(Archived) How to avoid duplicate file names ?

[Mata Hari 15]

EN allows duplicate file nams. You can have all your notes named f ex "Evernote"

I don't like this. how can I avoid it ?

[jefito 5,589]

Don't give your notes the same name?

(No, there is no way that I know of, short of sorting by title and renaming the dupes.)

[jbenson2 2,147]

I don't worry if there is a duplicate in my web captures.

The vast majority of notes I create are done with my ScanSnap scanner.

The scanner adds a date/time code which prevent any duplicates.

[Mata Hari 15]

Don't give your notes the same name?

I have a few hundred notes and I cannot know which has the same name

There is no command "find duplicates", and sorting / checking all is tedious

[gazumped 11,664]

I'm up to a goodly total number of notes now mainly because I'm ruthlessly converting from a paper based existance to totally electronic. I started by naming the notes carefully and at length (having seen a post that said long descriptive note names are *good*) but while I'm in coversion mode I now just date them, or allow the scanner to date them with a name. Even this is probably redundant, because the creation date is going to be the same date give or take a few seconds. However my paper filing is as haphazard as you might expect, and I'm sure I've scanned more than one copy of some documents already. My take on this? - Unless I start to bump my head on my Monthly Usage limit, I'll get everything into EN first and worry later when I come to search the content. (I am much more careful about tags though, which is a whole other subject..)

I already plan to weed through the notes in a year and delete those where letters (forinstance) are over 5 years old, unless there's a fantastically good reason to keep it. If I find on searches that I get too many hits, I'll weed through the notes and rename / retag or take out any that shouldn't have been included. Obvious duplicates will also come up then and be eliminated.

As has already been said here in a number of responses, I think the important thing is to get on with saving data into EN. That's a first cut. "Gardening" the result so it performs well and generally looks nice is going to be an ongoing task. Not only will the data get more organised, but you'll be more familiar with EN's features and capabilities, and those nice folks @support will have added some new ones by then anyway...

With EN's search capability your only main question needs to be "can I find this again?". If the content of a scanned / cut / recorded note isn't totally self-explanatory, add a brief typed headline in the note text to remind you of the content or the context; or tag it into a standard category; or then give it a longer heading than just the date.

[jefito 5,589]

Truth be told, note titles don't matter to me all that much (and when they do, I just change them). I use searches to find my stuff, but only rarely the intitle: search term.

It there some special reason why duplicate note titles are such a hindrance to you?

[Mata Hari 15]

It there some special reason why duplicate note titles are such a hindrance to you?

I never heard this question ! I could counter: is there a special reason why duplicate note is of NO hindrance to you ?

To me it is a hindrance. It happens that I make notes in note A (let's call it A) and then I am searching for it next day. But I am searching in a different A note! very surprised that I do not find it.... but if there are 3 different notes all named A, then where should I search ? o.k you say, why not search the word. I may do that, but often I do not remember the words. In any case, this is a nuisance in any program, not just EN.

But I know this psychology of program users: those who use a program long time, they like it as it is and cannot criticize it.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Truth be told, note titles don't matter to me all that much (and when they do, I just change them).

Agree. However, I do use the intitle search quite often. But when I do find multiple notes on the search, as Jeff stated above, I simply change the title. IE, if I have multiple business cards from the same company but for different employees/agents as well as some invoices from the same company, the titles will look something like this:

Donley - Jim Nasium (a/c guy)

Donley - Joe Blow (plumber)

Donley - Chuck Roast (appliance repair guy)

20101002 - Donley - dishwasher repaired

20100703 - Donley - a/c checkup

I could also easily weed out the business cards from the invoices by either using tag:"business cards" or -tag:"business cards". Or even by notebooks, since business cards go into my contacts notebook & invoices for home maintenance/repair go into the notebook for that home.

It there some special reason why duplicate note titles are such a hindrance to you?

I never heard this question ! I could counter: is there a special reason why duplicate note is of NO hindrance to you ?

To me it is a hindrance. It happens that I make notes in note A (let's call it A) and then I am searching for it next day. But I am searching in a different A note! very surprised that I do not find it.... but if there are 3 different notes all named A, then where should I search ? o.k you say, why not search the word. I may do that, but often I do not remember the words.

No, I'd say sort on created date & then of the three notes, you'll be able to quickly find out which one is the one from yesterday. But then I'm sure you knew that already .

[Mata Hari 15]

I could do that but it adds an unnecessar complication to the user, don't U agree ?

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I could do that but it adds an unnecessar complication to the user, don't U agree ?

No. That's pretty much like saying walking over to a filing cabinet & having to open it & find the right file is adding an unneccessary complication to the user. Technically, I guess that's correct. But unless & until technology exists where one can simply think of what they want & it magically appears in their hand, there will be a certain amount of "work" involved with being organized, capturing & retrieving information.

I think you should simply bag Evernote entirely & hire a personal assistant.

[Mata Hari 15]

There are many such details and although each of them are small extra jobs and memmory burden for the user, taken together are very annoying. But maybe you like to work more than necessar whereas I don't

For the time being I use EN because I see no better note program. WHich does not mean that EN is good. It means only that the alternatives are not worth bothering about.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

There are many such details and although each of them are small extra jobs and memmory burden for the user, taken together are very annoying. But maybe you like to work more than necessar whereas I don't

I consider a few extra seconds of time to make a few keystrokes not a "burden" and certainly much more efficient than a paper filing system. Since it's such a burden for you...

I think you should simply bag Evernote entirely & hire a personal assistant.

[/troll feeding]

[Mata Hari 15]

As I said, and I will not repeat again, this is just one out of many details. Taken together, I give EN a low grade.

But I will not hire you as my "personal assistant". Game over.

[Metrodon 2,184]

BnF, I'd ignore this chap if I were you. His post history indicates more than a tendency for trolling.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

BnF, I'd ignore this chap if I were you. His post history indicates more than a tendency for trolling.

Agreed. I normally don't get sucked into his trolling. Today was an exception & I'm done.

Besides, I ran out of troll food.