(Archived) Feature Suggestion for Writers

[Gecko68 1]

As a writer, I use Evernote for all my notes for writing. I've been waiting patiently for Scrivener to complete their iOS version, but it's very slow going, and they hardly provide any updates on progress. 

 

What would we need to use Evernote as a writers tool?

 

1. Nested stacks. - We need to be able to put stacks (or folders) in stacks.

2. Duplicate notebook names. - Currently you can't create two notebook stacks and have "Outline" as a notebook name in each of them. 

3. Outline view - With nested stacks, it would be nice to have an outline view, with "preview text"

4. Manual Sort - Be able to sort notes, sub-stacks manually 

 

Yes, I can limp along and use Evernote now, but a few additional features can make the process easier. 

 

Here is the layout of what I'd like to be able to do. 

 

Great American Novel - Stack

    Outline -  Notebook

       Section 1 - Note

       Section 2 - Note

    Drafts  - Notebook

       Chapter 1 - Note

       Chapter 2 - Note

    Characters - Notebook

        John Doe - Note

        Jane Doe - Note

    Notes  - Stack

         Story Ideas - Notebook

             Note 1 - Note

         Images  - Notebook

              Image 1 

              Image 2

    Locations - Notebook 

            USA - note

    Final - Notebook

        Chapter 1 - Note

        Chapter 2 - Note

 

 

Feel free to add to this concept. I know there are a lot of people out there waiting for a great writing tool. 

 

Thanks

[gazumped 9,563]

Don't know if or how high this figures in Evernote's priorities or whether there's any advantage for them in catering for authors' needs to this extent; and whether it's even possible to offer (for example) stacking stacks in all the supported OSs. Evernote don't say. You can hope though...

[mesclifford 0]

I agree - as a series book writer I would love to be able to organize notebooks within notebooks.  Stacking them as suggested.  I have used EVERNOTE to write all eight of my books and I am currently writing the next series.  I am often on the road and the best way for me is to write as I am traveling.  I also use it to backup what I am writing each day. 

[Viv Ilo Veith 29]

I can think of a lot of uses for nested notebook stacks in addition to writing. However, to create the structure Gecko68 listed above, Tags work even better than the Notebooks he listed.  The benefit of using tags is that you can search/sort on multiple tags whereas you can only have one notebook in a search.  So I could do a search for all of the notes I have on Tag:JaneDoe that do not include

-Tag:JohnDoe in Notebook:Outline.  

 

Great American Novel - Stack

 

    Outline -  Notebook

       Section 1 - Note  = Tag: 1Section (multiple notes with this tag)

       Section 2 - Note  = Tag: 2Section (multiple notes with this tag) 

    Drafts  - Notebook

       Chapter 1 - Note  = Tag: 1Chap or Chapter1 (multiple notes with this tag)  

       Chapter 2 - Note

    Characters - Notebook

        John Doe - Note  = Tag: JohnDoe (multiple notes with this tagged)

        Jane Doe - Note

    Notes  - Stack

         Story Ideas - Notebook

             Note 1 - Note

         Images  - Notebook

              Image 1 

              Image 2

    Locations - Notebook 

            USA - note

    Final - Notebook

        Chapter 1 - Note

        Chapter 2 - Note

 

I am teaching an Evernote for Writers class on Sunday (11/3 1:00pm) at Northwest Bookfest in Seattle and will be covering this sort of structuring and a lot more.

[Damian Lee 2]

I think its all down to ENs insistence on using tags - I dont want to play with EN  Iwant to create notes that are useful to me. I am not a  pro writer I run a business but guess what all our projects have outlines... and budgets... and staff etc so its a very common irk for me too and you would have thought EN could cope with notes with the same title in different stacks.

 

Also not being able to manually order notes is a real pain and seems so odd to not be a feature already. Tags, saved searches and all the other time eating workarounds are not welcome - I want a notebook end of story

 

Its these lacking features that are stopping me from using EN business - we still use a private wiki as it does offer these features.

[Viv Ilo Veith 29]

Evernote is never going to be able to meet everyone's exacting needs. Private wikis still have a place in many businesses.

 

I agree with your desire to be able to manually order notes! I wonder what the coding issues are with that feature? What I observe in the Apple world is that ordering in other apps is a breeze in iOS (mobile devices) but not in OS (Mac). I bet there is a similar thing in the Windows and Android world. Since Evernote is such a cross platform app those differences may be part of the problem.

 

My work around for a manual order is that I order the notes by title using a numbering system then select the notes and make a table of contents. I find the Table of Contents feature to be quite good. Once you have the table of contents it is easy to add a link to a new note anywhere in there. There are still some problems with that because EN will put #19 after #1! But if you use a decimal system 1.0, 1.99 etc. then it works. I have put in a bug report on that.

[Damian Lee 2]

I have tried ToCs but will give the decimal system a go as you are correct EN does seem numerically challenged at times! 

 

I also make use of special symbols to order my notebook stacks !tasks, ¬work stacks, #hobby stacks etc and just plain silliness so its Ze Archive not archive ^^

 

A lot of work for something you would think would be easy to do (I use linux, windows, android and iOS but not OS and have never had an issue with those platforms and ordering).