I implore the Evernote master, please highlight the notebook I am in

[GreyGray 15]

Pre-post note to users: I have seen multiple posts that lean on the below ideas and notions, please, if you agree, back it up with a reply, or a suggestion, or if you disagree, lets come to a consensus and get that into over to the devs.  Thanks.

 

I was told it was a design decision to not highlight the note book you currently are on.  Things are all over the board now.  In the web version, the notebooks list doesn't stay around long enough to even matter, but the note you are selected on, you won't know it unless you leave your mouse over it.  So now, no way to know which note you have selected in the web view.  And a quick one on the web version, you have so much room, I know the web moved a bit towards large spacing, but also note that tends to appear most on one page landings, not full blown apps.

 

The Mac app, since I don't know how the Windows app works, now has a great background around the notebook listing.

 

I heard the reasons why this decision was made, and it makes sense, but when you compare those decisions to how any panel based app works, mail.app, gmail, 1Password, there are so many, and all of them let you know what category you are selected in.  Sure, you may be in a "smart folder" and the last place you were in was some other non smart folder, so what do you do? I would do what they all do, deselect the last selection. From every app I just looked at, in the case of EN, it looks like it would be something like this:

 

if current notebook listed in the header of the second column in three pane view is equal to the last notebook clicked on, highlight that notebook, otherwise, don't highlight anything.

 

You highlight notes and notebooks, so if I am in "All Notes", it lights up in blue.  One may argue that when I click on a note it should then highlight the notebook.  No, I disagree, it does not meet the above mentioned condition.  I am in ALL NOTES, not a specific notebook.  This is exactly how 1Password and mail.app deal with this.  As it is now, if I could fully turn off the notebooks on the left, which seems stuck because the "ALL NOTES" header is there, I would, then I would move from notebook to notebook via the header menu in the notes hitlist.  But that is not at all what I want, I have room on screen, at least I would, after a few small UI updates I want to suggest later.

 

How can I remove the "Notes" header, I never use it, but it is greyed out as an option to turn off in the sidebar.  Seeing ALL notes, not something I will ever really need to do, and if I do, I am more than happy to drill around for it.  The sidebar's "NoteBooks" header, I don't need it, does anyone?  It's pretty implied what is below, and if you have them turned off, you probably want that header off too.

 

Notes are getting put in the wrong place, because I don't know where I am, and I am used to looking left, for a "box" or something that tells me where I am.  When in snippet view, does the title there do filtering, or moving?  And the "Recent Notebooks", that seems to have popped in that list too.  I am assuming that is to file notes, there is a menu to "move to ... again", if that had a keyboard command, that is the most widely used I would imagine, the others, rarely am I going to go down that rabbit hole to the second, third, or fourth recently used ones, if I do, it will be for mass cleaning and organizing, not something I need front and center.  Not saying to remove much, but feel free to put it in a menu, give it a keyboard command, and keep the clutter down.

 

 

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

@Grey,

 

Sorry, I don't have time to wade through your lengthy post, but if I understand your main concern, it is about identifying which Notebook is currently selected, for which the Note list is currently filtered for.

 

If so, then you can just look at the top of the Note List to see the current Notebook, as well as in the "New Note in <NBName>" button/dropdown.

See my screenshot below, where you can clearly see the the "IT" notebook has been selected.

 

[GreyGray 15]

Hey JM, 

 

I get what you are saying, I really do.  See the blue line around the selected note in your screenshot?  Imagine if that was not there and instead, the answer was, well, it is in the notes subject, what do you need to know what note you are selected on? That is how my brain is seeing the notion of selected notebooks.  If it is important enough to mark that you are on all notes, then it would seem important enough to mark that you are on a subset of those notes.  I understand this excludes search results, tag search group results, and everything in-between.  But I can't help but keeping to come back to email clients, all of which offer the support of a selected folder, and have the same folder, small preview, larger preview layout possibilities, most even have top -bottom pane and others just like EN.

 

Then you get keyboard navigation, so I can be on a notebook and arrow around to open and close folders, and move up and down to move from one to the other.  The main issue is the visual indicator.  I would also like to see the trash moved out of the notebooks area, it seems strange in that location, and is tough to get to at times. Most of the sidebar options seem better suited to menubar customizations to me, where we have the cute little radar antennae ting and the sync icon, and the new note, we could have the show all notes, the notebooks, the market, all that stuff, we could then turn on and off at will, full user customizability in that regard.

 

Being able to turn off recent notebooks everywhere, or better, on a per area basis would be really nice as well.

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

@Grey, sorry I don't get what you are saying.

IMO, you have two clear indicators as to which NB you are "in", IOW, which NB is set as the current filter, and which NB any new Notes will be created in.

 

You can choose to ignore these indicators, but they are there for your, and everyone's, benefit.

[GreyGray 15]

@Grey, sorry I don't get what you are saying.

IMO, you have two clear indicators as to which NB you are "in", IOW, which NB is set as the current filter, and which NB any new Notes will be created in.

 

You can choose to ignore these indicators, but they are there for your, and everyone's, benefit.

 

I guess I would have to answer with, then what is the point of the sidebar that shows the notebooks?  If there are so many other locations in which you can quickly glean that data, why do you even need the sidebar? Marketplace stuff? I think that most users of Mac apps are used to clicking on folders to activate that folder.  If I want to drag a note into a sidebar notebook, it even highlights the folder that I am doing so in, which I don't believe it used to do, as I seem to remember being very careful not to drop a batch into the wrong folder.  Now for batches I use a bulk move instead, but drag and drop would be nice. Though I wonder where they would go when the blue line outlines the entire sidebar rectangle.

 

It's not without precedent...

 

 

That looks like an older version, maybe a PC version, maybe web, hopefully a beta to soon come out , who knows, but it looks to me like there was a real attention to cramming in as much stuff into the app as possible, but in such a clean way.  

 

Do you not understand what it is I am requesting, or do you not understand why it is that it would/could be valuable to add it in or bring it back? Sorry, I am pretty new, and don't know the history of the app and it's various UI design changes.

 

I just googled and searched the forums, found a post you and I had back and forth, in which you stated

> "Honestly, it would be better UI, IMO, if the Notebook name was more pronounced, like bold and a larger font."

 

​I agree with that too, it's such a small thing, and I am looking at about 5 tabs right now, that are asking directly or indirectly amidst other questions about the same thing, and there are a few me too's as well.

 

Oh, and the main issue, is yes, there are multiple places it shows you what notebook you are in, but many have nested notebooks, so a top level, a few sub levels, another top level, all you get to see is the sub level that you are in.  At quick glance to the left, if it was bold, I could look up, and see the parent folder, THAT to me is valuable.  I have resorted to pre-rending the parent notebook name to the sub notebook, but that is not working well.  I am trying my best to work around it, but it is just a huge shift from how any other app that has a 3 panel layout like this works.

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

I agree that it would be better to show the current NB highlighted in the Left Side panel.

I actually like the UI design of that Side Panel (I believe it is EN Mac Ver 3) better than the current.

Much cleaner, easier to read, more obvious.

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EDIT:  Confirmed:  The EN Mac screenshot above is from Ver 3, in Sep 2012.

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