(Archived) Evernote Alternatives?

[pibchaotic 0]

I'm looking to replace Evernote because, simply put, I can't wait or hope any longer for sub-notebooks to be implemented while my piles of notes just continue to build without a smooth hierarchical to organize and view them. I greatly enjoy the functionality and style of Evernote, but I simply cannot do without sub-notebooks any longer. With that said, can anyone recommend something with this feature, along with the same basic functions of Evernote; cloud based, free/subscription models, secure, etc.

Thanks in advance.

[wsp 11]

I think the solution is to recognize that Evernote is very good at some things (synchronization across platforms, ease of capturing data) and not so good at other things (organizing information, formatting). And there is no indication that this is likely to change in the future.

I have tried to acknowledge this reality by using Evernote only for appropriate purposes: the collection of miscellaneous information that is not easily organized (e.g. Web clippings, random thoughts). For any information that is intended for a long piece of writing, I use a more traditional tree-based note-taking program (MyInfo). I feel that by dividing my loyalties, I have the best of two worlds.

[engberg 89]

If you want a hierarchical organization scheme to find notes (instead of searching by content), you could consider ignoring notebooks and use tags instead.

[pibchaotic 0]

wsp: I have acknowledged that. That doesn't necessarily mean I'm satisfied.

As for tags: honestly, tags and sub-notebooks are two totally different animals as far as organization and function go. With that said, tags do nothing for me.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

As for tags: honestly, tags and sub-notebooks are two totally different animals as far as organization and function go. With that said, tags do nothing for me.

Tags work as well as sub-notebooks & even better. Tags are more flexible b/c you are not limited to one notebook/sub-notebook.

viewtopic.php?f=30&t=10507&p=55497&hilit=exact#p55497

[dan7000 26]

As for tags: honestly, tags and sub-notebooks are two totally different animals as far as organization and function go. With that said, tags do nothing for me.

I think I know what will work for you: when you are using EN, everywhere you see the word "tag," imagine that you see the word "notebook." Then the interface will work exactly the way you want it to.

[lucianofuentes 1]

I worked my way down the side-bar.. where I used Notebooks as my primary organization method, then tags, and now saved searches. It's almost like one of those kung-fu journeys of discovery.

[hughjc 19]

If you want a hierarchical organization scheme to find notes (instead of searching by content), you could consider ignoring notebooks and use tags instead.

I keep hearing this but if tags are much more effective than sub-notebooks, why does EN even have notebooks at all? It seems like we're all giving tags a good try, they are just not working for us. I like the ability to tag items within notebooks for another level of search capability but I have a tough time figuring out why EN is fighting the sub-notebook concept. As others have suggested, add that capability as an option and those that are comfortable with tags can keep working the way they do now and the rest of us can use sub notebooks.

Hugh

[Don Reba 32]

I keep hearing this but if tags are much more effective than sub-notebooks, why does EN even have notebooks at all?

Because you can make individual notebooks offline or public.

[garyamort 0]

If you want a hierarchical organization scheme to find notes (instead of searching by content), you could consider ignoring notebooks and use tags instead.

Tags are flat as well, so again your not getting much in the way of extra organization.

For example, as a PHP/MySQL programmer, here is my ideal org structure:

I see something on the web about design of some sort. Ok, throw that into the "Web Stuff" notebook.

For my mental mindmap, this is something that has to do with PHP programming, Joomla, API work, and SOAP interfaces.

Tree view wise, this would be:

Joomla/API/SOAP

Tagwise it would be PHP.

Now, I could use a notebook just for Joomla. But then I still need the tree structure of API/SOAP and two tags, one API and one SOAP is not as good.

That said... AS a PHP programmer, my solution is to create a simple program to grab all the notes in a notebook, and give me a treeview by doing hash tags. IE, if I want something IN a tree, I will tag it is

#Joomla/API/SOAP# and have my program find all tags beginning with # and ending with # and explode the contents and display a tree view for me.

I find Evernotes to be 70-80% of what I need and I can code the other 20% since they have an open API.

I have yet to find another app with a similar open API and I'd rather concentrate on the 20% of function I need, then writing the whole thing from scratch.

[Phiil 0]

I hadn't thought of nested notebooks / the folder approach - but the more I think about how I'd use it, that actually seems like a very desirable feature.

Personally, I just don't tag stuff much - I'm a folder monkey. I grew up thinking in folders, and it's still my default mode. I *like* folders. I've tried tagging habitually, on flickr, delicious, wordpress, Evernote - but for some reason it rapidly just becomes a hassle. Some degree of hierarchical structuring would be a very nice option.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Tree view wise, this would be:

Joomla/API/SOAP

If you read the post I linked to above, you will see that you can tag notes so the search results pane will contain the exact same results as if you had nested notebooks/folders of Joomla/API/SOAP.

I have a tough time figuring out why EN is fighting the sub-notebook concept. As others have suggested, add that capability as an option and those that are comfortable with tags can keep working the way they do now and the rest of us can use sub notebooks.

It's very easy for people to say something should be easy to implement, when they are not directly involved with the programming. I would imagine it has something to do with the way the Evernote model works on the various platforms. I'm pretty sure they're not implementing it just to peeve everyone off.

[dan7000 26]

here is my ideal org structure:

I see something on the web about design of some sort. Ok, throw that into the "Web Stuff" notebook.

For my mental mindmap, this is something that has to do with PHP programming, Joomla, API work, and SOAP interfaces.

Tree view wise, this would be:

Joomla/API/SOAP

Tagwise it would be PHP.

did you realize you can have a "tree view" of tags?

In your example, you create a tag called Joomla, with a child tag called API and a child tag called SOAP. Try imagining these are called "folders" - it will be easier for you.

Then you can drag your note into the Joomla/API/SOAP "folder" by dragging it onto that tag -- just exactly like if you were dropping it into a folder.

