(Archived) Is some sort of grouping or page function planned?

[chucknb28409 0]

Hi,

It seems like a major feature for organizing notes is missing. You have notes and you have notebooks but you don't have pages containing a group of notes, a group of notes that are around a similar theme. I know there is the merge function that will group a number of notes into one note, but that cannot be undone. i cannot move a file, image, text, note to say another group or page. Think of it this way you are in a hurry and you just want to capture some information and then later you want to give it some sort of organization. Perhaps this can be done with tagging but that also seems counter intuitive. Any idea if such functionality might be added in the future.

Along the line of developing, is there a developers resource page for creating apps using some sort of EverNote API...

Thanks

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Hi,

It seems like a major feature for organizing notes is missing. You have notes and you have notebooks but you don't have pages containing a group of notes, a group of notes that are around a similar theme. I know there is the merge function that will group a number of notes into one note, but that cannot be undone. i cannot move a file, image, text, note to say another group or page. Think of it this way you are in a hurry and you just want to capture some information and then later you want to give it some sort of organization. Perhaps this can be done with tagging but that also seems counter intuitive. Any idea if such functionality might be added in the future.

Along the line of developing, is there a developers resource page for creating apps using some sort of EverNote API...

Thanks

Hi. Welcome to the forums!

If you create note links in a note, you can gain more control over the organization of notes (http://www.princeton.edu/~cmayo/evernote-organization.html). In addition, as you noted, the tagging works really well, and seems intuitive (or at least, not counter-intuitive) to me. The tags enable you to group notes in multiple clusters without actually moving them out of their notebooks.

As for the Evernote API, you can find it here:

http://dev.evernote.com/documentation/cloud/

[chucknb28409 0]

Thanks for the suggestion but I guess i need to take this a step further in explanation. I am a small business and I want to create a notebook for each client. Depending on the type of work done for that client I might have pictures, settings, passwords, license codes, notes, etc for each one. So the plan is to share each notebook with the client to give them access to their information. If I understand your explanation correctly I would not be able to assign a notebook to each client. I might be able to do something like creating tags with a client name and then the folder I want such as 'Licenses' so i would have something like "Client Name - Licenses" but that seems like a lot of work. I guess I am use to the interface of Zoho's Notebook and Microsoft's OneNote which uses the concept of pages to organize data. Zoho also has tags which I think would further enhance searching. Zoho doesn't seem to be developing their product any further and Microsoft would require an investment up front by the client, so i am trying to make EverNote work...

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Thanks for the suggestion but I guess i need to take this a step further in explanation. I am a small business and I want to create a notebook for each client. Depending on the type of work done for that client I might have pictures, settings, passwords, license codes, notes, etc for each one. So the plan is to share each notebook with the client to give them access to their information. If I understand your explanation correctly I would not be able to assign a notebook to each client. I might be able to do something like creating tags with a client name and then the folder I want such as 'Licenses' so i would have something like "Client Name - Licenses" but that seems like a lot of work. I guess I am use to the interface of Zoho's Notebook and Microsoft's OneNote which uses the concept of pages to organize data. Zoho also has tags which I think would further enhance searching. Zoho doesn't seem to be developing their product any further and Microsoft would require an investment up front by the client, so i am trying to make EverNote work...

Hi. Please take a look at my Save the Evernote Ads shared notebook (in my signature below). If you sort by "updated" you'll find the Welcome note (with the stars). All of the notes in that notebook are linked from this note. So, in your case, I think you could make a notebook for Client A, maybe come up with a few snazzy templates (see KustomNote for ideas, or my notebook at https://www.evernote.com/pub/mayo-christopher/public), and populate it with notes, remembering to link them all to the main "index" note with note links. Of course, tags and the like might help the client navigate as well, but I think most people will agree that it is easier to see all of the organization clearly laid out in one place. And, you can put the links into lists with hierarchies in whatever order you like, so it also gives you a bit of control over the presentation.

[jefito 5,589]

We don't know whether there's any such feature as "grouping" or "pages" coming, as Evernote does not tend to give out their feature roadmaps. I wouldn't exactly say that these features, whatever they are, are a priori missing. You can certainly do grouping using tags. They are both flexible, and generally easy to use, and they're what we have today and for the forseeable future. I don't know why you seem to think that they're counterintuitive -- ask if you have any questions, though.

