REQUEST: Tabs in notes

[Rick Auricchio 2]

It would be nice to have traditional handling of tabs in notes.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I would say "traditional" wrt tabs is subjective. Sounds more like OneNote, to me. Anyway, probably not going to happen soon, if ever. If you're used to ON & going to be comparing EN with ON, you may be disappointed. ON has more eye candy & bells & whistles...which probably explains why it doesn't live on as many platforms as Evernote. OTOH, EN strives to work well across many platforms.

[Rick Auricchio 2]

I don't know anything about OneNote.

Pressing TAB just inserts several spaces, which isn't how tabs work, because space-insertion doesn't provide alignment. Virtually all apps on the Mac use standardized text and window APIs, and I'm sure those APIs support traditional tabs.

Like I said, it isn't a deal-breaker, but the lack of tabs looks like a silly oversight, especially when EN provides the various font-formatting ability.

[tardis 87]

Pressing TAB just inserts several spaces, which isn't how tabs work

It is in the HTML format which is what your notes in Evernote are. It's not a silly oversight but a limitation of the language.

[Rick Auricchio 2]

Aha. That explains it. I can create alignment by using tables.

Thanks.

[jefito 5,598]

Evernote can imitate tab alignment using <div>s with margin specifications (or something like it), but tab characters are otherwise white-space to HTML, and aren't honored in rendering as they usually are in text editors.

[dballing 1]

Pressing TAB just inserts several spaces, which isn't how tabs work

It is in the HTML format which is what your notes in Evernote are. It's not a silly oversight but a limitation of the language.

 

So it's a backend limitation that can be corrected by using a different ML as the storage-medium.

[jefito 5,598]

So it's a backend limitation that can be corrected by using a different ML as the storage-medium.

I doubt very much that they're going to change their markup language, as that is also a part of their external format as well.

[Cocoaphony 1]

Adding to this thread because the current handling of tabs is incredibly inconsistent. It doesn't matter what the underlying storage format is. We had better tab support on manual typewriters. Evernote is perfectly able to handle indentation (Cmd-Shift-]). This isn't a technical limitation of HTML, and there are several more consistent ways to implement it in HTML. (Remembering that HTML is an internal implementation detail that should have nothing to do with whether a feature is considered correct or not.)

 

Tab means to go to the next stop. Shift-Tab means go to the previous stop. These are the "traditional" meanings of the keys. Any use of them should somehow honor that. I should be able to, at a minimum, press Tab and then Shift-Tab at the beginning of a line and be back to the beginning of the line. Ideally, as in most editors, I should be able to press Tab and then Backspace and get the same.

 

Currently, Tab is mapped to a completely different concept when you are inside a list vs outside a list. Inside a list, it increases the indent (as expected). Outside a list, it inserts 5 spaces (no matter where you are in the line). It should at the very least insert the correct number of spaces to reach the next tab stop (as every typewriter since the invention of the tab key has done). Inside a list, Shift-Tab decreases indent. Outside a list, Shift-Tab does nothing. This is incredibly inconsistent.

 

Consider:

 

Cmd-Shift-U (start list)

Tab (increase indent)

Shift-tab (decrease indent)

Shift-tab (decrease indent)

Tab (insert 5 spaces)

Shift-tab (nothing)

 

The basic meanings of the keys should not change so dramatically over such a small change in context.

[Liam Gretton 86]

I agree, it's incredibly frustrating having to resort to using a monospaced font or table just to get columns of text to line up. If EN's table handling was at all adequate it would be some solace towards having non-existent tabs.

[Mnanda 0]

I agree, it's incredibly frustrating having to resort to using a monospaced font or table just to get columns of text to line up. If EN's table handling was at all adequate it would be some solace towards having non-existent tabs.

Totally agree!  If I'm using EN for organization, then the lack of this BASIC word processing feature is a HUGE LIMITATION and more than a minor inconvenience.  I don't really care if it's an HTML limitation, find a work around.  Would it really take teams of coders working thousands of hours to fix it?  If so, apologies.  But it doesn't seem like ti would be that difficult.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Totally agree!  If I'm using EN for organization, then the lack of this BASIC word processing feature is a HUGE LIMITATION and more than a minor inconvenience.  I don't really care if it's an HTML limitation, find a work around.  Would it really take teams of coders working thousands of hours to fix it?  If so, apologies.  But it doesn't seem like ti would be that difficult.

You really don't know how hard/easy it would be, nor do I or anyone else not intimate with the inner workings of EN.  No one (except for the fine folks at EN) knows if this is even on their to do list, since EN does not publish their roadmap.  So it may not even be a matter of whether it's difficult or not.  It just may not be on the to do list or if it is, may be a low priority.

 

Also, EN is not a word processor.  Things you may consider "basic" or "HUGE LIMITATIONS" may not matter a hill of beans to someone else.  If you need word processing functionality, then for goodness sake, use a word processor. 

[ZZZ 135]

You really don't know how hard/easy it would be, nor do I or anyone else not intimate with the inner workings of EN. 

 

Wrong, just because you don't know how hard it would be doesn't mean other knowledgeable people don't know how hard it should be, regardless of whether they work for EN.

 

Also, EN is not a word processor.  Things you may consider "basic" or "HUGE LIMITATIONS" may not matter a hill of beans to someone else.

 

True of every feature request on the planet, was there a point there?

 

If you need word processing functionality, then for goodness sake, use a word processor.

 

Ah, let me guess, because you don't think it's worth a hill of beans.  But maybe he does, and maybe he wants it in EN.  Imagine that.

[Mnanda 0]

"Also, EN is not a word processor."

 

True.  However it is a text-based note taking system, thus excellent manipulation of text is not an unreasonable expectation on the part of the end user.

[Sire 1]

We really need this feature. I don't consider tabs "bells and whistles", it's basic structuring of text. I could go without different fonts and sizes just to have this feature.

 

Also, I can tell you right now it's not a technically difficult thing to implement, I can think of several different ways of achieving this, neither which would take more than a day or two for a skilled developer.

 

Evernote, please consider adding tabs. Thanks!

[bitkahuna 0]

just realized evernote doesn't support tab characters which is ludicrous.

also seems the closest approximation is to use the indent/outdent icons without being in a list.

[chaseadamsio 0]

Just to weigh in here:

 

I also don't believe it's a limitation of the language & I also believe this is a problem that should be solved.

 

There are plenty of ways to configure your Evernote settings, I am of the mind that this may be one of those settings that should be configurable and have a sensible default (a tab is a true tab and not converted to spaces) and can be set by the user to be spaces and the number of spaces be configurable.

 

If this solution is too complex for a feature to be put on the roadmap, it might be worthwhile checking with power users to see if this is an issue they've also run into and have just found ways around (without just letting it be what it is).