Click on the Joomla/API/SOAP tag/folder, and you see your note -- just exactly like if you had clicked on a Joomla/API/SOAP "folder."

If you can think of a reason this is any different than creating a Joomla/API/SOAP "subnotebook," I would love to hear it. (other than the fact that it is arbitrarily termed a "tag" instead of a "folder" or "notebook" or "directory")

Oh, but even better, you can separately crate a tag called "PHP", and tag the note with that tag, too! So tags do precisely what subnotebooks do, plus more.

As a programmer, you should know that in reality, at the filesystem level, filesystem folders (or "directories") are implemented as attributes of a file -- they are essentially the same thing as tags. But the OS limits each file to one "folder" attribute. It's not like there's really a physical location on the disk that corresponds to each "folder." So by saying you are used to using folders, you are just saying that you like seeing your tags organized in a hierarchy. well. guess what? You can organize your tags in EN in a hierarchy.

Perhaps you would be happier if Evernote limited you to one tag per note -- in that case, it would work exactly like filesystem folders. Personally, I prefer that they allow me to use more than one tag.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

And truth be told, you could even probably get by without tagging those Joomla/API/SOAP notes at all & just make sure the three words Joomla API SOAP exist in the notes. SInce Evernote's search is so powerful, simply doing a search on those three words would bring up the notes. Unless there were other notes that contained all three words that you wouldn't want to have in your Joomla/API/SOAP "sub-notebook." Of course that one would come nearer working w/o tags because all three words are pretty unique. But it's just an example of using EN's search function w/o tags b/c I have many, many notes that have no tags at all b/c I know I'll be able to find them by simply using a search. IE, my mother's late companion had Alzheimer's. So any notes or articles I scanned or clipped, I'd make sure the word Alzheimer's was in the title or the note (in case it was a scan & for some reason, the EN search didn't find the right word.) No need to create an Alzheimer's tag.

[garyamort 0]

Tree view wise, this would be:

Joomla/API/SOAP

If you read the post I linked to above, you will see that you can tag notes so the search results pane will contain the exact same results as if you had nested notebooks/folders of Joomla/API/SOAP.

Nope, because it will also find anything with the organizational structure of

API/SOAP/Joomla

Tags are flat, not structured. They are fantastics for what they do, which is identify information. What they don't do is organize it. Sometimes identification and organization is the same, and sometimes it is not.

I have a tough time figuring out why EN is fighting the sub-notebook concept. As others have suggested, add that capability as an option and those that are comfortable with tags can keep working the way they do now and the rest of us can use sub notebooks.

It's very easy for people to say something should be easy to implement, when they are not directly involved with the programming. I would imagine it has something to do with the way the Evernote model works on the various platforms. I'm pretty sure they're not implementing it just to peeve everyone off.

Out of curiosity, do you know what a straw man is? It is when, instead of addressing the discussion, one makes up some new argument that one can "win" and pretends that the other person made it.

For example, no one has said that sub folders is easy to implement. What they have said is that the way they organize notes, they need a sub folder structure and that tags are not quite good enough for their purposes.

To dishonestly recast their request/desire as claiming they said it is easy is quite simply that, dishonest. You owe an apology to those people and a pledge to not lie in the future about this topic in your zeal to promote a great product.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Tree view wise, this would be:

Joomla/API/SOAP

If you read the post I linked to above, you will see that you can tag notes so the search results pane will contain the exact same results as if you had nested notebooks/folders of Joomla/API/SOAP.

Nope, because it will also find anything with the organizational structure of

API/SOAP/Joomla

Tags are flat, not structured. They are fantastics for what they do, which is identify information. What they don't do is organize it. Sometimes identification and organization is the same, and sometimes it is not.

I have a tough time figuring out why EN is fighting the sub-notebook concept. As others have suggested, add that capability as an option and those that are comfortable with tags can keep working the way they do now and the rest of us can use sub notebooks.

It's very easy for people to say something should be easy to implement, when they are not directly involved with the programming. I would imagine it has something to do with the way the Evernote model works on the various platforms. I'm pretty sure they're not implementing it just to peeve everyone off.

Out of curiosity, do you know what a straw man is? It is when, instead of addressing the discussion, one makes up some new argument that one can "win" and pretends that the other person made it.

For example, no one has said that sub folders is easy to implement. What they have said is that the way they organize notes, they need a sub folder structure and that tags are not quite good enough for their purposes.

To dishonestly recast their request/desire as claiming they said it is easy is quite simply that, dishonest. You owe an apology to those people and a pledge to not lie in the future about this topic in your zeal to promote a great product.

You need to get a grip.

[dan7000 26]

Tags are flat, not structured.

... except when you create a tree of heirarchical tags. Because when you do that, suddenly tags are 'structured' in precisely the same way "folders" and "subfolders" are.

[garyamort 0]

You need to get a grip.

You quoted my entire post in order to tell me that? Heck, my wife tells me that on a weekly, sometimes daily basis.

Doesn't change the fact that you misrepresented the original poster and as an adult you owe him an apology.

[crane 40]

Tags are flat, not structured.

... except when you create a tree of heirarchical tags. Because when you do that, suddenly tags are 'structured' in precisely the same way "folders" and "subfolders" are.

Actually, not really. The hierarchy that you see with the tags is purely visual - there are no semantics to it. If I have a tag "hierarchy" of Animal/Mammal/Dog, they're just visually arranged near each other. There is no relationship between "dog" and "mammal". If I want to find all notes tagged with "animal", I have to do one of two things:

1. When I tag a note with "dog", I manually tag it with "mammal" and "animal".

2. Or I can search for all of "animal"s children, e.g., any: tag:animal tag:mammal tag:avian tag:dog tag:cat tag:lizard, etc. etc.

