TheMagicWombat

5 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

First, for me anyone can do what he likes or believes that it will work best.

Second, for a very long time people were bound to have one (1) original document. It was laborious to reproduce it, copying machines were not found except in large companies etc. So our believe that the true way of setting up an archive must be to have a note, in a binder, in a folder, on a shelf, in a rack ... originated from these days, because you had to be able to find this one document when needed.

Today the most effective way to manage things

And you started off so well...

There is NO "most effective" way to store things. There is a feature that every other database on the planet has because it is useful, and then there is Evernote which has tags--just like every other database on the planet. Some of us would stop looking for an alternative to Evernote IF it had nested folders. We would like this feature. but when we come in here, and voice our desire for it--or commiserate over not having it--some people feel the need to... Well, see my Neanderthal message within the last 4 posts. 

2 minutes ago, gazumped said:

I think we got it - but we also use a product that doesn't currently have this feature.  So the choices are:

1. Hope that Evernote sees the benefit of making it available,  goes through development,  testing and beta stages as quickly as possible,  and offers the option in a year or two...
2. Make the best use you can of what you got.

I'm with side 2 again... 

I got no problem with glumly acknowledging those 2 choices. What I do argue with is the people who arrogantly tell me that I am some stone-age Neanderthal who might as well be eating a raw bunny for sustenance because I "think" I need the functionality of nested notebooks, but if simply structure my data the way they structure theirs, I will suddenly I join Homo Sapiens, and my Beef Wellington with Crème brûlée and Chambolle-Musigny will be waiting for me.

1 hour ago, chronistin said:

Well I would say that Evernote is just not for them. I mean, you can always feature request something, but changing to nested folders would change the core functionality of Evernote.  It's like saying I want a Lamborghini, but make it  a truck. It won't happen. So if someone needs nested folders, they shouldn't be using Evernote.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Name ONE feature of Everenote that would have to be removed in order to place in nested folders.

Making a Lamborghini into a truck requires both extra mass, and ruining the aerodynamics. Adding nested folders? For the last decade, the people who release Evernote have never, not once, claimed that adding in nested folders would break Evernote. What they have said is that tags applied liberally to every record and learning their feature-rich boolean hypertext search protocols/language is better. 

But they have never said one precludes the other. Indeed, since every other record storage program, including your free version of Gmail, uses both nested folders and tags, it is difficult to even envision how adding nested folders would remove one whit of functionality. 

That feature has been requested for, as someone has already pointed out, a decade. The people who own Evernote don't want to add it because they want the world to do it their way, which they have convinced themselves is the best way, and have made an active decision--probably for branding purposes--or excluding nested notebooks. 

Evernote does one thing well for my purposes--clip information from the web. That is it. No other program clips web pages as well. So I clip the data, and then I do what I dread--look at all my clipped data, and try to figure out how to organize it--using a single-nesting protocol.

2 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

The most relevant argument against a „deep“ folder structure is that down at the end, each document is filed into exactly one folder. The structure may be as elaborate as they come, but real world files are typically used in more than one way.

1. Let me receive an invoice, and let us play the folders game. It starts in my INBOX-folder, and is reviewed and send into the process.
2. First folder is invoices received, open for payment. Bookkeeping takes care, and adds the payment date.
3. Then it goes into the folder „relevant for tax declaration“. The accountant will look after this, and will add the declaration number.
4. Meanwhile I want to know how much business I am doing with the supplier, so I move it into „Purchasing projects“, and categorize it, writing the categories into an attachment to the original doc.
5. Then I have a quality problem, so I move it to „warranty issues“, together with my letter with the claim, and the shipment slip. 
6. and so on

Is this realistic ? No ! What you find in the real world is that copies of the original file are created along the way, placed into the folders for the new context, and even worse different people will start to modify and amend them at different points in time. What is the relevant and most up to date version of the file is often impossible to tell. Nested folders do this, all the time !

Not with me ?! Get a duplicates program, set the parameters to find „near dupes“ as well and start a search !

This is why tagging is so superior to „nesting folders into folders“: There is one document, that will rest in its place all the time. Tags are used to create multiple access points to this document, and all changes or additions go into there, making it more valuable with each addition.

If you invest the same effort into a good tagging structure (nesting tags is possible ! ) as often goes into folder-structures, you will improve your document handling and at the same time reduce your informational drag, like copies on copies of documents.

