Tabs within notebooks

[AKmiecik 1]

I'm thinking of starting to use Evernote in place of notebooks I keep but, I use color tabs extensively (and gotta assume other people do to given their availability).  I've been reading forums and help over the past few day and, best I can tell, Evernote does not have the feature.

 

Am I missing something?  Is there an add-on?

[tokenting 0]

I know there has been a lot of arguing here , but I would like to +1  for the tabs ,  please can you guys at least  consider it ?

 

Thinking of going back to onenote just for this,  it makes notes so much easier to organise and work with.

[ScottLougheed 1,316]

I hardly think it is a necessity that there are tabs, and I don't know if I agree that this is a flat versus hierarchy debate. 

 

Addressing the first point, while I don't think it is necessary, some capacity to switch between certain workspaces could be very nice! Indeed I do a lot of things that I switch between rather rapidly. Sometimes I am writing a paper, sometimes I am taking notes on an article, sometimes I am marking assignments, and all of this is centred around Evernote, and sometimes I don't want to go through the labour of saving whatever search I have had to cook just this moment, or close our the myriad "separate note windows" when I switch tasks. I can see tabs potentially offering the ability to simplify this.  

 

However I don't know how tabs could be effectively implemented without largely reproducing the combined function of shortcuts, recent notes, and saved searches. Additionally, on Mac it is possible to have multiple instances of the main Evernote window, which means I could effectively use these multiple instances to achieve the same effect as tabs, just a different graphical representation. 

 

I actually think tabs would be most useful on a mobile device. For example on the iPad, it would be very nice to be able to relatively easily switch between two or three "open" notes while perhaps navigating to a different notebook on the left hand pane.This would have the effect of opening a note in a separate window, for which no similar feature is available on the iPad. 

 

 

Addressing the second point, I am not sure if I see this as a flat/hierarchy thing. I see it as facilitating concurrence. That is, I don't have to abandon whatever "setup" (open notes, searches, etc) I have when I switch tasks, the other "setup" remains. Like browser or Finder tabs, my tabs aren't hierarchical, they are parallel. I know that One Note offers tabs in a way that offers some kind of organizational function but I don't really see that as contributing to the organizational foundation laid by Evernote at this point. The two applications start from relatively different organizational philosophies that transplanting between the two wouldn't be necessarily easy. 

[Kirby Krieger 72]

And for desert we pass around the iPad after I've selected from Google Image Search.

 

 

I use tabs in browsers all the time. Still, I can't imagine a circumstance under which I would use them in Evernote. "Flat" is one of my favorite things about Evernote. Now and again, I open a note in a separate window. Those little inspector windows that one finds in altogether too many programs make me cringe. Someone needs to put those things back in the menu bar where they belong! Of course, I also make dinner for 15 with a cutting board just slightly larger than an iPad, a chef's knife, a wooden spoon and a cast iron pan (ok, it's a big frying pan!) ;-)

 

OK — imagined circumstances:

 

I meet with Margaret about ongoing client issues.  I put my notes in an Evernote Note.  I highlight the parts I want to mention to the client.

I meet with Patrick about ongoing client issues — same client.  I put my notes in an Evernote Note. I highlight the parts I want to mention to the client.

Back at my desk, I prepare a letter to the client.  I open each note in its own window and arrange the windows each in half of one of my two monitors.  On the other monitor, I compose my letter to the client, referring back to each of the Notes.  Why can't I do this inside the Evernote application window?

 

I am charged with researching the current availability of SuperWidgets.  I browse the Web, saving via the Web Clipper each of the forty — or was it thirty-eight? — pages on which I found SuperWidgets available.  Some of these pages simply refer to other SuperWidget pages.  I need to cull my collection, eliminating duplicates and sites which just refer to other sites I already have.  The best way to do this is to have two — maybe three — Notes visible and scrollable at a time.

 

My boss is involved in something newsworthy.  I am charged with keeping track of the news coverage.  I save much to Notes.  I need to view them concurrently to compare the published verbiage and imagery.

 

I'm working on my SuperWidgets project when Margaret calls with further information about the client-who-shall-remain-nameless.  Not wanting to lose my place in the two Notes I currently have open in one window, I open a new Evernote window (which one can currently do), and bring up my Note from our earlier meeting.  She has reviewed my Note from my meeting with Patrick and has specific responses to two of the things I highlighted.  No problem — I bring my Patrick Mtg. Note up in another tab (or pane) and we discuss it, during which I make more notes in another pane.

 

I have a long weekend, and am going to make a soufflé for the first time.  On my last day off     I saved Notes of recipes, and an excellent how-to guide for making soufflés.  I want to have both Notes readily available on my iPad, which, with the Quad-lock case, I mount directly to our refrigerator.

 

Although I can go "Previous/Next" (most of the time), I get lost in Evernote about six times an hour.  Tabbed viewers, and multi-pane browsers, would be enormously useful _to me_.

 

Re: the Inspector windows/panes — I pretty much agree.  Though I do think Evernote should make the Inspector remain on-screen when a different Note is selected.  Apple has, in some programs, found a moderately elegant solution (which is apropos this discussion):  they use a tabbed "meta" pane for the Sidebar/Shortcuts, and the Inspector.

 

(Added:  I am not referring the what I understand are OneNote tabs — same as Circus Ponies Notebook tabs — viz.: skeomorphic representations of page/note/section/notebook links.)

[ScottLougheed 1,316]

While I think some of Kirby's issues could potentially be resolved with some form of tagging, but that wouldn't really address all the concerns. 

Some of what you highlight Kirby is what I am trying to touch on as well. There is definitely some relatively solid use cases where tabs could be helpful. 

 

Some stop-gap measures might be to remember cursor/scroll location on notes. combined with strategic tagging this would make switching between notes a bit easier. 

 

Again, tabs on desktop, in my opinion, would be a useful luxury. I'll let them finish refining the text editor before I ask for anything that resembles tabs

[megsaint 441]

And for desert we pass around the iPad after I've selected from Google Image Search.