On the other hand, if I have a folder/subfolder structure (think of your hard drive), I could easily get a list of all files in a particular folder, e.g., from the command line do "dir /s *".

The Evernote tags have no structure/semantics - this has been made very clear long ago on this forum.

[garyamort 0]

did you realize you can have a "tree view" of tags?

BTW, hot topic and slow reply day, so I was composing working on my reply and hit send /after/ you posted your own reply. Sorry for giving the experience of ignoring your excellent suggestions!

As I stated briefly above, I did some testing and this tree view is not quite a true tree, but dang close.

Also keep in mind.... I'm...um... "stretching" to come up with examples of folder formats that tags don't work with. I actually prefer tag systems, but I know there are others that use the sub folder approach. And as I have been on a year long search for an application to stuff my random notes, thoughts, etc into in a format that makes sense for me....and running into app after app that does things in a different way I can understand the frustration one feels when others tell you "just do this totally alien to the way you think....it's your problem with the way you think, the app should not cater to that!".

I say BS to that, if there are a large number of people who think a certain way, then the Evernote developers should be aware of that and should use that to determine the cost/benefit of implementing the feature.

Especially as, has been made clear in other threads, this functionality actually existed in the 2.x version of the software and was lost upon the upgrade to 3.x

It is especially frustrating to find an app that is perfect for you, and then have the one feature you find central to organizing thoughts removed somewhat arbitrarily[as far as you can see] and with little notice.

[garyamort 0]

did you realize you can have a "tree view" of tags?

Hi Dan, sorry your reply came in as I was composing mine slowly...so I skipped down to my last post and did not see yours. Did not mean to ignore you.

Thanks for the tip, but as I tested it not quite what is needed. Close though.

Perhaps you would be happier if Evernote limited you to one tag per note -- in that case, it would work exactly like filesystem folders. Personally, I prefer that they allow me to use more than one tag.

Actually, as I've said I'm quite happy with tags. But as someone who struggled to find something that works the way I think and only ran across Evernotes recently[and upgraded to premium in the first week as it is precisely what I want for the most part] - I can understand others who are frustrated to not only not have a feature that works the way they think, but to have actively lost that feature between one version and another of their favorite app!

[hughjc 19]

It's very easy for people to say something should be easy to implement, when they are not directly involved with the programming. I would imagine it has something to do with the way the Evernote model works on the various platforms. I'm pretty sure they're not implementing it just to peeve everyone off.

That is so far from the point... If I could program, I would make my own and be very happy, I can't. EN can and does do a GREAT job of programming.

The point of mine and so many other's posts here is that EN typically responds to our request for hierarchical folders with, "No, tags are better than files." Well, I respectfully disagree. I am not one of the livid mob who threatens to abandon EN if I don't get what I want. This program as is has made my life and work so much better. I think EN wants to make it better.

If Dave got on here and said, "Look we can't do folders because its really hard to program." I would drop it. I think EN is tougher than that. I continue to have faith.

Hug

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Actually, not really. The hierarchy that you see with the tags is purely visual - there are no semantics to it. If I have a tag "hierarchy" of Animal/Mammal/Dog, they're just visually arranged near each other. There is no relationship between "dog" and "mammal". If I want to find all notes tagged with "animal", I have to do one of two things:

1. When I tag a note with "dog", I manually tag it with "mammal" and "animal".

2. Or I can search for all of "animal"s children, e.g., any: tag:animal tag:mammal tag:avian tag:dog tag:cat tag:lizard, etc. etc.

Yes, you do have to do that. Just as if you'd have to drill down to the proper sub-notebook.

On the other hand, if I have a folder/subfolder structure (think of your hard drive), I could easily get a list of all files in a particular folder, e.g., from the command line do "dir /s *".

The Evernote tags have no structure/semantics - this has been made very clear long ago on this forum.

I would appreciate it if you would post a link to an example you say cannot be replicated with tags (since you say this has been proven in this forum - no need to reinvent the wheel.)

[crane 40]

The Evernote tags have no structure/semantics - this has been made very clear long ago on this forum.

See engberg's post here: viewtopic.php?f=30&t=6213&p=22936&hilit=tag+hierarchy#p22936 for the fact that tags have no semantics.

As for discussion about why people would want such a semantics, just do a forum search on 'parent tags' or 'tag hierarchy', etc. There are numerous calls, ever since 3.1 for the ability to either have:

a. when tagging a note with tagA, have all of tagA's parents also applied (thereby forcing the structure that is missing), or

b. have the ability to select tagZ and see all of the notes in tagZ and its children (thereby giving tags an actual structure).

This last was actually available in 2.2, if you double-clicked on a category, it, and it's children would be highlighted, showing you the OR of all the notes categorized by any of those categories. Then, you could do a search in the search bar, giving you the ability to combine both AND and OR. It was very sweet.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

The Evernote tags have no structure/semantics - this has been made very clear long ago on this forum.

See engberg's post here: viewtopic.php?f=30&t=6213&p=22936&hilit=tag+hierarchy#p22936 for the fact that tags have no semantics.

As for discussion about why people would want such a semantics, just do a forum search on 'parent tags' or 'tag hierarchy', etc. There are numerous calls, ever since 3.1 for the ability to either have:

a. when tagging a note with tagA, have all of tagA's parents also applied (thereby forcing the structure that is missing), or

b. have the ability to select tagZ and see all of the notes in tagZ and its children (thereby giving tags an actual structure).

This last was actually available in 2.2, if you double-clicked on a category, it, and it's children would be highlighted, showing you the OR of all the notes categorized by any of those categories. Then, you could do a search in the search bar, giving you the ability to combine both AND and OR. It was very sweet.

