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(Archived) REQUEST: iPad notebook list view


DeeEmm

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First off, top marks to Evernote for an excellent app. I use it across four platforms and it makes my life so much easier. However, there are one or two things, that if I could change, for me would make it perfect.

The biggest annoyance for me is the icon / thumbnail style layout that notebooks are displayed in on the iPad. In my many years of computer use I have never once used this type of display on any computer (mac or otherwise) and have a lot of trouble finding my notebooks as a result. Sure they are in alphabetical order, and for most people this is easy, but for me my brain just doesn't filter the info and it simply looks like a big pile of square pictures that all look the same. Crazy but true.

If there was a way / option to display these as a list I would be made up.

The only other change that I would make is to implement scheduling. This way I could get rid of Things and do everything in Evernote. A bit of a change in direction, but we're all entitled to dream. :)

/DM

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A List View for iOS devices has been a long-standing request, almost as long as the EN clients has existed. :(

It is much worse on the iPad than the iPhone because all of the nice space on the iPad is wasted.

Hopefully Evernote will see the benefit of the List view before too long.

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I find the iPhone version very useable, in fact I often find myself reaching for my phone in meetings to find stuff that i simply cannot locate on the iPad. Initially people are impressed that I am so well organised, but when I'm then fumbling for my phone because I cannot find something that impression is soon lost.

Thumbnails are okay for images, but not for notes - they all look the same :D

Replicating the iPhone list style interface on the iPad would be a perfect start; I would be more than happy with that. Maintaining a way to switch between both views would also keep existing pro-thumbnail (image heavy) users happy too.

It's so simple I cannot see why it hasn't been done already. :D

/DM

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So is there any way we can promote this to get it taken on board by the devs? Who do I need to annoy to get this change considered? :D

/DM

LOL. I think it is enough to discuss it. Have you seen the list view in Windows? I am thinking about changing my workflow now in the hopes that someday this kind of functionality will be available on the iPad, Mac, and other platforms. Now, if we could just get the Windows list on the left (there is actually a semi-legit hack to accomplish this!) then I might switch back to Windows :)

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yep. really, i am just blown away by how much more information i can get at a glance on windows. it puts my mac to shame and makes my ipad look like a toy (as i mentioned in another post). this is meant as praise for the windows developers, and encouragement to the android, ios, and osx developers to follow suit. or, better yet, improve on it even more by putting it on the left (instead of encroaching on valuable vertical real estate).

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@GrumptMonkey

LOL sorry, haven't used windows in years, couldn't tempt me to go back there either, I would rather pull my own teeth without an anaesthetic (a similar user experience IMHO), but that is most definitely a discussion for another time and place.

With respect to using Evernote for scheduling tasks. I read your research note RE naming conventions for scheduling posts. I also keep a daily journal and use a similar naming convention. However, I cannot see how such a convention helps with forward scheduling. For example, in Things I can enter a note, assign it to a project or area of interest and set a due date for it in the future. I can also set a date when it will appear in my 'things to do today' list. This helps keeps my forward schedule uncluttered and only displays those tasks relevant to today (one of the great features of 'Things'). But I'm not sure how this can be acheived in Evernote at the moment.

Originally I used 'Things' for all of my note taking but soon found that it was getting cluttered with notes and my things to do list was getting ever larger (when i added a note as a reference, it logically had no due by date so never left the todo list). This is when I looked for an alternate and discovered Evernote and decided to use that for keeping notes instead, freeing up Things to deal only with my TODO's. It would be awesome to combine the two into one app but I'm sure that this would be a veritable nightmare.

Simplistically I guess a due date could be added to a note, and then a feature added to view notes by date (For example view notes due today / tomorrow / coming week / month / etc). Currently a similar effect can be achieved by setting a note with a future date and then viewing 'all notes', but it's not the same.

The way I see it is that Things is a great GTD tool, and Evernote is a great information repository but both are currently needed to achieve my needs.

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@GrumptMonkey

LOL sorry, haven't used windows in years, couldn't tempt me to go back there either, I would rather pull my own teeth without an anaesthetic (a similar user experience IMHO), but that is most definitely a discussion for another time and place.

With respect to using Evernote for scheduling tasks. I read your research note RE naming conventions for scheduling posts. I also keep a daily journal and use a similar naming convention. However, I cannot see how such a convention helps with forward scheduling. For example, in Things I can enter a note, assign it to a project or area of interest and set a due date for it in the future. I can also set a date when it will appear in my 'things to do today' list. This helps keeps my forward schedule uncluttered and only displays those tasks relevant to today (one of the great features of 'Things'). But I'm not sure how this can be acheived in Evernote at the moment.

Originally I used 'Things' for all of my note taking but soon found that it was getting cluttered with notes and my things to do list was getting ever larger (when i added a note as a reference, it logically had no due by date so never left the todo list). This is when I looked for an alternate and discovered Evernote and decided to use that for keeping notes instead, freeing up Things to deal only with my TODO's. It would be awesome to combine the two into one app but I'm sure that this would be a veritable nightmare.

