Suggestion: Nested Folders

[KarenM 2]

Hi,

 

I'd love to be able to have nested folders beyond just one level...

 

It gets cumbersome to have so many separate notebooks. If I had the ability to nest down to - say 5 levels of notebooks, the main folder list would be a lot shorter and overall easier to navigate.

 

I'd like to see this function added to ALL applications of Evernote. I use Windows (7) on my desktop and laptops, and also use the apps on my iPad 3 and my iPhone 4.

 

Thanks for reading!

 

Karen McCamy

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Hi,

 

I'd love to be able to have nested folders beyond just one level...

 

It gets cumbersome to have so many separate notebooks. If I had the ability to nest down to - say 5 levels of notebooks, the main folder list would be a lot shorter and overall easier to navigate.

 

I'd like to see this function added to ALL applications of Evernote. I use Windows (7) on my desktop and laptops, and also use the apps on my iPad 3 and my iPhone 4.

 

Thanks for reading!

 

Karen McCamy

This has been discussed on the board a lot already. In a nutshell, if you're going to use Evernote, you will need to rely upon descriptive titles, tags & keywords. This is more helpful than nested notebooks, especially the more notes you have. Please search the board on sub notebooks or nested notebooks or tags if you want more information.

[C6REW 416]

Hi Karen and welcome to the forum,

 

Yes, this one has been talked about for some time and I would love to see it, but at the moment it does not appear to be in the pipeline.

 

Best regards

 

Chris

[jefito 5,589]

Karen, you can do some lightweight organization using Evernote stacks: see the following Evernote guide: http://evernote.com/evernote/guide/windows/#6. Stacks are discussed about a third of the way down the page.

[Reed 1]

Clearly, nesting is something quite a few people want, including myself.  It seems there are a number of people who argue in favor of tags instead.  This may work for them, but in some cases there is no substitute for nesting, at least a couple more levels deep.  For example, my company needs one level with vendors, customers, employees, etc.  Starting from customers, we might go to "Customers>ABC Company>Long Term Projects>Project Number 6".  We have hundreds of customers.  There is no reasonable way to deal with this using tags.  I made the attempt and it was very cumbersome (unusable).

 

I currently use EN for personal use and it works great for that.  I use the free version.  I would be willing to switch to the business version for about 26 of my employees as soon as EN supports the ability to reasonably manage large numbers of notes.  Until then, it doesn't make the cut with us as a serious productivity tool for business use.

 

Reed

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Clearly, nesting is something quite a few people want, including myself. It seems there are a number of people who argue in favor of tags instead. This may work for them, but in some cases there is no substitute for nesting, at least a couple more levels deep. For example, my company needs one level with vendors, customers, employees, etc. Starting from customers, we might go to "Customers>ABC Company>Long Term Projects>Project Number 6". We have hundreds of customers. There is no reasonable way to deal with this using tags. I made the attempt and it was very cumbersome (unusable).

I currently use EN for personal use and it works great for that. I use the free version. I would be willing to switch to the business version for about 26 of my employees as soon as EN supports the ability to reasonably manage large numbers of notes. Until then, it doesn't make the cut with us as a serious productivity tool for business use.

Reed

We are not "arguing". It's a fact of life. EN has one level of notebooks that can be grouped together in stacks. Our opinions ultimately have no impact on what EN will or will not do. We are users just like you. Therefore it is a time waster for us to "argue" for or against nested notebooks. So as I said above, if you're going to use Evernote, you'll need to adapt accordingly. If the lack of nested notebooks is a deal breaker for you, you'll need to find another app. It's as simple as that.

And BTW, yes, even your example can easily be accomplished with the existing structure of Evernote.

[jontyc 12]

This may work for them, but in some cases there is no substitute for nesting, at least a couple more levels deep.  For example, my company needs one level with vendors, customers, employees, etc.  Starting from customers, we might go to "Customers>ABC Company>Long Term Projects>Project Number 6".  We have hundreds of customers.  There is no reasonable way to deal with this using tags.  I made the attempt and it was very cumbersome (unusable).

