Nesting Multiple Notebooks / Creating Sub-Notebooks

[cswsteve 85]

I think Evernote is a fantastic product, especially with the iPhone integration. I currently use a program called UltraRecall because of it's heavy use of subfolders. This makes organizing my data very logical. I was wondering if Evernotes has a way to create subnotebooks under existing notebooks to help group numerious notebooks together?

Example Notebooks:

Work

Clients

Customer1

Customer2

Customer3

Customer4

Personal

Electronics

Web Clips

[GeirThailand 0]

Fantastic!  As a new user, looking to find an answer to a rather obvious question: How to create sub-notes, - I see now that this has been an ongoing request for 10 years (!) without any other response from EN than: Use tags.  My enthusiasm for EN disappeared like smoke, however, I have to use it, as I have a mentor that uses it.

 

[gazumped 11,658]

9 hours ago, GeirThailand said:

Fantastic!  As a new user, looking to find an answer to a rather obvious question: How to create sub-notes, - I see now that this has been an ongoing request for 10 years (!) without any other response from EN than: Use tags.  My enthusiasm for EN disappeared like smoke, however, I have to use it, as I have a mentor that uses it.

 

I currently have 45,000 notes, mainly in one notebook and only differentiated by titles and tags.  The system works for me - possibly because I'm now used to it - though I had similar reservations when I started several years ago.  This being a (mainly) user-supported forum,  Evernote haven't commented more than once on this - they're under no obligation to offer an explanation or to follow any requests for a different structure.  Like any other software company they have a product.  It's entirely up to an individual (or maybe a mentor) whether or not to use it.

[Kruger2147 46]

Upvoted and throwing my 2 cents in. 

I use Evernote a lot for school. I don't need a crazy amount of nesting, but one more layer (making a total of three layers) would be nice. I would like to set up my School stack so that I could have a School stack with a notebook for a current class at the top level, then when the semester is done, I could move the whole notebook into an archive. I can do this with 3 layers:

• School
  • Class 201
  • Class 202
  • School Archive
    • Class 101
    • Class 102

Instead, this is my current setup:

• School
  • Current Semester (tag:class 201, tag:class 202)
  • School Archive (tag:class 101, tag:class 102)

It does the job, but isn't as clean, especially if I need to go back and reference notes in previous classes.

[DTLow 5,736]

9 minutes ago, Kruger2147 said:

I use Evernote a lot for school. I don't need a crazy amount of nesting, but one more layer (making a total of three layers) would be nice

Check out tags; unlimited hierarchy

[Kruger2147 46]

27 minutes ago, DTLow said:

Check out tags; unlimited hierarchy

I already use tags, I use them within a notebook. "Subject (topic 1)(topic 2)".

If the argument is that tags have unlimited hierarchies, then what good are notebooks? May as well scrap notebooks, and use only tags. (The new Web Beta doesn't support nested tags, and I use a Chromebook as my main computer. I don't want to go through creating a bunch of nested tags, if it's going to be thrown out anyway). Also the current Evernote Web doesn't support clicking/selecting multiple tags at once for fast filtering. 

Quote

Quote

Instead, this is my current setup:

• School
  • Current Semester (tag:class 201, tag:class 202)
  • School Archive (tag:class 101, tag:class 102)

It does the job, but isn't as clean, especially if I need to go back and reference notes in previous classes.

[jefito 5,589]

2 hours ago, Kruger2147 said:

If the argument is that tags have unlimited hierarchies, then what good are notebooks? May as well scrap notebooks, and use only tags.

Some people, do, I'm sure, though notebooks have their uses. But tags and notebooks have different semantics, and different use cases.

A note may belong to exactly one notebook at a time, whereas a note may have multiple tags. This is sort of like the difference between containment and labeling (and the terms "notebook" and "tag" are suggestive of that). So notebooks partition your notes into discrete sets. Tags, well, they can label any note, in any of your notebooks, so you can organize as you see fit: some people choose to have the tag hierarchy model a folder hierarchy, some do not (me, for one). 

Anyways, so what good are notebooks? Well, you can share a group of notes to another user in a notebook; you can't do that with tags. That's about it for me: I share several notebooks between to separate accounts (personal and work), so I don't leak my personal stuff into my work account. Works pretty well for me. Beyond that, the mobile applications will let you designate certain notebooks to be available offline, so you can choose your most important stuff to be with you at all times.

There are lots of advantages to using Evernote tags over notebooks, but notebooks aren't wholly useless. Finding the right balance for your workflow is critical to using Evernote well.

[DTLow 5,736]

9 hours ago, Kruger2147 said:

...  then what good are notebooks?  May as well scrap notebooks, and use only tags

Notebook features are:
- sync'd/local
- offline/online
- shared/private
- default

[Kruger2147 46]

5 hours ago, jefito said:

There are lots of advantages to using Evernote tags over notebooks, but notebooks aren't wholly useless. Finding the right balance for your workflow is critical to using Evernote well.

Overall, I agree with this, I would still like to see one more layer of nested notebooks, it would help balance my workflow with school, as I could have a whole notebook for each class, even Evernote's blog recommends it. One more layer would allow for a big school stack instead of a bunch of smaller semester stacks, that gets messy pretty quickly.

[jefito 5,589]

3 hours ago, Kruger2147 said:

Overall, I agree with this, I would still like to see one more layer of nested notebooks, it would help balance my workflow with school, as I could have a whole notebook for each class, even Evernote's blog recommends it. One more layer would allow for a big school stack instead of a bunch of smaller semester stacks, that gets messy pretty quickly.

Sure, and someone else would like to see one more than yours, and so on. I'm not saying that it's not ok to request this, or to relate your user case, btw, "just one more" doesn't quite cut it. If they're gonna do this, it's a pretty safe bet that they'll allow an arbitrary nesting depth.

The fact that they don't allow any notebook nesting except in stacks currently doesn't prevent you from keeping a notebook for each class; unfortunately the blog post doesn't consider anything past the current semester, which is what you're thinking (ahead) about. This is something that you can certainly solve using tags, though, in the Evernote of today. Even if you use a notebook for each class in the current semester, it's easy in the desktop applications to add a tag to all notes in a notebook, so tag each note for a class with the class name, and then Evernote can isolate on those notes wherever they are in your Evernote collection.

[olek3a 2]

12 hours ago, Kruger2147 said:

I already use tags, I use them within a notebook. "Subject (topic 1)(topic 2)".

If the argument is that tags have unlimited hierarchies, then what good are notebooks? May as well scrap notebooks, and use only tags. 

Exactly. If you don't share your notes, you don't need multiple notebooks. Notebooks allow to manage  access, that's all.

[olek3a 2]

13 hours ago, DTLow said:

Check out tags; unlimited hierarchy

The only problem with tag hierarchy, which made me subscribe to this topic, is that I don't have a search expression which whould find notes marked with parent tag or any nested tag automatically without need to specify all of them explicitly. Yes I can select it from left panel, but I can't save this search and so on. 

[DTLow 5,736]

19 hours ago, olek3a said:

I don't have a search expression which whould find notes marked with parent tag or any nested tag automatically without need to specify all of them explicitly. 

We've gone off topic.  This would be better addressed in a new discussion.

Another problem with the tag hierarchy, it's only available with select menus on select platforms.

I use a naming standard that  prefixes with the parent; for example !Ref_Evernore_Forum_Notebook
This also allows me to search for tag:"!Ref_Evernote_*" to include child tags

I agree that a search option is a good idea.

[jefito 5,589]

5 hours ago, olek3a said:

The only problem with tag hierarchy, which made me subscribe to this topic, is that I don't have a search expression which whould find notes marked with parent tag or any nested tag automatically without need to specify all of them explicitly.

Then you should create a feature request in the appropriate forum (probably General) to try to get that added.

[CalS 5,280]

10 hours ago, olek3a said:

Notebooks allow to manage  access, that's all.

They also let you limit a search context, to a notebook or a stack.

[CalS 5,280]

9 hours ago, olek3a said:

I don't have a search expression which whould find notes marked with parent tag or any nested tag automatically

In Windows, Tools - Options - Navigation check Automatically select child tags.