All this seems to do (from what I can see) is support the fact that yes, you have to tag notes with not only the child but all parent tags, if you want to be able to list notes by a parent tag only. Maybe that's considered a PITA by some, and I admit depending upon how many levels of nesting you have, that could be a PITA, but it still produces the same results as sub-notebooks. So far, I've not seen anyone show an example that tags do not function the same way as notebooks/sub-notebooks. I had started an example to show how I think it's a tomato/toMAto thing but this is an especially busy week for me so may not get it completed until next week. But honestly, I don't think it will help. Seems like there's a mental block against tags. Unless someone can actually show a specific example where the contents of notebooks/sub-notebooks does not produce the same results as tag/tag, I maintain they are the same. As an above poster said, substitute the word "notebook" for "tag" & there you go.

[crane 40]

Fine, here's an example from my own personal workflow...

My workflow tends to be like this: I'm working on/researching a particular topic. I want to collect all of my notes in one X, where you can call X a tag, a folder, a category, whatever.

In 2.2, if I had one (or even more) categories selected, when I clipped info, these new notes would be automatically categorized with the selected categories.

In 3.1, I can accomplish the same thing if I use Notebooks as my collection tool. Which would be fine if I only had a handful of different topics. But I have many more than that, and there are other power users with even more topics. So, since I'm forced to use tags in order to create some kind of visual organization, I'm not forced to change my workflow. Clip, clip, clip, and then go back into EN to tag.

Do you see the difference between the two approaches?

[dan7000 26]

In 2.2, if I had one (or even more) categories selected, when I clipped info, these new notes would be automatically categorized with the selected categories.

I agree that this would be great functionality to add to the current tag implementation (auto-tag new notes with currently selected tags). Is that the only thing that makes you prefer "subnotebooks"? Because for me, adding subnotebooks wouldn't help with this issue at all, since I always use more than one tag and you are limited to one notebook.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Fine, here's an example from my own personal workflow...

My workflow tends to be like this: I'm working on/researching a particular topic. I want to collect all of my notes in one X, where you can call X a tag, a folder, a category, whatever.

In 2.2, if I had one (or even more) categories selected, when I clipped info, these new notes would be automatically categorized with the selected categories.

In 3.1, I can accomplish the same thing if I use Notebooks as my collection tool. Which would be fine if I only had a handful of different topics. But I have many more than that, and there are other power users with even more topics. So, since I'm forced to use tags in order to create some kind of visual organization, I'm not forced to change my workflow. Clip, clip, clip, and then go back into EN to tag.

Do you see the difference between the two approaches?

First, I'm guessing you meant "I'm forced" rather than "I'm not forced"?

Second, what I see is a difference in your work flow (the aforementioned having to manually tag) and not a difference in functionality (of tags vs sub-notebooks.)

I would guess I would fall into the power users group, since I have over 11,000 notes and my database size is nearly 2 GB. I'm not a "researcher" but I often create temporary notebooks where I plop things when researching a something or working on a fix for work or whatever. (clip, clip, clip) It's then very easy, when the task is complete, to select all the notes in that temporary notebook, apply whatever tags to all notes, move them to the appropriate notebook & then delete the temporary notebook. The "temporary" notebook may exist for a day or several months...whatever it takes. And unless & until someone can provide a specific example of why tags fail where sub-notebooks do not (people keep throwing out workflows or verbiage...show me an example where note 1, note 2 & note 3 show up differently when stored under sub-notebooks vs tags), one can either choose to adapt their workflow or continue to lament the lack of sub-notebooks or move to another software.

I still contend the examples you've provided pertain to having to tag notes manually rather than the functionality of tags vs sub-notebooks. I'm really not trying to start/continue a war here...no one has yet provided a specific example demonstrating how notes would show up correctly with sub-notebooks & incorrectly with tags. From what I can see, it's an annoyance about having to tag. Which, if you're doing a few things, should be NBD. If you're doing a project, can be facilitated by using temporary notebooks, then mass tagging the notes in that notebook after the research/project is done & then moving the notes to their final resting place.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Actually, I'm tired of discussing this topic. I have yet to see an example where tags fail & sub-notebooks do not.

One of those deja vu all over again things.

(moving on)

[snail 0]

Evernote Alternatives:

http://alternativeto.net/desktop/evernote/

Notable ones:

Ubernote

Surfulator

iBrii

[1957GoldTop 0]

Actually, I'm tired of discussing this topic. I have yet to see an example where tags fail & sub-notebooks do not.

One of those deja vu all over again things.

(moving on)

I agree that tags/subtags are essentially the same as folders/subfolders. It's two names for a similar concept.

But what was brought up earlier that is painfully missing from tags, that I don't think was every really covered because you keep going back to "show me a difference" argument is, the parent/child relationship. If I have the following tags (and I believe this was the example used elsewhere):

- Animal

-- Dog

-- Cat

If I tag something as a Dog, I think it's clear that it is also an Animal and should be tagged as an Animal. And if I want to see all Animals, I should be able to click on the Animal tag and see all Dogs and Cats.

This is where tags can be even more useful than folders because typically folders don't work this way. You can have folders and subfolders but you only see what's in the folder you're in (like the OSX filesystem, folers in Mac Mail etc).

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

If I tag something as a Dog, I think it's clear that it is also an Animal and should be tagged as an Animal. And if I want to see all Animals, I should be able to click on the Animal tag and see all Dogs and Cats.

Not getting into the argument as to whether this is clear or not (since I use other software that is payware & highly respected that behaves the same way), I see this point and can appreciate that view point. But I maintain this is a function of the actual tagging process, not that the lack of sub-notebooks is the problem. Because annoying as it may be, if you apply all the parent tags, then you're good to go, eh? (IE manually tag the note 'dog' and 'animal.') IOW, if parent tags were automatically applied, then it's all good.

This is where tags can be even more useful than folders because typically folders don't work this way You can have folders and subfolders but you only see what's in the folder you're in (like the OSX filesystem, folers in Mac Mail etc). .

