Feature Request: New note inherits tag of viewed tag group

[jimpiazza 3]

Having switched to using Tags as a primary organization tool instead of Notebooks, a typical workflow for me is to use the search field to find and view a group of notes having a particular Tag (e.g. relating to a project or topic of interest) in the same way that I might have previously searched for a Notebook containing that same group of notes. However, when organizing with Notebooks you can very conveniently use command-N to create a new note belonging to that same group of viewed notes -- meaning it is automatically assigned to belong to that Notebook. But when using Tags there is no equivalent method of creating new notes that belong to the currently viewed Tag group. Rather than get a new note that inherits the "Project X" tag what happens instead is Evernote drops my viewing of all Project X related notes, changes my view to the default Notebook, and opens a new untagged note there. 

 

Evernote Devs: Could you please try to upgrade this behavior when using Tags to the same level of convenient workflow one gets with Notebooks? Or perhaps an option for those who want it to enable "create new Notes in the tag group currently being viewed (or searched)"?

 

WIthout this capability Tags are not nearly as convenient to use for organizing as Notebooks are -- which is unfortunate because Tags are by most accounts from experts a more powerful way to organize.

 

thanks for your consideration,

Jim

[Kirby Krieger 72]

 for my workflow I'm not sure your system would save me any time or steps. HOWEVER... you have reminded me about right-click copy, which gives me the following workflow idea...

1. Right-click copy an existing note within the searched tag group I am currently viewing, preferably one without any extraneous metadata (e.g. hyperlinks). The new duplicate note shows up right within my existing view, correctly tagged.
2. Click onto the new note to make it active.
3. Cmd-A overwrite the title, then tab into the body and Cmd-A overwrite the body content

OK, that's even better. I still remain envious of the one-step Cmd-N keyboard shortcut method I had when using Notebooks for organization.

 

thank you,

Jim

 

Hi Jim,

 

Glad to help.  It helps me learn, which I'm hot to do right now.  I don't have time this evening to specifically test what I suggested originally, but in the interim I thought the following would be useful to you:

 

You can make the tags field active with ⌘'

You can select all the tags in the field with ⌘a

You can copy that selection to the clipboard with ⌘c

You can create a new Note with ⌘n

That takes you to your default Notebook.

You can make the tags field active with ⌘'

You can paste the contents of the clipboard with ⌘v

You can return to the last _view_ (afaict) with ⌘[

In that view you should have a new "Untitled Note" with the tags you want assigned.  If your sort is set to Most Recently Modified First, it will be at the top of the Notes List.  Select it.

 

Variation:

Instead of ⌘n to create a new Note, use Evernote's global key-chord to create a new Note in its own window.  Thus change the above to finish:

⌃⌥⌘n to create a new Note in its own window

⌘' to make the tags field active

⌘v to paste the contents of the clipboard

⌘w to close the window

You should be back where you were, exactly, except that your newly-created Note will be added and, if your current container was filtered based on tags, it should show.

 

Notes:

• If you use any macro program, you could assign all of this to a key-chord.  I use and recommend Keyboard Maestro.  There are many good ones out there.
• Someone cleverer than me could probably even get it to end with your new Note selected.
• You can, of course, pause when the new Note is created and fill in the Title and even the body.
• If you are viewing the results of a search, your Note will, of course, only show if it meets all the parameters of the search.  This method works for any search based on tags only (which is what you inquired about).
• Evernote's global key-chords are found at "Evernote ▹ Preferences ▹ Shortcuts".  I don't think I changed the defaults, but I'm never sure.

 

HTH,

 

Kirby.

[facchini@ameritech.net 0]

Yep, that works Greg. Thank You.

Definitely should be in the EN preferences. 

[sfmike 4]

On 1/24/2016 at 9:20 PM, Liquid Greg said:

In Windows, if you set the registry key HKCU/Software/Evernote/Evernote/SetNewNoteTags value to 1 it will create new notes in in the tags view and assign any currently selected tags to the new note.  It works great.

Works great for me too Greg - thanks for sharing!

[Liquid Greg 3]

In Windows, if you set the registry key HKCU/Software/Evernote/Evernote/SetNewNoteTags value to 1 it will create new notes in in the tags view and assign any currently selected tags to the new note.  It works great.

[sfmike 4]

Well put, Jim, kudos for the clear analysis & reply....I appreciate that there's difficulty for developers in adding features, but it's very clear from this thread that Evernote's  tagging help is sorely lacking.

 

Evernote's sole function is to store clips & notes in an easily retrievable way.  The lack of an intuitive tag system (even windows explorer is more helpful) hangs me up on almost every new note, which is most often a repeat of the previous tags I've just selected. Why can't each tag from the previous be auto-suggested? alternatively, a 'format painter' type function for 'tags' ..

Something.. anything.. PLEASE!>?.. for the sake of Evernote, which I otherwise love..

 

 

+1 for this request.  I've started using Evernote for task management following the lines of GTD and am now making much more extensive use of tagging.  