 

 

I use tabs in browsers all the time. Still, I can't imagine a circumstance under which I would use them in Evernote. "Flat" is one of my favorite things about Evernote. Now and again, I open a note in a separate window. Those little inspector windows that one finds in altogether too many programs make me cringe. Someone needs to put those things back in the menu bar where they belong! Of course, I also make dinner for 15 with a cutting board just slightly larger than an iPad, a chef's knife, a wooden spoon and a cast iron pan (ok, it's a big frying pan!) ;-)

 

OK — imagined circumstances:

 

I am not denying that there are people for whom tabs might be of use. I said that I can't imagine a circumstance under which I would use them. What I'm trying to express, and it was mostly directed at the Rene CD who seem to feel it was necessary that the Evangelist agree that tabs are a good idea, is that I don't need them, don't care about them and would rather Evernote spend time on other things, like different export options (as an example). The circumstances you described, while meaningful to you, just don't apply to me and how I use Evernote.

 

I'm all in favor of people suggesting the features they like to see and explaining why they thing those features would be useful. Your post gives good examples for the developers. But I'm also in favor of multiple points of view. 

[TrainsRus 5]

First let me say that I am en Evernote Premium customer and I use Evernote almost daily. I use it for what I call casual noting, as well as maintaining reference info and as part of my GTD system. For those activities it works great.

But I also do some deep historical research on railroads, and that research has to be very organized down to the detail level. While I appreciate that Evernote is powerful, and you can do a lot with it, that does not make it optimized for all purposes. It has a very limited GUI that IMHO does NOT ASSIST a detail oriented researcher. (Yes I know tags are powerful, but so are Excel Spreadsheets and databases, and I would not want them as my GUI for my research either :-)

As a result I use OneNote for all my research. It is by no means perfect either, but through it's GUI it does more to assist me in my research, instead of leaving all the grunt work to me. Through its GUI it allows me to have

- one notebook per railroad

- Sections within notebooks

- pages within sections

And the GUI facilitates this organization. (Plus tags and links like in Evernote)

I would love to move to Evernote, but Evernote must do more in their GUI to ASSIST me as a researcher before I would consider that. Simply saying there is a programming language and I can do what I want is not helpful, even though it may be powerful. Unless I have missed it, Evernote has 4 facilities -- groups of notebooks, notebooks, notes and tags. In OneNote there are also 4 -- notebooks, sections, pages, and tags. (Both have links.) I have heard the suggestion to use EN groups of notebooks like I would use ON notebooks, and EN notebooks like I would use Sections. And EN Notes like Pages. But the GUI in EN is more painful if I do this , whereas in ON all four are presented right in the same window. Honestly for me at least groups of notebooks when each notebook is opened separately is not an enabler for my research.

Here's an example of just one aspect of my research - for each railroad on which I do research, I have research on every locomotive, every freight car and every station/depot, plus many other similar sections. As you can imagine even on smaller railroads, there are likely hundreds of locomotives (when keeping track over 200+ years), thousands of freight cars, and 10s-100s-1000s of stations. For each of those I would/could have history text, scanned images, PDFs, images, perhaps Excel spreadsheets, floor plan drawings (some in CAD files), voice recordings, etc. I could not even imagine do this in EN as it would be too painful (in terms of the GUI -- not that EN could nto handle it). So in addition to a tool that can technically handle the details, you need a GUI that enables researchers to have fast and intuitive access to their data to make entries, find info, etc. In this regard I simply find the EN GUI is not very helpful.

In OneNote I have a notebook for each railroad. Then I have sections for each of the major categories:

Locomotives, Cabooses, Tank Cars, Freight Stations, Passenger Stations, Combination Stations, and many other sections.

And then I have one page for each loco within the locos section, one page for each tank car in the tank cars section, etc. And graphically the ON interface helps me move through all the data very fast.

I think that EN has most if not all of the underlying functionality. What it needs to offer a layer on top of core EN aimed at researchers. (If I were designing this I do it a layer of abstraction so that I could easily deliver research layers targeted at specific research areas (regardless of the research area of interest -- e.g., railroads (in my case), genealogy, or any other interest area. This way I could deliver research-area specific layers using terminology appropriate to those researchers.)

Just my 2 cents as one researcher.

Regards

[TrainsRus 5]

Just to make one correction to my explanation.

 

I went back and looked at my OneNote structure. OneNote actually has 5 levels of structures available -- I had not mentioned "section groups".

 

             notebooks, section groups, sections, pages, and tags

 

 

And I use this structure:

 

   Notebook -- Railroad name

     Section group -- major aspects: History, Rolling Stock, Maint of Way, Structures, Track & Signals, References, etc.

        Sections: (e.g. for Rolling Stock)  Locomotives-Diesel, Locomotives-Steam, Passenger Cars, Cabooses, MoW, Tank Cars)

            Pages: (e.g., Locomotives-Diesel) -- one page for each Diesel locomotive by type and loco number

              Tags -- as required/needed -- is this example with locomotives

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I'm pretty sure EN knows how people use sub notebooks. However, for whatever reason, they have chosen to not have them. I have yet to see an example where stacks, notebooks, tags, descriptive titles & keywords cannot do what people are trying to do with sub notebooks. But if sub notebooks are a deal breaker for you, you will need to to find an app that better suits your needs.

[TrainsRus 5]

Thanks -- Like I said in my first reply, for me personally (and I am just one user), it is not about whether or not Evernote can technically do something. (I believe we can all agree I could do this in Excel as well, but it would be more painful.) It's whether the GUI provided by EN makes it easy to do this. In my case, for now, all my research is staying in OneNote until such time as EN (or I suppose some 3rd party providing a layered app on EN) provide a more helpful GUI for this need. I'm just trying to point out to EN that there are some things they could do in the GUI to increase the penetration of the tool.

[SebR 146]

Interesting case.

While you have a pattern (a recurring structure), I am convinced that a folder-like classification system may just be an obvious way to store datas, but I'm really not convinced is the best to use them.

