(Archived) Feature REQUEST: Prioritizing within notebooks

[Mark923 26]

I did a search for prioritizing and found nothing along these lines.

Would it be possible to add stars or a system to keep the most important notes that I deem more important higher in my notebooks, etc. I have stacks, and notebooks, and within notebooks, I could upwards of 50-100 notes. There are notes I would like to put 5 Stars next to for more importance and to see more readily. If anybody has any ideas for how they do this, it would be greatly appreciated.

thanks!

[Metrodon 2,184]

Tag them.

[Metrodon 2,184]

I'm going to delete the other 2 identical topics you created.

[Mark923 26]

I'm going to delete the other 2 identical topics you created.

Thanks, not sure how that happened.

As for tagging, can you give me an example? When I tag, do i use a tag that literally has *****'s, and this will keep them at the top, superceding notebooks that usually go to the top because of more recent dates?

thanks for the help.

[Metrodon 2,184]

I think that in your use case it would make more sense to put the *****s at the beginning of the Title - then sort by title.

[jefito 5,589]

You can use a tag that befins with '*' (e.g. '*Star'), but I think that that screws up the tag search (at least in the Windows desktop): that is, a search on 'tag:*Star' won't generate the correct search parameters. It's probably better to use '@' or '_' as your special prefix (e.g. '@Star' or '_Star'). These will also sort before normal tags that begin with a letter, so you can sort by tag and these should float to the top (provided you don't have untagged notes).

[Metrodon 2,184]

I think Jefito that he wants to sort his notebooks so that the priority notes show at the top. Certainly, on a Mac I don't believe you can order by tag, only by title.

[jefito 5,589]

For those clients where you can sort by tag, you can take advantage of the sort order by using tag names that sort early to also indicate priority. So if '@Star' sorts before other tags, I can tag important items with '@Star', then pick a notebook, and sort on the Tag column. Voila: notes tagged with '@Star' come out on top, except for untagged notes. It's a bit of a hack, but it works fine on the Windows platform; this is the General Discussion forum and I didn't see Mac mentioned.

[Metrodon 2,184]

I've no idea what client he is on either.

[Mark923 26]

I've no idea what client he is on either.

Sorry, details!

Mac desktop, Android.

Thanks for the suggestions. Yes, I would like to be able to sort the notes within my notebooks by importance, via star values, rather than the date the note was modified, or by alpha.

[Metrodon 2,184]

I think that in your use case it would make more sense to put the *****s at the beginning of the Title - then sort by title.

I'd give this a go - pretty easy to test and see if it works for you too.

[Mark923 26]

I think that in your use case it would make more sense to put the *****s at the beginning of the Title - then sort by title.

I'd give this a go - pretty easy to test and see if it works for you too.

This works well on the desktop, but, alas, does not translate the same way on Android.

[CalS 5,277]

I use a *Follow.Up tag for just this purpose, to get those notes to the top, since I think it is the special character that is first in the sort order.

Did a quick test, in the windows client if you create tags of *, **, ***, ****, and *****, in the list view when you sort by tag, the ***** tag sorts to the top. Not sure, but * may be the special character that sorts to the top.

FWIW.

[jefito 5,589]

My test on the Windows client showed that using '*' in a tag name (or at least as the first character) caused a search for that tag not to work (the '*' was taken as a word separator)

[CalS 5,277]

I wasn't using it in a search, more sorting the results of a search or contents of a notebook. The "*"sorts to the front of the tag list for a note and to the top in list view. Just responding to the initial question.

Of course one could select the "*****" tag and get just those, depending on notebooks or stacks selected.

[jefito 5,589]

Yep, I understand -- I was just pointing out a problem with using '*' as a prefix. I use '_' and '@' for the same purposes; these don't suffer from the same flaw.

[Mark923 26]

I think that in your use case it would make more sense to put the *****s at the beginning of the Title - then sort by title.

I'd give this a go - pretty easy to test and see if it works for you too.

This works well on the desktop, but, alas, does not translate the same way on Android.

UPDATE: Using *, **, ***, etc., does work on my Android, as long as I view snippets by Title and not Date. That's all I wanted, but using ****'s isn't as nice as coded stars in as slick GUI...

This system actually works well for me because now the notes I want up top remain there, like I wanted all along.

[LauraNo 0]

I've been using "A Note To Me" as a notebook where I put the things I want to find readily. Awkward. But when there are more than a few notes in there it's going to be the same old problem, you can't get where you want to go easily.

[JMichaelTest 19]

There are many ways to skin this cat. :wink:

But we need to separate the potential solutions into:

(1) Sorting the note list in some preferred order

(2) Identifying the Notes with high priority

(3) Identifying the Notes that still require some action

1. SORTING

I agree with Jeff that using asterisks in the Note Title can cause unintended consequences.

Plus, it is somewhat limited, and hard to quickly visualize if you have more than a few Notes to view.

One approach to user-defined sorting, is to put a zero-left-filled number at the beginning of the Note Title.

EXAMPLE: 01 - This is my note title

2. SETTING PRIORITY

One approach is to use a set of hierarchal tags like:

Priority
   PRI.A
   PRI.B
   PRI.C
   etc

• 
  [*:1q6snt7s]All of the tags that start with "PRI" are sub-tags to the "Priority" tag.
  [*:1q6snt7s]This makes it easy to see them all together in the Tag list, and to hide/collapse when you don't need to see them.
  [*:1q6snt7s]By starting each actual priority with "PRI." it makes it easy to assign tags.
  Just start typing "PRI." and the system will show you a drop-down list of your choices.
  [*:1q6snt7s]You can then easily filter the Note list by a specific priority.

3. IDENTIFYING NOTES THAT REQUIRE ACTION

Again, you can use a set of hierarchal tags:

STATUS
   ST.Open
   ST.In_Work
   ST.Closed
   ST.Canceled

• 
  [*:1q6snt7s]When you create the Note that requires action, assign the tag "ST.Open"
  [*:1q6snt7s]When you begin work on the action, delete the "ST.Open" and add the "ST.In_Work" tag
  [*:1q6snt7s]When the action is complete, or canceled, delete/add the tag to "ST.Closed" or "ST.Canceled"
  [*:1q6snt7s]Then you can easily filter your note list just by clicking on the desired status tag.

Of course you can do a lot more, like creating saved searches that combine the tags.

For example, you may want a Search for "tag:ST.Open tag:PRI.A" to list only your top priority Notes that are still open.

Hope this helps.

[LauraNo 0]

Yes it helps!Excellent ideas. Now I feel dumb but I did not know you could have sub-tags. This might work much like folders once I get used to it. I named my got-to-get-to-easily notebook A Note To Me so 'A' would be out there. Have a few other mostly empty notebooks doing the same. Will try your ideas and I thank you.