[DTLow 5,736]

10 hours ago, olek3a said:

Exactly. If you don't share your notes, you don't need multiple notebooks. Notebooks allow to manage  access, that's all.

You're ignoring that "Notebook" sort of sounds like "Folder"; and we're used to Folders and sub-Folders
"Tag" doesn't sound like "Folder"

[Flier 19]

Having watched this thread for literally years, there is always the same scenario:

Someone (like me) comes in asking for nested folders, a paradigm that has been common in computing for decades.  Basically a no-brainer.

Responses are of two types:  (1) Explanations of why the user shouldn't want nested folders or doesn't need them.  (2) Elaborate and somewhat opaque workarounds where the tagging system can be bent to serve the need.

Maybe 6 months ago there was a post by an Evernote guy that implied that nested folders were in the works for at least the premium business version of EN.  So I continue to monitor the thread.  Someday I would like to use EN as a mainstream app and not as a sideshow where getting real work done is significantly impeded by a bad design decision.

[DTLow 5,736]

4 hours ago, Flier said:

Having watched this thread for literally years, there is always the same scenario:

Someone (like me) comes in asking for nested folders, a paradigm that has been common in computing for decades.  Basically a no-brainer.

Responses are of two types: ...

3) Folders are not supported in Evernote.  Responses are suggestions for features supported by Evernote; like Notebooks and Tags

[jefito 5,589]

1 hour ago, CalS said:

In Windows, Tools - Options - Navigation check Automatically select child tags.

That does work as advertised, but it would be far, far better if that behavior were supported in the search language, which I'm guessing is the intent of the user you replied to, who wants a "search expression". The Windows version is well-nigh unusable, because you need to go to Options to enable/disable the behavior if you want a different search type. 

[Shellah 9]

4 hours ago, Flier said:

Having watched this thread for literally years, there is always the same scenario:

Someone (like me) comes in asking for nested folders, a paradigm that has been common in computing for decades.  Basically a no-brainer.

Responses are of two types:  (1) Explanations of why the user shouldn't want nested folders or doesn't need them.  (2) Elaborate and somewhat opaque workarounds where the tagging system can be bent to serve the need.

Maybe 6 months ago there was a post by an Evernote guy that implied that nested folders were in the works for at least the premium business version of EN.  So I continue to monitor the thread.  Someday I would like to use EN as a mainstream app and not as a sideshow where getting real work done is significantly impeded by a bad design decision.

EXACTLY.  EXACTLY.  EXACTLY.  I too monitor this thread only because (after 10+ years of this request going unanswered by EN) there was that post (6 months ago?) there was that post by an Evernote guy that implied that nested folders were in the works for at least the premium business version of EN. A glimmer of hope.  Otherwise, you get only #1 and #2.  Skip reading anything by DTLow as it is always and without fail #1.  Thx.

[Kruger2147 46]

7 minutes ago, DTLow said:

Folders have never been a feature supported by Evernote and no employees have indicate folders or nested folders were "in the works"

No, folders are not a thing, but people, myself included, use Notebooks like folders. It helps set a firm organizational foundation. 

[DTLow 5,736]

14 hours ago, Kruger2147 said:

No, folders are not a thing, but people, myself included, use Notebooks like folders. It helps set a firm organizational foundation. 

The other choice would be Tags.  Notebook sort of sounds like Folder, but there are deficiencies.
It depends on your priorities
Good news is the limit was increased from 100 > 250 > 1,000 notebooks
 also, the notebook Stacks feature was implemented to aid in organization                     

[CalS 5,280]

7 hours ago, jefito said:

That does work as advertised, but it would be far, far better if that behavior were supported in the search language, which I'm guessing is the intent of the user you replied to, who wants a "search expression". The Windows version is well-nigh unusable, because you need to go to Options to enable/disable the behavior if you want a different search type. 

True that.  But the inherited search isn’t of much use without some sort of Boolean capability, my use case anyway.  Cant do an And with the results.  Extending the search just adds notes.  If memory serves me.  

[jefito 5,589]

1 hour ago, CalS said:

True that.  But the inherited search isn’t of much use without some sort of Boolean capability, my use case anyway.  Cant do an And with the results.  Extending the search just adds notes.  If memory serves me.

Yes; it's pretty much a hack on the existing search language: it just add all of the subtags to the original tag, and turns it into an OR search, as best I could tell. I kept stumbling across it inadvertently while adding tags to a (default) AND search: I'd add one and the whole thing would * E X P L O D E !! *. Took me a while to figure it out, based in the search info panel.

[DTLow 5,736]

13 hours ago, Flier said:

Maybe 6 months ago there was a post by an Evernote guy that implied that nested folders were in the works for at least the premium business version of EN.  So I continue to monitor the thread.  Someday I would like to use EN as a mainstream app and not as a sideshow where getting real work done is significantly impeded by a bad design decision.

 

8 hours ago, Shellah said:

EXACTLY.  EXACTLY.  EXACTLY.  I too monitor this thread only because (after 10+ years of this request going unanswered by EN) there was that post (6 months ago?) there was that post by an Evernote guy that implied that nested folders were in the works for at least the premium business version of EN. A glimmer of hope.  Otherwise, you get only #1 and #2. 

It would help if you could post a link to the post you're referring to.  

afaik  Folders have never been a feature supported by Evernote and no employees have indicate folders or nested folders were "in the works"

[olek3a 2]

22 hours ago, jefito said:

Then you should create a feature request in the appropriate forum (probably General) to try to get that added.

Again? well, ok.

[jefito 5,589]

4 hours ago, olek3a said:

Again? well, ok.

Put a little more precisely: in the interest of keeping different feature requests in the forums separate, so that they can be individually evaluated by Evernote folks and forum users, and since your request has nothing at all to do with the implementation of nestable notebooks, but instead, a different way to do tag searches (something that I agree with, btw), I'd say, yes, a separate request would be best. That's more or less in line from rule #8 from the Forum Code of Conduct:

Quote

8. Do not interrupt someone else’s thread in an attempt to change the topic or request support for a different issue. If you have a different issue, find the appropriate thread or create a new one for the issue you’re encountering.

That we're discussing it here is one thing, but if you want to make it a feature request is another. Your call...

[Kruger2147 46]

16 hours ago, DTLow said:

The other choice would be Tags.  Notebook sort of sounds like Folder, but there are deficiencies.
It depends on your priorities
Good news is the limit was increased from 100 > 250 > 1,000 notebooks
 also, the notebook Stacks feature was implemented to aid in organization   

Great, they're obviously willing to update Notebooks, and since Notebooks are there too "aid in organization" we should be able to have more layers.

Some people use Notebooks, others tags, most use a combination of both, I don't see why Evernote would want to limit how people organize their stuff.

[jefito 5,589]

2 minutes ago, Kruger2147 said:

Great, they're obviously willing to update Notebooks, and since Notebooks are there too "aid in organization" we should be able to have more layers.

Um, apples and oranges. Degree of difficulty to allow more notebooks (maybe not much more than changing a constant in the API: http://dev.evernote.com/doc/reference/Limits.html#Const_EDAM_BUSINESS_NOTEBOOKS_MAX?) is almost certainly less than that of implementing nested notebooks (architectural change, API changes, lots of UI changes across all Evernote platforms).

This is not an argument against adding nested folders, btw; just let's not conflate two separate development tasks with vastly different requirements.

[DTLow 5,736]

1 hour ago, Kruger2147 said:

 I don't see why Evernote would want to limit how people organize their stuff.

From what I can see, Evernote has provided multiple options of organizing our stuff; notebooks, tags, search, ....
We get to chose which feature best fits in with our requirements.

>>we should be able to have more layers
Hierarchy is important to me, and was a factor in my choice organizing solutions

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world:
the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. 
Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

 

•  

[olek3a 2]

18 hours ago, jefito said:

Put a little more precisely: in the interest of keeping different feature requests in the forums separate, so that they can be individually evaluated by Evernote folks and forum users, and since your request has nothing at all to do with the implementation of nestable notebooks, but instead, a different way to do tag searches (something that I agree with, btw), I'd say, yes, a separate request would be best. 

