Nesting Multiple Notebooks / Creating Sub-Notebooks

[cswsteve 81]

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

[JensS 0]

8 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

For the same reason there are no nested notebooks, there will be no nested stacks.

One view at the data structure, and this is clear to anybody who has a basic understanding of databases. Changing this would mean rewriting backend and all clients.

Oh, I'm sorry. I don't have access to the Evernote data structure. I have seen some documentation, but it did not include stacks. I'd love to see a more up to data structure. 
Yes, it would require changes, but not a rewrite. But I'm not an expert. I just work with SQL-databases 🙂. 

But I have understood that you do not have a need for it, and that totally ok. For me it's a raeson for looking a other tools to replace what I have been using for 12 years. 
I would love to see Evernote in a place where it's keeps outperforming that younger products on the market 🙂

But I see a lot of the formers Evernote evangelists switching to get a more modern features set. 
 

[PinkElephant 5,577]

Just watching as another user on what I get:

Notes to notebooks is n:1

Notebooks to stacks is n:1 again 

You follow me ?

This means the structure is quite simple: Notebook is just a field in the notes metadata, stacks is just another field in the notebooks metadata.

If they would go nesting, they would get a complex tree, and probably need intermediary tables to avoid long loops when reading through all of the levels.

Either way, loops or extra table means a complete rewrite of clients and backend. Plus as a one timer a rebuild of the complete search index, both serverside and on all clients.

You still follow me ?

That‘s why I think without any inside knowledge that we will never see deep nesting of notebooks.

[JensS 0]

2 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Just watching as another user on what I get:

Notes to notebooks is n:1

Notebooks to stacks is n:1 again 

You follow me ?

This means the structure is quite simple: Notebook is just a field in the notes metadata, stacks is just another field in the notebooks metadata.

If they would go nesting, they would get a complex tree, and probably need intermediary tables to avoid long loops when reading through all of the levels.

Either way, loops or extra table means a complete rewrite of clients and backend. Plus as a one timer a rebuild of the complete search index, both serverside and on all clients.

You still follow me ?

That‘s why I think without any inside knowledge that we will never see deep nesting of notebooks.

Time will tell 🙂

As stack are most likely just an id on a notebook referring to a stacks table, it might be quite "easy" to expand with a parentID on stacks. But if we don't ask, we will never have it 🙂

[Flier 19]

6 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Just watching as another user on what I get:

Notes to notebooks is n:1

Notebooks to stacks is n:1 again 

You follow me ?

This means the structure is quite simple: Notebook is just a field in the notes metadata, stacks is just another field in the notebooks metadata.

If they would go nesting, they would get a complex tree, and probably need intermediary tables to avoid long loops when reading through all of the levels.

Either way, loops or extra table means a complete rewrite of clients and backend. Plus as a one timer a rebuild of the complete search index, both serverside and on all clients.

You still follow me ?

That‘s why I think without any inside knowledge that we will never see deep nesting of notebooks.

The Dunning Kruger effect, synopsized:  Those who know the least about a subject are the most certain of their opinions.

To an extent, @PinkElephant is probably right.  The underlying code is old and Evernote has probably evolved away from it's original design features.  It's always a little scary to contemplate major changes to old code.  But that said, EN is going to have to bite the bullet some day and slide an SQL database under the UI.  When?  How?  No way of knowing.

[PinkElephant 5,577]

Parent ID still needs to be read out by UI, search, indexing, etc.

Currently stacks are „nacked“ entities, so maybe even just a field in the notebooks header.

Notebooks can’t be, because there are properties like sharing and default.

When taking stacks into a structure, this situation stops, and they just get „super-notebooks“, an entity with own properties (child-parent relation). And there the problem starts, the current code can’t handle it.

But there is no problem at all: The main tool to organize notes are tags - which works much better - and nobody really needs nested notebooks.

P.S. From what I see it already is a relational database. But the tool does not make changes necessarily easier.

[gazumped 9,828]

8 hours ago, Bill D. said:

Evernote folks - Your product is great. I've been using it to organize projects and research and now that I've had additional responsibilities thrown my way, I've been leaning into EN even more. Please add this feature and move your product from great to excellent.

Hi.  We're (mostly) Evernote users,  but not actually Evernote folks;  and while the conversation here gets a bit emotional from time to time,  it is a fact that Evernote did not include a folder hierarchy in their Legacy or the new versions. 

To simulate the same layout,  use tags.  To use a hierarchical folder layout,  use other software. 

No matter how impassioned the arguments,  Evernote are unlikely to introduce this a deeper hierarchy feature anytime soon.

For more from Evernote folks - try Support.

[Mdbwater@gmail.com 0]

Evernote - GIVE US MULTIPLE LEVELS OF STACKING IF WE WANT IT!!!  If you have pages of posts where people are asking for this year after year, just do it! Your tag system is not that great!  You have to remember what names you used to tag everything.  It doesn't even auto populate! After awhile, you get too many tags to follow, with duplicates for slight differences.  For a company that sends updates what seems like every other day, just spend the time to give your customers what they want!

[gazumped 9,828]

On 12/4/2022 at 4:32 PM, Mdbwater@gmail.com said:

GIVE US MULTIPLE LEVELS OF STACKING IF WE WANT IT!!!

Hi. 

1. You may want to delete your email address from the registration here - it's a public forum and someone,  somewhere is going to add you to a spam list.
2. This is a (mainly) user forum,  so shouting at us won't get you anything.
3. It's most definitely not a democracy - users can request features,  but Evernote decides what it is most inclined to add.  If the company makes bad choices,  you do have the option of using other software.  You do not have the right to "demand" anything...