[drewla 7]

 I have yet to see an example where stacks, notebooks, tags, descriptive titles & keywords cannot do what people are trying to do with sub notebooks. But if sub notebooks are a deal breaker for you, you will need to to find an app that better suits your needs.

 

It's not that there is no method of classifying a complex hierarchy of information (like the railroad example) in Evernote. Sure, you can tag and multi-tag and multi-multi-tag as you want to create a structure. But there is a reason why the folder > sub-folder > file structure has endured so well. It replicates the way most of us like to store information. I love hierarchies. But here's the thing -- I love tags too. Sometimes tags are better, and just because I find nested folders a natural way of organising multiple related files, it doesn't mean I don't see the tremendous value of tags. Sometimes one is better, sometimes the other.

 

What I love about Apple's Finder is that you have BOTH. I put nearly everything in a folder structure in Finder but sometimes I want to link stuff together in ways that prove impossible or inconvenient with folders alone. Tags are a perfect answer. So for me the value is in the choice, and the ability to deploy each where it works best.

 

It's like having to choose between a knife, a fork and a spoon to eat all meals.It's pointless trying to argue that one of these implements will do everything well. We end up with one of those weird spoons with a sharp edge and three little prongs. Clever but much less effective than being able to pick up the correct tool for the job in hand. 

 

One final point -- the fact that EN has created the concept of a notebook stack seems to acknowledge that they see a value in visually grouping information in a hierarchy. Why else would they do it? Now if they would only allow us to deepen that stack beyond one level to multiple levels, we would have the best of both worlds.

[SebR 146]

I have yet to see an example where stacks, notebooks, tags, descriptive titles & keywords cannot do what people are trying to do with sub notebooks. But if sub notebooks are a deal breaker for you, you will need to to find an app that better suits your needs.

 

It's not that there is no method of classifying a complex hierarchy of information (like the railroad example) in Evernote. Sure, you can tag and multi-tag and multi-multi-tag as you want to create a structure. But there is a reason why the folder > sub-folder > file structure has endured so well. It replicates the way most of us like to store information. I love hierarchies. But here's the thing -- I love tags too. Sometimes tags are better, and just because I find nested folders a natural way of organising multiple related files, it doesn't mean I don't see the tremendous value of tags. Sometimes one is better, sometimes the other.

It's not what we like, it's what we have the natural habit to do with material stuff ('cause we are also material stuff).

HDD don't store datas in folder, sub folders, sub-sub folders... they even don't store files. They store piece of datas and create some kind of table of content.

What I mean is all you see here when you browse your computer file system is just an abstraction to make datas usable for us.

What I love about Apple's Finder is that you have BOTH. I put nearly everything in a folder structure in Finder but sometimes I want to link stuff together in ways that prove impossible or inconvenient with folders alone. Tags are a perfect answer. So for me the value is in the choice, and the ability to deploy each where it works best.

Choice is good but making a good choice is not easy. EN provides elements with capabilities, what is might be hard is to decide which piece of data you associate with an element.

However I don't say EN should not provide a real hierarchical system of folder or even tags. If they do it, it's good.

Maybe I'll use it, maybe not. It depends.

It's like having to choose between a knife, a fork and a spoon to eat all meals.It's pointless trying to argue that one of these implements will do everything well. We end up with one of those weird spoons with a sharp edge and three little prongs. Clever but much less effective than being able to pick up the correct tool for the job in hand.

If you have space or weight constraint the weird tool could be better ^^

But I Agree in general.

However I think that's exactly what EN is like, some kind of swiss-knife. I use it for gathering and retrieving informations and also as a GTD tool, a bookmarking tool,... cause it can fit my needs for that and I try to make a system within EN capabilities to do that.

I'm not sure EN do need much more features (even if I'll glad with), it mainly need more use case.

I understand that some people don't want to bother with designing information system and want a "plug-and-play" application... maybe they should try to find another app.

One final point -- the fact that EN has created the concept of a notebook stack seems to acknowledge that they see a value in visually grouping information in a hierarchy.

Off course there is a value.

The point is what's the depht which will satisfy all users ? I guess the answer is none.

[jefito 5,598]

One final point -- the fact that EN has created the concept of a notebook stack seems to acknowledge that they see a value in visually grouping information in a hierarchy. Why else would they do it? Now if they would only allow us to deepen that stack beyond one level to multiple levels, we would have the best of both worlds.

A point of history: stacks were created purely as a way to visually organize your notebooks because a flat list of 100 (now 250) notebooks is awkward to deal with in the UI. Unlike notebooks though, stacks don't really have much existence in the Evernote architecture -- internally, they're just a name in a notebook's metadata; there's no separate StackNode (e.g.) object. Of course, outside that, in user space, that doesn't make a difference. But changes in architecture aren't always cheap/easy to implement, so even if Evernote wanted to do it (I've seen no evidence of that), the architectural changes across the various clients and the public API would be in the negative column when weighing out the pros/cons.

[TrainsRus 5]

There are a few important points in this discussion I believe:

 

1) I don't think anyone really cares (at least at the user level) what the underlying architecture is -- what we care about are the facilities provided to the user. Having spent some time as an application deeloper in years past, I know that most people never cared about the underlying database we used in a given app, unless it limited capabilities or performance.

 

2) The ask here I believe is for more user-level information organization facilities to be provided in the GUI -- not one specific style, but just more facilities that I as the user can bring to bear on my information organization needs. I find people are very good at organizing if you provide the facilities to do so.

 

3) Think of EN as a datastore, with the GUI providing facilities to enable information organization. Not everyone organizes the same way, nor does everyone have the same amount of information to organize.

 

Here are some examples (with specifics tied to my railroad example to make them real) -- note that I've couched them in EN-type descriptions, but that may not be the best way to present them in a GUI -- I am not an interface designer.

