Rename notebooks/stacks

[jrgreensboro 9]

you have to use a right click menu item to rename a notebook in windows evernote app which is silly as the old version used the universal F2 key or click in the field action to rename.

 

please revert to using F2 as a universal rename for notebooks/stacks etc.

[PinkElephant 8,170]

If I would make a ranking, this would probably go first in the category „1st world problems“.

Just train your muscle memory a little - we who switched years ago don’t want to un-learn ours  !

[jrgreensboro 9]

muscle memory to rename something is F2 universally in windows applications.

this right click means having to have your fingers leave the keyboard for either trackpad or mouse -- not very productive for something that was figured out long ago in just about every other windows app including the late great Evernote legacy app.

could make it an option to set or provide both as many software programs so that.

unfortunately, I live in the first world, so yes a first world problem. as evernote isn't seeming to solve any second or third world problems it also lives in the first world

 

 

[PinkElephant 8,170]

…

Mac User …

[gazumped 11,698]

39 minutes ago, jrgreensboro said:

please revert to using F2 as a universal rename for notebooks/stacks etc.

Where?  F2 will retitle a note,  but in the Notebooks page,  selecting a notebook shows you a list of all the notes in that notebook.  There's no way to tell the app that you want to change its name.  Likewise selecting the notebook in the left panel shows you its contents and F2 jumps to the note displayed to change that title. It's a design choice. Maybe not a great one,  but it's not causing any major issues...

[jrgreensboro 9]

yes easy,

 

Yes you highlight the notebook (just like the legacy app) and you get a list of notes.

 

but note that the notebook is highlighted -- just press F2 and the cursor would jump into the title of the stack or notebook just like windows explorer.

 

legacy app worked exactly like that -- highlight the notebook in left hand pane, got a list of notebooks -- press f2 and voila -- you are in edit mode in the notebook name. press enter and name is updated.
a universal UI behavior in just about any application you look at. and was universal until the new version of evernote. they had it figured out in the original version of evernote -- so developer knows  how to do it.  their developer choice was "its working, let's break it"

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,971]

1 hour ago, gazumped said:

Where?  F2 will retitle a note,  but in the Notebooks page,  selecting a notebook shows you a list of all the notes in that notebook.  There's no way to tell the app that you want to change its name.  Likewise selecting the notebook in the left panel shows you its contents and F2 jumps to the note displayed to change that title. It's a design choice. Maybe not a great one,  but it's not causing any major issues...

In this v. 10 works just like Legacy. Where are the Legacy enthusiasts when you want one? 😄😁

[jrgreensboro 9]

41 minutes ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

In this v. 10 works just like Legacy. Where are the Legacy enthusiasts when you want one? 😄😁

I'm using v.10.63.3  and doesn't work like legacy.  f2 does nothing.

i think the legacy enthusiasts have given up and have gone to notion, obsidian, bear, tana, scrintal, ..... (insert here)

unless i misunderstood your comment

 

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,971]

In the left panel, open the notebooks drop-down. Click on a notebook. Press F2 -- the focus shifts to (and selects) the title of the note displayed. Works the same for any method of getting a list of notes.

[jrgreensboro 9]

7 minutes ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

In the left panel, open the notebooks drop-down. Click on a notebook. Press F2 -- the focus shifts to (and selects) the title of the note displayed. Works the same for any method of getting a list of notes.

Thanks

 

in legacy desktop version of evernote -,  click a notebook on left side pane, click f2 and you are dropped into the notebook name to edit the notebook name -not the note itself. 

new version of evernote (after the total relaunch) no longer does this -- f2 now works like <tab> used to work in legacy version -- takes you to the first first note in the note list. why use f2 when tab works so intuitively like most UI in most desktop software versions

 

am trying to migrate to to new version from legacy desktop simply because i know legacy will eventually go away -- so stuff that is still missing in new version is jarring.
 

 

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,971]

3 minutes ago, jrgreensboro said:

am trying to migrate to to new version from legacy desktop simply because i know legacy will eventually go away -- so stuff that is still missing in new version is jarring.

Understood. I'm just reporting what I see. I'm afraid right-click just is the method for renaming notebooks now--also not unusual as a Windows convention IMHO, but definitely a change.

[Mike P 2,661]

If you open the three dots menu associated with a particular notebook in the notebook view the menu is

F2 is clearly mentioned as having the ability to rename a notebook, but as others have pointed out, how do you "select" the notebook so you can use F2? The answer is that you need to use tab to cycle through the elements of the screen. If (and it's not trivial) you can get a blue selection box around the notebook, F2 will work.

