(Archived) Automatic tag per notebook?

[rogbar 19]

I have a project for which I've created a Top Level Notebook with the name of the Project, and a Sub-Notebook for each of the stages of the project. I have created tags for locations where various elements will take place. Everything in Stage One (my first sub-notebook) will take place in Toronto, so I'd like to have any notes that I put into that Stage One sub-notebook to be automatically tagged "Toronto". I know I can do this manually, but it would be awesome if I could assign certain automatic tags to certain notebooks.

Any way to do this?

[Metrodon 2,184]

Not currently....

[rogbar 19]

Hmmm ... I'm trying also to do this through a Saved Search, i.e., if everything in Notebooks One and Four will be in Toronto, I'd like to save a search for those two notebooks and call it Toronto. But I can't figure out how to do that, either. Saved Searches seem to work only on Notes, not Notebooks.

Any way to do this?

[Metrodon 2,184]

According to this http://www.evernote.com/about/developer/api/evernote-api.htm#_Toc297053079

C.1.1. Scope modifiers

notebook:[nb name] - will match notes in a notebook with the provided name. This must be the first term in the search. Name matching is case-insensitive. Since notebooks have exclusive relationships with notes, at most one notebook can be provided for the search.

You can do a saved search on a Notebook, but not on 2.

[rogbar 19]

Thanks Metrodon. That - I think - answers what was going to be my next question: is there any way to associate one Note with more than one Notebook? In DevonThink, for instance, there's a "Replicate" function which creates a linked copy of a note in different folders. Change the text of the note in one folder, and the change is reflected in the replicated note in the other folder. In MacJournal, a note can be linked to another folder for the same effect. But unless I'm missing something, this doesn't same possible in Evernote ... is it?

[Metrodon 2,184]

No, a note can only live exist in a single notebook. You can copy notes to another notebook, but they aren't dynamically updated if you change one.

[jefito 5,589]

You can also create a link to a note, and store it in another note.

This sort of stuff may can probably done all in one notebook, using tags ("Stage 1", "Stage 2", "Toronto", etc.)

[NightStalker 407]

This is kind of the inverse to my question here:

viewtopic.php?f=38&t=28805

I also was asking about notes being associated with more than one notebook, much like music in iTunes can be used in more than one playlist, as they are just pointers to the master library.

Having the ability to have "Smart Tagging" (tag has rules set to e.g. move notes to a particular notebook) or reverse Smart Tagging (all notes in a given notebook inherit a particular tag(s)) would be VERY handy for many people - includng moi..

But, I gather that's not on EN's ToDo list....

[rogbar 19]

Add my vote for all notes in a given notebook inheriting a particular tag or tags. It would make Evernote the most customizable information manager out there. Right now, other apps (such as DevonThink, Together, MacJournal and perhaps others) have more customizable functions, but none has the cross-platform availability of Evernote. if Evernote had just this one more feature, it would be infinitely more valuable to me. YMMV.

[Metrodon 2,184]

It may be on their to-do list, just not sure whether it would be a priority.

The use case seems pretty narrow, and if you are going to give every note in a notebook the same tag then why bother having a dedicated notebook at all? I would have thought that you might as well just have one notebook and search by tag....

[rogbar 19]

My fault for not spelling this out further ... so here goes.

Imagine I have a project with 100 sequential steps. I'm going to create a Notebook for each step. In each Notebook, I will have various Notes, which can be plans, notes to myself, questions for other departments, image files, research materials, etc.

If I have a staff meeting and we want to discuss Step 35, I just open the Step 35 Notebook and everything related to that step is right there.

But ...