I came across this thread while checking if my request for nested tag search would be a duplicate a couple of years ago and stuck in this holiwar. Actually I can't remember if I have submitted it then, because the forums structure is too complicated and is not obvious at all.

[DTLow 5,736]

4 hours ago, olek3a said:

I came across this thread while checking if my request for nested tag search would be a duplicate a couple of years ago and stuck in this holiwar. Actually I can't remember if I have submitted it then, because the forums structure is too complicated and is not obvious at all.

Regarding search to include child tags

A request is posted at https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/105440-search-tag-hierarchy/

 

[jefito 5,589]

3 hours ago, DTLow said:

Regarding search to include child tags

A request is posted at https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/105440-search-tag-hierarchy/

Nice find. I know I've posted on this; had it in my mind to go search it out, but it got pushed out by the busy yesterday.

[Kruger2147 46]

On 8/17/2008 at 4:37 PM, engberg said:

We don't have sub-notebooks, but you can organize tags into a hierarchy.

Even the Evernote Blog has an article arguing for using Notebooks and Stacks as the main organizational method, and tags as a filtering/search supplement. Each has it's strengths, but the potential behind Stacks is being restrained. 

https://evernote.com/blog/stacey-harmon-michael-hyatt-wrong-organizing-evernote-tags/

[gazumped 11,658]

24 minutes ago, Kruger2147 said:

Even the Evernote Blog has an article arguing for using Notebooks and Stacks as the main organizational method, and tags as a filtering/search supplement. Each has it's strengths, but the potential behind Stacks is being restrained. 

https://evernote.com/blog/stacey-harmon-michael-hyatt-wrong-organizing-evernote-tags/

Stacey says: (amongst many other good points)

Objection #2: “Notebooks can be stacked, but not nested. I need more organizational levels.”

We’ve all been trained (through email, and computer technology) that the right way to organize things is to use hierarchies that are many levels deep – but it’s not necessarily the best way.

If you’re using the search function correctly, it doesn’t matter if you can nest your notes and notebooks.

The power of my Evernote organization system is its flatness and flexibility. If you prep your notes for search success (note naming conventions are key here), it doesn’t matter where your notes live – you’ll be able to locate them.

Evernote's Spaces (https://evernote.com/features/spaces) is the closest they've got -so far- to nested hierarchies,  but the concept doesn't seem to be designed as hierarchical,  and is more aimed at multiple users and the Business client.  (My emphasis..)

"Every member of a space has access to everything in the space. So the information you need is easily accessible and always at your fingertips."

 

[DTLow 5,736]

7 hours ago, Kruger2147 said:

Even the Evernote Blog has an article arguing for using Notebooks and Stacks as the main organizational method, and tags as a filtering/search supplement.  Each has it's strengths

You linked to a report presenting alternatives for organizing notes.
There are pro and cons, but full hierarchy is at the top of my requirements; as is the discussion we're posting in.

>>but the potential behind Stacks is being restrained. 

There is no "potential behind Stacks".
They exist as a comment in the notebook record and provide only a single level hierarchy
For a full hierarchy, you need the "nesting" being requested; technically parent-child relationship

[jefito 5,589]

3 hours ago, Kruger2147 said:

Even the Evernote Blog has an article arguing for using Notebooks and Stacks as the main organizational method, and tags as a filtering/search supplement. Each has it's strengths, but the potential behind Stacks is being restrained. 

Note that the date of @engberg's post that you quoted is 2008, several years before stacks were added.

Not sure what potential behind stacks is being restrained; they operate as designed: a simple way to organize notebooks (because the notebook limit at that time, 100, is too many to manage in a flat list). If you're saying that you want them to be nestable, OK, but that's a large-ish architectural change that affets all Evernote clients, which Evernote hasn't seen fit to implement yet (if they even do at all). That being said, you probably wouldn't want stacks to be the nesting object; you'd want notebooks to be directly nestable.

[John Cooper 1]

Adding my +1 to a nested hierarchy.   I actually discontinued my EverNote premium and switched to using OneNote because the organization was more intuitive to me than the tagging system of EverNote. 

Since the ancient world we have been using hierarchical information structures to organize thought and information.  That's long enough that there is probably an actual neurological adaptation to hierarchy as an information structure.  To me, it seems like the concept of "tagging" relates more to virtual information structures than social or literary ones; the concept of a "tag" seems to have grown out of object-oriented information design vs. procedural information design and procedural has a few thousand years of human adaptation behind it while  object-oriented design is relatively new (though admittedly it follows aspects/characteristics a heuristic model).

In more direct, less highbrow language; my brain organizes in hierarchy, not tags.  I had to stop using EverNote to be more organized.

Seriously, the software should have two organizational modalities; a tagging structure for those who think in terms of aspects / descriptors and a hierarchical structure for those who think in bullets and lists.  If you implement both, wider audience for the software. 

[John Cooper 1]

On 8/17/2008 at 4:37 PM, engberg said:

We don't have sub-notebooks, but you can organize tags into a hierarchy. This may allow you to set up the organizational scheme you're looking for.

I think your user community knows this.  I think a segment of your user community is trying to tell you that is not intuitive for us.  If you want to appeal to those of us who are asking for more categories and notebook structure, we probably need some sort of a "hand-up" to make a hierarchy out of the tagging system intuitive to us.

Have you considered a "hierarchy wizard" type interface that might help someone like me organize the tagging system into the kind of hierarchy you describe?  Maybe instead of having to invest in difficult and expensive engineering to provide multi-layered notebook hierarchy you could offer those of us who think in terms of a hierarchical structure a different view into the tagging system?

To give us users a better control of hierarchy you do not necessarily need to redesign your engineering.  If you can do what we're asking with the tagging system - show us how and make it easy for us.

[DTLow 5,736]

45 minutes ago, John Cooper said:

Adding my +1 to a nested hierarchy. 

Does the hierarchy have to be called Notebook?  Is any other name acceptable.
imho  I'm not hung up on the actual  name;  I just need there to be a hierarchy; a parent-child relationship.

[jefito 5,589]

4 hours ago, John Cooper said:

I think your user community knows this.  I think a segment of your user community is trying to tell you that is not intuitive for us.  If you want to appeal to those of us who are asking for more categories and notebook structure, we probably need some sort of a "hand-up" to make a hierarchy out of the tagging system intuitive to us.

Have you considered a "hierarchy wizard" type interface that might help someone like me organize the tagging system into the kind of hierarchy you describe?  Maybe instead of having to invest in difficult and expensive engineering to provide multi-layered notebook hierarchy you could offer those of us who think in terms of a hierarchical structure a different view into the tagging system?

To give us users a better control of hierarchy you do not necessarily need to redesign your engineering.  If you can do what we're asking with the tagging system - show us how and make it easy for us.

You're a little too late -- @engberg hasn't been with Evernote for some years now.

Meanwhile, what is it about the hierarchical tag system that you're not getting? It's a tree structure. Although tags are not like notebooks (a note can have multiple tags, but only belong to one notebook), you can enforce that rule if you want it. And tags are a way to have more categories -- that's pretty much what tags are best at. What's the limit on number of tags these days, 10,000? Seems like plenty of categories. I don't know what a "hierarchy wizard" would be like; is there some sort of "folder wizard" that would be an example of what you're thinking of?

[gazumped 11,658]

On 12/22/2018 at 1:10 AM, jefito said:

What's the limit on number of tags these days, 10,000?

Slight typo I think - maximum tags is 100,000...

https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/209005247

[jefito 5,589]

On 12/24/2018 at 11:42 AM, gazumped said:

Slight typo I think - maximum tags is 100,000...

https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/209005247

No typo; I was just relying on (faulty) memory. Thanks for the correction.  

Even so, 10,000 tags is a lot to manage. My count is much lower, an order of magnitude or more. But the higher count does bolster the point I was making, I suppose...

[gazumped 11,658]

7 hours ago, jefito said:

Even so, 10,000 tags is a lot to manage.

Totally agree - I topped out at just over 1,000 tags with lots of duplications and typos.  As I frequently mention,  I then re-thought tags and went on to 'smart' titles - the note date / type / source / keyword(s) - which is how my primary indexing now works. 

Tags are a curation afterthought - an easy way to include or exclude notes from search results,  because adding a tag is quicker than editing the title. 