So I think the request is better expressed as "make it easier to select a notebook so we can use F2".

I've seen a very similar behaviour to this for renaming tags using F2.

[jrgreensboro 9]

Hey @Mike P
Thanks for the screenshot.  That's what i see in the evernote legacy/classic/demised desktop version, for sure, but in the new desktop version 10.63.3

when i press the three dot menu i get this (no f2 as an option)   I think this was confirmed by @Dave-in-Decatur

[Mike P 2,661]

16 minutes ago, jrgreensboro said:

but in the new desktop version 10.63.3

when i press the three dot menu i get this (no f2 as an option)

That looks like the sidebar to me not the main notebook view. Click "Notebooks" in the sidebar (at the top of your screenshot).

I am also on 10.63.3 and my screenshot was taken using that version.

[jrgreensboro 9]

@Mike P

able to replicate that behavior -- many thanks, that solves the missing "f2)  but definitely a convoluted way to get there and not as handy as the old sidepanel notebook F2 edit in place.
in this new behavior - easier to just use the right click three buttons in the side panel and rename  because say you have 100 notebooks so you have to navigate to the top notebook view to find it -- scroll back down to the 100th notebook -- hit tab numerous times to highlight it and then press F2. again -- taking away the F2 in the sidepanel means easier to remove your hand from the keyboard and then right click the notebook name in the side pane.
talk about breaking something that wasn't broken

But again, thanks for the patience in tracking that down even if it doesn't solve the issue.  it at least answers one question.

 

[PinkElephant 8,170]

You can‘t rename 100 notebooks in one go. You need to do it one by one anyhow. How you can select one is neglectable, because it‘s not very efficient anyhow.

I think you are just using notebooks wrong. By using tags, you could reach your goal much easier and faster. Notebooks are not meant to be created and renamed as a volume task, done over and over again. Notebook structures tend to be rather static - it‘s tags that should be used for dynamic ordering and selection. 

[jrgreensboro 9]

@PinkElephant

Sorry, i wasn't clear.

the new way of doing this with an F2 key s pretty inefficient  The way i use notebooks means they often need to be renamed- see tiago forte's P.A.R.A. system for example.

not sure you can judge how i use evernote as we don't know each other well enough for that

have used it since it was a beta program ages ago. so have a pretty good idea of what it is/was/should be again.

 

there are places to embrace tags but lots of articles of why tags are tags and notebooks are notebooks but i don't need tags except as a global taxonomy  notebooks are a better way to organize what i'm doing .  using Tags don't behave the same way in all platforms -- different on the web versus clipper versus desktop app versus mobile and different enough that they shouldn't be oprimary way of organizing.  There is no validation on tags so i bet you'll find lots of tags for the same thing spelled different ways as one example.

but notebooks pretty much behave the same on all platforms.

but back to F2 and renaming notebooks.
. I'm not renaming 100 notebooks at a time, but lets say the current notebook i do want to rename and that i'm currently working on is 100 down from the top in a stack. to rename that in the new system with f2 as described by @Mike P -- (thanks for the tip mike) i have to navigate all the top notebook view to get a notebook list, then find a way with multiple tabs to highlight it and then press f2 -- which kinda defeats the purpose of a shortcut F2 key -- That's all i'm saying. the new way is a convoluted way to get the f2 key to work -- much easier to have it rename editing in place in the LH  side panel as it used to do . As it is now, F2 is pretty useless, you are forced to remove your hand fro the keyboard to right hand click the notebook name and rename as that's easier than the new way..
 

[PinkElephant 8,170]

We agree on the fact that notebook renaming is not very efficient.

You want to make it more efficient. I think it needs to be inefficient, because it is always restricted to a one-by-one operation. You can tag a note with multiple tags at once, and you can manipulate one of the tags without touching the other. With notebooks, its a single notebook for each note, always. This means the notebook is a bad designator for notes, especially when used in a dynamic system.

I would never use notebooks for this purpose - tags are made for this, and they work much better for what you describe. And being build for it, they are more efficient as well.

I don‘t use my Ferrari to move logs around either.

[Mike P 2,661]

3 minutes ago, jrgreensboro said:

i have to navigate all the top notebook view to get a notebook list, then find a way with multiple tabs to highlight it and then press f2 -- which kinda defeats the purpose of a shortcut F2 key -- That's all i'm saying. the new way is a convoluted way to get the f2 key to work -- much easier to have it rename editing in place in the LH  side panel as it used to do . As it is now, F2 is pretty useless, you are forced to remove your hand fro the keyboard to right hand click the notebook name and rename.

