Order sub-tags alphabetically

[Tibo 0]

Hi, it's already a long time I use Evernote at an intermediate level. and it's probably intermediate partially for its recurring inconsistency of organization :

We gat Stacks and tags, great start, but when we start to stack/pile them it becomes a stupid nightmare of usability. Sorry for the tone but I shouldn't have to lose so much time only fixing evident issues. So here is the actual, SO basic one :

I re-discovered the piled tags with sub-tags and even sub-sub-tags, great! Until I add one to my shortcut mist and where I see that the sub-tags are NOT alphabetically ordered (while it's my criteria in my tag manager window - but shouldn't be related).

So can someone explain me how they are organized there and if it could be ordered alphabetically  by default asap.

After a quick test I also realize that the sub-tags are NOT displayed in the shortcut sidebar in the web & mobile (Android) versions - despite I appreciate their UI!

 

Waiting for this slight but so important improvement.

[DTLow 5,736]

Which device/platform are you using?
I'm seeing tags ordered alphabetically, either in a hierarchy, or just a list (Mac, iPad)

I can confirm the tag hierarchy is only displayed in select menus on select platforms.
I  see a sidebar display on Mac, not on the Web or iPad

Not clear about the "shortcut mist", but my shortcut section includes tags.
Sequence is user specified using drag and drop.
I can confirm the hierarchy is displayed for tags on a Mac, and sequence seems random

[jefito 5,589]

1 hour ago, Tibo said:

After a quick test I also realize that the sub-tags are NOT displayed in the shortcut sidebar in the web & mobile (Android) versions - despite I appreciate their UI!

Subtags are certainly displayed in the Android tag UI, but not in a single tree as with, say, the Windows tag list. You need to tap down through the hierarchy to get to subtags.

The web versions (current and beta) also expose the tag hierarchy.

[Tibo 0]

This subject is about the subtags added in the shortcut list.

Sorry for the typo, I talked about the shortcut list (not mist 😉 ).

 

- On my PC (Mac), subtags are not sorted alphabetically.

- On Web & Mobile (Android), subtags are not displayed at all.

[CalS 5,280]

19 hours ago, Tibo said:

This subject is about the subtags added in the shortcut list.

Sorry for the typo, I talked about the shortcut list (not mist 😉 ).

 

- On my PC (Mac), subtags are not sorted alphabetically.

- On Web & Mobile (Android), subtags are not displayed at all.

The shortcut list isn't sorted.  It's a drag and drop thing.  

[Tibo 0]

That's exactly the point.

When adding tags with subtags to the shortcuts, on the PC app we can see an arrow to display their relative subtags. Those subtags are NOT sortable by drag & drop neither are they alphabetically.

As said previously :

- On my PC (Mac), subtags are not sorted alphabetically.

- On Web & Mobile (Android), subtags are not displayed at all.

 

[CalS 5,280]

45 minutes ago, Tibo said:

That's exactly the point.

When adding tags with subtags to the shortcuts, on the PC app we can see an arrow to display their relative subtags. Those subtags are NOT sortable by drag & drop neither are they alphabetically.

As said previously :

- On my PC (Mac), subtags are not sorted alphabetically.

- On Web & Mobile (Android), subtags are not displayed at all.

 

If you add a parent tag to shortcuts on Windows it is all that gets added to the shortcuts.  None of the child tags appear, shortcuts displayed in the toolbar .  For me anyway on Windows.

[Tibo 0]

Ok, pretty strange. So it seem to be a Mac only specificity then 🤔.

 

Have a look to my screenshot on my Mac's Evernote Shortcuts :

 

Subtags are there under DEV but no-one can be moved around.

 

If it's right that it"s only the case on Mac apps it could be of great opportunity to suggest to add this system to all apps, with subtags sorted alphabetically of course.

The benefit of this is quite obvious since it give that so much waited capability to manage all files in a condensed and thus more streamlined way when having many tags. One example could be to add tags with subtags by project etc... Reasons to use this are countless. This is even more true since stacks are far more limited and in the end quite useless, except maybe for shared folders (which I never used).

Hoping you can forward this to dedicated teams for enhancement 🙂

[jefito 5,589]

1 hour ago, Tibo said:

When adding tags with subtags to the shortcuts, on the PC app we can see an arrow to display their relative subtags. Those subtags are NOT sortable by drag & drop neither are they alphabetically.

Are you talking about actual Evernote Shortcuts, or the tag tree, which is separate. In Evernote for Windows, there is no nesting of shortcuts in the shortcuts list. There *is* nesting for tags in the tag tree. And I see subtags sorted alphabetically under their parent tags in the tag tree.

I can't speak to the Evernote for Mac.