Having 100,000 tags would be a nightmare for me to manage - but maybe somewhere,  somehow,  there's a system for doing that.  Certainly means you can hierarchify (new word for the Holidays) tags to your hearts content and (probably) never run out...  ☺️

[DTLow 5,736]

5 hours ago, gazumped said:

I then re-thought tags and went on to 'smart' titles - the note date / type / source / keyword(s) - which is how my primary indexing now works.

I'm at 400 tags; minimal notebooks.
Likewise, I also use the same tags as keywords, within the title and note contents.  I use scripting (Mac) so I'm working from a controlled list.

I still make use of the hierarchy; it's useful for organization.  Since the hierarchy isn't always available, I also parallel the hierarchy in the tagname.

My purpose for the tag/keyword parallel is

1. Backup; I maintain an html export.  There is no tag metadata database.
2. Search; Tags retrieve the note; keywords are highlighted in the note contents. 

[D-Nick 3]

5 hours ago, gazumped said:

...

Tags are a curation afterthought - an easy way to include or exclude notes from search results,  because adding a tag is quicker than editing the title. 

...

I have been hunting through this thread and the suggestions linked to from it on-and-off for a year or so, hoping to find out how I can use tags to get the shelf/notebook/section/page hierarchy that I need.  It seems to me that those espousing tags as doing everything that can be needed are focussing on *search* rather than *browse* capability.  That's fine if I want to search for a page with a particular comment on it, but less useful if what I want to do is read sequentially through a set of notes - for example, if I want to revisit my notes from part of a project or a course I was working on a while ago.

The model in my head of what I want is to have:

1. SHELF - Shelves (or "stacks" in EN terminology) corresponding to, for example, "Professional Development", "Projects", "Domestic", and so on
2. NOTEBOOK - Within shelves (stacks), notebooks corresponding to, for example", particular professional development courses I have taken, projects I have worked on, etc.
3. SECTION - Within a notebook, I want sections for the parts of the course - for  example, in a notebook for a Machine Learning course, I might have sections of Introduction, Linear Regression 1V, Linear Regression MV, Logistic Regression, Regularisation, etc
4. NOTE - Within each section I want to put my actual notes, with a logical order

So, if I want to refresh myself on Logistic Regression, I go to the "Professional Development" shelf, take the "Stanford Machine Learning 2014/15" notebook, turn to the "Logistic Regression" section, and read through the notes there in sequence. 

I am unclear how to use the EN tag hierarchy to do that.  I have tried various ways, but I end up having to do messy clumsy things of going via a search form, having to remember tags I used these things when I saved them, and then trying to guess what order to look at the search results in to get the logical order that part of the course happened in.  It seems to me that it is easy an obvious how to browse to things in hierarchical storage metaphor, but that tagging and searching doesn't fit this particular access need.

(Don't get me wrong - tags are great, and I can use tags to meet subsidiary *search* requirements I have, but I can't make it fit well to this more common access need I have).

Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong here, and how to get what I want using tags?

[Kruger2147 46]

10 minutes ago, D-Nick said:

So, if I want to refresh myself on Logistic Regression, I go to the "Professional Development" shelf, take the "Stanford Machine Learning 2014/15" notebook, turn to the "Logistic Regression" section, and read through the notes there in sequence. 

I am unclear how to use the EN tag hierarchy to do that.

I would recommend making an individual note for each topic. 

Professional Development (Stack)

> Stanford Machine Learning (Notebook)

>> Logistic Regression (Note)

 

This is how I have my "library" stack set up. I have a notebook for each book, an individual note for each chapter.

Library

> Book Title

>> Chapter 1: The beginning

 

[DTLow 5,736]

27 minutes ago, D-Nick said:

focussing on *search* rather than *browse* capability.  That's fine if I want to search for a page with a particular comment on it, but less useful if what I want to do is read sequentially through a set of notes - for example, if I want to revisit my notes from part of a project or a course I was working on a while ago.

Evernote is more focused on search, however you can use the notebook/tag trees for browsing
The attached is a screenshot from my Mac

The notebook tree is similar, but with only two levels

[phault 0]

1 hour ago, DTLow said:

Evernote is more focused on search, however you can use the notebook/tag trees for browsing
The attached is a screenshot from my Mac

The notebook tree is similar, but with only two levels

My biggest (and only) issue with using tags instead of folders for hierarchical organization is that tags are not well supported on mobile (iOS), which I use heavily.  In particular, the hierarchy is missing completely (it's flattened out).

Other than that, folders vs tags is more or less cosmetic, and I couldn't care less.

So, here's me, writing this comment, and hoping that someone from Evernote reads it and acts on it, however unlikely that may be.

 

 

[DTLow 5,736]

7 hours ago, phault said:

tags are not well supported on mobile (iOS), which I use heavily.  In particular, the hierarchy is missing completely

Confirmed; the tag hierarchy is not displayed in IOS.  The hierachy is also missing on some of the Mac pages. 

To compensate, I use a naming standard that parallels the hierarchy, for example "Budget - Home - Rent", "Budget - Home - Insurance"

>>using tags instead of folders

Folders are not supported in Evernote; the choice is Notebooks or Tags

[jefito 5,589]

54 minutes ago, phault said:

My biggest (and only) issue with using tags instead of folders for hierarchical organization is that tags are not well supported on mobile (iOS), which I use heavily.  In particular, the hierarchy is missing completely (it's flattened out).

Curiously, it *is* supported on Android. Why it's not is a mystery. You should go to the iOS feature request forum (here: https://discussion.evernote.com/forum/215-evernote-for-ios/), find an existing request for this feature (there's at least one), and add your vote there, since your request concerns nested tags on iOS, rather than nested notebooks.

[CalS 5,280]

On 12/27/2018 at 10:18 AM, D-Nick said:

The model in my head of what I want is to have:

1. SHELF - Shelves (or "stacks" in EN terminology) corresponding to, for example, "Professional Development", "Projects", "Domestic", and so on
2. NOTEBOOK - Within shelves (stacks), notebooks corresponding to, for example", particular professional development courses I have taken, projects I have worked on, etc.
3. SECTION - Within a notebook, I want sections for the parts of the course - for  example, in a notebook for a Machine Learning course, I might have sections of Introduction, Linear Regression 1V, Linear Regression MV, Logistic Regression, Regularisation, etc
4. NOTE - Within each section I want to put my actual notes, with a logical order

1. Shelf = Stack = Professional Development
2. Notebook = Notebook or Tag = NameOfCourse
3. Section = Tag = Introduction
4. Note =Note = yyyy_mm_dd Note title

So either a notebook:NameOfCourse tag:Introduction or tag:NameOfCourse tag:Introduction search will return the set of notes which can be displayed in title sequence or created date sequence if that is how the notes were entered.  If you can use created date not necessary to have date in the note title. Caps in naming just for emphasis.  I would opt for tags versus notebook for NameOfCourse, more flexibility in the EN architecture in my view.

[CalS 5,280]

On 12/27/2018 at 4:30 AM, gazumped said:

Totally agree - I topped out at just over 1,000 tags with lots of duplications and typos.  As I frequently mention,  I then re-thought tags and went on to 'smart' titles - the note date / type / source / keyword(s) - which is how my primary indexing now works. 

Tags are a curation afterthought - an easy way to include or exclude notes from search results,  because adding a tag is quicker than editing the title. 

I've stuck with tags.  Don't add many anymore (trips or new projects) and just too lazy for the extra typing in the note title.  Horses for courses, but all that stuff in the title just isn't feng shui for me.

Definitely, main purpose of tags for me is to get to a workable list to find the note I want.  When all else fails, there is always raw text search.  

[BakaGoy 2]

For anyone still really wanting this feature and not wanting to use OneNote - NimbusNotes is an excellent alternative, with support for all major platforms.

[BushWacker_x81 0]

Evernote needs to add this feature. 

I like Evernote, but am in the process of looking for an alternative because of this.  It's so bad that a product based solely on organizing notes can't do more than one layer of embedded notebooks.  

[jefito 5,589]

On 1/4/2019 at 4:58 PM, BushWacker_x81 said:

Evernote needs to add this feature. 