EN could do completely without folders, except that some functions like sharing, local or downloaded copy are today controlled on notebooks and their content. IMHO it would be driving development into the completely wrong direction if EN would restructure the database to make deep nested notebook (folder) structures possible.

If you can not make the mental step alone, get a consultant to help you out of the jungle of folder trees. Because the new structure will serve you so much better, it is money well invested (I am not a consultant). A good consultant will focus on your processes, not the structure to serve them.

Your theories are fascinating. However, I would bet cold hard cash that on your computer you use deeply nested folders.

Again, as always, some people love feeling like rebels who eschew convention and  use those tags to emulate an almost good enough nested filing system. 

Others of us, however, prefer not to emulate with almost as good as. We prefer to just do it the right way.

Interestingly enough, if you look at your Evernote install, you will note that when Evernote installs itself, it creates for itself a nested folder system that appears to be... My, my, my... Looks like 8-10 nestings deep!

As for your suggestion that I adopt your preferred way of storing data--Are you serious? You actually believe that your way of doing things is the BEST way, and everyone else should do it your way? I would never, ever, have enough sagacity to recommend you adopt my methodology because I know different tools do different jobs, and and different methods work better for different people. 

However, having read your description of how you perceive nested folders and filing works, I see the problem--you have mistaken a filing system for an accounting system. Your accounting system will be able to crunch all that data for you, without you needing to go and pull the individual records.

I hope I have resolved that issue for you. 

And, here, let me say it again: There are two sides on this argument:

1. People who want genuinely nested folders and say tags don't cut it.

2. People who hate nested folders and claim that the tags system emulates a nested folder system well enough.

Side 1 is more than happy to let people use tags, they just want what works for themselves. Side 2... Just doesn't get it. Here, let me try and give an analogy that is pretty much spot on whenever someone says tags emulate a nested folder system "good enough":

You like Martinis. You have one (and only one) every day on the drive home from work. One day, because your normal road is being worked on, you take an alternate route and stop at a new bar. You go in and order a Martini. The barkeep says, "We don't serve those--we serve White Russians instead. They do the same job as a Martini." 

You reply with, "I don't want a White Russian, I would like a Martini."

Barkeep: "Tell you what, I will serve your White Russian in a Martini glass so you can emulate drinking a Martini."

You: "It isn't the same thing!"

Barkeep: "I gotta tell ya, I've had a Martini before, and White Russians are WAY better. Perhaps you could see a hypnotherapist to convince you that a White Russian tastes as good as a Martini! I swear you will get just as drunk!"

Snare drum and symbol crash! Audience laughter.  

Curtains come down.

On 3/12/2019 at 5:20 PM, eric99 said:

Curiously, this is exactly the reason I'm in favor of tags:  my data is not stored in a rigid logical fashion either, I just tag it for later queries.

I don't understand that your data is not stored in a logical fashion,  why do you need subfolders then?

My data is not stored in a logical fashion because storing in in a logical fashion in Evernote is impossible. Evernote is the equivalent of having a C drive that can only have ONE layer of sub-directories. No sub-folder \Games and a sub-folder in there of \Steam and a sub-folder in there of \Skyrim with a folder in there of \Saves with a foler in there of \Daya with a folder in there of \Archives. Instead, just have one sub-directory and ALL your related files you would like to sort laying around unsorted. No one here would think that would be a good limit. There is a reason nested-folders are used in the physical world and the digital world. 

Can you imagine a file drawer at the office where all you get is the label on the drawer, say the letter "S" and then ALL matters and documents relating to all clients who have a last name beginning with S are stored in chronological format, and in order to find the final disbursement letter for the Sangee 2014 Will you have to you have to ask the office secretary to run a database search to find which document ID # you need to pull?

Using tags is the equivalent of eliminating sub-directories and having a PIF data-set attached to each file telling it WHAT program it works with and WHAT it is supposed to be doing. That would mandate that each and every time you wanted to access your data, you would have to scan each and every PIF file to see what goes with what before your software could load.

That would take insane amounts of overhead time.

Might even force you to purchase a SSD to compensate for the horrible design of an OS that would be...

