(Archived) REQUEST: Option for child tags to inherit parent

[minkusgm 1]

I am incredibly frustrated that Evernote does not allow for a hierarchical structure for organizing notes. I understand that some people have bought into their tag system, and that it works great for them. But evidenced by the fact that this is a continuing issue brought up in the forums, it is unclear to me why Evernote is being so stubborn.

It seems a folder structure could be implemented with no disruption to those who love to tag. Some ideas:

1. Eliminate the limit on # of subfolders.

It seems silly to even limit it.

2. Give users the option of making child tags automatically inherit parent tags.

I don't just want to be able to find anything in less than 5 seconds. I want to click a folder/tag that will display all of my notes on a particular subject in dated order.

Ideally, tags could represent horizontal relationships between notes, with a folder structure being the vertical relationship. But people can use Evernote however they want. It just confuses me why Evernote would chose to categorically reject by far the most common and popular way to organize just about anything.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Both topics have been discussed at great length already. Please search the board on the topics if you want more information.

In a nutshell, it doesn't appear either of these will be implemented any time soon, if ever.

It just confuses me why Evernote would chose to categorically reject by far the most common and popular way to organize just about anything.

Possibly b/c their system scales/works better & is more flexible that the old school nested folder system. Possibly b/c there isn't just one way to do things.

[minkusgm 1]

Yes, it has been discussed frequently. I am reposting to continue to bring attention to the fact that many people are very unhappy about this. Without it, I have not and will not use evernote.

[jefito 5,589]

Evernote knows about it, trust me. They've chosen to do something else. Would it bring more people to Evernote if they added it? Maybe, but how many is the question. I don't miss either facility that you mentioned myself, but I can see their utility. Evernote just doesn't seem to be going there.

[minkusgm 1]

I'm sure they do. Think of this post as a protest

[May 268]

Yeah, this would be a useful option in some cases. It's not essential for me personally.

The best workaround is to encode hierarchies in tag names, e.g. provided by jbenson2 here

[minkusgm 1]

Isn't the ridiculous amount of discussion found in these forums ample evidence that change is needed? No one should be spending anytime searching thru forums trying to figure out how to use evernote. Software should be intuitive.

Maybe Evernote has surveys showing that the majority of users prefer NOT to have a hierarchal structure capability. But I highly doubt that...

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Isn't the ridiculous amount of discussion found in these forums ample evidence that change is needed?

It always amazes me when someone tries to use this as an argument. The reality is that the people posting on this board are a tiny subset of those actively using Evernote. And those vehemently for sub notebooks are a subset of those. Why? Because most people don't sign up to post to a board to post positive things such as "Hey, I'm happy with no sub notebooks".

Without it, I have not and will not use evernote.

Fine. If this is a deal breaker for you, then Evernote is clearly not for you. (shrug) To use Jefito's phrase, "That's why there's chocolate & vanilla."

[May 268]

There is an app for this on Mac btw

http://www.philipbrocoum.com/?p=1233

[minkusgm 1]

The reality is that the people posting on this board are a tiny subset of those actively using Evernote. And those vehemently for sub notebooks are a subset of those. Why? Because most people don't sign up to post to a board to post positive things such as "Hey, I'm happy with no sub notebooks".

I'd argue that most people who see this as a deal breaker just don't use evernote lol. Regardless, this is an empirical question we don't have the answer to so w/e.

Point is: if a decent chunk of people want a feature (true here) that 1) has no risk of bloating the software (true here) and 2) does not adversely affect others users (again, true here) and 3) is not costly to develop (true here), I think the decision would be easy.

[minkusgm 1]

Fine. If this is a deal breaker for you, then Evernote is clearly not for you. (shrug) To use Jefito's phrase, "That's why there's chocolate & vanilla."

Of course it's not for me, that's why I'm trying to change it......

I absolutely dislike these responses.

[jbenson2 2,147]

that 1) has no risk of bloating the software (true here)

True?

Major disagreement here.

Got any comments from Evernote to support this comment?

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

One change that would really help is to ADD to the Search grammar the provision to include all child Tags of the specified Parent Tag.

Example Search Expression: tag:Evernote+
The change is the + symbol at the end of the Tag name.

This would include all Notes who have a tag of the parent "Evernote" OR any sub-tag of "Evernote".

Assume I have a hierarchical Tag like this:

 

Evernote

• Mac
• Win
• iOS
• Android

Thus, if I have a note with only a tag of "Win", it would be included in the search for "tag:Evernote+".
Similarly notes with only a tag of "Mac" would be included.
Any note that has only a sub-tag of "Evernote" would be included.

I have shown a simple two-level hierarchy above. It is often useful to have a tag hierarchy of several levels.

This change would have minimal impact on the Evernote client:

• The only impact is on the Search engine
• No UI changes (other than to allow the use of "+" symbol in search expression)
• No EN structure changes
• No impact on those who don't want to use it

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Of course it's not for me, that's why I'm trying to change it......

You would be better served to find something that works for you.

I absolutely dislike these responses.

Well, hey. It's a public message board. You're free to post your opinion (which you have) and so are we (which we have.) Additionally our posts are based upon long experience with Evernote & the employees, so it's not just something pulled out of our, uh, the air. And nothing says you have to like the replies you get.

And since this thread is going trollish (rehashing the same ol' same ol'), I'm out.

Nothing new to see here.

[May 268]

I agree this is getting trollish.