[Tibo 0]

I spoke effectively about the shortcuts, not the tag tree. See added screenshots and refer to previous comments.

Shortcuts display subtags unordered / tag tree displays them alphabetically.

  

[jefito 5,589]

11 minutes ago, Tibo said:

I spoke effectively about the shortcuts, not the tag tree. See added screenshots and refer to previous comments.

Shortcuts display subtags unordered / tag tree displays them alphabetically.

Sorry. When most people use the term 'PC', they mean Windows, and I missed the 'Mac' part of it. As I say, I can't speak to the Mac application. My mistake. On the Windows application, shortcuts don't nest (and I think that that's a good thing). But not germane to you, so carry on...

[Tibo 0]

14 hours ago, jefito said:

On the Windows application, shortcuts don't nest (and I think that that's a good thing)

That's your point of view, which differs of mine. I would ask : how many tags are you using, how many shortcuts do you have, do you use nested subtags ? And last but certainly not least, don't you use nested folders on your PC? And wouldn't you find it great to have similar way to organise your notes ?

This is the primary reason why I don't use Evernote more - its lack of the simplest organization capability. Which is so simple to fix by the way.

 

14 hours ago, jefito said:

But not germane to you, so carry on...

Not sure to understand this "not germane to you" ?

[DTLow 5,736]

17 hours ago, jefito said:

On the Windows application, shortcuts don't nest (and I think that that's a good thing).

Why a "good thing"?  It's optional, defaulting to non-tree.
Some users may find value in displaying hierarchy in tag shortcuts
It's a valid criticism that the sequence is random; I vote for alpha

btw  I also see the notebook hierarchy for stack shortcuts (Mac)

I moved the discussion to the Mac forum
It would be useful if the OP adjusts the title to indicate Shortcuts 

[Tibo 0]

Exactly, displaying hierarchy is the point i want to solve. actually users can't really display shortcuts with hierarchy, only nested subtags create real hierarchy.

Hierarchy is a higher level than only ordering. It completes the shortcuts manual ordering my adding that layer if simplification when we have to many tags to manage.

Do you understand what I mean here, and does it make sense to ask for that improvement - despite you will personally maybe not use it, that's up to you.

[jefito 5,589]

1 hour ago, Tibo said:

That's your point of view, which differs of mine. I would ask : how many tags are you using, how many shortcuts do you have, do you use nested subtags ? And last but certainly not least, don't you use nested folders on your PC? And wouldn't you find it great to have similar way to organise your notes ?

"A good thing" is probably not a great way to express what I meant, and is also not fair to those folks who want this feature.

Since you ask, I have a fair number of tags across two accounts that share notebooks (maybe 3-4 hundred?), I do use nested subtags, but mainly for loose organization, not rigorous, hierarchical categorization; I almost never navigate my tag tree (in fact, I usually keep my tag tree closed altogether.) because in my system, tags are not used like a folder system: they are mainly used to describe notes. There's no such thing as a "real hierarchy" for my tags, because my tags are intentionally intended to be used across categories. 

With respect to "nested folders" in Evernote, there are none (indeed, there are no "folders" at all; there are notebooks and stack). Notebooks may be collected into stacks, but otherwise, notebooks don't nest (notebooks cannot contain notebooks or stacks), and neither do stacks (stacks cannot contain other stacks).  Anyways, sure, I use a small number of notebooks, 24 across two accounts (I'd use fewer if I didn't need to share some subsets across accounts), and 6 or 7 stacks. So sure, I use hierarchy to some degree, but I try to keep it to a minimum. I think that hierarchy is largely inferior to categorization, which is what tags are good for..

Side note: Searching by tag is easy in the Windows application, using Alt+Shift+T which does tag filtering: based on the current context (notebook + tags), it presents only tags that are used in the current result set. Narrows things down quickly, no tag tree required.

So to your question, " wouldn't you find it great to have similar way to organise your notes", my answer would be "no, because I don't need it".

But beyond that, and to come back around to my "good thing" statement, as a software developer, my opinion on the notion of nesting shortcuts is it's just adding where it's not really needed. A simple short list is what I generally aim for in operating with software (see the 7 plus or minus 2 principle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magical_Number_Seven,_Plus_or_Minus_Two). This works for me in searching for notes, it's pretty well a part of why Google search is so popular and useful, and it's similar to how I think  shortcuts ought to work. If I have to hunt and peck (or pick, haha) through a tree of shortcuts, it's not much of a shortcut, right? You've just traded complication in your notebooks or tags for complication in shortcuts.

So that's my professional opinion, but in fairness to other Evernote users, sure it's fine to request it in other Evernote clients. I wouldn't use it (just as I wouldn't use nested notebooks), but it's no skin off my nose that others would. Apologies for not being more clear before.