Absolutely!!!

I also think people new to the process tend to "over tag", thinking they have to tag every note, so they end up with a tag list that starts to resemble a dictionary.

[1957GoldTop 0]

Not getting into the argument as to whether this is clear or not (since I use other software that is payware & highly respected that behaves the same way), I see this point and can appreciate that view point. But I maintain this is a function of the actual tagging process, not that the lack of sub-notebooks is the problem. Because annoying as it may be, if you apply all the parent tags, then you're good to go, eh? (IE manually tag the note 'dog' and 'animal.') IOW, if parent tags were automatically applied, then it's all good.

To make it clear, when I'm saying if you tag something Dog it should automatically be tagged Animal, I do mean it is part of the tagging process. I'm agreeing that sub-notebooks is not the problem in this instance (I actually found this thread because I WANTED sub-notebooks, but once I found out tags can be hierarchical, I realized its basically the same thing with the possibility of being better)

I'm a photographer we call tags "keywords"... same difference. And, any decent keywording software makes it so if you keyword an image with a Dog, it will automatically give it an Animal keyword as well (if that's how you have your keyword hierarchy set up).

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

So I think we agree that (from the examples cited) the problem is not the lack of sub-notebooks. The "problem" results from the fact that parent tags are not automatically applied when you apply a child tag...??? Because once child & all parent tags are applied (manually or automagically), it's all good?

[1957GoldTop 0]

So I think we agree that (from the examples cited) that the problem is not the lack of sub-notebooks. The "problem" results from the fact that parent tags are not automatically applied when you apply a child tag...???

Yep... for me anyway a fix for that would be great. Other people may still want sub-notebooks, but to me that's just semantics.

[cww954 0]

So I think we agree that (from the examples cited) the problem is not the lack of sub-notebooks. The "problem" results from the fact that parent tags are not automatically applied when you apply a child tag...??? Because once child & all parent tags are applied (manually or automagically), it's all good?

This is what I would like! This would be better than sub-notebooks could ever be!

I would love the ability to tag...

If I drop into Pitbull and have it tagged as animal/dog/pitbull

-Animal

--Dog

---Pitbull

--Cat

---Burmese

[1957GoldTop 0]

That's exactly what I'm talking about above.

Ok, now get it done :-)

[JohnPMP 0]

Well, I've just started my migration from EN to OneNote 2010. I have my gripes about certain features or lack, but it works. I have just had it with the de-evolution of Evernote. I loved 2.0 and had hoped that it would grow from that point, but instead it has lost most of what attracted me to it.

Maybe I will give it another try in the years to come, but I want to see if OneNote will be a better overall experience.

Ciao for now.

John

[robe070 4]

So I think we agree that (from the examples cited) the problem is not the lack of sub-notebooks. The "problem" results from the fact that parent tags are not automatically applied when you apply a child tag...??? Because once child & all parent tags are applied (manually or automagically), it's all good?

This is what I would like! This would be better than sub-notebooks could ever be!

I would love the ability to tag...

If I drop into Pitbull and have it tagged as animal/dog/pitbull

-Animal

--Dog

---Pitbull

--Cat

---Burmese

I had the exact same thought reading the posts from 4 or 5 days ago - I almost posted it and then realised I hadn't read page 2 yet when attempting to quote a post.

I cannot find any purpose to the EN tag hierarchy unless you manually induce it. That is, apply parent tags yourself. I started doing that 3 or 4 months ago but kept forgetting one or other tags. When errors are induced it becomes useless.

Or maybe a purpose of the tag hierarchy is to structure the tags so they are easier to locate a suitable tag to look for? Seems a bit wishy washy to me. I find my less than 500 notes with 140 tags a mess to look at, but it doesn't matter because I use the tags for searching, not browsing the tags. (And maybe that's why sub-notebooks would be better? Browsing a few notebooks is utterly different to browsing tags. There are times to search and there are times to browse - for the latter a trusted hierarchy is often required - and almost always required for new users of EN)

No, the main purpose of a folder hierarchy is to gather classes of objects together and specialise more as you descend the hierarchy. You can then at any time focus on the appropriate level for your current needs.

You've created a hierarchy which you don't want to remember every time you add a note. That's one of the side effects of a folder hierarchy. A tag hierarchy becomes more powerful than a folder hierarchy when you classify the kind of note it is and the hierarchy comes along for free. Like where did I put that folder for AMEX receipts? Just tag it AMEX and it WILL be in the right place. How am I classifying Burmese? The question is irrelevant just tag it Burmese and its handled for you.

The other thought I've had reading this whole discussion is that many many people are used to folder hierarchies. Give them that and I'm sure there would be far more uptake of EN. But implement it as auto-tagging with parent tags. This is so much more powerful than a standard hierarchy and leading them in with parent tagging as a more powerful alternative and them seeing that their simple needs are met they would then explore the full power of tags. For me a folder hierarchy is a 'tick the box feature' - a sales tool. It needs to be there one way or another. This gets people into Evernote. Its familiar. They can get going straight away using their current work practices. No need to twist themselves around or become an expert like BurgersNFries seems to be. I'm sure there are many first time users who ditch it immediately they determine it doesn't have a hierarchy like this.

Meet people where they are and take them forward!

But how far would you need to go with Parent Tags? An option to switch it on for a start. Are all existing parent tags then applied to all notes? Another option?

Available on ALL platforms or its useless - if, say, its not implemented on my iPhone, tags will be missing and the integrity of my data is compromised. What about when a tag is moved into and out of the tag hierarchy? Parent Tags should be added and removed as appropriate from all the notes. That seems clear enough. Rearranging the classes of object fits itself to this functionality - you want an extra class under cat and before burmese. So adjust the tags on the notes to reflect this. If you move Burmese entirely out of the hierarchy to the top level all the notes would have all the parent tags removed.

