(Archived) Subnotebooks - one last question

[tut 0]

I know this has been discussed to death, but I'd like to ask one last question of the developers, if I may.

Is the decision about not implementing subnotebooks:

a coding (complicated) issue

or

a priority (more important things to get into Evernote) issue

or

a philosophical (Evernote believes in tag, not subnotebooks) issue?

I, personally, can't understand why Evernote wouldn't implement a feature that so many customers desire (especially as it would be something that customers can choose to use, so it wouldn't negatively impact those who don't want it). I love Evernote, but the lack of subnotebooks is something I struggle with. Having a better understanding of why Evernote won't develop this feature would help me get over the disappointment (frustration).

Thanks for dealing with this one more time.

[engberg 89]

It's a small part philosophical: The metaphor of a "notebook" doesn't really imply that it would contain a sequence of other notebooks. In the physical world, you don't cram notebooks inside other notebooks within other notebooks.

It's a bit more technical: The hierarchical relationships between entities are particularly painful to manage in a synchronization protocol since you need to get the order of operations exactly right as you move a child notebook to the root, move the old parent inside the child, etc. Since we don't force everyone to update their clients every time we add a new feature, all of this magic needs to be backward compatible with older clients that don't currently have any concept of hierarchy in the data model.

But it's mostly a matter of prioritizing limited resources: since we already have an organizational scheme that lets you create thousands of labels in arbitrary hierarchies, producing a redundant set of complexity in our other organizational metaphor adds very low actual new functionality. We're busy rewriting the Windows UI to use a more powerful interface framework with a modern HTML engine, and doing similarly important projects on other platforms (e.g. note decryption on the web, which has been missing for 1.5 years). Reproducing tag hierarchies within notebooks is a pile of new work across the entire company that has mostly aesthetic value.

We're not ruling this out in the future, but it's the kind of heavy change across the entire data model and all clients that is somewhat painful behind the scenes.

Thanks for the feedback, though ...

[tut 0]

Thanks for the response. I feel better already; but still keep my name on the subfolder desire list;-)

Thanks again.

[jlehett 0]

For me, the subnote question has primarily revolved around the UI interface to it. For example, I don't believe GMail supports true sub-folders in it's mail folder scheme, however, there are UI utilities for the Gmail interface, where if you name your folders properly, they will APPEAR to be nested folders.

For example , if we could do this in evernote folder names:

"ABC Contract:Project Alpha Docs:Invoices"

"ABC Contract:Project Alpha Docs:Specifications"

etc

That could be the folder name itself, but a UI that would allow collapsing on some specific character (':' in the above example) would allow you to only see whichever level(s) you wanted.

From an internal database standpoint, the above are purely 2 separate top-level folders. However, from the UI standpoint, if a UI 'wished' to implement such collapsing, it could.

I believe since the API is out there, some enterprising developer could actually implement such an interface 'right now', although that is no small task, it is at least technically possible.

It would of course be even better if such a Folder-Name-Collapsing option was available in an upcoming release of the primary Evernote desktop software.

[shimra 14]

It's a small part philosophical: The metaphor of a "notebook" doesn't really imply that it would contain a sequence of other notebooks. In the physical world, you don't cram notebooks inside other notebooks within other notebooks.

True to an extent, but in the physical world things like 5 subject notebooks are very popular for students. I think one problem with Evernote is the notebooks section can get very busy if you have a lot of notebooks.

One suggestion I have is what I believe Onenote does, which is have folders you can put your notebooks in. Definitely makes metaphorical sense, since its only natural to store notebooks in different locations. Hopefully this might be easier to implement? I think its a heck of a lot easier to click to expand a folder tree called work then click a contacts notebook, than the current implementation, where you click work folder, tag: contacts, or you have to remember you put work contacts in a notebook called work contacts versus personal contacts folder versus work notes etc.

The problem with switching between notebooks and tags is you are mixing metaphors and you are forced to click around, plus its easier to forget to tag something, plus the notebooks get generally disorganized.

[robe070 4]

Philosophical? It seems a bit of a stretch to use the physical worlds restrictions to restrict the online world. Still, personally at Uni I had one current loose-leafed notebook with tabbed dividers, one for each subject I was currently taking. I carried this around with me. When it got too full I'd transfer each subject to its own folder. When they got to full I'd extend to another folder. So, this is hierachical. The act of putting an item in a notebook meant it was relevant to that subject. I didn't need to add it to an index (tag it), and every item, in order to find the item in my mammoth single 'Uni Notebook'.

Now that I might add so much more to a notebook for so many more contexts of my life there is even more need for a structure to my notebooks.

I can understand the technical difficulty. I like the idea of each notebook only being part of a folder because of the way it is named. It seems to me this gets around almost all the major technical difficulties. It doesn't have any relationship with any other Notebook until it needs to be viewed - its not part of the Model - its part of the View. You can do whatever you need to do to the Model - updating/syncing Notebooks - without regard to their structure.