2 hours ago, Tibo said:

Not sure to understand this "not germane to you" ?

Because I was talking about the Windows client, which doesn't have nested shortcuts), it's not relevant to your situation on the Mac.

[DTLow 5,736]

6 hours ago, Tibo said:

I would ask : how many tags are you using, how many shortcuts do you have, do you use nested subtags ? 

350+ tags, minimal notebooks. I use the hierarchy to organize my tags, and I make use of the "nested subtags"

I find the shortcut section gets too cluttered to be of real use.  It would be nice to have some organization levels.
I  use shortcut scripts instead (Mac), and drill down to sub-tags

>>And last but certainly not least, don't you use nested folders on your PC? And wouldn't you find it great to have similar way to organise your notes ?

No to nested folders for my notes.  I'm happy to be using tags, and having no concerns with folder organization.

[CalS 5,280]

400 tags, 6 notebooks.  I use tag hierarchies for organization only.  Shortcuts in the toolbar with 3 "hanging down", more than that becomes unwieldy for me.  I have the left panel minimised which makes for easy access to saved searches, call them mediumcuts.  And there is always Ctrl+Q.

Don't care if EN adds nested notebooks, wouldn't use them.  Great if they do for all who want them though.  I'm still stuck on getting a reliable editor across platforms.

[Tibo 0]

Thanks for the quick followup to each.

 

21 hours ago, jefito said:

So sure, I use hierarchy to some degree, but I try to keep it to a minimum. I think that hierarchy is largely inferior to categorization, which is what tags are good for..

I can't agree more on that where hierarchy should be used for global scopes, and that's how I want to use it too.

 

21 hours ago, jefito said:

If I have to hunt and peck (or pick, haha) through a tree of shortcuts, it's not much of a shortcut, right? You've just traded complication in your notebooks or tags for complication in shortcuts.

 

I understand you point of view, and since I'm not such a rigorous tag user as you seem to be, I still rely a bit on nested stuff.

 

21 hours ago, jefito said:

 So that's my professional opinion, but in fairness to other Evernote users, sure it's fine to request it in other Evernote clients. I wouldn't use it (just as I wouldn't use nested notebooks), but it's no skin off my nose that others would.

Indeed, whatever individual needs I believe that both practices should be available in all circumstances with no preference from the app developers point of view. It should still be up to the user to make their best choices upon his priorities or even habits. People will learn new organizational principles with more flexibility in mind (just I I would certainly) with feeling of restriction, which is how I feel today.

 

I'm quite happy that we were able to understand each-others point of view. So what are the next steps to leverage this discussion to the operating level and put it in the production funnel ?

Best.

[Tibo 0]

On 11/29/2018 at 2:53 PM, Tibo said:

I'm quite happy that we were able to understand each-others point of view. So what are the next steps to leverage this discussion to the operating level and put it in the production funnel ?

I still need help here for the last step  🙂 !

[DTLow 5,736]

5 hours ago, Tibo said:

I still need help here for the last step  🙂 !

You've posted the feature request, it's in the "funnel".  The next step is prioritzation by Evernote.

As users, we can contribute by indicating our support using the voting buttons in the top left of the discussion.

[Tibo 0]

Hi, since last time al long time passed so I wanted to know where all this was going. I checked my Evernote desktop & web apps where nothing seem to have changed here.

The last reply said that "it's in the Evernote's funnel now". Can you say at which state this is please. It shouldn't take so much time and I hope it won't take years. Therefore any ETA would be awesome.

I hope to read you soon with good news.

[DTLow 5,736]

5 hours ago, Tibo said:

Can you say at which state this is please.

We've clarified that your request is specific to the Shortcut section on a Mac,  
which displays hierarchy for notebooks/tags (a good feature) 
There's a bug; the sub-entries are displayed in random order   
The notebook/tag trees in the sidebar correctly display sub-entries in alphabetical order

This request has not generated much support from the userbase; it has 1 vote (mine)
No action from Evernote

[Tibo 0]

Thx for the answer.

As you should know not everyone is the kind of user that would make a ticket for each subject, but I have to admit that it's still surprising to me that the topic didn't more votes. However, since Evernote is a notes organiser, not fixing a bug related to organisation looks hard to understand...

NB for future support threads : I always looked for a better organisation for notes in Evernote but it's now even lacking continuity between devices and versions (web vs laptop..). Organising tags and sub-tasks should look the same on all platforms, and I thought that this would be fixed already a couple month ago.

 

Never the less, can I ask you to bring this topic to a higher level of execution delay please ?

Regards.