I want to assign various notes to specific Departments responsible for them ... so there'll be two notes in step 1 that are assigned to Production, one note in steps 7 and 33 assigned to Distribution, and several notes in Steps 14, 73 and 98 assigned to Accounting. When I create those Notes I will tag them with the names of the departments I want to assign them to. When I meet with a particular department, I'll do a search for just those notes that are tagged with that Department's name, and I can get a list of all the notes and questions I have for that department, without having to manually open up each step's Notebook and manually look for them. Search for the Production tag, and all the Production notes show up, and I can sort them by Step Number, so we can discuss them in sequence.

So far, so good. But here's what I cannot yet do ...

Everything in steps 1, 6, 14, 39, 53, 68, and 92 will take place in Toronto. Everything in steps 2, 8, 24, 25, 73 and 81 will take place in Detroit. Etc. If I'm sitting down with the Toronto team, I'd like to be able to do a search for just those Notebooks or just those Notes that will be in Toronto. Another way to say that is to say I want to filter all my notes for only those that apply to Toronto. Since I can't attach a tag to the notebooks for those seven steps that take place in Toronto, I would have to manually tag every note in each of those notebooks "Toronto". That adds a lot of extra time ... AND, if we later move a step to a different location, I'd have to manually change each Note. I'd like to be able to automatically have every Note in those seven Notebooks tagged "Toronto" ... and every Note in the 6 Detroit Notebooks to be tagged "Detroit". Etc. But this I cannot yet do in Evernote.

One of the greatest advantages to me of a digital information manager is the ability to see the same information in different configurations. In my old Windows days, I used a program called Ecco Pro, that was beyond ingenious. It was tragically discontinued in 1997, and I have never seen any other program come close to it in its ability to let the user re-configure how the data was displayed. You could filter the data any way you wanted, and was immensely useful for project management, as a personal database, to-do list, etc. Evernote is close ... tantalizingly so ... but in the example I've outlined above, it doesn't quite go the distance for me. DevonThink does, with some effort, but it's nowhere near as elegant and platform-agnostic as Evernote. That's why I'm trying so hard to figure out how to bend Evernote to my needs. All it needs to get there for me - and anyone else who wants to extend its uses in this way - is the ability for every Note in a Notebook to inherit a given tags or tags ... or, to put it another way, the ability to Tag a Notebook, the same way we can Tag a Note.

Hope this makes it clearer ... and thanks for your quick responses.

[NightStalker 407]

Coincidental that you should mention Ecco pro - the guy who wrote that has just written an addon for Evernote - but Windows only, AFAIK.

See here:

viewtopic.php?f=56&t=28913

I think having some of the features of Ecco Pro (which I also used) and InfoSelect (the best flatfile random database EVER - with the fastest search function on the planet) would make Evernote the undisputed king of all note and information managers.

With Smart Tagging and Reverse Smart Tagging as well, of course... And notes able to appear in multiple notebooks....

(Think iTunes -> Master Library -> Playlists with pointers)

And on the Mac, of course...

Don't want much, do we?

[Metrodon 2,184]

But assigning a tag to multiple notes takes seconds. If you know every note in step 1 needs the Toronto tag then simply highlight them all (cmd+a) and drag them over to your Toronto tag. As you add new notes, adding a tag takes milliseconds, most likely you are going to type a couple of letters and then hit return.

Or maybe call your Notebook "Step 1 - Toronto".

Or am I still not getting it?

[rogbar 19]

If all the notes were entered at once and then left in place, you're absolutely right - I could assign a tag to multiple notes in a second.

But tomorrow I might add 14 notes to 14 different folders - and have to manually add a separate tag for each location. And frankly, knowing me, sometimes I'd forget. Or I might add the wrong one. Making it automatic would take not just the extra time but also the human error out of the equation. And if tomorrow we changed where certain steps would take place, I wouldn't have to manually change each Note's tags. I could apply the change to the Notebook and it would be applied to each Note in it.

Basically, I'm just looking for a way to make it easier for me ...