You should join the chorus of folks who've already asked for this here (from the General Feature Requests subforum): 

Add your upvote at the top of the topic, and your own discussion if you desire, though it's been discussed pretty thoroughly already.

Some folks just use other methods of organization...

[DTLow 5,736]

On 1/4/2019 at 1:58 PM, BushWacker_x81 said:

It's so bad that a product based solely on organizing notes can't do more than one layer of embedded notebooks.  

Evernote offers two fields for organizing notes; Notebooks and Tags

Tags are the primary organization tool, and support an unlimited hierarchy.

[gazumped 11,658]

It occurred to me a couple of weeks ago,  that Evernote companion app Filterize nicely fills this gap in Evernote's architecture - it's possible to create multiple self-updating Tables of Contents for a client,  a customer,  a product or any general class of note that you may have. 

Put general notes in one notebook,  and a set of ToC notes in another,  and you can browse through your ToC "drawer" to find all your current clients listed in one note - even if you added one 5 minutes ago. 

Click on that client's link in the ToC to see a note listing your entire contact history and all the current projects you have in hand and quoted for.  It's a set of virtual folders as individual ToC notes.

Filterize also answers any problems with saved searches and favorites - your ToC notes are searches that are running constantly;  so 'next tasks' and open to-do items are also ToC notes.

Still getting around to setting this up for myself,  but it should work...

[DTLow 5,736]

16 hours ago, mikefinleyco said:

look at how tags have been a poor man's workaround for 10 years with users continually requesting nested notebook tree structure.

I  use both notebooks and tags; and use the tag tree structure
Please explain the difference between a tag tree structure, vs a notebook tree structure.
Why the "poor man's workaround" designation?  The term seems more appropriate to the Notebook/Stacks structure. 

>>export the majority of my data to archive it, but it sure sucks to have to recreate note books everytime you import data back into evernote. 

Not clear on your exact usercase but separate exports per notebook will preserve the notebook info. 

[Pascal Held 18]

On 1/21/2019 at 9:34 PM, gazumped said:

It occurred to me a couple of weeks ago,  that Evernote companion app Filterize nicely fills this gap in Evernote's architecture - it's possible to create multiple self-updating Tables of Contents for a client,  a customer,  a product or any general class of note that you may have. 

Put general notes in one notebook,  and a set of ToC notes in another,  and you can browse through your ToC "drawer" to find all your current clients listed in one note - even if you added one 5 minutes ago. 

Click on that client's link in the ToC to see a note listing your entire contact history and all the current projects you have in hand and quoted for.  It's a set of virtual folders as individual ToC notes.

Filterize also answers any problems with saved searches and favorites - your ToC notes are searches that are running constantly;  so 'next tasks' and open to-do items are also ToC notes.

Still getting around to setting this up for myself,  but it should work...

With Filterize you can also combine multiple tables of contents into one note. So you can build a dashboard with all your todos or important notes. If you have any trouble with the setup feel free to contact us. It's a pleasure for us to help you.

[gazumped 11,658]

I've started to work on this feature - 

6 hours ago, Pascal Held said:

combine multiple tables of contents into one note.

- and while the basics are easy(ish) to set up,  I need to get my head around some hierarchies.  My vision was to have a 'grandparent' note that would list parent notes for projects / to-dos / contacts etc,  that would list their own child notes for individual tasks and actions.  Working towards that means a lot of tagging,  and/ or testing of reliable searches for specific keywords - something I wish I'd done before having 45k notes to work with!  Still,  my note 'entropy' is actually declining into a somewhat better order as a result.  I think...

 

[DTLow 5,736]

53 minutes ago, gazumped said:

My vision was to have a 'grandparent' note that would list parent notes for projects / to-dos / contacts etc,  that would list their own child notes for individual tasks and actions.

We've gone off topic, but here's my implementation of a grandparent ToC and drilling down

My "grandparent" note is my daily journal; I set this up each morning from a template
An example is a section for Active Projects
This is a simple search but I'm interested in automatic updates as per Filterize
For now, i just use the search, and drag the links under the heading

To drill down; I click on the note and then use the Flter-By-Tag feature

[spikebogdan 1]

I use Evernote (premium) to organize/document my work, meeting notes, todos, task progress and so on. I find it limiting that you can stack notebooks only one level. If infinite notebook stacking will not be available in the near future I will go with another solution. 

[DTLow 5,736]

6 hours ago, spikebogdan said:

I find it limiting that you can stack notebooks only one level. If infinite notebook stacking will not be available in the near future I will go with another solution. 

Welcome to the discussion.

Notebooks have their purposes but there's no indication of plans for infinite notebook stacking.
For infinite hierarchy, use the Tag feature on the Windows/Mac platforms.

There is a feature request posted at the top of the discussion. To indicate your support, use the voting buttons at the top left corner of the discussion.

[Ariadx 0]

We need this, Its very important to organize notes.  

[DTLow 5,736]

6 hours ago, Ariadx said:

We need this, Its very important to organize notes.  

Welcome to the discussion.

There is a request posted at the top of the discussions; you can indicate your support using the voting buttons at the top left corner of the discussion.

Notebooks have their purpose, but Evernote's primary note organization tool is the Tags feature.

[DrunkPotato51 4]

Yes, please. I need this feature too. It should be very simple to implement, why not to give just one more option to your users?

[DTLow 5,736]

19 hours ago, TonyMontanaSlot said:

Yes, please. I need this feature too. It should be very simple to implement, why not to give just one more option to your users?

Welcome to the discussion.

There is a request posted at the top of the discussions; you can indicate your support using the voting buttons at the top left corner of the discussion.

I question your estimate of "simple to implement".  This would require a major overhaul of the database structure, and the UI of each app.

It's not clear as to your "need".  Evernote supplies user with an infinite hierarchy via the Tag feature.

[DTLow 5,736]

14 hours ago, Flier said:

... must approve your need or it does not exist...

Approval is irrelevant; I'm interested in hearing more details of @TonyMontanaSlot's needs.  With more information, we may be able to identify a solution.

[DrunkPotato51 4]

On 2/2/2019 at 5:23 AM, DTLow said:

Welcome to the discussion.

There is a request posted at the top of the discussions; you can indicate your support using the voting buttons at the top left corner of the discussion.

I question your estimate of "simple to implement".  This would require a major overhaul of the database structure, and the UI of each app.

It's not clear as to your "need".  Evernote supplies user with an infinite hierarchy via the Tag feature.

Nah, that shouldn't be difficult at all if that stack -> notebook hierarchy was implemented in an optimal way in the first place. I have a degree in computer science and had been working with SQL databases from 2010 to 2014. I don't remember any significant difference difficulty-wise in implementing 2-level vs XX-level parent-child hierarchy. The UI changes also shouldn't be all that difficult to implement. Of course, doing that will require some work, but hey, you gotta work for your money.

Now, if there are so many people have been requesting this feature for so long, there must be reasons that are valid enough and you should at least consider hearing them out and maybe even participate in a discussion, come out and tell them why this feature is not worth implementing. Maybe it breaks the core principles of Evernote mission (although I'm not sure how, lol).

Now, you're asking why am I requesting this feature. I will tell you. No, my world won't fall apart if it never gets implemented. You see, I just don't like to be dependent on tags too much because they're just not notebooks. Every note can be tagged with many tags but only can belong to one notebook, so it's a more solid structure already. Of course, you might say that it's my problem that I won't stick to just 1 tag per note. But it's kinda limiting. Maybe I want to tag a note with "Summer", "Love" and "Sad" tags but at the same time I want it to be exactly in this Hobbies -> Art -> Music -> Songwriting -> My solo stuff -> Second album hierarchy. Of course, you can always find a thousand of counter-arguments to that, like "you can do basically the same with tags, blah blah blah", but no, it's not the same, even if you can achieve similar results with tags.

I'd say just give it a shot and give your users a little bit more freedom.