Simplistically I guess a due date could be added to a note, and then a feature added to view notes by date (For example view notes due today / tomorrow / coming week / month / etc). Currently a similar effect can be achieved by setting a note with a future date and then viewing 'all notes', but it's not the same.

The way I see it is that Things is a great GTD tool, and Evernote is a great information repository but both are currently needed to achieve my needs.

Makes sense to me. There are a lot of use-cases out there, and compared to most people, my schedule is not so hectic. A lot to do, but it is pretty much the same stuff with minor variations. Anyhow, if you sort by title and have your dates in front, everything will appear in order 120601, 120529, 120508, 120507. Of course, 120601 hasn't come yet, but because you already have a note for it, you know you have something on that day. IF you open up Evernote every morning and look at your journal, and IF you make sure to look ahead a week or so (and put reminders in your journal notes to do that), then Evernote works fine. It won't send you a text when a meeting is scheduled, or anything like that, but I do like having everything in one place :)

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Yep, it would be great to get a list view like this on iPad:

EN_Win_4.5.5_Sort_by_NB.gif

Yes, that's much better. Can I filter by created date? or only updated date?

You don't just filter, you sort! Oh my goodness, there is so much sorting available. I will stick with my titles, because they are working great, but if we ever get the sorting features of Windows on the Mac, then I will probably be using more tags in addition (maybe not notebooks, but we'll see about that). I am currently wishing that I was on Windows, even though everything else in my life besides Evernote would be like gouging my eyeballs out with a spoon.

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Yes, that's much better. Can I filter by created date? or only updated date?

In EN Win you can sort on 17 different fields. IMO, we should have the same sort options on ALL platforms/clients.

EDIT: oops, I misread your question. In EN Win you can FILTER by both Updated and Created dates, as well as Title, Tags, Notebook, and other attributes.

EN_Sort_Fields_Diff.gif

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You don't just filter, you sort! Oh my goodness, there is so much sorting available. I will stick with my titles, because they are working great, but if we ever get the sorting features of Windows on the Mac, then I will probably be using more tags in addition (maybe not notebooks, but we'll see about that). I am currently wishing that I was on Windows, even though everything else in my life besides Evernote would be like gouging my eyeballs out with a spoon.

Sorry - yes I mean sort.

So the sorting ability is basically the native windows ability as used for sorting grid views?

iOS has similar abilities.

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Yes, that's much better. Can I filter by created date? or only updated date?

In EN Win you can sort on 17 different fields. IMO, we should have the same sort options on ALL platforms/clients.

EN_Sort_Fields_Diff.gif

Agreed.

Thanks for the screenshots :D

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To be clear. When I use evernote on a windows machine I use the web version as the client does not allow installation of third party apps.

That's too bad. Windows is actually pretty tough to use for my work, unfortunately, so I can only look with longing at my PC pals. I have a netbook, but it is kind of painful to use.

Actually, the web version is quite nice for searching, because it shows the filters too! Unfortunately, though, it only has three sort options. Ouch...

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For the most part I use my macbook at that particular clients premises, but for some tasks I simply have to use their machine.

If evernote had a list function for the iPad, I would be able to leave the macbook at home as I can achieve all i need to on the iPad.

Ahhh we can dream :D

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Seeing as my topic title seems to have changed to a [REQUEST] :D

Thought I would post a comparison to help visualise the issue

For clarity. Here's a screen shot from the Evernote blog...

ipad-landscape-notebooks3.png

Looks pretty good when there are images.

For comparison, here's mine...

post-92130-0-79963500-1336449450_thumb.j

No (or very few) images means that I have a hard time finding anything, especially when you consider that I have 567 notebooks!! :blink:

Something along these lines would be a great solution.

EN_Win_4.5.5_Sort_by_NB.gif

Ultimately simply being able to view the notebooks in a list type view is much needed. Either in it's most simple form - as is currently done on the iPhone or perhaps similar to the windows version as above.

/DM

Now. Who has the CEO's email address?? :D

post-92130-0-79963500-1336449450_thumb.j

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I develop for iOS and can tell you that the nice icon view used for showing the notebooks is not a native layout for iOS. This means that someone spent (probably a fair bit of) time 'creating' it.

The designer obviously took their design queue from the album view in the apple iPhoto app as the two look uncannily similar. However, it has neither the dynamics (the nice pinch to open / close albums) or usability.

Hey Phil, are you reading this? ;)

/DM

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  • 3 months later...
  • 2 months later...
  • 9 months later...

It is pretty inconvenient to not have folders in list view. Or maybe it is only the stacks?

Glad that individual folders (eg. A folder on its own) have lists of all notes. Grateful for this and for evernotes.

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  • 3 months later...

Another +1 for an iPad list view from me.  Biggest single complaint - and especially relevant when using EN as a GTD tool.  

 

Seems crazy that such a simple and obvious feature has been omitted from the iPad interface, even after it had been highlighted in threads like this for literally years!

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Archived

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