What you do have in the full notebook view which you don't have in the sidebar is a search specifically for notebooks. So provided you remember roughly what the notebook is called you can quickly reduce your 100 notebooks to just a few or even one. 

[jrgreensboro 9]

I

Just now, Mike P said:

What you do have in the full notebook view which you don't have in the sidebar is a search specifically for notebooks. So provided you remember roughly what the notebook is called you can quickly reduce your 100 notebooks to just a few or even one. 

thanks, -- that's a good workaround --  no easy way to get to that full notebook view however -- you have to go to the sidebar to open that view -- hence the use case of being pretty far down the notebook list (100 notebooks deep working on a syllabus for example) and having to get that notebook view open -- you have to go back up the sidebar to open that view (again taking your hand off the keyboard to get there) Unless i'm missing something easy to get there. 

 

that full notebooks view doesn't come up in Global ctrl-Q search -- nice if it would.


appreciate the help very much -- did learn something useful.
 

[Mike P 2,661]

6 minutes ago, jrgreensboro said:

no easy way to get to that full notebook view however

The shorcut is supposed to be alt+ctrl+4 (Windows) although it has a history of not working for me. You can reassign it and I've done that in the past and the new shortcut worked.

[jrgreensboro 9]

4 minutes ago, Mike P said:

The shorcut is supposed to be alt+ctrl+4 (Windows) although it has a history of not working for me. You can reassign it and I've done that in the past and the new shortcut worked.

Perfect -- just remapped that keystroke as it didn't work at first -- awesome -- thanks for your diligence and patience and helpful advice. 

 

[Mike P 2,661]

I like that the insertion point is in the search box when you open the window. I am irritated though that once you've searched, it takes 10 tabs to select the notebook you have found! Am I missing something?

[Grant837 114]

20 hours ago, gazumped said:

F2 will re-title a note,  but in the Notebooks page

@Dave-in-Decatur  No longer for me... in Windows. Used to.  A bit ago, I complained it only worked in the notebook view, and not the left sidebar (where right click showed F2 should work, btw, but they took that away recently).... now its at least consistent, and not as good - F2 is so much quicker and used the keyboard only - no switching back and forth to the mouse to rename a notebook.  Too bad.

I came here to also add, that they also change it so when you rename a notebook in the sidebar, that the original text is not provided to edit... you have to re-type the entire notebook name again... that is even worse!

[Mike P 2,661]

2 minutes ago, Grant837 said:

(where right click showed F2 should work, btw, but they took that away recently).

Interesting. F2 still appears in the tag right click menu where again it only actually works in the main tag window.

[jrgreensboro 9]

22 minutes ago, Grant837 said:

@Dave-in-Decatur  No longer for me... in Windows. Used to.  A bit ago, I complained it only worked in the notebook view, and not the left sidebar (where right click showed F2 should work, btw, but they took that away recently).... now its at least consistent, and not as good - F2 is so much quicker and used the keyboard only - no switching back and forth to the mouse to rename a notebook.  Too bad.

I came here to also add, that they also change it so when you rename a notebook in the sidebar, that the original text is not provided to edit... you have to re-type the entire notebook name again... that is even worse!

ugh, so literally "rename", not "edit" --  although i've noticed that behavior in a few apps that are progressive web apps -- it must be an artifact that even though evernote has  a "desktop" app, it's behaving like an "online app" -- the new version of microsoft outlook desktop is going to go thru a similar disaster in trying to create a progressive web app on the desktop -- lots of the desktop shortcuts and means and methods are being totally demised and discarded -- unfortunately it's the power user faithful who are affected the most.

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,971]

So to me the sum of all this is that if you rename notebooks a lot, having to use the mouse rather than F2, or hit Tab 10 times to use F2, is a wasteful distraction. Granted. From my perspective--and my use of notebooks does not include renaming them constantly as an integral feature--renaming a notebook is inherently time taken away from actual working, so that needing to move my hand from KB to mouse is as nothing in that landscape. I can't remember the last time I renamed a notebook. I understand that in some approaches to efficiency, notebook renaming is part of the regular flow. I truly don't want to know why, TBH. 🙂 But I doubt that Evernote is going to prioritize getting their interface adjusted to suit those approaches, unless there are literally 20 million people adopting them in the next few months. With this I conclude my input.