(Archived) REQUEST: "Smart" Notebooks

[CPMoellering 1]

It would be nice to be able to create "smart" notebooks within Evernote. I'm thinking along the lines of smart playlist in iTunes. Specifically, the ability to include all notes with a given tag in a notebook. This would allow for one note to show in multiple notebooks, which could be handy.

For instance, I have a notebook full of quotes. I also have some notebooks for particular authors. It would be nice to have quotes by those authors show up in both places without having to duplicate notes.

[jbenson2 2,149]

I create "virtual notebooks" by using Search.

I add the Search terms to a note including other saved searches.

This allows me to add key words and longer comments explaining what the search does.

For fast access, I have a link to the note in the Favorites Bar

[GrumpyMonkey 4,320]

Hi. Welcome to the discussion forums!

I think the idea of smart notebooks that you proposed is interesting. However, with searches you can filter to display the results in a "virtual" notebook without the hassle of creating one, so I wonder if the desired results can already be achieved. By making a tag for "credit-cards" you could sort by this tag (Windows) to see them, or by a second tag like "bills" if you want to see all of your bills together as a kind of virtual notebook. This actually seems like less work to me, but I am notoriously bare-bones in the organization of my account

Like I said, interesting idea, though!

[jbenson2 2,149]

Here is a saved search that explains the virtual notebook concept. As the elections approach some of the past quotes will become more important. For instance, if I want to find the Obama promise about no tax increases to anyone earning under $250K.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Search Description:

* Quotes by or about candidate Barack Obama

* created prior to the inauguration on 1/20/2009

tag:"Obama Barack" created:19610804 -created:20090120

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

After running the search I get a notebook containing many comments made by (or about) Obama while he was a candidate, before he was sworn in as the President.

To nail it down to the exact quote, I can either:

(a.) scan through the notes

or

(b.) modify the search a bit further to:

tag:"Obama Barack" created:19610804 -created:20090120 tax* 250K

Option (b.) results in the famous quote made many times by candidate Obama

http://www.evernote....c16be32c6c12205

[CPMoellering 1]

Here is a saved search that explains the virtual notebook concept....

Cool. That looks like it may do the trick, I will have to play with that. Thanks!

[GrumpyMonkey 4,320]

Here is a saved search that explains the virtual notebook concept. As the elections approach some of the past quotes will become more important. For instance, if I want to find the Obama promise about no tax increases to anyone earning under $250K.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Search Description:

* Quotes by or about candidate Barack Obama

* created prior to the inauguration on 1/20/2009

tag:"Obama Barack" created:19610804 -created:20090120

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

After running the search I get a notebook containing many comments made by (or about) Obama while he was a candidate, before he was sworn in as the President.

To nail it down to the exact quote, I can either:

(a.) scan through the notes

or

(b.) modify the search a bit further to:

tag:"Obama Barack" created:19610804 -created:20090120 tax* 250K

Option (b.) results in the famous quote made many times by candidate Obama

http://www.evernote....c16be32c6c12205

Don't forget to explain the "Z" tag

[jbenson2 2,149]

Don't forget to explain the "Z" tag

Good memory, GM

I did not include the Z tag for clarity reasons. But for those who are wondering:

Half of my 16,000 notes are political commentary in a notebook named Politics.

Evernote allows negative searches for tags, but does not permit a negative search for notebooks.

So I assign a short tag (Z) to all the notes in my Political notebook.

When I do a personal (non-political) search, I can hide all the political notes by adding -tag:z to my search.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,320]

I do remember, of course (I have a green elephant to help me out on occasion), but this time the tag was showing in your screenshot.

I figured this information would come in handy if he adopted your approach

[jbenson2 2,149]

Good memory and Good eyes!

[rkanes 0]

+1 on the smart notebook feature. The example given so far was iTunes, but I would also suggest looking at what Yojimbo does (though I understand that it uses a somewhat different paradigm). Why is this valuable in addition to saved search? Primarily, because if a smart notebook exists, and a user creates a new note while that notebook is selected, it automatically inherits the tags assigned to that notebook. (Much faster than tagging after the fact). Additionally, if you went back later and assigned new tags to other older notes (say because they became useful for a related project), they would then automatically show up in the smart notebook. Again, a very fast and low friction way to organize notes. And finally, I think it just feels like most people's mental model easily extends the concept of a notebook to a smart notebook. Not that saved searches aren't highly useful; just that if you provide a metaphor for grouping things and tagging things, people intuitively want to group by tags in an automated fashion as well, and then see that represented in the UI in the same way in both instances. --RK