But, I digress 😎

On 8/27/2018 at 9:27 PM, jefito said:

Hey, if people want to have a public Evernote swan song, then fine -- I have no problem with that (though I'll confess to being amused by the "gimme nested notebooks by next Tuesday or I'm cutting the cord!" type posts you see occasionally). If people legitimately want bugs and feature requests (which are entirely fair) to be noticed by someone who might actually do something about them or comment with some authority, and not get lost in any drama and side-commentary, then it's probably better to post them appropriately. *shrug*

Especially since Nested Notebooks have been a top request for over a decade now, and Evernote has told us where to go with that request. 

Evernote is a good concept in many ways. The only thing I HATE (DESPISE!!!!) about it is the lack of nested notebooks, and the fact that the owners of the software are convinced that their way of doing things is better, so I need to re-structure my ENTIRE thinking and organizing process to suit THEIR view on how I should be doing it.

Guess what--an abacus is better than a slide rule for doing math. Or maybe it is the other way around and a slide rule is better than an abacus.I don't know which it is, but here is what I do know--the people who really work well on a slide rule do NOT want to learn how to use an abacus and the people who are lightning fast on an abacus have zero desire to learn a slide rule. Same thing can be said about hierarchical storage versus  tags and Boolean searches. One works better than the other for some people, and the other works better than the other for other people. 

Evernote is everything I want--except for nested notebooks. To me, doing a Boolean/tag search to find my records every time I want to find them just doesn't work. My information is not stored in a logical fashion, it cannot be stored in a logical fashion, and as a result, I actually hesitate to use Evernote. It is almost what I want. Yes, it is 95% there. But that last 5% matters.

The tags people don't get it, and they never will. They think their way is superior. 

It isn't. 

It simply works better for them. 

If tags are so great, why even have flat-later notebooks? If organizing data into various categories for storage wasn't important. then why did Evernote permit the creation of more than a single collection box notebook? My not just tag the Hell out of everything and skip the whole multiple flat-layer notebooks?

We know that Evernote will never have nested notebooks. Never. The owners are religious fanatics about nested folders being the Devil's work. And so we wait for a competitor that will come along and do most of what Evernote does, and has nested folders, and we will migrate over. It is happening. The consensus right now is that the only thing Evernote has that most of us want and Notion does not is a good web clipper. That is an important feature in today's world. If you read in the Notion forums, a lot of people have a solution--clip into Evernote and then import the data to Notion. Not that bad a solution. Further, we know that the clipper in Notion will get better, while we know the nested folders in Evernote never will. 

So, my paid up subscription to Evernote is good for 11 more months. Maybe in 11 months Notion will have good web clipper and I won't renew Evernote. Maybe it won't, and I will renew Evernote. Who knows. 

What we do know is that while Evernote is a closed company, the outwards signs are that it has always been limping along financially. I've seen when companies go belly-up--sometimes you get plenty of advanced warning, and sometimes you panic because access is down now. My plan is to use Evente to collect records. I will tage them, import ten to notion, and then move them around over there as needed to work with effectively.

If Notion goes OOB tomorrow, I am safe. If Evernote goes OOB tomorrow, I am safe. 

Hard to argue with using Notion as a plan B for the possibility of Evernote going south, isn't it? 

12 hours ago, eric99 said:

Only for google chrome, where is the Firefox implementation ?  Apparently, notion is not concerned about security, still no 2FA either.

Firefox? Is that the browser used by AOL?

😎

On 5/28/2018 at 12:12 PM, MRWConnected said:

Anyone have tips on how to get out of Evernote.  I've absolutely hit the wall of tolerance for the tool.  The interface gets worse with every update, and my team is about to explode with frustration.

Any thoughts on how to get out?  I'd like to be able to export into something useful, but the XML and HTML export options aren't exactly easy to work with or useful.  (Thanks Evernote - one more reminder that it's time to get out.)  I might move to Google Drive, or just Dropbox for now, but I want the notebooks in something more useful.  Anyone found an easy path?

 

Notion just got web page clipping.

And it has Nested Notebooks. 

And WAY more power than Evernote.

Upsets me to no end I just re-upped for another year of Evernote. 

On the plus side, you earn money towards a purchase of Notion just by importing stuff from Evernote...

Note: There is a 1,000 block limit for the free version of Notion, but I just pulled in 4 years of Evernote web clips with pictures (over 1,000 records) and it consumed a whopping 2% of that limit...