 

1) Tags at the sub-note level -- examples:

           - in any given note I may need to link a sentence or paragraph or image or ??? to a given data source

           - for a given image (imagine a picture with a locomotive stopped at a station with two RR employees standing next to the loco), I might want to link that image specifically to the info about: the specific locotmotive, the station, the year, each RR employee, a specific signal, and logo (loco has a unique logo for that RR) -- just a simple example

           - In any given note I may want to annotate a given item (think footnote or comment for a cell in Excel), without doing it inline

 

2) Tags, Nested tags, dynamic tags, restricted tags -- in my railroad example, I did a quick back of the napkin calculation to figure how how many tags I would need for one particular railroad -- I'd estimate 10,000-15,000 (think one tag for every locomotive, freight car, passenger car, caboose, and other piecce of equipment, plus everything else about a railroad. Now imagine trying to use these (and manage them) in a drop down list (how much of your life would you spend scrolling or typing?).

 

Now go to the next railroad -- since most of their phsyical items are unique (not the same cars, loco, etc. as RR #1, I need another 10K-15K tags. Remember any two railroads might both have a car number 11001, but that is two separate and distinct cars, so you cannot use the same tag for both, unless we start applying multiple tags and managing that way (which can be done, but is not fast for the user). How does the user ensure they don't incorrectly use the wrong tag(s) on an item? This is a good example where a powerful GUI can assist the user, instead of just technically enabling.

 

Now go to a large railroad -- my railroads above were mid-sized. For a large one, I might need 20,000-50,000 tags. I think you get the picture...

 

3) A lot of these information organization facilities are about codifying the organization - while tags are fixed text, note titles are freeform text, and it's easy to make typos in note titles or tags even. So sometimes these organization facilities help the user ensure the correct identifications are applied.

 

With some investment in bringing more information organization management facilities to the GUI, EN could become the premier tool for researchers and heavy duty information managers.

[SebR 146]

1/ You're right.

But people have to understand it may be constraint they don't know about.

It's never "they just have to put a button here" or "they just have to set hierarchy".

 

2/ 3/ None system can satisfy all people for all topics, however I agree UI - and UX - give value to functionalities, or destroy them.

 

For your case, I have a fuzzy impression that you expect from EN to be and to behave like a "final step displayer" but I guess and I hope your goal is not to keep all this work in EN.

Maybe you'd better keep EN for NOTEs taking and use a wiki, it seems legit here for me.

 

However, if you keep EN you have to think a information design system imo.

As I said, designing a system is always about find (or create patterns), and make them work together.

Replicate a recurrent structure, it's a waste of time and ressources. 

 

You're making a work about RR, ok, but for designing you content system you should start from the contents (ie the notes), not from the "root" (RRs).

 

Start from notes, do you need tags ? yes -> create tags. Do some tags can be grouped, is it usefull ? yes -> create "parent" tags...

I think like that anyway...

 

 

 

More concretely with your example, some ideas.

 

You can create "parent" tags like rollStock, structures,... where you have section group in ON

And create child tags for each.

 

ex : 

rollStock (you can use it for general/index notes, listing notes with note-links or whatever like list of source site... an index tag is not a bad idea)

- rollStock-locoDiesel

- rollStock-locoSteam

- rollstock-passCars

- ...

 

You want all rolling stock contents ? tag:rollStock*

You want all rolling stock contents but not the index and general notes ? tag:rollStock-*

You want only locos, and all locos ? tag:rollStock-loco*

You want only diesel locos in a particular RR ? tag:rollStock-locoDiesel tag:RR-Name or intitle:RR-name if you find it usefull to have RR in titles.

 

The autocomplete feature while typing tags is a time- and typos-saver.

 

You could have some general saved search (max 100) for recurrent searches or for your work of the day...

 

IMO, you should not use Notebook for each RR because theirs contents are too similar.

 

You can have only 3 Notebooks if you want, for example :

- .inbox (because having inbox is a good habit ^^ )

- RR, for all your notes about RR.

- Medias, it may be very usefull to keep them apart (think about your image exemple), and have a tag structure dedicated to it.

 

Hope it helps.

[megsaint 441]

I use tabs in browsers all the time. Still, I can't imagine a circumstance under which I would use them in Evernote. "Flat" is one of my favorite things about Evernote. Now and again, I open a note in a separate window. Those little inspector windows that one finds in altogether too many programs make me cringe. Someone needs to put those things back in the menu bar where they belong! Of course, I also make dinner for 15 with a cutting board just slightly larger than an iPad, a chef's knife, a wooden spoon and a cast iron pan (ok, it's a big frying pan!) ;-)

[sarex 0]

So, not any developments on this front, are we??

 

Without this feature this nice soft is much useless.

No any of the already available tricks can smooth & make uninterruptible the workflow with several important notes.

Sometimes inspiration is so subtle & elusive - you need to have the right notes always ON.
Shud you need to search in even the easiest way - boom, it's gone for good!

Shortcuts doesn't come close otherwise they'll do the trick in browsers too lol

 

Just do it!

nike 

 

[TheGooch 25]

+1 for tabs as well. The best implementation that I've seen of them has to be the Firefox Tabs+ plugin. It enabled you to have multiple rows of tabs that could even be pinned and manually reorganized to keep related tabs next to each other. My primary browser is Safari, but every time I'm doing research, I miss the multi-row of tabs feature.

One UC for Evernote and tabs I can think of off the top of my head is if you are using it for Journaling a 3 day trip. You might make a notebook for the trip, and one note for each day where you record pictures, events, places, people , etc information from other sources . As you process each items from one of your event "feeds" you would 1st click on the tab for the note that item belongs to, and then insert it into the note. 

 

I do this with multi-day music festivals where I create a folder for the event and a separate note for each day, so that I know what happened when. 

[DTLow 5,749]

34 minutes ago, TheGooch said:

One UC for Evernote and tabs I can think of off the top of my head is if you are using it for Journaling a 3 day trip. You might make a notebook for the trip, and one note for each day where you record pictures, events, places, people , etc information from other sources

I'm not sure that the notebook level is the best place for this type of information.
If nothing else, you will soon run into the 250 notebook limit.

My process would be a master note for the trip.
Working with the limitations of the product, it would be more of a table of contents with links to sub-notes for each day.
Evernote works better if you keep notes smaller, relating to a single concept.  This allows the note to be linked and tagged and filed in a multitude of ways.