 

While there are other ways to get this done (templates, etc.), I think automatically applying the tags in the current view when composing new notes has several distinct advantages:

 

1. Since this is your current view, it is logical that you are working / thinking about this area

2. It is an easy toggle to change to view to change the default (easier than having to find another Notebook for instance)

 

In my case for instance, I'm frequently looking at my notebook "Action Pending" with a tag selected like "Family".  It jars me every time I go to add a note, and it kicks me back up to all notes in "Action Pending."  I think the interface between reviewing notes and creating related new ones should be as smooth as possible. That's done today for Notebooks, but not for tags...

 

Thanks.

[dlmiller 1]

 

... The key for me is to have a note naming system that means I'll almost certainly name notes on the same subject in the same way - and that notes from any official source usually have a common reference or 'customer number' or some such that allows me to find the note group when I need to.

 

 

Ahh... yes, I understand. So in a sense you are still using a tagging type approach, but rather than use Evernote's Tag implementation you are instead encoding information (tags if you will) into every note's Title/Name field. It speaks volumes that Evernote's purpose-built tag features are unable to be an improvement for you over such a method -- and I'm sure you have lots of company. You're earlier comment suggesting a "serious overhaul" is needed seems right on.

 

Well put, Jim, kudos for the clear analysis & reply....I appreciate that there's difficulty for developers in adding features, but it's very clear from this thread that Evernote's  tagging help is sorely lacking.

 

Evernote's sole function is to store clips & notes in an easily retrievable way.  The lack of an intuitive tag system (even windows explorer is more helpful) hangs me up on almost every new note, which is most often a repeat of the previous tags I've just selected. Why can't each tag from the previous be auto-suggested? alternatively, a 'format painter' type function for 'tags' ..

Something.. anything.. PLEASE!>?.. for the sake of Evernote, which I otherwise love..

[jimpiazza 3]

This feature used to exist on the iOS version of Evernote, but was removed about 2 updates ago. I contacted support who informed me it was intentionally removed. ...

 

Oh wow... really? That's not a good omen. Wonder if the way they've got Tags implemented under the hood now makes it difficult to program such a feature? I really hope they find a way to bring it back, it would be such a workflow timesaver. Imagine the howls if they dropped that feature for Notebooks too... 

[Brent L 0]

This feature used to exist on the iOS version of Evernote, but was removed about 2 updates ago. I contacted support who informed me it was intentionally removed. So I would like to second to bring the feature back in all versions, Mac and mobile! 

 

We use tags to create virtual notebooks. Everything we need to buy at the store, we tag "store". So when we remember we need to buy horseradish, we click on our "store" tag group, then click "new", and voila! the tag used to be automatically added. No longer. Now we are forced into using a new notebook. Just doesn't feel as slick to me.

[Jackolicious 808]

Thanks for the suggestion. Noted!

[jimpiazza 3]

... The key for me is to have a note naming system that means I'll almost certainly name notes on the same subject in the same way - and that notes from any official source usually have a common reference or 'customer number' or some such that allows me to find the note group when I need to.

 

 

Ahh... yes, I understand. So in a sense you are still using a tagging type approach, but rather than use Evernote's Tag implementation you are instead encoding information (tags if you will) into every note's Title/Name field. It speaks volumes that Evernote's purpose-built tag features are unable to be an improvement for you over such a method -- and I'm sure you have lots of company. You're earlier comment suggesting a "serious overhaul" is needed seems right on.

[gazumped 12,028]

Your voice of pragmatism is duly noted, Gazumped. In my case I have no expectations other than if more of us ask for a feature the sooner it might make some internal development priority list and the sooner we might see it in a shipping product. I was surprised frankly to search this forum for an hour first and find no one else having already asked for this feature (or perhaps my search skills are just poor)... which made me wonder if other Tag users (vs Notebook users) are perhaps not so numerous.

 

... Since then though I don't use tags unless I have to - I learned to love the Evernote search grammar,  tweaked by some smart note titling. 

 

Have you gone back to using Notebooks then as your primary method to organize, view, and work with sets of notes? And thus operate without notes able to belong to multiple such sets as a consequence? You mention using search (which I love as well) but that suffers from the same deficiency pointed out in my original post does it not? No easy way to add a new note that belongs to that same resulting "set".

 

I don't use notebooks for organisation.  I have several,  for sharing and for individual projects,  and a couple of local notebooks that don't get synced for limited security reasons.  But 99% of my notes are in one notebook.  The key for me is to have a note naming system that means I'll almost certainly name notes on the same subject in the same way - and that notes from any official source usually have a common reference or 'customer number' or some such that allows me to find the note group when I need to.

[jimpiazza 3]

Kirby,  

 

Thanks for so generously providing guidance on the system you use, with steps and screenshots. On the face of it though (and I apologize if I've missed something) the resulting method would still seem to require a few clicks and some scrolling through lists to successfully add a new note to your current viewed set (and still be viewing the set, now with the new note). And that is after it is all set up first with template notes (presumably one for every set you are interested in, which in my case is about 150). Having template text isn't part of my need, just a new note in the same tagged set, so your set up is probably overkill for me. The manual method I've been using is...