In the mean time, I'm going to structure the name of my notebooks so they appear in groups in the list.

thanks for a great product making so much so easy to do.

regards

Rob

[brihanrohan 5]

Thanks for the explanation. However I also have to agree with robe070. It's about interface and presentation. Maybe the current tag system is fine without a heirachy, but it's un-navigatable. You either end up with too many tags or too many notebooks, and either way you cant remember which places you put your notes. The current system would be fine if only there were a better presentation/interface to explore it.

All this could be solved with proper filtering:

Click on a notebook and only the tags in that notebook appear/or move to the top/ or get divided from the rest of the tags.

Click on a tag and have the ability to see all notes contained in inner tags too.

[ckckjones 0]

All this could be solved with proper filtering:

Click on a notebook and only the tags in that notebook appear/or move to the top/ or get divided from the rest of the tags.

Click on a tag and have the ability to see all notes contained in inner tags too.

Another vote here!

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Maybe the current tag system is fine without a heirachy, but it's un-navigatable. You either end up with too many tags or too many notebooks, and either way you cant remember which places you put your notes.

It sounds to me like you need to refine how you use notebooks & tags. If you applied the above complaint to a paper filing system, that's like saying you can't remember if you filed your American Express credit card statements under "American Express" or "credit cards". No matter how great a filing system is, if you sometimes file your AMEX statement under "American Express" & sometimes file it under "credit cards", you're always going to have a kludgy system because the American Express file may not contain all the statements & the credit card file may have AMEX as well as B of A & Citibank statements.

[shimra 14]

Maybe the current tag system is fine without a heirachy, but it's un-navigatable. You either end up with too many tags or too many notebooks, and either way you cant remember which places you put your notes.

It sounds to me like you need to refine how you use notebooks & tags. If you applied the above complaint to a paper filing system, that's like saying you can't remember if you filed your American Express credit card statements under "American Express" or "credit cards". No matter how great a filing system is, if you sometimes file your AMEX statement under "American Express" & sometimes file it under "credit cards", you're always going to have a kludgy system because the American Express file may not contain all the statements & the credit card file may have AMEX as well as B of A & Citibank statements.

In a real filing system, you could use those big folders that hold folders within them, or put your notebook in a folder. Or use sticky notes in your notebook. Which is not to say those options are perfect, but Evernote could be improved.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

In a real filing system, you could use those big folders that hold folders within them, or put your notebook in a folder. Or use sticky notes in your notebook. Which is not to say those options are perfect, but Evernote could be improved.

The digital/Evernote version of the stickies is to use what I call Keywords, which are words that I think I may use when looking for that note, in the future. In a note about American Express, I'd make sure the words "American Express AMEX credit card" were all in the note, even if I had to manually add them in. I even add misspellings when there are names/words I may spell differently, when searching for the note in the future. IE, if a note contains info about someone who's last name is Shafer, I will also add Shaffer. So no matter how I spell Shafer/Shaffer when I'm looking for that note, it will be picked up.

In a similar vein, in my password manager, I may create one entry labeled "Cable - look under Cox." And I'll make sure the word "Cable" is in the Cox entry. So when I'm looking for my Cox Cable password & do a search on "cable", both entries show up. And I can immediately tell from the title that I should look under the Cox one instead of the Cable one.

I'm sure if EN had subnotebooks, I would use them. But since it seems to be an issue that EN is not planning on implementing at this time, I don't see it as the deal breaker that it's being made out to be. And perhaps I've learned to do these things b/c I used a Palm PDA for many, many years. You only had 15 categories and no sub-categories, so you had to figure out how to make memos so you could easily find them.

EDIT: and a digital/Evernote version of using the big folder for "credit cards" & smaller folder for AMEX within the big folder, make a notebook labeled credit cards. You can then tag with AMEX, B of A, etc or even use titles. IE make the title "American Express YYYYMMDD - called to dispute charge" where YYYYMMDD is the date that is relevant to the note. If you sort alpha by title, this insures all the AMEX notes are together & then sorted by date.

[brihanrohan 5]

In a note about American Express, I'd make sure the words "American Express AMEX credit card" were all in the note, even if I had to manually add them in. I even add misspellings when there are names/words I may spell differently, when searching for the note in the future.

And perhaps I've learned to do these things b/c I used a Palm PDA for many, many years. You only had 15 categories and no sub-categories, so you had to figure out how to make memos so you could easily find them.

You are correct. You obviously navigate by searching. The search box must fulfil most of your needs. It gets you to the note you are thinking about straight away. That is good, but it is not what I mean. You are talking about "finding" a note.