[CaptainTime 94]

Please take a look at my Save the Evernote Ads shared notebook (in my signature below). If you sort by "updated" you'll find the Welcome note (with the stars). All of the notes in that notebook are linked from this note. So, in your case, I think you could make a notebook for Client A, maybe come up with a few snazzy templates (see KustomNote for ideas, or my notebook at https://www.evernote...istopher/public), and populate it with notes, remembering to link them all to the main "index" note with note links. Of course, tags and the like might help the client navigate as well, but I think most people will agree that it is easier to see all of the organization clearly laid out in one place. And, you can put the links into lists with hierarchies in whatever order you like, so it also gives you a bit of control over the presentation.

With a shared notebook like your save the Evernote Ads one, your welcome message is actually at the bottom - the last note a person would see. So until Evernote fixes it so that the shared notebooks show notes in the order that we have created, it makes navigating shared notebooks very difficult.

[C6REW 416]

Please take a look at my Save the Evernote Ads shared notebook (in my signature below). If you sort by "updated" you'll find the Welcome note (with the stars). All of the notes in that notebook are linked from this note. So, in your case, I think you could make a notebook for Client A, maybe come up with a few snazzy templates (see KustomNote for ideas, or my notebook at https://www.evernote...istopher/public), and populate it with notes, remembering to link them all to the main "index" note with note links. Of course, tags and the like might help the client navigate as well, but I think most people will agree that it is easier to see all of the organization clearly laid out in one place. And, you can put the links into lists with hierarchies in whatever order you like, so it also gives you a bit of control over the presentation.

With a shared notebook like your save the Evernote Ads one, your welcome message is actually at the bottom - the last note a person would see. So until Evernote fixes it so that the shared notebooks show notes in the order that we have created, it makes navigating shared notebooks very difficult.

If you do as Grumpy suggests and sort by 'Updated' it appears at the top!

Regards

Chris

[C6REW 416]

Thanks for the suggestion but I guess i need to take this a step further in explanation. I am a small business and I want to create a notebook for each client. Depending on the type of work done for that client I might have pictures, settings, passwords, license codes, notes, etc for each one. So the plan is to share each notebook with the client to give them access to their information. If I understand your explanation correctly I would not be able to assign a notebook to each client. I might be able to do something like creating tags with a client name and then the folder I want such as 'Licenses' so i would have something like "Client Name - Licenses" but that seems like a lot of work. I guess I am use to the interface of Zoho's Notebook and Microsoft's OneNote which uses the concept of pages to organize data. Zoho also has tags which I think would further enhance searching. Zoho doesn't seem to be developing their product any further and Microsoft would require an investment up front by the client, so i am trying to make EverNote work...

Hi Chuck,

Not sure if I am missing something that has already been said by the other more experienced guys.

But what you are trying to do, seem very straightforward to me.

I also run a small business, but don't want to share 'notes' with my customers.

However I have 'notebooks' for specific suppliers, in which I keep 'notes' automatically copied via email and other relevant information.

These, just like the 'notebooks' you want to create for your clients, could store all the data as you want and then shared with them.

Apologies if I have missed something.

Best regards

Chris

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Please take a look at my Save the Evernote Ads shared notebook (in my signature below). If you sort by "updated" you'll find the Welcome note (with the stars). All of the notes in that notebook are linked from this note. So, in your case, I think you could make a notebook for Client A, maybe come up with a few snazzy templates (see KustomNote for ideas, or my notebook at https://www.evernote...istopher/public), and populate it with notes, remembering to link them all to the main "index" note with note links. Of course, tags and the like might help the client navigate as well, but I think most people will agree that it is easier to see all of the organization clearly laid out in one place. And, you can put the links into lists with hierarchies in whatever order you like, so it also gives you a bit of control over the presentation.

With a shared notebook like your save the Evernote Ads one, your welcome message is actually at the bottom - the last note a person would see. So until Evernote fixes it so that the shared notebooks show notes in the order that we have created, it makes navigating shared notebooks very difficult.

This is one of my biggest criticisms of shared notebooks: we cannot control how they appear to people who initially join. I have a thread with critical changes that (I think) have to be made to the shared notebooks. For the moment, I simply have to ask that people either sort by date updated with most recent at the top (assuming they can find the bizarrely located sort option on the Web), by title ascending, or by created date.

One solution I have used is to put just one note in the shared notebook and then link from there to other notes you have made public (but not told anyone about), making sure to put navigational links in each note. This works fine for some things, but for sensitive information (even though exceedinly unlikely to be discovered) it is less than ideal, because it makes everything "public." All you can do is send along instructions, though the poor souls who are unfamiliar with Evernote will be at a loss (in my experience).