1. Create a new note. That switches me into the default notebook with the new untitled note active.
2. Click to add tag(s), typing in the same tag(s) as my previous search group. Auto-complete often helps tremendously here
3. Click the All Notes button (so my next search is not just within the default notebook)
4. Redo my original search to once again view the set of related notes I am working with, now with the new note included at top.

... so for my workflow I'm not sure your system would save me any time or steps. HOWEVER... you have reminded me about right-click copy, which gives me the following workflow idea...

1. Right-click copy an existing note within the searched tag group I am currently viewing, preferably one without any extraneous metadata (e.g. hyperlinks). The new duplicate note shows up right within my existing view, correctly tagged.
2. Click onto the new note to make it active.
3. Cmd-A overwrite the title, then tab into the body and Cmd-A overwrite the body content

OK, that's even better. I still remain envious of the one-step Cmd-N keyboard shortcut method I had when using Notebooks for organization.

 

thank you,

Jim

[jimpiazza 3]

Your voice of pragmatism is duly noted, Gazumped. In my case I have no expectations other than if more of us ask for a feature the sooner it might make some internal development priority list and the sooner we might see it in a shipping product. I was surprised frankly to search this forum for an hour first and find no one else having already asked for this feature (or perhaps my search skills are just poor)... which made me wonder if other Tag users (vs Notebook users) are perhaps not so numerous.

 

... Since then though I don't use tags unless I have to - I learned to love the Evernote search grammar,  tweaked by some smart note titling. 

 

Have you gone back to using Notebooks then as your primary method to organize, view, and work with sets of notes? And thus operate without notes able to belong to multiple such sets as a consequence? You mention using search (which I love as well) but that suffers from the same deficiency pointed out in my original post does it not? No easy way to add a new note that belongs to that same resulting "set".

 

 

[gazumped 12,028]

If you find yourself using a standard set of tags like "this, that, other" just add them as text to a separate note,  or post them to your desktop in Notebook.  When you create a new note,  copy and paste the whole string with commas into the tag prompt and "wingardium tagiosa" you'll have three tags (or however many comma separated tags you pasted) on that note.

[dlmiller 1]

I'd just like to see:

• auto-suggestion of tags identical to that of notebooks in the web 'clip' dialogue..

​Alternatively;

• 80-90% of my tags follow  the previous tags chosen; auto-suggestion of previous tag used would save much time/effort.

[gazumped 12,028]

- Just on practicalities..

 

It takes a considerable amount of time to schedule in a possible change in behaviour,  code it for more than a dozen different OS's.  run through error checking and user acceptability,  and launch on an unsuspecting market.  So unless Evernote had this in the pipeline a year or more ago,  we won't be seeing major changes anytime soon.

 

I do agree tag management in general could do with a serious overhaul - I started out using tags and ran up to about 1100 before the confusions and contradictions began to be annoying.  Since then though I don't use tags unless I have to - I learned to love the Evernote search grammar,  tweaked by some smart note titling.

 

It'll be interesting to see what Evernote come up with... 

[Kirby Krieger 72]

Hi Jim,

 

Excellent suggestion.  I'd like to see Evernote make your suggested change this month.

 

Here's what I'm doing, which I think works well for when you regularly create new Notes in which you want to have content or metadata already applied.  (NB: I _just_ started using Evernote — there may be negative consequences to this that I don't yet know.)  There are several optional parts listed.

 

• I create Notes that I use as templates for all often-created notes which I want to have pre-filled with content or metadata.  (In your case, a specific tag.)
• These Notes should have whatever content and metadata, including tags, that you want.
• I keep my Templates in a dedicated Notebook called "_Templates".  The underscore forces this to the top of an alphabetically-sorted list of Notes.
• I make a Shortcut to my "_Templates" Notebook.
• I set the Reminder flag to on.
• The Reminders section is always at the top of the Notes List for any container.
• The Reminders section is categorized by Notebook.  All my template Notes are grouped together.  (Because of the underscore prefix, "_Templates" is always the top group, or, even better imho, the second-to-top group, under Remindered Notes in my "_Inbox" Notebook.)
• Because Remindered Notes are grouped by Notebook, I can use the Reminder flag on other Notes, and not confuse them with my template Notes.
• When the container is a simple search by tag, only the template Notes which carry that tag show in the "_Templates" sub-section or the Reminders section of the Notes List.
• I use the template Note to create a new Note by right-clicking and selecting "Copy to … ".  In Evernote, every Note must be in one and in only one Notebook. (NB: _Do not_ just select the template Note and use it.)
• Then I select the newly-created Note (if it is not already selected) and use it.
• Remember to clear the Reminder flag!

 

HTH.  So far, for me, it's proven to be a flexible and useful system.

 

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