In your example, you mentioned recording pictures etc.  
If I had a note with a picture, I may want to access it in various ways,
For example - its part of this trip, its of a specific person.

[vertium 3]

On 3/8/2014 at 2:30 PM, BurgersNFries said:

Well played playa. Sorry you're not a fan of sarcasm. But it's simply not the same as snarkiness.

though fairly snarky to feel the need to point it out.  

[Snapper Cridge 0]

To those that have the power to pass on suggestions:

I very simple reason I'd like tabs is so I don't have to constantly move windows around on my workspace. I tend to have several items open at once (like a lot of people I know) and the ability to easily navigate between two notes that relate to what I might be working would be great. 

• The interface is fine
• I don't want to special treatment
• I don't really care what anyone's opinion is unless it's from the developers of said feature.
• This isn't me being mean, it's an attempt to ensure any responses are about the subject title and not everyone's me, me, me, egos 
• Yes I said all of that with a smile on my face without any malice or direct attack on any one in previous comments.

Any word on whether or not it's an actual consideration?

Thanks!

*Update:

Then I remembered that while a lot of apps have the feature built in. macOS has a great merge windows function that natively merges windows from pretty much any window into tabs. Not sure if this what the 3 year discussion was about after reading some of the comments, but this solved my problem  Cheers!

[DTLow 5,749]

This discussion has been moved to the requests forum.  

Please indicate your support using the voting buttons in the upper left corner

[CalS 5,311]

On 10/12/2013 at 6:08 AM, AKmiecik said:

I'm thinking of starting to use Evernote in place of notebooks I keep but, I use color tabs extensively (and gotta assume other people do to given their availability).  I've been reading forums and help over the past few day and, best I can tell, Evernote does not have the feature.

 

Am I missing something?  Is there an add-on?

You can use styles for notebooks and tags if you are using EN Windows.

[MartinMartin 0]

I want tabs. Period.

I'm a customer, I have my own way of using EN and I'm pretty sure I could use tabs. I don't see why in hell I should fight against moderators or EN employees about what I want to see in the product. There's no need for me to try to justify the objective benefits of tabs. I just want them and the EN team must know that if ever a product comes out, which does the same things as EN and has tabs, then I will switch to that and they will lose my money. Period. Listen to your costumers.

[DTLow 5,749]

18 hours ago, MartinMartin said:

I don't see why in hell I should fight against moderators or EN employees about what I want to see in the product.

There's no need to participate in the discussion on this request.  
You can simply indicate your support using the voting buttons in the upper left corner 

[CalS 5,311]

19 hours ago, MartinMartin said:

I just want them and the EN team must know that if ever a product comes out, which does the same things as EN and has tabs, then I will switch to that and they will lose my money. Period. Listen to your costumers.

Irony anyone?

[possertive 5]

I had been living fine for about 2 months, but just realised there's no tabs?

Sometimes I just want to make a quick reference to another note. Tabs is my default workflow as compared to jumping around stuff.

Another option to tabs would be split screen (vertically and horizontally).

The idea is to open 2 notes in side by side so we can make comparisons and references.

[DTLow 5,749]

50 minutes ago, possertive said:

Sometimes I just want to make a quick reference to another note.

My notes are extensively cross-linked using the "copy link" feature

>>The idea is to open 2 notes in side by side so we can make comparisons and references.

On the Mac/Windows platforms, you can open notes in separate windows and have them side by side

The Mac platform just implemented tabs for notes, but I'm not clear that satisfies the "tabs within notebooks" request or your post

[Jon at Mich Tech 0]

So, Best I can read here, TABS as a part of EN that could be useful were discussed 3 years ago. 

And it's great to see the idea is now incorporated into EN. (not!)

EN is great in many respects. But why tabs would not be pretty generally useful and actually used by a number of people.. why that is not enough to have gotten some action on this within 3 years time. Kind of discouraging to see actually

  - jon

[DTLow 5,749]

5 hours ago, Jon at Mich Tech said:

And it's great to see the idea is now incorporated into EN. (not!)

EN is great in many respects. But why tabs would not be pretty generally useful and actually used by a number of people.. why that is not enough to have gotten some action on this within 3 years time. Kind of discouraging to see actually

Evernote has implemented tabs on the Mac platform
I'm not clear on how useful they are, but it allows me to have multiple views

 

 

This request has 4 votes.  This doesn't indicate much interest in the feature

[Wordsgood 526]

This will be my last reply, but isn't that exactly what you did with your implied name calling of BurgerNFries? "Hey Einstein..."

Look, folks who know me in the offline world are aware that I love sarcasm. But on the internet it can easily be misconstrued, hence the reason I try to reign in those instincts. Perhaps you meant no harm with your comment to her, but it certainly doesn't come across that way.

Cheers

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I'm thinking of starting to use Evernote in place of notebooks I keep but, I use color tabs extensively (and gotta assume other people do to given their availability).  I've been reading forums and help over the past few day and, best I can tell, Evernote does not have the feature.

 

Am I missing something?  Is there an add-on?

Evernote does not have tabs. The use of notebooks, stacks, tags, keywords & descriptive titles is the way to organize & retrieve information in Evernote. Please use the search function as this has been discussed at great length on the board.

[AKmiecik 1]

Hey Einstein, what do you think I was doing?  Just reading randomly?  

 

You're right, it has been discussed at great length, over a year ago, based on search results I saw.  Seems like such a glaring omission, I find it hard to believe it still is not a feature.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Hey Einstein, what do you think I was doing?  Just reading randomly?  

 

You're right, it has been discussed at great length, over a year ago, based on search results I saw.  Seems like such a glaring omission, I find it hard to believe it still is not a feature.

Well since you asked a question, it obviously wasn't all that clear what you'd been doing.

You may think tabs are a glaring omission but many users get along just fine without them. AFAIK, tabs aren't even on Evernote's to do list.

Just because something has been discussed for a year (or longer) doesn't automatically make it something Evernote will ever implement. So I guess you'll either need to learn to adjust or find an app that has tabs.