Some of my thoughts, anyway:

1. Frankly, I personally don't think that adding this feature would bloat Evernote. Maybe that's just me.

I mean just make notebooks to have unlimited sub-notebooks and that would be it. What's the problem? Why make a limitation in the first place?

If there's some particular reason then I'd be curios to know.

2. Encoding hierarchies in tag names is a good workaround and it's easy to apply. I've captured over 150 notes today but created only about 5-10 new tags. How much effort would it take to copy/paste parent tag names into child tag names (5-10 times)? A lot less than writing this post. Not to mention that I don't even need true hierarchy for most of my tags in most cases.

[minkusgm 1]

I can't think of one good reason to not add unlimited sub-notebooks. JMichael's idea is also really awesome, and again can't think of a legitimate reason to not implement it.

(Didn't think this got very trollish until BurgersNFries's reply... but she's gone lol.)

There is a reason these requests are being rehashed time and time again, and there's no reason not to rehash them unless Evernote unwisely makes it clear they won't change anything.

[jbenson2 2,147]

1. Frankly, I personally don't think that adding this feature would bloat Evernote. Maybe that's just me.

I mean just make notebooks to have unlimited sub-notebooks and that would be it. What's the problem? Why make a limitation in the first place?

If there's some particular reason then I'd be curios to know.

My concern was regarding the OP's 2nd point:

2. Give users the option of making child tags automatically inherit parent tags.

I have not seen any comment from Evernote that this would not involve significant amount of search overhead.

I'm not a programmer. and I do not have access to Evernote's code.

Most of my frequently used tags are only 2 levels deep.

But I do have some tags that go up to 5 levels deep.

Kind of hurts my head thinking of all the possible mathematical combinations they would create.

[minkusgm 1]

I'm a programmer. I see no reason why it would be difficult. Like already mentioned, it can be done on a mac: http://www.philipbrocoum.com/?p=1233

[jbenson2 2,147]

I'm a programmer. I see no reason why it would be difficult. Like already mentioned, it can be done on a mac: http://www.philipbrocoum.com/?p=1233

No reason?

Including Windows?

And iPad?

And a dozen Mobile Devices?

[May 268]

1. Frankly, I personally don't think that adding this feature would bloat Evernote. Maybe that's just me.

I mean just make notebooks to have unlimited sub-notebooks and that would be it. What's the problem? Why make a limitation in the first place?

If there's some particular reason then I'd be curios to know.

My concern was regarding the OP's 2nd point:

2. Give users the option of making child tags automatically inherit parent tags.

I have not seen any comment from Evernote that this would not involve significant amount of search overhead.

I'm not a programmer. and I do not have access to Evernote's code.

Most of my frequently used tags are only 2 levels deep.

But I do have some tags that go up to 5 levels deep.

Kind of hurts my head thinking of all the possible mathematical combinations they would create.

An option isn't a great solution. JM proposed solution might work really well for tags

One change that would really help is to ADD to the Search grammar the provision to include all child Tags of the specified Parent Tag.

Example Search Expression: tag:Evernote+

The change is the + symbol at the end of the Tag name.

It would basically be the same thing as using ANY: operator which would include all child tags.

The problem is that Evernote nested tags do not have any parent child relationships currently. so this, in fact, could be fairly hard to add.

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

My concern was regarding the OP's 2nd point:

2. Give users the option of making child tags automatically inherit parent tags.

I have not seen any comment from Evernote that this would not involve significant amount of search overhead.

I'm not a programmer. and I do not have access to Evernote's code.

Most of my frequently used tags are only 2 levels deep.

But I do have some tags that go up to 5 levels deep.

Kind of hurts my head thinking of all the possible mathematical combinations they would create.

If I understand the OP's 2nd point, it is essentially the same as I made above with the tag+ search syntax.

While this may sound complicated, it is really not that bad.

The job of the EN Search engine is to turn the user's search expression into a SQL statement (since EN uses a SQL DB).

The SQL statement has a WHERE clause that is the filter.

All the EN Search Engine need do is pull the child tags, and add them as part of the WHERE clause.

It would look something like this:

WHERE tag="evernote" OR tag="mac" OR tag="win" OR tag="iOS" OR tag="android".

I'm sure it's a bit more complicated in the EN code, and I'm not saying it is super simple to code.

On the other hand it should NOT be a major re-write of the code.

I guess my point is that there is a lot of bang for the buck here.

[jefito 5,589]

I'm a programmer. I see no reason why it would be difficult. Like already mentioned, it can be done on a mac: http://www.philipbrocoum.com/?p=1233

This is just done by programmatically adding parent tags to each note. Helpful for some, but might get unwieldy for those who have large/deep tag trees.So it doesn't add true hierchical tags, but it does piggyback on current Evernote functionality. You just need to keep your tag trees in sync, and your notes in sync with your tag trees (meaning you need to run the Taggy process every so often, I imagine).

In order to bridge the gap, I proposed ages ago two things that might help:

1 ) An Evernote facility to explicitly add parent tags to a note or set of notes when you add a tag (say by Ctrl+dragging a tag onto a note, or vice-versa). This is a lot like Taggy, as best I can tell.

2 ) An extension to the search grammar to allow for hierarchical tag searches (first reference I can find is here: http://discussion.ev...7833#entry77833, my links to the old forum are no longer valid).

These weren't taken up, but as I indicated, I don't really need such things myself so no biggy to me. Also elsewhere, Evernote (through the posts of Dave Engberg, Evernote's CTO) indicated that they weren't particularly interested in much more structure than notebooks and tags, though they later added stacks as a means of lightly organizing notebooks).