I am talking about "filtering" or "navigating" my notes. I want to refine my search as I click on each filter, until I have a manageable number of tags in front of me. I want to "explore" my notes. I'm not necessarily digging to find one specific note. Thus, I need the tag list to react to me. When I filter the list in some way, I need all the tags that are now irrelevant to disappear. If this happens, the software is showing me the relationships between tags; it is showing me which notes have similar themes. If it doesnt happen my brain is going to start to melt as I try to remember whether I should file the note as credit card, american express, banking etc, and I will just end up "over tagging" everything to make sure that I can find it at some future date.

Proper filtering would get EN to the point of being like your palm. You would use less tags, and notebooks because you know that you would always be able to filter your way down until you find what you are looking for.

No filtering is like putting different color stickers on each piece of paper and throwing them all into the same box. In the end, every piece of paper has a different colour sticker on it so the stickers become meaningless.

Two good examples that come to mind of filtering:

iTunes categories tags into "Genre" "Artist" and "Album". Essentially they are all tags, but being able to put those tags in one category and navigate each category to filter the other categories really helps to narrow down the list of songs. Clicking a genre tag narrows down all of my artist tags. There is nothing like this in EN on the mac or iphone.

Delicious sidebar for firefox. Search for one tag and then you can "expand" that tag to see other tags that have been applied to the same web pages. There is no heirachy in the tags on your delicious account, but the "navigation" creates a heirachy when you browse to help you narrow down your search.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Two good examples that come to mind of filtering:

iTunes categories tags into "Genre" "Artist" and "Album". Essentially they are all tags, but being able to put those tags in one category and navigate each category to filter the other categories really helps to narrow down the list of songs. Clicking a genre tag narrows down all of my artist tags. There is nothing like this in EN on the mac or iphone.

Sure there is (assuming the basic functionality is the same on Windows & Mac.) Create a notebook called "Music". You could use tags for genres, since a song may fit into multiple genres. Then the titles for each entry would be "Artist - Album - Track". IE "Eva Cassidy - Live At Blues Alley - Wade In The Water."

If you want to "explore" your entries, just go to the MUSIC notebook (double click in Windows - don't know the command on Mac), select the "Blues" tag & do your exploring. If there's no double click equivalent on Mac, you can select the Blues tag & sort the results by notebook.

And jbenson is savvy with his tagging & searches, so he may have another method that he would use.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Proper filtering would get EN to the point of being like your palm. You would use less tags, and notebooks because you know that you would always be able to filter your way down until you find what you are looking for.

Um, no. The ONLY filtering on Palm was the 15 categories, title and a search on words was it. No tags. The EN equivalent is 15 notebooks (that's it - limited to 15 or less) with the search on words function but NO tags, no creation date, no subject, no modification date. So if you have 1000 memos, you have to be creative/diligent about using titles & keywords.

[robe070 4]

I think it comes down to the way you are used to working. I use many applications that have a Folder hierarchy like Outlook, Visual Studio, Windows Folders, etc. So I'm used to thinking that way. I find everything I need to very quickly with Evernotes powerful search capabilities.

But anyway, I haven't yet seen a response from an Evernote person as to why they can't just provide a viewing structure that does not effect their model. It seems to me it would be simple to structure the Notebooks into sub-notebooks simply by using a naming structure like Top, Top:Sub, Top:Sub:Sub2 and then using ':' as the folder separator.

[Jonah 0]

I'd like to add another vote for a "filter tags by current notebook" option.

This seems so natural and easy to implement. If I am looking at notebook A, why would I ever want to see the tags that exist only on notebook B. If I want to do a global tag search, I can use the search box or select the "All Notebooks" option.

Is there a design reason this hasn't been done that I am overlooking?

[maddiezahatter 0]

I'm itching for something like subnotebooks - mainly because I don't like to see everything I have all at once, and I'd love the ability to 'archive' old notebooks so they aren't staring me in the face all the time.

I've just finished a uni course, which because it had multiple parts to the material and I wanted separate places to put related notes/exercises, I had created five separate notebooks for. I also did another course this year which has it's own notebook. Now, I'd really like to forget about both of them (aah, the pain is too fresh!) without deleting them - if I could have a folder called 'uni courses' or 'education' or something to store these in my mental state would be much better and I would not be constantly thinking about the grade I'm going to end up with if they weren't all RIGHT THERE when I open Evernote.

Fact is, while this stuff is maybe useful to have for the future, and I don't want it *gone* permanently, it's no longer relevant to me on a day-to-day basis.

I think it's a fallacy to think of the idea as 'notebooks within notebooks' as you say - you don't put one notebook inside another in the physical world - really it's 'sections of a notebook' - and they sell sectioned notebooks everywhere. The reason it doesn't make sense is that Evernote has a 'notebook' metaphor, not a 'section' metaphor. You could call it 'boxes of stuff' if you wanted or 'piles of *****' and it would work the same. I'd still want a way to put one pile of ***** with another pile of ***** in a container if there was a shared context I could use to compartmentalise it.

That said, I really love Evernote and recently upgraded to a premium subscription - I'd have been lost without it this past year!

Maddie