Notebooks into Notebooks,

[jeanettex 0]

Before switching to Mac,  for years i used an organizing program called Info Select.   now i have evernote, which is very cool, but i have one big complaint i have seen shared in online forums.

i want to be able to put notebooks inside of notebooks inside of notebooks.  i want freedom to organize in whatever way makes sense and works for me.   until then, i am continually frustrated.  

is there any plan to modify?  Has anyone else experienced frustration with this limitation?  jeanettex

[jefito 5,589]

Others have also asked for this capability. However, Evernote does not generally release their feature roadmaps in advance. Since you cannot arbitrarily nest notebooks inside other notebooks (though you can combine notebooks into a stack), and we don't know whether you ever be able to do so, you should probably look into other means, the usual suggestion being to use tags to organize your notes (and notebooks in certain instances).

[HerbyDE 101]

One level more would be great! I appreciate the "fear of cluttering", but one level more is not to overcharge in my eyes ... (and a lot of EN users would be happy)
 

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

One level more would be great! I appreciate the "fear of cluttering", but one level more is not to overcharge in my eyes ... (and a lot of EN users would be happy)

 

There are many feature requests that would "make a lot of EN users happy". There is nothing to indicate nested notebooks are coming soon, if ever. EN prefers users use tags, descriptive titles & keywords along with notebooks & stacks.

[dbach 0]

Evernote has been "dumbing down" their core functionality for years.  It used to be a more powerful program which could do something as basic as quickly filter out all notes which didn't belong to a certain notebook AND have a certain tag.  

[jefito 5,589]

When could you ever find notes that were not in a particular notebook. I don't recall that "-notebook:" has been valid in the search grammar for the 4+ years that I've been a user. It would be useful for sure, but I didn't realize that had ever been available. Was this in the old endless scroll days?

[dbach 0]

I didn't use the fancy search grammar.   I just used the mouse to select or deselect tags and notebooks along the left window, sometimes utilizing the shift or ctrl key to toggle several at once.  Can't do that anymore.  

And it wasn't just the desktop app which was better; the iOS app was more powerful back then too.  

But Evernote corp currently wants an eye candy program which appeals to the masses and functions with all the Trunk *****.  

[jefito 5,589]

Thanks for the information; a little before my time, I think (I tried out the version that had the ever-scrolling view -- not much to my liking, so horses for courses, per usual). Anyways, you're certainly welcome to your opinion. In my world, Evernote is not all eye candy, though, and for some reason, a few people actually do find it useful enough for their purposes. If you need more advanced filtering, and are on Windows, you might give http://www.bitqwik.com/ a look.

[SpectralDawn 0]

This is very disappointing to hear that Evernote doesnt offer this essential organizing feature.

I just started using it and like a lot about it but this a fundamental need for me. There are topics within topics within topics. Why is that so hard to grasp?

 

Honestly, I wish the plain old iphone notes offered folder options and be done with all of this.

[jefito 5,589]

It's not hard to grasp that some people want/need to organize their content in fully hierarchical structures. But there are other ways of organizing your notes. Evernote has chosen a mostly flat structure, augmented by tags as its organizing tools. Tags, in many ways, are more flexible than rigid hierarchies, as they allow cross-dimensional organizational schemes, since notes can have more than one tag. If you're interested in pursuing other ways of organizing your notes in Evernote, there are any number of folks here who'd be happy to make suggestions...

[SpectralDawn 0]

Thank you for the thoughtful reply and advice.

 

Hopefully I will learn more about tags and get some experience with them. I still wish an app as advanced as EN would offer either preference. But perhaps I'll discover tags are indeed the better option.

 

Meanwhile, I've downloaded Google Docs and going to see how that compares. Any thoughts about the differences there appreciated too.

 

Regards,

 

SD

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

This is very disappointing to hear that Evernote doesnt offer this essential organizing feature.

I just started using it and like a lot about it but this a fundamental need for me. There are topics within topics within topics. Why is that so hard to grasp?

 

Honestly, I wish the plain old iphone notes offered folder options and be done with all of this.

 

I'd say nested notebooks are not "essential". I do think many people are so used to using nested folders/notebooks that they perceive it as "essential".  For me, I'm migrating to Onenote (not for this reason, but for reasons I've discussed elsewhere on the board).  After using EN for ~six years (and accumulating over 62,000 notes just in my main account & another ~6,000 in a secondary/duet account), I'm having a difficult time adapting to Onenote since Onenote does not offer a tagging system that is equivalent to Evernote's tagging system.  Fortunately for me, less than half of my notes have tags anyway.  You ask me, Evernote's system with no nested notebook but using tags, keywords & descriptive titles is brilliant.