[Rgrenader 35]

Tabs, (macro view) in a paper notebook, are a way to organize information in sub sections for easy retrieval.  Examples:  Work, Life, Projects, Ideas, etc.  In Evernote, Notebooks would take the place of tabs (marco view) , and for further granularity, Tags would allow you to drill in farther to get the micro view. 

 

SO yes, Evernote has the identical features with a different way of looking at your data. 

[fatherunit 0]

@AKmiecik: i've been looking for the same graphical interface, similar to OneNote - I'm surprised the previous two postings didn't allude to the idea of "stacks" - in windows you drag one notebook on to another and it creates a generically named "Notebook Stack" that you can rename for your convenience.  Can I stack another stack on another for a subsection of stacks with notebooks - no.  So at least there is a single subsection level available.

 

i can only figure that the common user isn't interested in using evernote as a serious research / org tool which drives the lack of a visual GUI and more of a folder interface.

[jefito 5,598]

@AKmiecik: i've been looking for the same graphical interface, similar to OneNote - I'm surprised the previous two postings didn't allude to the idea of "stacks" - in windows you drag one notebook on to another and it creates a generically named "Notebook Stack" that you can rename for your convenience.  Can I stack another stack on another for a subsection of stacks with notebooks - no.  So at least there is a single subsection level available.

 

i can only figure that the common user isn't interested in using evernote as a serious research / org tool which drives the lack of a visual GUI and more of a folder interface.

I don't think that you can impute the design of the UI on whether or not various users are or are not engaged in "serious research / org". I think that many people of their 80+ million users do use Evernote for serious research. It's for certain though -- given comments by Evernote staffers -- that the current flat organizational note storage structure is by design; the idea being that users would rely more on tags to organize / categorize their notes (and yes, tags do have a multi-level hierarchy structure, and there is a visual aspect to them as well, for those who want / need that).

[fatherunit 0]

jeff, as an evernote sycophant (10k+ posts?) you're doing a great job of defending a product that's not intuitive with a confusing interface - evernote would make quicker progress toward a better interface if it listened to new users like me and @AKmiecik instead of power users in your camp.

[AKmiecik 1]

yea, call me crazy but I like my graphical interface to be, um, graphical

[tavor 668]

jeff, as an evernote sycophant (10k+ posts?) you're doing a great job of defending a product that's not intuitive with a confusing interface - evernote would make quicker progress toward a better interface if it listened to new users like me and @AKmiecik instead of power users in your camp.

I very recently started using EN - a couple of weeks ago. At first I was slightly put off by the lack of hierarchical notebook organization (beyond stacks and notebooks), but once I started using tags and understanding how much more powerful they are than notebooks, I limited myself to just 3 notebooks (Main, Local, Inbox) and zero stacks.

 

If there is a specific reason you want notebooks beyond "that's what I'm used to" (because that's what everyone was used to, but tags are the more modern design, and it's not just EN; look at Google), post it here and some of the EN gurus will suggest a solution.

[Wordsgood 526]

Wow. I'm fully aware that Jeff and BurgerNFries can defend themselves, but I had to chime into to say that I think both AKmecik and Fatherunit are being flat out RUDE!

I'm an Evernote novice and I happen to agree that colour tabs would be useful. But just because they aren't, does not give me the right to be obnoxious and go off on these folks who VOLUNTEER their time on this forum to help us. They are NOT paid a dime by Evernote and if you think being a loyal fan of their profuct makes one a "sycophant" then I don't believe you are even aware of what that word truly means.

Personally, I think you are both fortunate to have not been banned for violating the TOS. Your comments here strike me as abusive.

[jefito 5,598]

jeff, as an evernote sycophant (10k+ posts?) you're doing a great job of defending a product that's not intuitive with a confusing interface - evernote would make quicker progress toward a better interface if it listened to new users like me and @AKmiecik instead of power users in your camp.

Ooooh, "sycophant"? Another flawed judgement, the first being your implication that Evernote is designed for people who won't use it for "serious" work. By the way, I don't need to curry favor with Evernote to be here; I just like and use their software, like to discuss its aspects, and yes, I do try to help people with actual problems in using Evernote. And just so you know, since you're new here, name-calling really isn't what we'd call proper forum behavior.

Anyways, first thing: I'm just reporting what Evernote staff have said about their design; I don't understand why you would have a problem with that. I'm not "defending" anything or anyone, except perhaps that I'd defend the rights of Evernote to design the product that they want to design: they face the consequences of their design in the marketplace, after all. As it is, I find the current interface to be fine for my needs, for the most part. Again, since you're new here, I also make suggestions for improvements myself.

Second thing: there is no "camp of power users"; there are just users with various use cases and needs, and there are various approaches to working effectively with Evernote for various use cases. If you have some actual questions, then one or more of those users here would probably take some pains -- and their own valuable time -- to help you.

Last thing: making suggestions about improving Evernote is fine in my book, and welcome from experienced users and newcomers, and I've never said anything different.

[AKmiecik 1]

Wow. I'm fully aware that Jeff and BurgerNFries can defend themselves, but I had to chime into to say that I think both AKmecik and Fatherunit are being flat out RUDE!

I'm an Evernote novice and I happen to agree that colour tabs would be useful. But just because they aren't, does not give me the right to be obnoxious and go off on these folks who VOLUNTEER their time on this forum to help us. They are NOT paid a dime by Evernote and if you think being a loyal fan of their profuct makes one a "sycophant" then I don't believe you are even aware of what that word truly means.

Personally, I think you are both fortunate to have not been banned for violating the TOS. Your comments here strike me as abusive.

 

I always felt that judging other people behavior was the definition of rude, hmmm.

[AKmiecik 1]

Tavor, the tag method is actually a step backwards to the before-gui-days.  You can go back an look at the some pre-gui systems (eg PROFS) and that's how they handled it.

 

Also, using the gui to provide the ability to visually see the structure is much more productive (granted for some tasks) than having to search tags.  IMHO

 

When I think about it, trying to communicate using are thumbs is quite a step backward too (not an Evernote issue though).