Sorry, it's really late and I'm not an expert in English. I don't really care about being right and continue arguing beyond this message. I just said what I wanted to say, even if it sounded like a complete BS to you guys. I spoke from my heart

EDIT: Yeah, maybe convert those stacks to notebooks so that even the root object would be able to hold the notes in it. As well as notebooks. Basically what I'm suggesting is a folder-file approach, just like in Windows Explorer. We all know that notebooks in real life don't hold "sub-notebooks" in them but maybe make a poll and see if users would like this approach and you could get away with this concept. I'm not gonna suggest renaming notebooks to folders and files altogether as that will obviously make the brand name "Evernote" irrelevant

[gazumped 11,658]

28 minutes ago, TonyMontanaSlot said:

I don't really care about being right and continue arguing beyond this message.

OK.  Your comments duly noted - thanks for giving a more reasoned explanation.  It's certainly OK to wish for this option,  but the fact is that Evernote don't provide sub-notebooks at this moment,  and haven't shown any sign of wishing to do so in future.  None of us knows what they actually plan to develop however,  so all opinions so far are just guesses.  We'll just have to wait and see.  Meantime it is possible to stumble along using tags,  titles and searches.

[DTLow 5,736]

On 2/3/2019 at 5:59 AM, TonyMontanaSlot said:

Nah, that shouldn't be difficult at all if that stack -> notebook hierarchy was implemented in an optimal way in the first place.

Right, as a hierarchy, the stack>notebook implementation seems a hack; a text field in the notebook record.

I'm guessing it made for an easier UI update.  
The notebook hierarchy was rolled out to each platform; tag hierarchy is still not available on some platforms.

>>Of course, doing that will require some work, but hey, you gotta work for your money.

As to money; the majority of users are unwilling to pay.
I see you have a non-paying account.

>>I just don't like to be dependent on tags too much because they're just not notebooks.

Basically the same; two fields in the note's metadata.
I'm not concerned with the fieldname; just the restrictions with the field use.

>>Every note can be tagged with many tags but only can belong to one notebook

My primary reason for selecting which field to use.  
The majority of my notes fit multiple categories.

>>Basically what I'm suggesting is a folder-file approach, just like in Windows Explorer.

You are definitely looking at the wrong product.  
From the beginning, Evernote has rejected the folder filing methodology (speaking of "core principles of Evernote mission")

Some users simulate a folder-file approach using the notebook/tag trees in the sidebar.

edit; And I am specifically welcoming  @Shellah to respond to any posts they wish to comment on.

[DTLow 5,736]

21 hours ago, JoelArt said:

Last I checked this doesn't work on iPhones. So this is a non valid solution.

Confirmed; the hierarchy is not accessible on some platforms (like IOS).  
It can be accessed on Evernote/Mac, but only on specific panels.

Most of the time we're using lists in alpha sequence.

A request discussion for IOS hierarchy is here

>>Also, there is no reason not to support both hierarchical folders and tags. 

Evernote currently has no support  for folder elelements
For note organization we only have Tags and Notebooks

Actually I don't care what the name is; I can work with anything.
Do we need two/three hierarchies?

[DrunkPotato51 4]

On 12/29/2018 at 12:31 PM, BakaGoy said:

For anyone still really wanting this feature and not wanting to use OneNote - NimbusNotes is an excellent alternative, with support for all major platforms.

Wow, dude, thank you so much. Already trying it out. It seems like these geniuses abandoned the concept of notebooks altogether and just named them "folders". Simple solution.

[DTLow 5,736]

On 2/3/2019 at 1:32 PM, bpang33 said:

exactly what we're all asking for here.

Which part of "Nesting Multiple Notebooks / Creating Sub-Notebooks" are you failing to understand.

6 hours ago, TonyMontanaSlot said:

Wow It seems like these geniuses abandoned the concept of notebooks altogether and just named them "folders". Simple solution.

A concept Evernote could use? Change the name "tags" to "folders".  Simple solution.

[JD Santos 0]

Googling for this question brought me here and I've had a very entertaining half hour reading through the waging holy wars on both sides. I gave up on Evernote 5-6 years ago after dramatic price changes made me feel like my notes were in constant jeopardy due to an inconsistent pricing model. Now I'm learning that a heavily requested and common sense feature is ignored by Evernote for over a decade with the suggestion that you rethink your entire organizational scheme with tags. 

I'm not here to debate the merits of hierarchical folders vs tags. I'd just like to say for a company that advertises itself as your personal knowledge library, it's an odd decision to dictate the terms of how you should organize that library. Especially when it's such a dramatic departure from our normal approaches to information management. 

Thank you everyone for your participation and contributions here, you helped me make the decision to move off EV Premium. I don't harbor any resentment against EV, but they've made it clear that they did not design this tool for users like me so I'm headed back to OneNote. Maybe I'll check back again in a few years. 

[D-Nick 3]

On 12/27/2018 at 5:44 PM, DTLow said:

Evernote is more focused on search, however you can use the notebook/tag trees for browsing
The attached is a screenshot from my Mac

The notebook tree is similar, but with only two levels

I have no idea how I would create a browseable hierarchy doing that.  Where's the best place to find instructions for how that works?

A hierarchy of notebooks/sections etc is intuitive to me, but this is not, so I need to find instructions.

[D-Nick 3]

On 12/28/2018 at 5:11 PM, CalS said:

1. Shelf = Stack = Professional Development
2. Notebook = Notebook or Tag = NameOfCourse
3. Section = Tag = Introduction
4. Note =Note = yyyy_mm_dd Note title

So either a notebook:NameOfCourse tag:Introduction or tag:NameOfCourse tag:Introduction search will return the set of notes which can be displayed in title sequence or created date sequence if that is how the notes were entered.  If you can use created date not necessary to have date in the note title. Caps in naming just for emphasis.  I would opt for tags versus notebook for NameOfCourse, more flexibility in the EN architecture in my view.

That seems really confusing to me - are you saying I would have to type in those long red texts somewhere just to be able to navigate to the part of a notebook that I want to read?  That seems a lot more complicatred - more typing and a heavier memory load - than just be able to see and expand folders.

[D-Nick 3]

On 12/27/2018 at 5:33 PM, Kruger2147 said:

I would recommend making an individual note for each topic. 

Professional Development (Stack)

> Stanford Machine Learning (Notebook)

>> Logistic Regression (Note)

 

This is how I have my "library" stack set up. I have a notebook for each book, an individual note for each chapter.

Library

> Book Title

>> Chapter 1: The beginning

 

Thanks for the suggestions.  That makes the notes (=sections) quite a lot bigger than I would like them to be (courses typically have a collection of different items within a section, such a lecture notes, my own reading, exercises, etc), but if this is the only way it can work, at least it *can* work and be brwseable, unlike these really complicated and enthusdiast-only tagging techniques.

So, are you not using tags at all?  Or just using them for secondary searching?

[D-Nick 3]

18 minutes ago, D-Nick said:

Thanks for the suggestions.  That makes the notes (=sections) quite a lot bigger than I would like them to be (courses typically have a collection of different items within a section, such a lecture notes, my own reading, exercises, etc), but if this is the only way it can work, at least it *can* work and be brwseable, unlike these really complicated and enthusdiast-only tagging techniques.

So, are you not using tags at all?  Or just using them for secondary searching?

Arrrggghh ... just tried, and this still doesn't work for me, because I need a further level of hierarchy I'd not realised until now.

Many of my professional development courses are grouped together into what some providers call "specialisations" and others call "programmes" - a sequence of courses that follow on from each other, and lead towards an end ("capstone") project that pulls it all together.  So, my hiearchy of notebooks needs to look like this (just some parts of the tree are expanded)

...
Ancient Scripts Project
   ...
Professional Development
   UCSD Big Data Specialisation
      Course 01 Introduction to Big Data
         ...
      Course 02 Hadoop
         a) Hadoop Basics 
            i) Hadoop Stack Basics
            ii) Apache Framework Modules
            iii) HDFS
            iv) The Hadoop Zoo
            v) Hadoop Ecosystem
            vi) Cloudera Distribution hands-on
            Module Readings
            Exercise
         b) Hadoop Stack Details
            i) HDFS & HDFS2
            ii) MapReduce Framework & YARN
            iii) Hadoop Execution Environment
            ....
         c) HDFS Details
           ...
         d) Map/Reduce Details
      Course 3: ...
         ...
      Course 4: ...
         ...

and so on.  I make that 5 levels of hierarchy of folders or shelves, or stacks or sections or whatever we want to call them, assuming I can make the sections that start with small Roman numerals into notes, although they would be fairly lengthy (several pages each), I think.