 

Reed

 

Did you ask others for help? I'm not saying everything is feasible without nested folders, but people can come up with some pretty ingenious solutions.

[Reed 1]

All companies care about what their customers are thinking, whether they respond or not.  Companies that don't care about this don't survive long.  I'm a CEO and we talk about what customers want all the time whether we respond to their requests or not.  The "argument" here is simple.  Do we just accept that they won't provide the feature or do we keep talking about it until EN thinks it's a big enough headache to do something about?  Or maybe give bad reviews, etc.  To me, it's a big enough deal to do this.

 

BurgersNFries: If you think tags can easily deal with the issue I would be happy to hear how this could be done.  Keep in mind, the solution has to be simple enough to be followed by a couple dozen people, most of whom don't currently know what a tag is.  They will collectively be managing thousands of notes.  I'm not being sarcastic here.  If there is an easy way I'm all for it.

[C6REW 416]

Hi Reed and welcome to the forum,

 

As mentioned above I personally really want 'nested' Notebooks and hope that at some point Evernote make the decision to go down that route.

 

But as I have often mentioned on here, sometimes you need to 'work within the limitations of the software'. As a CEO I am sure you realise that anything can be done at a cost. But, what we all want is the functionality we crave for little money!

 

It is possible to do what you want with 'tags' but it is a mind set you need change. Perhaps your own to start with, then your employees next.

 

I will leave it for Burgers and others who use 'tags' much more than me to explain their method in depth. But in your situation I would have the one level of Notebook with your customer then inside that Notebook 'tag' each of the examples you have given. So far with V5, I have seen that this seems to work even better than V4.

 

Best regards

 

Chris

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

All companies care about what their customers are thinking, whether they respond or not.  Companies that don't care about this don't survive long.  I'm a CEO and we talk about what customers want all the time whether we respond to their requests or not.  The "argument" here is simple.  Do we just accept that they won't provide the feature or do we keep talking about it until EN thinks it's a big enough headache to do something about?  Or maybe give bad reviews, etc.  To me, it's a big enough deal to do this.

 

BurgersNFries: If you think tags can easily deal with the issue I would be happy to hear how this could be done.  Keep in mind, the solution has to be simple enough to be followed by a couple dozen people, most of whom don't currently know what a tag is.  They will collectively be managing thousands of notes.  I'm not being sarcastic here.  If there is an easy way I'm all for it.

 

Sure they care.  But just because they care doesn't mean they will implement everything every user asks for.  (And certainly some things users ask for would contradict each other.)

 

As far as your example,

 

 

For example, my company needs one level with vendors, customers, employees, etc.  Starting from customers, we might go to "Customers>ABC Company>Long Term Projects>Project Number 6".  We have hundreds of customers.

While this is a good way to organize on a hard drive, the only adjectives of the note itself are the customer (ABC Company) and the project number (Project Number 6).  (Because 'customer' is describing ABC Company & 'long term projects' is describing "Project Number 6".)  From your brief description, what I'd do is create a notebook called "Project notes".  This note would go into that notebook & be tagged with ABC Company & Project Number 6.  I would use tags (rather than keywords) for the customer & the project since you have so many people involved which increases the margin of error for someone to misspell something.  I would nest the customer tags under a tag called "customers".  I would create a parent tag called "projects".  Below that I'd have "long term" & "short term".  I'd nest tag "Project Number 6" under the tag "long term".  (Please note that applying a child tag does not auto add the parent tags or include notes tagged with only the child tag when searching on the parent tag.)  So I've used only two tags on the note.  And by nesting the tags, the customer tags & project tags can be collapsed to shorten the tag list in the left pane. 

 

If you have a customer that's also a vendor (you sell briefcases to Staples & you buy pens from Staples), I'd probably create two tags.  One would be "Staples - customer" & the other "Staples - vendor" & this one would be nested under a parent tag of "vendors" rather than the parent tag of "customers".  I'd do this for a couple of reasons.  The first is to help keep the tag list manageable by being able to collapse the vendor tags when using the customer tags (and vice versa) as well as differentiating notes for Staples the customer from notes for Staples the vendor without having to apply a customer/vendor tag to the note.  If you ever want to look at all notes for Staples the customer combined with notes for Staples the vendor, then you just search on both tags.