[jefito 5,589]

I don't believe that controlling your notebook sharee's view (is that a word?) is the answer. Some simple "Getting Started" text in the notebook invitation would be useful, though: hey, here's what this notebook is intended to hold, here's how it's organized, here is why it is being shared to you, etc., etc.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

I don't believe that controlling your notebook sharee's view (is that a word?) is the answer. Some simple "Getting Started" text in the notebook invitation would be useful, though: hey, here's what this notebook is intended to hold, here's how it's organized, here is why it is being shared to you, etc., etc.

I strongly disagree on this one. Ideally, everyone would already know about Evernote, or want to learn about it, but a lot of people are uninterested, and even hostile to having to learn a new interface. I sympathize with them on this, because we have work to do, and we just want to get it done. If it becomes a hassle, it is just easier to use Dropbox, though people have also complained (understandably) now that Dropbox (apparently) forces you to sign up in order to view a shared folder. At least Evernote doesn't make you do that! There is a huge range of technical competence out there, and throwing the burden to learn the Evernote system onto the recipient of an email makes me avoid sharing notebooks entirely.

The point is that there is no way to organize stuff so that it appears in a logical way to your recipient. You cannot organize things into notebooks at all (only one shared notebook, no stacks), no one knows what tags are, and you don't control the sort order. They get a mass of notes all jumbled up (to their eyes) on the screen. A tutorial (obstacle) is far less efficient than a note from me to them with a bunch of note links leading them through the notebook. I feel like I am fairly competent with the shared notebooks, and I've tried my best to make them navigable, but I have still managed to frustrate and annoy recipients with them. I have pretty much stopped using privately shared notebooks unless I am certain the other person already has Evernote and is somewhat familiar with the app. I just don't think a tutorial (in this case) is the way to go for something like this.

By the way, we used to be able to control the sort order. I think the designers should have kept this feature in the interface, because whoever originally put it in (apparently) recognized exactly this problem. [EDIT:] Here is a link to a blogpost showing a screenshot of the interface (for Facebook sharing -- a little different). This is EXACTLY what I want. So, basically, no need to design anything new -- just bring it back

http://blog.evernote...ction-and-more/

[EDIT:] By the way, here is someone with expertise who uses private and public shared notebooks in here work, so someone looking to see how this could be done successfully ought to contact Lindsey!

http://blog.evernote...ared-notebooks/

[jefito 5,589]

I strongly disagree with your disagreement. if you're going to share Evernote notebooks in a collaborative environment, then you cannot control what they do with a notebook in their workspace. And if you're sharing Evernote notebooks, then they de facto need to know how to operate Evernote in some fashion. It's bad enough that they have no control over the tags in the notebook (short of requesting certain tags). If you really think that you need to control the order of all things, then I would think that a PDF would be a lot better.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

I strongly disagree with your disagreement. if you're going to share Evernote notebooks in a collaborative environment, then you cannot control what they do with a notebook in their workspace. And if you're sharing Evernote notebooks, then they de facto need to know how to operate Evernote in some fashion. It's bad enough that they have no control over the tags in the notebook (short of requesting certain tags). If you really think that you need to control the order of all things, then I would think that a PDF would be a lot better.

I vehemently disagree with your disagreement with me.

(1) I don't want to control what they do with the notebook. I want to control how it appears to them initially.

(2) If the recipients need to know how to operate Evernote, then sharing is virtually useless, because most people I am sharing notebooks with have little or no knowledge about Evernote. That's life in a world in which only 40 million out of 6 billion + people have ever used Evernote. And, I would guess that only a tiny fraction of that 40 million have actually used a shared notebook. I think a shared notebook is a great way to introduce new users to Evernote, but only if the original experience is a positive one.

(3) I've worked with PDFs before, and what I have ended up doing is making one note in one notebook with dozens of PDFs in it. It is very clumsy. Again, if this is how we have to use shared notebooks, then it isn't terribly useful, is it?

Like I said, this functionality was there, and has been removed. Its removal has dramatically impacted my sharing of notebooks, and I suspect it will cause problems with others as well, especially in a business environment. Here are my suggestions for improving shared notebooks: http://discussion.ev...ined-notebooks/

[jefito 5,589]

I vehemently disagree with your disagreement with me.

I'm not convinced, but not enough to get too deep into it. I mean, really, everyone starts fresh on new products at some point, and Evernote isn't *that* complicated that you need a lot of time to learn to navigate with a reasonable amount of efficiency. But it's not that big a deal for me.

What is of interest to me -- tangentially to the forcing of order on a shared notebook -- would be a facility in the search grammar to be able to order the resultant note list. Been looking for that for a couple of years, at least.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

I'm not convinced, but not enough to get too deep into it. I mean, really, everyone starts fresh on new products at some point, and Evernote isn't *that* complicated that you need a lot of time to learn to navigate with a reasonable amount of efficiency. But it's not that big a deal for me.