[jefito 5,589]

3 hours ago, JD Santos said:

Googling for this question brought me here and I've had a very entertaining half hour reading through the waging holy wars on both sides.

Any "holy war" is really exacerbated by those who want to make Evernote into something it's not, and maybe to a lesser extent by people who don't want Evernote to become something different from what it is. It's Evernote's product; they can make it into what their vision requires; we can choose to use it, or not. Suggestions are of course fine, but calling Evernote names -- and there's a lot of that, but I'm not saying that you are, btw -- over the lack of support for that seems pointless to me. I find tags and a flat notebook structure to be fine for my organizational purposes. You may not. There's no holy war there, just a determination of appropriateness of a tool to one's desired usage.There are plenty of tools out there; if OneNote serves your purposes, then that's great, and as it should be. The middle ground is where people want to use Evernote (for whatever reason), but don't really understand tagging, so are at a loss as to how to use Evernote effectively. There are folks here who are willing to try to coach their uses, without arguing the merits of each system (which has been pretty much done to death already). In any case, if OneNote works for you, then congratulations -- we all deserve tools that work well for our needs.

[DTLow 5,736]

1 hour ago, D-Nick said:

I have no idea how I would create a browseable hierarchy doing that.  Where's the best place to find instructions for how that works?

A hierarchy of notebooks/sections etc is intuitive to me, but this is not, so I need to find instructions.

The tag hierarchy is a Windows/Mac feature.

On a Mac, you work in the Tags page
As you can see in the screenshot, there's a button for creating new tags.

This creates a flat list.
For a hierarchy, click on a tag and drag it to another tag.
This is a similar process to notebooks but with an infinite hierarchy

[D-Nick 3]

4 minutes ago, DTLow said:

The tag hierarchy is a Windows/Mac feature.

On a Mac, you work in the Tags page
As you can see in the screenshot, there's a button for creating new tags.

This creates a flat list.
For a hierarchy, click on a tag and drag it to another tag.
This is a similar process to notebooks but with an infinite hierarchy

 

 

 

 

I am using on Windows, and I don't see anything that looks like that at all.  Is this tags hierarchy maybe just for Mac users?

[DTLow 5,736]

5 hours ago, JD Santos said:

I'm not here to debate the merits of hierarchical folders vs tags.

"Notebooks vs tags" would be a different discussion, and "folders" another discussion.
I use both notebooks and tags.

Hierarchy is a useful feature for organizing notebooks and tags.
Evernote only supports two levels for notebooks; hense the feature request at the top of the discussion.
Infinite hierarchy is supported for tags (Windows/Mac)

 

[CalS 5,280]

1 hour ago, D-Nick said:

That seems really confusing to me - are you saying I would have to type in those long red texts somewhere just to be able to navigate to the part of a notebook that I want to read?  That seems a lot more complicatred - more typing and a heavier memory load - than just be able to see and expand folders.

Square peg and round hole comes to mind here.  You asked for a way to use EN with your hierarchical strategy, that is what I proffered.  Basically you would select a notebook/stack and then use tags.  🤷‍♂️

Not being tied to hierarchies I would set it up with tags for all of your breakouts and put all the notes in my main notebook.  Simple searches would get me what I needed.  But then that is why the notebook/tag holy war rages on....     As I've said many times before, no issue at all with EN adding layers of notebooks for them that want them  I probably wouldn't use them.

[D-Nick 3]

2 minutes ago, CalS said:

Square peg and round hole comes to mind here.  You asked for a way to use EN with your hierarchical strategy, that is what I proffered.  Basically you would select a notebook/stack and then use tags.  🤷‍♂️

Not being tied to hierarchies I would set it up with tags for all of your breakouts and put all the notes in my main notebook.  Simple searches would get me what I needed.  But then that is why the notebook/tag holy war rages on....     As I've said many times before, no issue at all with EN adding layers of notebooks for them that want them  I probably wouldn't use them.

I am not following what you are saying at all.  What is the square peg and what the round hole - are you now saying that Evernote can't do what I need it to do?

Could you say some more about "Basically you would select a notebook/stack and then use tags.  🤷‍♂️" means, please?  Use tags how?

You also say "Simple searches would get me what I needed " - could you explain for someone still pretty unfamiliar (even after several years as a paid subscriber) of how Evernote works how I can use "simple searches" to browse?  I looked for "simple searches" in such documentation as I can find for Evernote, and I couldn't find a function or feature called that.

[CalS 5,280]

On 12/27/2018 at 10:18 AM, D-Nick said:

• SHELF - Shelves (or "stacks" in EN terminology) corresponding to, for example, "Professional Development", "Projects", "Domestic", and so on
• NOTEBOOK - Within shelves (stacks), notebooks corresponding to, for example", particular professional development courses I have taken, projects I have worked on, etc.
• SECTION - Within a notebook, I want sections for the parts of the course - for  example, in a notebook for a Machine Learning course, I might have sections of Introduction, Linear Regression 1V, Linear Regression MV, Logistic Regression, Regularisation, etc
• NOTE - Within each section I want to put my actual notes, with a logical order

26 minutes ago, D-Nick said:

I am not following what you are saying at all.  What is the square peg and what the round hole - are you now saying that Evernote can't do what I need it to do?

Could you say some more about "Basically you would select a notebook/stack and then use tags.  🤷‍♂️" means, please?  Use tags how?

You also say "Simple searches would get me what I needed " - could you explain for someone still pretty unfamiliar (even after several years as a paid subscriber) of how Evernote works how I can use "simple searches" to browse?  I looked for "simple searches" in such documentation as I can find for Evernote, and I couldn't find a function or feature called that.

Square peg in a round hole, wanting EN to perform as a deeply nested folder structure, it can't.  EN can do what you want, but not in a Windows folder metaphor.

Using tags in you parlance, applying the tags as needed to the appropriate notes:

• Shelf tag would contain values for Professional.Development, Projects, Domestic ...  precede the tag name with !
• Notebook tag would contain values for Courses, Projects, ....   precede the tag name with .
• Section tag would contain values for the parts of the courses, projects... some of which might repeat   precede the tag name with _

Searches set up the browse.  A search for tag:!* sorted in tag order will return all "Shelves", "Notebooks", "Sections" notes in shelf/notebook/section order.  A search for tag:notebook.tag.name sorted in tag order will return all notes for the notebook.tag, be it course or project.  Plus other tag searches for other lists of notes.  Lists one can browse at that point.  Horses for courses.

You may want to look at the shelf and notebook breakouts in your layout, there may be some redundancy built in re projects.

[D-Nick 3]

7 minutes ago, CalS said:

Searches set up the browse.  A search for tag:!* sorted in tag order will return all "Shelves", "Notebooks", "Sections" notes in shelf/notebook/section order.  A search for tag:notebook.tag.name sorted in tag order will return all notes for the notebook.tag, be it course or project.  Plus other tag searches for other lists of notes.  Lists one can browse at that point.  Horses for courses.

Thanks for the time you put into that - much appreciated.
I have read through it a few times, and am still finding it really confusing.  I need to set it aside and come back to it when I have the brainspace to work through it, which will be the weekend after next.

I think that I need to say that is quite revealing about the difference between a folder-type hierarchy for notes and Evernote-style tags - the tags are just so damned confusing and non-intuitive.  From what I can tell in what you say here, it looks like I am going to need some kind of Evernote-specific search search language to type search commands to be able to browse my hierarchy of course notes, rather than just clicking to expand a hierarchy of folders.

[Flier 19]

On 12/28/2018 at 11:31 PM, BakaGoy said:

For anyone still really wanting this feature and not wanting to use OneNote - NimbusNotes is an excellent alternative, with support for all major platforms.

On 12/28/2018 at 11:31 PM, BakaGoy said:

For anyone still really wanting this feature and not wanting to use OneNote - NimbusNotes is an excellent alternative, with support for all major platforms.