 

I'd also probably create a notebook "Project descriptions" that would contain a note on each project with a description of the project.  I'd tag the note with the aforementioned customer tag & project tag. May want to do a similar thing for customers - create a customer notebook with a single note for each customer & tag with the appropriate customer tag.  Another way to do this with only one notebook is to create a "description" notebook.  It's late or I'd try to think of a better name.  Add a note for each customer, vendor & employee & tag the customer note as a customer, vendor note as a vendor, employee note as an employee, etc. This would be an option if you were close to maxxing out the 250 notebook limit & reduce having a customer notebook, a vendor notebook, an employee notebook, etc. But if you have the additional info on customers, vendors, employees elsewhere so that you don't need to know contact info for a vendor or an address of a customer, then these notebooks would not be necessary.

 

Again, this is just a first observation based upon the short description you posted.  I suspect the process would evolve if I was actually doing this project b/c that's normally the way these things usually go. And I may even think of other things later, because that's also normally the way these things go. 

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

If you wanted to further streamline the tags applied to the project note, by having the "project descriptions" notebook I talked about above, you don't even need to tag the note with the customer tag. The project description already has the customer tag.  I'm assuming project numbers are unique & that there is not a project number 6 for DEF customer.  If this is not true, you'd need to tag the note with the customer tag as well.  But if project numbers are unique & there's only one project number 6, then you may be able to omit the customer tag from the note in the "Project Notes" notebook.  It depends upon the searches you'd be using. 

[Reed 1]

I see what you are saying.  It might work, but I'm skeptical that two dozen non-techy people will all buy in to a change like this. I don't normally like to turn dictator unless it is absolutely necessary, so I don't demand something if they really don't want it and I really don't need them to.  I'll try it on my own, and if it's easy enough I will present it to them.  Until then, I continue to hold the opinion that Evernote should provide nesting capability.  I will admit, I hadn't thought of doing it the way you are suggesting.

 

It seems to me that bringing this up causes people to be annoyed.  I feel as though I'm being told to shut up and do as I'm told with this.  People seem to look at the profusion of complaints regarding this issue as a very bad thing.  On the contrary, I think it's a good thing.  If a large number of people complain over a long time it may eventually be enough to get the feature.

 

At a minimum, aren't message boards a place where you can provide opinions?  As long as this nesting problem exists, a significant percentage of new message board users will complain about it.  It's the only reason I checked out the boards at all, and I'm sure this will continue to be true with many people in the future.  You may not get EN to add the feature, but you DEFINITELY can't stop people from complaining about the problem, so if anybody needs to accept anything, it's the complaints that need to be accepted without annoyance.  Nobody is trying to ruin another person's day.  They just want to tell someone they are frustrated that this feature isn't offered.

 

Some people are saying I need to work within the limits of the software or use it as-is because it won't be changed, etc.  I would disagree with this.  I certainly don't have to use it.  Unfortunately, OneNote has it's own problems, as does all the other possible solutions I have found.  I'm leaning towards other methods of doing this.  I'm even considering using Paperport 14 even though I would need to create a separate Word doc for every note.  The nested organizational structure may be worth the extra hassle.  I also don't believe it can't be changed.  Whether or not I go with something else, I will definitely fire off a complaint wherever I can to encourage EN to provide the feature that so many people want.

 

One correction: "Sure they care.  But just because they care doesn't mean they will implement everything every user asks for.  (And certainly some things users ask for would contradict each other.)"  This was right after a quote from me: "we talk about what customers want all the time whether we respond to their requests or not."  Clearly I'm aware they won't implement everything."  As far as implementing everything a user asks for, I'm not suggesting that.  I'm suggesting they implement what seems to consistently be the most requested feature their users ask for.  Also, nesting doesn't contradict anything I'm aware of.