[Wordsgood 526]

Wow. I'm fully aware that Jeff and BurgerNFries can defend themselves, but I had to chime into to say that I think both AKmecik and Fatherunit are being flat out RUDE!

I'm an Evernote novice and I happen to agree that colour tabs would be useful. But just because they aren't, does not give me the right to be obnoxious and go off on these folks who VOLUNTEER their time on this forum to help us. They are NOT paid a dime by Evernote and if you think being a loyal fan of their profuct makes one a "sycophant" then I don't believe you are even aware of what that word truly means.

Personally, I think you are both fortunate to have not been banned for violating the TOS. Your comments here strike me as abusive.

I always felt that judging other people behavior was the definition of rude, hmmm.

[Kirby Krieger 72]

Still don't understand what browsers have to do with it, though.

 

Browsers allow the user to browse Web pages.

 

The Evernote UI allows the user to browse Notes.

 

Finder, on the Mac, allows the user to browse files.

 

iPhoto, Aperture, Lightroom, Bridge, Capture One, etc., allow users to browse images.

 

Only one of them confines the user to a "flat" UI.

 

I, for one, find it perverse that Evernote does not provide _both_ tabbed browsing _and_ multi-pane browsing of Notes.  I absolutely expect it of any database browser, no matter the content of the database.  A two-pane Viewer could be marketed by Evernote as a feature:  _Compare_ Notes side-by-side!

 

To me, "browser" indicates a multi-item list or array, and "viewer" indicates a single view of the contents of an item.  Web Browser windows are actually "viewers".  In Evernote, the Notes List is a browser.  Tellingly, there are five default ways to view the list of items in the selected container(s).  The Note Editor is a viewer.

 

I expect — because it puts so much utility in the hands of the user — every modern database UI to allow multiple browsers and viewers, both windowed and in panes, along with an "inspector" (as it's called on the Apple platforms) and a sidebar that, in turn, can be displayed both in a window and in a pane, and toggled show/hide.

 

I can make a full dinner for 20 using just one cutting board, the size of — I don't know, let's say an iPad screen — but that isn't an efficient way to process my raw food into plated meals, any more than forcing users to stick to one flat seemingly-mobile-based UI is an efficient way for them to process their data into the products they wish to make.

[megsaint 441]

 

I always felt that judging other people behavior was the definition of rude, hmmm.

 

 

No, it's not. We all judge the behavior of people around us every day, all the time. Is their behavior socially acceptable? Personally acceptable? Endearing? Annoying? Legal? Rudeness is a particular subset of behavior that contravenes prevailing standards of courtesy, manners and civility. It is frequently synonymous with meanness or unkindness. Calling people names is generally considered rude. Examples would be "Einstein" when the intent was to imply the person was stupid, or "sycophant" in most contexts. 

[jefito 5,598]

Tavor, the tag method is actually a step backwards to the before-gui-days.  You can go back an look at the some pre-gui systems (eg PROFS) and that's how they handled it.

 

Also, using the gui to provide the ability to visually see the structure is much more productive (granted for some tasks) than having to search tags.  IMHO

Well, since Evernote tags are able to be structured in hierarchies, you can visually structure your notes according to tags. Isn't this what you're talking about? The fact that they can also multi-categorize notes by tag is a bonus, but not a minus if you choose not to use that facility.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

jeff, as an evernote sycophant (10k+ posts?) you're doing a great job of defending a product that's not intuitive with a confusing interface - evernote would make quicker progress toward a better interface if it listened to new users like me and @AKmiecik instead of power users in your camp.

Well since AKmiecik seems to think I'm Einstein, maybe it would be better for new users to listen to what the more experienced users are saying. To reiterate what Jeff said, Evernote does not consider our input any more valuable than yours. But it may take some thinking outside the box for a select few to realize how clever Evernote really is. Or you could always use OneNote instead.

Good luck with whatever direction you go.

[drewla 7]

I'd like to add a couple of comments here.

 

I've had an EN account for about 5 years but started using it a little more regularly last year, and have recently decided to get into it more seriously, now that I've embarked on a paperless crusade.

 

Like a lot of ex-OneNote enthusiasts, I too miss the sub-pages and tabs hierarchy. I won't go as far as to say that EN "should" follow this model, but for me it made logical sense and keeps things neater. I know that in EN I can collect notebooks in a stack at a single level, and use tags to semi-replicate the tree structure if I wanted to. But it seems artificial, and doesn't work very well. The concept of tags is good but they can be annoying too -- not least of all because you constantly have to manage them. I tend to be on a permanent cycle of rationalising and eliminating unnecessary ones, then adding to them again when what I'm left with seems too general. What's worse is that tags are all or nothing. You either tag universally and rigorously or not bother. Anything else means you can't trust your lists to be accurate.

 

There are other reasons why tags are not always the best answer. I may have a bunch of documents and related notes and I just want to physically keep all in the same place without having to individually tag everything. I may want to see them collected together in a rough and ready hierarchy, perhaps just temporarily.

 

EN doesn't even have to think in terms of new concepts like "tabs" and "sub-pages". I'm well aware that isn't an original comment / request, but If we could stack notebooks more than one level, the problem would be largely solved. Keep all the same terminology and concepts but just allow users to nest notebooks inside other notebooks a few levels deep. Would it create serious technical issues? Hmm, I don't know, even though I am an ex-developer. I might have thought that as long as EN wasn't attaching additional functionality to the levels (e.g. altering the features / metadata, or the visibility in searches etc) then this could be a reasonably cosmetic change. So the lower level would appear to the user to be at a different level, to help with organisation, but to the EN logic engine, would still be regarded as just another notebook under the top level. 

 

That aside, I think Evernote has many excellent features that are not found in OneNote (etc) and this is why I've decided to go with it.

 

Just finally, on this subject of rudeness etc, having scanned the forums quite a lot over the past couple of weeks, I do find some moderators and 'evangelists' can be a little bit obnoxious too, even if that doesn't manifest as overt name-calling. More a slightly supercilious attitude, and  impatience / exasperation with those who are yet to cross the line into the full EN 'lifestyle' thing. I appreciate the time they put it, and am interested in their views on the software and best practices -- but not their sarcastic comments.