[jefito 5,589]

Basically, it seems as though you've already done your design with the fixed idea that you need notebooks to do what you want, and are now hoping that Evernote can be made to do what it can't do currently (maybe a 3d-party tool exists to do it, but I don't know of any), namely to make every note in a notebook inherit a particular tag automatically. But Evernote doesn't do that, at least today (and I'd bet it won't any time in the near future). And I still haven't seen any compelling reason in your use case to use notebooks over tags. As far as I can see, having every note in a notebook having the same tag is redundancy you don't need. Certainly it's exactly as much work as assigning a tag to a note or group of notes as assigning a note or a group of notebooks to a notebook. You can filter much more easily using tags vs. notebooks. And you can do it today.

Imagine I have a project with 100 sequential steps. I'm going to create a Notebook for each step. In each Notebook, I will have various Notes, which can be plans, notes to myself, questions for other departments, image files, research materials, etc.

Correction: I am going to create a tag for each step. Each note pertaining to that step will have that tag. It'd be okay to have the project in its own notebook, though.

If I have a staff meeting and we want to discuss Step 35, I just open the Step 35 Notebook and everything related to that step is right there.

I just filter on that tag...

I want to assign various notes to specific Departments responsible for them ... so there'll be two notes in step 1 that are assigned to Production, one note in steps 7 and 33 assigned to Distribution, and several notes in Steps 14, 73 and 98 assigned to Accounting. When I create those Notes I will tag them with the names of the departments I want to assign them to. When I meet with a particular department, I'll do a search for just those notes that are tagged with that Department's name, and I can get a list of all the notes and questions I have for that department, without having to manually open up each step's Notebook and manually look for them. Search for the Production tag, and all the Production notes show up, and I can sort them by Step Number, so we can discuss them in sequence.

Yes, this works fine with tags. Select the project notebook, and filter on department.

So far, so good. But here's what I cannot yet do ...

Everything in steps 1, 6, 14, 39, 53, 68, and 92 will take place in Toronto. Everything in steps 2, 8, 24, 25, 73 and 81 will take place in Detroit. Etc. If I'm sitting down with the Toronto team, I'd like to be able to do a search for just those Notebooks or just those Notes that will be in Toronto. Another way to say that is to say I want to filter all my notes for only those that apply to Toronto. Since I can't attach a tag to the notebooks for those seven steps that take place in Toronto, I would have to manually tag every note in each of those notebooks "Toronto". That adds a lot of extra time ... AND, if we later move a step to a different location, I'd have to manually change each Note. I'd like to be able to automatically have every Note in those seven Notebooks tagged "Toronto" ... and every Note in the 6 Detroit Notebooks to be tagged "Detroit". Etc. But this I cannot yet do in Evernote.

Filter on the Toronto tag. Select all these notes, and add the Toronto tag, and with (unfortunately because the Mac doesn't yet support mass tagging, I think, though it should, as the Windows client does), remove the Toronto tag from each selected note.

Consider playing to Evernote's strengths, rather than trying to force it to do something that it doesn't do. Unless I've missed something (very possible, admittedly), your use case works with tags.

[rogbar 19]

Hi Jefito,

You're absolutely right that I'm trying to see if I can squeeze Evernote into a fixed idea I have. I'm new to Evernote, and intrigued by it, so I'm experimenting. Thanks for your thoughtful reply ...

I think giving each step its own Notebook works better for me, because when I filter by Department, say, and a list of notes appears for different steps, I can have a Column showing the name of the Notebook (in this case the steps), which allows me to see in one large view what notes belong to what steps. Otherwise, I'd have to click on each step to see what tag is showing. And if I sort by column (ascending), I get a sequential view of my notes.

That said, I'm taking your advice and assigning everything else by Tag. It is certainly doable, but a bit more cumbersome than it would be if I could apply tags to a notebook. As I said in my previous note, doing it manually - while not terribly time-consuming - does open me up to human error, also known as my constant companion. But I'm giving it a shot to see if it works for me as well as Devonthink and MacJournal do.

Again, thanks for your thoughts.