 

BurgersNFries: I will try the tag method you suggested.  If it's easier than I'm thinking I'll try to implement it with our staff.  Otherwise I'll keep using the free version for personal use until they add the feature.  I will also look for places to post a review for the software.

 

In any event, I appreciate the help.

 

Reed

[varpness 0]

Add me to the list of people who want stacks that go deeper than one level. There's no reason we shouldn't make this request, and if you are an old forum member and you don't like people asking for new features, then perhaps you should go find an app that doesn't have a discussion board.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Add me to the list of people who want stacks that go deeper than one level. There's no reason we shouldn't make this request, and if you are an old forum member and you don't like people asking for new features, then perhaps you should go find an app that doesn't have a discussion board.

I'm pretty sure no one has said you should not make this request. And if you don't like being told that this has been requested before, discussed a lot, probably will not happen any time soon, if ever & offered other solutions instead, then I suggest you avoid posting on the board. This is a users board & all members are free to post their opinions so long as they are not personal attacks.

[varpness 0]

I'm pretty sure no one has said you should not make this request. And if you don't like being told that this has been requested before, discussed a lot, probably will not happen any time soon, if ever & offered other solutions instead, then I suggest you avoid posting on the board. This is a users board & all members are free to post their opinions so long as they are not personal attacks.

I cancelled my Evernote subscription a couple of years ago because of the way a rude forum member responded to my request, basically telling me that Evernote was probably not going to accommodate my request. I'd hate to see the company lose more subscribers due to aggressive and unnecessarily hostile responses from Evernote Evangelists. If you take offense to this, then you might be the problem we are talking about, otherwise, if it's not you, don't take offense and move on.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

 

I'm pretty sure no one has said you should not make this request. And if you don't like being told that this has been requested before, discussed a lot, probably will not happen any time soon, if ever & offered other solutions instead, then I suggest you avoid posting on the board. This is a users board & all members are free to post their opinions so long as they are not personal attacks.

I cancelled my Evernote subscription a couple of years ago because of the way a rude forum member responded to my request, basically telling me that Evernote was probably not going to accommodate my request. I'd hate to see the company lose more subscribers due to aggressive and unnecessarily hostile responses from Evernote Evangelists. If you take offense to this, then you might be the problem we are talking about, otherwise, if it's not you, don't take offense and move on.

 

If any user feels a post by any other user violates the terms of the forum, they are free to use the report button that appears on each & every post. However, simply not liking a post or not agreeing with a post does not mean it violates the terms of the forum.

 

I would also add that if you cancelling your service b/c of a forum post is pretty silly on several levels.  But it's certainly your choice.

 

Now, back on topic please or else this thread will be locked.

[varpness 0]

I'm pretty sure no one has said you should not make this request. And if you don't like being told that this has been requested before, discussed a lot, probably will not happen any time soon, if ever & offered other solutions instead, then I suggest you avoid posting on the board. This is a users board & all members are free to post their opinions so long as they are not personal attacks.

I cancelled my Evernote subscription a couple of years ago because of the way a rude forum member responded to my request, basically telling me that Evernote was probably not going to accommodate my request. I'd hate to see the company lose more subscribers due to aggressive and unnecessarily hostile responses from Evernote Evangelists. If you take offense to this, then you might be the problem we are talking about, otherwise, if it's not you, don't take offense and move on.

If any user feels a post by any other user violates the terms of the forum, they are free to use the report button that appears on each & every post. However, simply not liking a post or not agreeing with a post does not mean it violates the terms of the forum.

 

I would also add that if you cancelling your service b/c of a forum post is pretty silly on several levels.  But it's certainly your choice.

 

Now, back on topic please or else this thread will be locked.

I never said someone violated the terms of the forum, but you just did. Did I ask you to tell me if my decision was silly or not? No, so please don't insult me again or I will report you.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I never said someone violated the terms of the forum, but you just did. Did I ask you to tell me if my decision was silly or not? No, so please don't insult me again or I will report you.

Locking thread since you insist on remaining OT.