as my home page on the phone with links to all of these sites.)

Using a saved search for each notebook and a second saved search for the notebook with my "phone" tag, I can either filter to load the entire notebook, or just those notes that I had previously processed as likely candidates for mobile access.

This is a list of my GTD searches (which is really a combination of date searches and formal GTD searches).

This gives me fairly good flexibility in the mobile interface in nailing down, with one click, notes by date (by day for one week in the past and future, and by week for five in the past and future) and by frequently-used GTD sets, but is hampered significantly by the current 99-search limit.

[jbenson2 2,147]

Wow! That is quite a GTD program you have there.

[mdave 1]

You've created a monster.

[mdave 1]

I'm revisiting this post to ask why we are restricted to 99 saved searches. I run up against that all the time and always have to delete searches that I value. So... why 99?

I'd like to celebrate a 250 saved search limit too

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I'm revisiting this post to ask why we are restricted to 99 saved searches. I run up against that all the time and always have to delete searches that I value. So... why 99?

I'd like to celebrate a 250 saved search limit too

You may want to take a look at text expanders. I don't know what's available for your mobile but I know they exist for Windows desktop & iPhone. Probably not the best option, but something you can use for now.

[jefito 5,589]

I'm revisiting this post to ask why we are restricted to 99 saved searches. I run up against that all the time and always have to delete searches that I value. So... why 99?

Again, the 99 is very likely arbitrary, but like the earlier 100 notebook limit, is a probably more function of usability concerns than anything else (they only lifted the 100 notebook limit once they added stacks, making it easier to organize notebooks). A straight list of 250 saved searches would not be particularly user friendly...

~Jeff

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I'm revisiting this post to ask why we are restricted to 99 saved searches. I run up against that all the time and always have to delete searches that I value. So... why 99?

I'd like to celebrate a 250 saved search limit too

In addition to what Jeff said, there's this, too:

viewtopic.php?f=30&t=15477&p=85957&hilit=limits#p85957

Although the post is specific to upload limits, I would imagine the same concerns may apply to increasing the number of saved searches, too. The cross platform capability that is Evernote's niche also means that something that seems like it may be a simple change (and maybe it is) on one platform also needs to be compatible with all the other platforms. EN has "partially" released stacks & shared notebooks (meaning they currently only work on 2-3 clients). But at least you don't lose data b/c of that. You simply either can't access shared notebooks on your iPhone or you can't view stacks on your iPhone (but you can view/access all the notebooks). But if you had 250 saved searches on the Windows client, then until 250 saved searches are rolled out onto iPhone, there are 150 saved searches you can't access from the iPhone. Probably a hit or miss thing, meaning each user would not be able to specify which 99 showed up on their iPhone. You get the 99 that you get. So this seems to me, to be a feature that cannot be partially released.