[jefito 5,598]

Like a lot of ex-OneNote enthusiasts, I too miss the sub-pages and tabs hierarchy. I won't go as far as to say that EN "should" follow this model, but for me it made logical sense and keeps things neater. I know that in EN I can collect notebooks in a stack at a single level, and use tags to semi-replicate the tree structure if I wanted to. But it seems artificial, and doesn't work very well. The concept of tags is good but they can be annoying too -- not least of all because you constantly have to manage them. I tend to be on a permanent cycle of rationalising and eliminating unnecessary ones, then adding to them again when what I'm left with seems too general.

What I find strange about this is that you need to manage all of the other stuff that's being requested. Are you saying that you don't need to manage folder structures on your hard drive? If you had tabs, do you need to manage them?

 

What's worse is that tags are all or nothing. You either tag universally and rigorously or not bother. Anything else means you can't trust your lists to be accurate.

I'm not so sure that that's quite true for everyone, or at least any truer than with hierarchical folders. What files on your hard drive don't exist in any folder? Regardless, tags can be used less rigorously than you may think; it really depends on your use case. I don't know yours, but this all may be easier than it seems to you. Feel free to ask questions, as there are lots of people here who may be able to make suggestions.

 

There are other reasons why tags are not always the best answer. I may have a bunch of documents and related notes and I just want to physically keep all in the same place without having to individually tag everything. I may want to see them collected together in a rough and ready hierarchy, perhaps just temporarily.

Tagging is actually perfect for this case. If you have a mainline hierarchy for organizing your notes, you can use tags to do temporary grouping, across notebooks, even (so not losing your normal structure). When you're done, just delete the temporary tag.

 

EN doesn't even have to think in terms of new concepts like "tabs" and "sub-pages". I'm well aware that isn't an original comment / request, but If we could stack notebooks more than one level, the problem would be largely solved. Keep all the same terminology and concepts but just allow users to nest notebooks inside other notebooks a few levels deep. Would it create serious technical issues? Hmm, I don't know, even though I am an ex-developer. I might have thought that as long as EN wasn't attaching additional functionality to the levels (e.g. altering the features / metadata, or the visibility in searches etc) then this could be a reasonably cosmetic change. So the lower level would appear to the user to be at a different level, to help with organisation, but to the EN logic engine, would still be regarded as just another notebook under the top level.

The design of Evernote, as I've said before, based on comments by Evernote staff, is that the flat organizational scheme is deliberate. No doubt that they could do a hierarchical notebook (or stack) structure if they chose, but they chose differently. On the other hand, there's no saying that they won't change their minds down the road, either, so continuing to make the suggestion is perfectly valid. That being said, if you're actively using Evernote in your life or work, you need to use it in the way it's constructed -- otherwise you may end up working against it, to your frustration.

[drewla 7]

Some fair points.

 

Rather than tetchily go through each one, I'd prefer to seek a note of agreement which I found in your final observation. I'm with you on this -- I think it's counter-productive to whine about functionality that doesn't exist, and we should use such situations to challenge our own preconceptions and prejudices. That said, it's good to prod developers with other perspectives from time to time. and it also prompts others to offer workarounds or alternative approaches.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Just finally, on this subject of rudeness etc, having scanned the forums quite a lot over the past couple of weeks, I do find some moderators and 'evangelists' can be a little bit obnoxious too, even if that doesn't manifest as overt name-calling. More a slightly supercilious attitude, and impatience / exasperation with those who are yet to cross the line into the full EN 'lifestyle' thing. I appreciate the time they put it, and am interested in their views on the software and best practices -- but not their sarcastic comments.

There's nothing wrong with sarcasm. OTOH, snarkiness isn't appreciated no matter who it's coming from. You want to call out the evangelists on this. But there's plenty of snarkiness dished out TOWARD other users, including evangelists. This thread is a perfect example since OP got snarky after receiving the first reply. I didn't even include any snarkiness in the reply to that. But if someone is dishing it out, there's a good chance they'll get some back.

[drewla 7]

 

....There's nothing wrong with sarcasm.....

 

No, of course there isn't. It can be quite a positive and constructive thing.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

....There's nothing wrong with sarcasm.....

No, of course there isn't. It can be quite a positive and constructive thing.

Well played playa. Sorry you're not a fan of sarcasm. But it's simply not the same as snarkiness.

[Rene CD 2]

I agree with others, the mods here come across as very defensive and clieque'ish.  How about just acknowledging that a tabbed interface would be a good idea.  Just look at browsers, all the major browsers have tabbed browsing now. 

[megsaint 441]

How about just acknowledging that a tabbed interface would be a good idea.  Just look at browsers, all the major browsers have tabbed browsing now.

I absolutely acknowledge that it's an idea, better than some, worse that others and the only interest it has for me is the hope that limited development resources aren't spent on it. But Evernote will do what Evernote wants.

Still don't understand what browsers have to do with it, though.

Best of luck.

[jefito 5,598]

I agree with others, the mods here come across as very defensive and clieque'ish.  How about just acknowledging that a tabbed interface would be a good idea.  Just look at browsers, all the major browsers have tabbed browsing now.

A tabbed interface would be useful to some folks, no question. It's not clear what relevance your opinion of moderators is to that discussion, though.

 

And remember, the discussion opened by the original poster is one of tabs within notebooks, not quite the same thing as the tabs most modern browsers use. I can see how that might play out, though -- a notebook has a set of tabs that come up automatically when you switch to it. I'm not quite sure that that's the Evernote way of doing things, but again, I can see where some folks might find it useful.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I agree with others, the mods here come across as very defensive and clieque'ish.  How about just acknowledging that a tabbed interface would be a good idea.  Just look at browsers, all the major browsers have tabbed browsing now.

That's a two way street. Simply b/c mods have an opinion that differs from yours doesn't make them defensive or cliquish. And yet so often non-mods stoop to evangelist bashing when it suits their purpose.