What about moving a note? How is this identified? In the current user interface it seems a note is in a notebook its not 'in' a tag. You APPLY a tag to a note by editing. You drag a note ONTO a tag. You edit the tag list to remove the tag from the note. I can't see a way to drag a note OUT OF a tag. I think a note cannot be moved from tag hierarchy to tag hierarchy. You may well want it in BOTH hierarchies anyway. So when you apply a tag by editing or drag the note onto a tag, the parent tags are added. That seems clear. But what about removing the tag? Maybe it has to stay manual? What if you remove one of the parent tags? The integrity of your data is compromised if you leave it missing. But maybe the user needs it to be removed in this instance and still stay in the hierarchy. Personally I think in lieu of any other practical purpose for the tag hierarchy, that switching on Parent tagging means that the hierarchy is enforced. The parent tags effectively become read-only. If you don't want it in the hierarchy, tag it differently. 'Burmese' becomes 'Burmese that doesn't fit in the hierarchy' at the top level.

Its seems like a similar pattern to multiple inheritance in object oriented programming. Maybe that might help someone design this well?

Maybe I'm overcomplicating it? I hope a smarter person than me can figure out a clean way of using tags to mimic a folder hierarchy.

(there's a few presumptions here about what new users want, but given the extensive and lively discussions on sub-notebooks it seems to me its extremely significant. Only 6% of users use more than 100 notebooks and only 1.7% are premium users)

[snail 0]

Well, I've just started my migration from EN to OneNote 2010. I have my gripes about certain features or lack, but it works. I have just had it with the de-evolution of Evernote. I loved 2.0 and had hoped that it would grow from that point, but instead it has lost most of what attracted me to it.

Maybe I will give it another try in the years to come, but I want to see if OneNote will be a better overall experience.

Ciao for now.

John

Hi, What are you going to do with online access to your notes?

[runey71 0]

I'm only a new user and I come from a background where a well structured folder hierarchy was the be all and end all of organising information...

So when I saw EN didn't have that as an option I groaned I never liked Tags and pretty much stayed away from them...

EN was just too useful though so I said bugger it check out the Tags...

There is now no way I'd go back to using a folder system again... Everything I wanted to do with folders, sub-folders, notebooks, sub-notebooks etc etc I've been able to do easily with Tags and considerably more flexible too...

In many ways I have ended up with less Tags than I would of sub-folders... Plus now a piece of information that may be relevant in multiple areas is now available in all those areas without there having to be multiple copies... Removing the risk of updating one piece of information in one place whilst forgetting it was also somewhere else...

I am still transferring a massive backlog of data into EN and I'm sure I will come across my share of hurdles... For now though, for me at least, Tags are the new folders...

As for EN supporting both... Maybe it is about time we start ditching the old ways for new ways... I'm certainly not one to promote change for changes sake... However Tags certainly do seem to be a make more flexible solution than traditional methods...

Their is still room for improvement though... Currently each Tag shows how many notes it is currently associated with... I use a few parent tags to tidy up the tag hierarchy but do not necessarily tag the actual notes with them because it is redundant. They of course contain child tags that have notes associated with them... When the hierarchy is collapsed however the parent tag shows a value of zero... Having it show the total number of notes that it's child tags are associated with, in brackets, would be great... e.g. Work 0 (87)

The iPhone app also needs to handle tags better... Currently it list them all out flat rather than take into account the parent / child relationship... That is definitively a priority fix that needs to be made...

[robe070 4]

I've been re-arranging my tags so that I only use them as if they were folders. So any tags that were purely keywords or too detailed I either put into the title or body of the note. Its much easier to use the tags now as the list is much smaller and I've structured it and that allowed me to re-tag some items to fit better into the structure - and put the original tag in the note.

The crux seems to be for me that Titles need to be descriptive and and extra keywords need to be put in the note. Don't use tags for that. Only use tags to give structure - one that you might use for browsing your notes.

This has been said before in more vague ways or maybe I'm a bit slow. :-)

Of course a tag may be a keyword too, highly likely in fact. And this is where the confusion is for me.

I'm now wondering about the value of Parent Tags. It seems to me that without Parent Tags that the information in the structure still has to be manually tagged to a note or keywords added. That is, if I'm not browsing the tag hierarchy but instead I'm searching using a Parent Tag, the Parent Tag needs to be in the note.

I think as a workaround I'm going to use the tag view to assign tags so I can see what the parent tags are and just drop the note onto each of them. Though that won't work on my iPhone.

[curtisa3rd 0]

Back to the original question--

If you like hierarchies, the Microsoft OneNote is for you. It's designed around folders, etc. From the comments, EN is obviously religious about staying true to a tags-only interface. The 2010 version of OneNote is available now for free beta. It also has the real sharing features that EN lacks but falsely advertises. While the beta is free, you will eventually have to pay for a license which is $70-$100.

Would be interested in hearing other user's experience converting over.

[robe070 4]

I've been using tags only as if they were folders now for some 2 weeks. It works well.

If you are a Folders person, then treat Tags exactly like a folder and you'll get a similar experience to folders. Some downside and some upside.

Don't add keywords in as tags. Just put those in the title or the body of the note. Keep your tags to a minimum.

Keep your tags structured like folders. Always think, 'where does this tag belong?' or 'how might I want to browse this?'

@curtisa3rd, not sure where you get the idea of false advertising of sharing, or exactly what you mean by that. Linking is a feature that is sorely lacking, but is at least being considered by Evernote.

@curtisa3rd, does the OneNote beta provide syncing to iPhone and Mac?