[swl64 1]

On 8/20/2022 at 10:29 AM, PinkElephant said:

Parent ID still needs to be read out by UI, search, indexing, etc.

Currently stacks are „nacked“ entities, so maybe even just a field in the notebooks header.

Notebooks can’t be, because there are properties like sharing and default.

When taking stacks into a structure, this situation stops, and they just get „super-notebooks“, an entity with own properties (child-parent relation). And there the problem starts, the current code can’t handle it.

But there is no problem at all: The main tool to organize notes are tags - which works much better - and nobody really needs nested notebooks.

P.S. From what I see it already is a relational database. But the tool does not make changes necessarily easier.

If it's a relational database just create another table to handle the hierarchical relationship.It's not that hard and it's really the UI that should do most of the work.

[PinkElephant 5,577]

@x9sim9 Blah blah blah - the disrespectful wording disqualifies the posting by itself.

Furthermore it shows a deep lack of knowledge about data models. It is unfortunately a fact that the whole software (back end and all clients) would need to be rewritten to adapt a nesting of notebooks into notebooks.

Sorry, poor attempt beside being exceptionally rude.

[martinfdc 0]

Come on Evernote! please make this a feature ASAP!

[gazumped 9,828]

On 4/22/2023 at 3:50 PM, martinfdc said:

Come on Evernote! please make this a feature ASAP!

Hi.  Welcome to the forums.  We're (mostly) not Evernote. And it seems unlikely they'll make this change after years of resisting it.  But by all means continue hoping - your plea has been filed along with the other 18 pages of requests here...

[fraktal 0]

I left Evernote years ago for this very reason, as they did not have this feature. I keep checking to see if Evernote has this feature, but for years I've been disappointed every time. It seems to me that there is a stubborn person sitting in the executive suite saying NO, NO, NO, NO I have to tell you how to organize your notes and there are no more than 2 levels of hierarchy, no matter if I lose millions of paying users, I will not give you more than 2. Ok as you say, then I just go to Notion ... 😛 My whole hope now is with Bending Spoons, please guys give us more than 2 chirarchy levels, or at least you would like to be able to choose it and then see how much levels people needed all these years and didn't get it.... 🙏

[Flier 19]

52 minutes ago, fraktal said:

I left Evernote years ago for this very reason, as they did not have this feature. I keep checking to see if Evernote has this feature, but for years I've been disappointed every time. It seems to me that there is a stubborn person sitting in the executive suite saying NO, NO, NO, NO I have to tell you how to organize your notes and there are no more than 2 levels of hierarchy, no matter if I lose millions of paying users, I will not give you more than 2. Ok as you say, then I just go to Notion ... 😛 My whole hope now is with Bending Spoons, please guys give us more than 2 chirarchy levels, or at least you would like to be able to choose it and then see how much levels people needed all these years and didn't get it.... 🙏

I use EN minimally, waiting without hope for nested folders.  My guess is that to implement such a feature they would have to rip up and re-do some old code that no one understands and management is afraid to touch.  This is not a unique problem here.  Many applications were originally written based on expectations that did not materialize and the original code is not well-suited to the market they have found.

[PinkElephant 5,577]

1 hour ago, fraktal said:

 My whole hope now is with Bending Spoons, please guys give us more than 2 chirarchy levels, or at least you would like to be able to choose it and then see how much levels people needed all these years and didn't get it.... 🙏

I am convinced BS invested into EN just to throw away everything, front end, back end, data model, and code everything from scratch.

Because not having nested notebooks is deeply rooted in the data model.

1. You can continue to hope the above will happen.
2. You can finally learn and use EN the way it is designed.
3. You can leave and use an app that is designed as you like it to be.

Pick your choice …

[fraktal 0]

Quote

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.

No thanks, I'll stick with Notion and G-Drive... Maybe if Evernote drops even deeper until sub-notebooks allow. But maybe it will be too late. It may have to be swallowed by someone bigger for something fundamental to change.

[gazumped 9,828]

1 hour ago, fraktal said:

It may have to be swallowed by someone bigger for something fundamental to change.

Already happened a few months ago! 

[Boot17 675]

6 hours ago, fraktal said:

No thanks, I'll stick with Notion and G-Drive... Maybe if Evernote drops even deeper until sub-notebooks allow. But maybe it will be too late. It may have to be swallowed by someone bigger for something fundamental to change.

With regards to note hierarchy, the new Evernote Product Lead has said this within the last couple of weeks (emphasis mine):

Quote

A few other highly-requested features and updates that come to mind are a new note hierarchy, commenting, markdown import, and adding Outlook integration to our calendar feature. I’m really excited about the idea of reimagining note hierarchy. The way notes are currently organized is quite complex and we already have some ideas on how to make it simultaneously simpler and more powerful.

See: https://toolfinder.co/news/evernote-interview 

And has said this (emphasis mine):

Quote

I believe Directory > Space > Stack > Notebook > Note is kind of skeuomorphic but does not really scale well in digital realms.

Notion only has the note entity (and the block), which is not necessarily the best way to organize notes IMO, but a proof that you just really need one entity.

But we need to think this through very well, and for now we're 90% on sync, reliability and performance.

See: https://discussion.evernote.com/forums/topic/145806-interview-bending-spoonskeep-productive/#comment-682669

Note the "does not scale well in digital realms" part.

It will be interesting to see what, if anything, comes out of this -- but I don't believe they are thinking that deeper levels of notebooks are the way to go.

[engberg 89]

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.