Notebook Stacks to display notebooks rather than notes

[Sarah Farrell 5]

When selecting a notebook stack from the side menu or notebook screen - show the list of the notebooks it contains, rather than the combined list of notes within them.  

[Mike P 3,072]

45 minutes ago, Sarah Farrell said:

When selecting a notebook stack from the side menu - show the list of the notebooks it contains, rather than the combined list of notes within them.  

I'm not sure how that would look. You can already see the notebooks in the stack by simply using the expand arrow to the left of the notebook name

Alternatively you can use the full notebook menu.

[Sarah Farrell 5]

1 hour ago, Mike P said:

I'm not sure how that would look. You can already see the notebooks in the stack by simply using the expand arrow to the left of the notebook name

Alternatively you can use the full notebook menu.

Thankyou.  I'm aware of the list expand ability, but...  Expanding the stack the sidebar or notebooks section isn't what I "intuitively" do... I naturally/intuitively click on the title of the subject I'm looking for.   Also, the expanded list is mid-way in a long list of folders - so is visually more cluttered, and a little more cumbersome. 

It is a suggestion, not a bug report.  It isn't show-stopping, but it would be helpful and nice. 
It would be that little bit quicker and more intuitive... for me at least... to click the title of the main topic, be presented with sub-topics in the main window - focused away from the rest of your stack/notebook list... and drill in.

For example - I have a knowledgebase stack - with sub-notebooks split by major topic - each with several notes inside 
then I have a projects stack - with notebooks for each projects, and all the drafts, meetings notes, clips etc related to that project inside
and so on and so forth
 

[Mike P 3,072]

4 minutes ago, Sarah Farrell said:

It would be that little bit quicker and more intuitive... for me at least... to click the title of the main topic, be presented with sub-topics in the main window - focused away from the rest of your stack/notebook list... and drill in.

Have you experimented with using the full notebooks screen (click "Notebooks" in the sidebar or alt+ctrl+6 on Windows)? Thats much bigger so it might be easier to work with. 

We're just users here so it's normally best to send your feedback directly to EN using feedback@evernote.com 

[VincentC 389]

I second @Mike P' suggestion to try the full notebooks screen, @Sarah Farrell.   I wasn't using it much, was barely aware that it was there.  Then I almost stumbled on it when I was looking for a note.  I now find it really useful and am usually there a couple of times a day.  I find it worth the click to go there, rather than to try to manage notebooks from the more "normal" three column sidebar view.  It especially helps me to navigate around stacks.

Vinnie

[Sarah Farrell 5]

Yes I have, I'm clear on what we can do now - but it's still a mental disconnect to not click on the notebook name... would prefer to click on the title and drill in to a focused list of notebooks, rather than a expand arrow to scroll a list within a list.

It's an irritation - not a game breaker.

What we've got works.. just is not as clean as it could be.

[VincentC 389]

Yup, it's definitely creating new muscle memory.

Vinnie

[PinkElephant 9,015]

@Sarah Farrell From what I read you overdo with notebooks, and probably don’t use tags.

Take your knowledge base example: You say you have a stack for the KB, and then a notebook for each topic. Which naturally creates a lot of notebooks.

My idea would be to have a single notebook as knowledge base, holding all KB notes. You define the categories by applying tags to the notes. This drastically reduces the number of notebooks, and allow to categorize each note by several tags.

With projects I only create notebooks for current projects, mainly because I can easily share them. Completed projects receive a project tag, and are moved to a project archive folder. Or I export the project notebook as ENEX file, and save with the project documentation.

[Sarah Farrell 5]

I do use tags.
I'm slowly migrating 18 years worth of OneNote notes over to evernote so, there's a lot of information.

Thankyou for your input

[Jon/t 1,750]

7 minutes ago, Sarah Farrell said:

I do use tags.
I'm slowly migrating 18 years worth of OneNote notes over to evernote so, there's a lot of information.

Thankyou for your input

Will be interesting to hear how you get on with the move... pain points, things that worked well etc. Come back and tell us when you're done.

[VincentC 389]

And there are lots of us here who take the alternate approach to what @PinkElephant suggests...  I myself use Notebooks as my primary organizational method and generally find I don't need tags (and I find them a bit cumbersome to work with).  For instance, as of today I have a whopping two tags -- and that's only because I haven't gotten around to deleting one of them that I don't need anymore.  I do use them occasionally - why not?  they are an asset - but I find organizing by notebook suits my personality more.

And this is not to restart a tag vs notebook skirmish, but just to point out that both can work and different approaches work for different people.  There's probably a PhD dissertation for some psychology grad student looking for a topic in researching which personality types prefer tags and which notebooks... 😁

 

Vinnie

[Sarah Farrell 5]

Haha yes I agree - there is no such thing as "one organisation method fits all".

I'm migrating from OneNote specifically because I want to use tags... to better link ideas and information across my notes... it is something that OneNote is poor at.

For me - the basis of my notetaking and information storage works by organising into stacks, notebooks and notes... and then using tags to reference and find ideas and information across those notes. 
Also, I've had an issue over the last couple of days where tags have disappeared (I've literally sat and watched them disappear off my notes!), and searches/filters pulling the wrong information (for example, a search for information tagged as "vehicles" pulled up information on blood-pressure).  - so I'm less trusting of tags as the first-level route for finding information.  If tagging goes awry, you'll always be able to find what you look for if the notes are organised well in the first place.

Right now - Evernote has won me over enough to warrant changing app after 18 years of solid use... because of it's tagging and filtering.
But its presentation at the basic stack/notebook/notes level is more cluttered, clumsy and not as intuitive (hence this suggestion)
 

[VincentC 389]

Your approach seems perfectly sensible to me.  When I use tags, I use them to do a similar thing.  One way that I reduce my need for tags is to include the word I might have used as a tag in the note title.  Then the  quick switcher function, Cntl-Q on the Windows client or Cmd-J on Macs, will surface that note. But whether you do this or not, as someone just starting to use Evernote intensively, I suggest that you play with this quick switcher - it's really a simplified and very functional version of search.  Here's an older thread about it:

Vinnie

 

[Sarah Farrell 5]

Thankyou - I'll take a look at that