[kurt 0]

Back to the original question--

If you like hierarchies, the Microsoft OneNote is for you. It's designed around folders, etc. From the comments, EN is obviously religious about staying true to a tags-only interface. The 2010 version of OneNote is available now for free beta. It also has the real sharing features that EN lacks but falsely advertises. While the beta is free, you will eventually have to pay for a license which is $70-$100.

Would be interested in hearing other user's experience converting over.

I've used OneNote and the folder hierarchy is much better than evernote interface. The only problem is that I can't access the notes from multiple computers or on my palm pre. For a while, I set up an sftp server and stored my onenote books on there then I used webdrive to make the sftp server a drive letter. This worked for a while but sometimes it gets out of wack so it's not a good solution. Maybe OneNote 2010 will have an online feature?

[brettmansdorf 6]

Different strokes for different folks...

Microsoft with Vista and 7 utilizes a reverse tag through their 'new' explorer interface with the 'favorite links' - and I wish it wasn't.

The hierarchy system is simple - regardless of multi-level (single dimensional) vs. EN's two dimension top level notebook with tags as a unique second dimension. If you don't understand how to implement it BEFORE you start populating your database - well you might want to consider a bit of planning first.

If it confuses you - use OneNote (which is flat in my opinion). This is like the argument of 'programmable' flat-file versus relational database. Those who loved Q&A (dating myself) didn't mind the endless hours of coding to make it relational - thereby they spent more time trying to make a flat file something it was never devised to be... Much the same as trying to master a hierarchy system out of folders. If in fact you want twelve levels of folders - I'd suggest you abandon EN and move on...

PLEASE don't change the Notebook / Tag system.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

If you don't understand how to implement it BEFORE you start populating your database - well you might want to consider a bit of planning first.

(snip)

If in fact you want twelve levels of folders - I'd suggest you abandon EN and move on...

What he said.

I could be wrong, but I think so many people start using EN & then want to change it because...well...it can conceivably be used for life, for free. Nothing wrong with free, but EN is what it is. If you honestly can't afford to pay for a notes application that serves your purpose, then don't use EN b/c it's free & then gripe about what it does or doesn't do. And if you started loading in all your notes & then realized later it doesn't do what you want it to do, then put on your big boy pants, accept that you jumped in w/o doing the proper due diligence & move on.

[crane 40]

And if you started loading in all your notes & then realized later it doesn't do what you want it to do, then put on your big boy pants, accept that you jumped in w/o doing the proper due diligence & move on.

I'm not sure that's really a fair assessment. Evernote has been changing over the years - those of us who started with EverNote 2.x or earlier are now using an almost completely different product. It hasn't be *us* that has changed what we want it to do.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I'm not sure that's really a fair assessment. Evernote has been changing over the years - those of us who started with EverNote 2.x or earlier are now using an almost completely different product. It hasn't be *us* that has changed what we want it to do.

Yes, but that's the nature of the beast. I started with PageMill, it was discontinued. Moved to Front Page. Discontinued. Dreamweaver. Etc. AFAIK, you can still use 2.x & migrate to something else, if you're not happy with 3.x As Dave mentioned in another post, about 2 years ago, the financial status of EN was that the doors were going to close. The new focus (3.x & up, cloud/multi OS oriented) is what saved it. So you'd be in the same situation you're in now...either still using a discontinued product (2.x) and/or looking for a new one b/c 2.x wasn't going anywhere.

viewtopic.php?f=30&t=15071&p=60137&hilit=focus#p60137

[engberg 89]

We've tried to make sure that our HTML Export mechanism (File>Export) is as powerful as possible, so you can always very easily get all of your notes out of Evernote for import into almost any other rich text editor. The HTML Export puts each note into a separate HTML file and creates an "index" HTML file with pointers to each note, so you can read the whole collection from any web browser easily.

We did all of this work so that you wouldn't feel "locked in" to Evernote. It's all your data, and we're happy if you want to use Evernote to manage it, but it should also be easy for you to export to use a different tool if you ever prefer.

[curtisa3rd 0]

Got to say Engberg is right on regarding this point. Evernote does not lock you in and the export function works very well.

As for BurgerFries, in my complaint about the false advertising, it was about the premium product, not the free product. The sharing features of evernote premium are really hyped in the marketing but you only find out it's the web version not full integration of your on-computer notebooks after you've made the purchase. Felt burned by the marketing team. A number of posters in the forum expressed the same feelings.

The OneNote conversion has gone really well. I did have to buy a onenote license but the sharing feature works fantastic with my team. It was a pain to get working (works for both OneNote 2007 and OneNote 2010 beta) via the Windows Live Small Business account that essentially gives you as small sharepoint server license for free. But now that it is set up, it works effortlessly. Supposedly, Microsoft will make the sharing capabilities work out of the box in the final onenote 2010 version but that remains to be seen.

I really liked Evernote better but until "phase 2" of sharing is released, I'll be on OneNote.

[brettmansdorf 6]

Funny - I've got applicable people I corrospond with via EN in three distinct industries (none cross over)... I don't share - I actually boot to a seperate HD just so I have the EN on the HD (3X partitioned/OS). It's a pain (for me) - and we all share the same account (have 5), but I have faith EN will solve the problem with a solution in the near future - then only I, not everyone else needs to adjust. End all for me is the allowance of multiple databases (user ID) for the windows interface. Then I have quick and easy access with out worry. If I need to pay for each user ID - AOK, as I do now.

As to OneNote, 'Live', MS, and such - the costs are not even comparible. As to the 'wool' pulled over your eyes by the marketing dept... I assume you paid a whopping $5 to try out the EN... As with any software you are reviewing for migration too - you certainly didn't just buy a license for a year based on what you read... If my assumption is incorrect - you must be a fantastic customer of MicroSofts, as their software does everything, works everywhere, and is simply the panacea - just ask their marketing department.

Most of us here use EN in all its forms - web, PC, and phone. I don't remember a onenote that works across multiple forums (not platforms), but I don't follow it.