[SpectralDawn 0]

@BurgersNFries My use of the word essential was very subjective and I agree that nesting, as it seems to be called, isn't necessary for everybody. But it is a feature that I have been particularly seeking. I'm obviously behind the times but opening up to this idea of tagging.

[jefito 5,589]

Hopefully I will learn more about tags and get some experience with them. I still wish an app as advanced as EN would offer either preference. But perhaps I'll discover tags are indeed the better option.

In Evernote, tags are just labels that you can stick on notes. You can search for notes that have particular tags (or sets of tags). Here's a little example of what I was talking about when I referenced cross-dimensional organization:

In my real life, I study and perform hand percussion; basically percussion instruments that you play with your hands. There are many types of traditions of hand percussion, Afro-cuban, West African, Middle Easters and so on. I find myself collecting information about that sort of stuff, and I can tag as appropriate: "Afro-Cuban", "West African", "Middle Eastern", etc. And to further categorize, I'll add in a "Music" tag and a "Percussion" tag, and maybe a tag for a specific drum type as well ("Conga", "Djembe", "Doumbek", etc.). So far, this is pretty straightforward. I can tag search for "Middle Eastern" and "Drumming" and find all of my notes related to that.

However, it's often a good thing to not only study a single aspect of a culture (like hand drumming) but also other aspects, for example culture, cuisine, travel, art, etc. So this suggests a whole new set of tags for what is generally different subject matter, but has overlap with respect to the particular culture. So by adding a few more tags, I get a combinatorial increase in the number of possibilities. For example, this now allows me to tag search for "Middle Eastern" "Cuisine" or "West African" "Art", etc.

Consider how you might express that in a strict hierarchical scheme, and you'll perhaps see why I find tags to be more flexible.

 

Meanwhile, I've downloaded Google Docs and going to see how that compares. Any thoughts about the differences there appreciated too.

I don't use Google Docs with enough regularity to be able to say for sure. Maybe someone else can chime in on that.

[SpectralDawn 0]

Thank you again, Jefito.

 

Your example makes a lot of sense. I think it will take me trying it out to fully trust it will do what I want but the logic is apparent. 

 

(Besides the point, I enjoyed the content of your example. I'm a muso too but lately learning dance in some of those rhythms)

[jefito 5,589]

Your example makes a lot of sense. I think it will take me trying it out to fully trust it will do what I want but the logic is apparent. 

Yeah, it's definitely a personal thing as far as what works best for you. Take it slow, is my advice. ANd as before, there are some folks around here who have experience in different ways to organize Evernote notes, so asking questions is always fair game. Good luck.

 

(Besides the point, I enjoyed the content of your example. I'm a muso too but lately learning dance in some of those rhythms)

Good for you. In my other life I am fortunate enough to get to play for dancers, once a week or so. It's great for mental/psychic recharge, and a fun community to boot.

[Wordsgood 526]

Hi,

Below is a long, pinned forum thread called "The Benefit of Using Tags." In it a wide number of users have chimed in to discuss the pros and cons of using tags. Many folk have provided examples of how they organize their notes with and without the use tags. I strongly recommend you take the time to read through the entire thread.

https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/57740-the-benefit-of-using-tags/page-7#entry294097/

Another great place to see organizational ideas and examples, is the Evernote for Schools forum board, which has several threads well worth exploring. This next link will take directly to that board. Once there, just start opening threads and exploring. I found contributions by teachers and post secondary students most helpful in coming up with a system that worked best for me. (I am neither a student or a teacher, but found a lot of tips & examples that were easily adaptable to suit my needs.)

https://discussion.evernote.com/forum/90-evernote-for-schools/

Personally, I'm a fan of using internal (classic) note links and tags. Unfortunately, as BurgerNFries has already noted, if you ever want to move your data out of Evernote, the former will be broken and the latter are not easily transferred. I'm not saying don't use either feature, just to keep it in mind while deciding what you want. If you want, you could even create a system that involves as little as a couple notebooks, tags, classic note links, keywords and descriptive note titles.

Whatever you decide, *always* make regular back-up copies of your database. (In addition to what is stored on Evernote's servers.

Cheers!