I'm oddly passionate about shared notebooks. I could go on for many hours about all of the great features, the potential they have, and where they fall short. BUT, I won't launch into my harangue again, because I have a workaround!

★ Every time someone clicks on a link that takes them to the shared notebook on the Evernote site, the sort is already set for "Date Created (newest first)" no matter what your personal settings actually are. In other words, instead of leaving it up to us to decide, leaving it to chance, or relying on whatever settings the invitee happens to have, Evernote makes the decision for us. This means that if you edit the created date and put something like 2050 into the date, then that note will always appear at the top when initially viewed.

This is definitely not one of my favorite sort options, the fact that the sort order is pre-determined is not documented anywhere that I know of, and I bet a lot of users are unaware that created dates exist for notes, much less the ability to modify them (on the desktop clients), so the current situation is far from ideal, but it can be managed (give a try to my Evernote ads link below and see for yourself).

What is of interest to me -- tangentially to the forcing of order on a shared notebook -- would be a facility in the search grammar to be able to order the resultant note list. Been looking for that for a couple of years, at least.

You mean that you want to be able to set the sort order for each search? Yes, and it would be nice if we could attach sort orders to notebooks as well, but there are other things in the search grammar I would like to see too, and that would be another thread complete with an entirely different harangue from me

[jefito 5,589]

★ Every time someone clicks on a link that takes them to the shared notebook on the Evernote site, the sort is already set for "Date Created (newest first)" no matter what your personal settings actually are.

Probably just a side-effect of setting some default to 0, is my guess, Might just be a coincidence, though.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

★ Every time someone clicks on a link that takes them to the shared notebook on the Evernote site, the sort is already set for "Date Created (newest first)" no matter what your personal settings actually are.

Probably just a side-effect of setting some default to 0, is my guess, Might just be a coincidence, though.

It seems to work this way every time, and I have tried it with a bunch of notebooks (http://www.princeton.edu/~cmayo/sharednotebooks.html ). I don't know if Evernote meant to do this or not, but unintended or not, thankfully it is there!

[chucknb28409 0]

Hi,

It's nice to see the passion people have for the products they use. I definitly can see why tags are advantages, since I am trained as an Engineer. That being said I still believe its not immediately obvious how to use tags (I guess I call that counter intuitive). I do know my customers and unfortunately many of them are business owners who could care less how elagent something is or how efficient something is, they just want results now. Trying to get someone like this to learn a new way to do something is a very tough sell. So I stand by what I said if you look at the competitors they use pages as a way to organize information within the notebook. I don't know if OneNote has it but Zoho Notebook has tags as well and it becomes a very powerful feature for organizing data accross notebooks and for searches - I can see why you are so adament about them they really do help. I guess what I am saying is it is a logical way to oraganize data that mimicks the typical way people work and it sure would be nice to HAVE BOTH!

By the way thanks for some of the links to oranzational methods using tags. I have decided to create notebooks for each customer and then use two tags for each note I want to create. So I have the customer name as one tag and then the folder as another (so my other tags are things like licenses, settings, images, tutorials, etc.) That way I can create saved searches for each customer. This allows me to create searches unique to each customer as well as using the power of tags to search across notebooks using my other tags. The only thing I haven't figured out yet (or tested) is how to make certain folders/notes (saved searches) private so that my customers cannot see certain notes that I want organized under their notebook but private to me only. I am still testing...

Thanks

[jefito 5,589]

What people call "intuitive" is really just a another term for "what people learned before"; there's really very little in computers that I would call truly intuitive (i.e., things we are born knowing how to use, rather than learning). But tags are just labels, which most people should be somewhat familiar with. And similar concepts are used in GMail and MS Outlook, as well as other products. If you're working with your customers, some simple examples ought to help them get the idea. Again, the arbitrarily nested notebook feature has been requested for awhile, by a fair number of people, and Evernote hasn't seemed interested in implementing it (though they might be doing so behind the scenes). Nevertheless, what we have is what we have today, so...

Anyways, there's no way that I know of to share a notebook with someone and have them not be able to see all the notes: if you share a notebook, then you share everything in the notebook. So keep the "private" notes in a separate notebook, and tag them appropriately. If you want to tag the notes in the customer's notebook using the same customer name tag as you use for the private notes, then you can isolate to that customer's notes using a simple tag search. And if you want to see the notes that are just in the shared notebook, then you can use a single notebook filter (either by UI or using the notebook search term).