Please keep us posted on this.  I looked at Nimbus and it seems attractive, but as we all know the best software in the world is the stuff we just bought and have not yet installed.  Nimbus claims an Evernote import function, too.  I'd be interested to hear from anyone that has tried it.  I like the Evernote concept but the lack of a folder hierarchy has kept it out of my mainstream work.  I just use it as a sort of trash can for random things that I might want to find some day.  These elaborate workarounds for its architectural deficiency have no attraction to me, no matter how many times DTlow tries to tell others what they need and what they don't need.

Related comment:  I too have been watching this thread for years.  My theory on EN's reluctance to implement nested folders is that the underlying code was written years ago with a totally different view of what the app would do.  Since then it has probably been patched, scabbed, and gumballed into what it is today and they are terrified to touch it any more than absolutely necessary.  It is unlikely that they dumb guys, but rather guys that see the certain market reward as too risky and costly to chase.  IOW they will just ride this horse into the ground as more capable applications replace it as the tools of choice.

I will be interested to see how Nimbus Notes does.  I believe that its ownership is Russian, which has its own uncertainties.  Good for them, anyway, they are not owned by Huawei.

[DTLow 5,736]

1 hour ago, D-Nick said:

I am using on Windows, and I don't see anything that looks like that at all.  Is this tags hierarchy maybe just for Mac users?

I'm 🍎 only.  I know the hierarchy is available but we need advice from a Windows person.

[CalS 5,280]

46 minutes ago, D-Nick said:

the tags are just so damned confusing and non-intuitive. 

Depends upon who you are and your point of view...  

[DTLow 5,736]

2 hours ago, JMichaelTX said:

why users should just accept Evernote as it is.

At the risk of facing further wrath from the masses; Because, it is what it  is.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself  ... Shaw

[Flier 19]

18 minutes ago, DTLow said:

At the risk of facing further wrath from the masses; Because, it is what it  is.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself 

 

Well, "if it is what it is," then why in the world would they set up a forum to collect enhancement requests?

Your selection of a quotation to back up your position is either ignorant or duplicitous.   Either way I think it's quite funny.  Then next sentence following the one you cherry-picked is: "Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."  https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Bernard_Shaw

[DTLow 5,736]

On 2/5/2019 at 4:06 PM, Flier said:

why in the world would they set up a forum to collect enhancement requests?

This is a request forum and there's a request posted at the top of the discussion.  
You're welcome to indicate your support using the voting buttons at the top left corner of the discussion.

>>"Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." 

imho  there has been no progress with this request.
I'm making use of other solutions for hierarchical organization.

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

1 hour ago, DTLow said:

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself  ... Shaw

Do you really believe that?  If everyone followed that advice, then there would never be any progress -- we'd all still be living in caves.  LOL  All real breakthroughs have come because one or more people were not willing to settle for status quo.

[DTLow 5,736]

On 2/5/2019 at 5:33 PM, JMichaelTX said:

Do you really believe that?  If everyone followed that advice, then there would never be any progress -- we'd all still be living in caves.  LOL  All real breakthroughs have come because one or more people were not willing to settle for status quo.

In regards to using the Evernote product/service, Yes, I "really believe that".  
Living in caves is a different discussion; I'll need Wi-Fi.  LOL

Ultimately, it's Evernote's decision as to the priority for development work.  
I'm not part of the decision making; I can only provide feedback, and add my vote to feature requests I support. 

In the meantime, I learn all the features and how to make best use of them.

>>one or more people were not willing to settle for status quo.

Here's To The Crazy Ones / Think Different

Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

[jefito 5,589]

13 hours ago, Flier said:

Your selection of a quotation to back up your position is either ignorant or duplicitous.   Either way I think it's quite funny.  Then next sentence following the one you cherry-picked is: "Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."  https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Bernard_Shaw

That's a nice pickup on the complete quote, but let's not pretend that unreasonableness always leads to progress. I'd guess that the guy who thought it was a good idea to use a loaded gun as a hammer wouldn't in hindsight consider the loss of his big toe to be progress. Truth be told, the whole quotation is something I find appealing on the surface, but otherwise not particularly convincing (i.e., clever, but so what?); progress really is made by people both reasonable and unreasonable, not by unreasonable people alone. Is there progress made in collecting, cataloging and understanding some part of our world without trying to change it? I think so. On the other side, nobody doubts Einstein's genius at seeing things differently, but he wasn't a math whiz and had to have help with it, and beyond that, years and years of exhaustive experiments to validate his theories. Progress depends on both types. Somebody's gotta do the math.

But hey, all of this is just a diversion. Do you really think it's a bad thing to try to understand how Evernote works as it actually exists, and with the realization that you can't change that on your own, get on with your Evernote life? And maybe try to help others to understand what's available, and what's not, and what works for you and might work for them?

13 hours ago, Flier said:

Well, "if it is what it is," then why in the world would they set up a forum to collect enhancement requests?

Speaking of quotations, it's amusing to see a quote often associated with the most recent Super Bowl winning coach (sorry, native New Englander here, and yes, I understand that you're quoting DTLow's  original use). Really, "It is what it is" doesn't signify resignation, though, it signifies an understanding of where you're starting, and the realization that you must adjust yourself, your situation, your surroundings, or whatever if you want to achieve your goals. But to your question, there's a disconnect between it and your premise. Ultimately, "It is what it is" is something one Evernote user said (though I believe it represents the situation all of us Evernote users are in), but has nothing at all to do with whatever reasons Evernote had for setting up a feature request mechanism. "It is what it is" does not imply that posting requests is foolish.

[D-Nick 3]

13 hours ago, DTLow said:

I'm 🍎 only.  I know the hierarchy is available but we need advice from a Windows person.

This is what I am seeing on this Win 10 machine:

 

[D-Nick 3]

On 3/26/2018 at 7:30 PM, DTLow said:

>>tags ... don't meet the need for sub-notebooks.

I'm not seeing proof of this, just that some users need the tags feature be called something different - like folders.  I think they would then find the feature more acceptable.

I often see assertions in this thread that tags can be used as a replacement for the missing folders/sub-notebooks/sections feature, but I have not yet seen a concrete suggestion for how to do that.  Rather than having to keep repeating yourself, could you give a worked example of how this would work, please?

[D-Nick 3]

14 hours ago, CalS said:

Square peg in a round hole, wanting EN to perform as a deeply nested folder structure, it can't.  EN can do what you want, but not in a Windows folder metaphor.

Using tags in you parlance, applying the tags as needed to the appropriate notes:

• Shelf tag would contain values for Professional.Development, Projects, Domestic ...  precede the tag name with !
• Notebook tag would contain values for Courses, Projects, ....   precede the tag name with .
• Section tag would contain values for the parts of the courses, projects... some of which might repeat   precede the tag name with _

Searches set up the browse.  A search for tag:!* sorted in tag order will return all "Shelves", "Notebooks", "Sections" notes in shelf/notebook/section order.  A search for tag:notebook.tag.name sorted in tag order will return all notes for the notebook.tag, be it course or project.  Plus other tag searches for other lists of notes.  Lists one can browse at that point.  Horses for courses.

You may want to look at the shelf and notebook breakouts in your layout, there may be some redundancy built in re projects.

I have burned a chunk of today's lunch break in looking at this again, and I'm afraid I still don't understand it.  I suspect it's like a Wikipedia article - that if one already knows the subject, one can nod and agree with the text, but it doesn't help the tyro :)

I am unclear on what you mean by "Shelf tag" containing values.  Do I need to create some kind of "container" or list of values that defines something called "shelf tag" as being that list?  I have hunted through the UI and documentation, but cannot find that described anywhere.

Why do those values need to be preceded with !, _, ., etc?  I also note that you have changed my "Professional Development" to "Professional Development" - must things be named without spaces, rather than the user friendly names that a folder hierarchy might have?

I understand the tag:!* syntax, I thnk, but I just don't get the tag:notebook.tag.name syntax - what is that doing?  What do you mean by "Shelves" etc notes?  Are you saying perhaps that the top levels of the hierarchy also contain all the notes that are further down the hierarchy?  If so, that seems rather confusing.

By "list one can browse" are you meaning that these searches return a browseable list, rather than me having a folder hierarchy I can browse?  The (albeit Apple) screenshots DTLow showed suggest that the tags can themselves be arranged in a hierarchy.