[shimra 14]

We've tried to make sure that our HTML Export mechanism (File>Export) is as powerful as possible, so you can always very easily get all of your notes out of Evernote for import into almost any other rich text editor. The HTML Export puts each note into a separate HTML file and creates an "index" HTML file with pointers to each note, so you can read the whole collection from any web browser easily.

We did all of this work so that you wouldn't feel "locked in" to Evernote. It's all your data, and we're happy if you want to use Evernote to manage it, but it should also be easy for you to export to use a different tool if you ever prefer.

Engberg, could you confirm that this html export feature exists?

As of 3.5.2.1764, selecting multiple notes in Evernote and exporting them to html seems to just export as one big html file, with no index and no seperate html files.

Is this in the newer version which changes the database format?

[engberg 89]

Oops, you're correct. It appears that the one-file-per-note export is in the Mac today, and not yet in the Windows client.

Thanks for the report. To create separate HTML files, you'd need to export each note separately.

[jefito 5,589]

Oops, you're correct. It appears that the one-file-per-note export is in the Mac today, and not yet in the Windows client.

Thanks for the report. To create separate HTML files, you'd need to export each note separately.

Must drive you batty, keeping track of all of the variations in all of the versions you have out there. I know I would. (Shaking head).

~Jeff

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Oops, you're correct. It appears that the one-file-per-note export is in the Mac today, and not yet in the Windows client.

Thanks for the report. To create separate HTML files, you'd need to export each note separately.

Must drive you batty, keeping track of all of the variations in all of the versions you have out there. I know I would. (Shaking head).

~Jeff

Me too.

[engberg 89]

Luckily, I was batty before I got here.

I made sure there was a "feature" entry for this in our bug tracking system so it doesn't get lost.

Thanks

[pendolino 6]

I keep checking every once in a while for alternatives to Evernote. I've always found it clunky and slow even with the recent welcome improvements. I've slowly shifted more stuff to Dropbox and Simplenote (brilliantly coupled with notational velocity on mac) and this has been working well. I have too many notes in Evernote that would be a chore to move though.

[thommango 8]

If you are looking for more of a virtual notebook with subbooks, tabs, and other forms of organizing notes, I highly recommend OneNote. It's the only cool thing Microsoft ever built. I tend to use OneNote for my own notetaking and use evernote for collections of tidbits that I want to syncronize over a number of computers. OneNote can probably do that as well, but not quite as turnkey as evernote. Also I'm not sure if OneNote has made it into Mac Office yet. I think that's actually what caused me to look at evernote.

Cheers

[rjp 1]

Interesting thread.

Of course if anyone is used to, and completely comfortable with hierarchical folder-based organisation, it is likely that new approaches will confuse or annoy them.

Of course folders don't actually "exist". You don't have space on your hard drive that match each folder, moreover you definitely don't have spaces nested in other spaces in which files are sequentially stored on any hard drive. Physical data is organised to optimise the recording and reading of magnetic 'bit's on a spinning plate. The tree of containers, (folders / directories), that contain things (files) we work with as users is a logical structure mapped by software into a visual metaphor (the tree, or nested windows) you see in your desktop.

It's a metaphor that made sense when computers were not ubiquitously networked (so logical locations and the general physical locations of data were commensurate) and there was a predominantly exclusive relationship between user and data. In the early days of computing it was an ideal metaphor, because people lived in a world of filing cabinets, folders and files. (Though of course the metaphor was adjusted. Real world files, for example, have more than one document in them.) The value of that metaphor was high cognitive affordance. (The less people have to think about interacting with an interface the higher its "cognitive affordance".)

Representing data as 'things' that can be put in a 'container' that exists in some 'place' is useful. But it has problems. People don't actually categorise their data or work that cleanly. It creates 'monster' problems - if I have a folder for 'square' things and a folder for 'green' things, that works fine until I need to file a square green thing.. will I always check two folders to find it, just remember which one I chose, or create two and manage the double handling? What if you want to organise some of your information by time, reports from May, June, etc, and some by major projects... what to you do with the June update on project X.

Creating a system based on things gets very messy once you network users and their computers.... suddenly instances of data can be all over the place, multiplying and spreading like a virus across email inboxes so that soon even the originator of the data has a plethora of versions they have to sift through.

The main problem with the container metaphor is that it doesn't scale. Complexity grows exponentially with each additional variable, and with each person added to the access list. And cognitive affordance drops in equal measure. In the end most people with big collections of data in a folder tree are achieving very low efficiency and utility.

The container approach is arbitrary. Folders are logical models and files don't need to be all in one place. All we really need to do is store data when we are not modifying it, share it when we need to, and find it efficiently when we want to use it again. And yes we need to package and collect data sets.

But all of this can be done far more efficiently with meta-data (of which tags are just one kind).

Why not think of your information - a report, and article, an image, etc - as that instead of as a computer file. It has a place.... (a URL or an Evernote notebook) which you can go to or invite others to come to... but it just stays there and never moves.

Meta data, tags, URLs, create dates, titles, authors, etc... are all just paths. They are a new kind of address that lets you get to reports or articles, or pictures, or songs, but a number of different paths.

As the focus on the computer is replaced by a focus on the internet, cognitive affordance will be achieved not through object-container metaphors, but through new metaphors of location and association ('meeting' others at a location, not 'sending' data to someone, but 'leaving' it for them, or inviting them to 'come over' to where it is and use it.)

I don't know if the Evernote crew think of it in these terms - Maybe they read Lakoff, maybe not - but it is clear the genius of Evernote is that it doesn't avoid the old paradigm... it still physically synchs your data across a range of 'containers' but it reconstructs the user interface to allow us to work with information in the new way.

And it seems to be a tool for organising and using 'content' - data that doesn't change much or doesn't need to be worked with. For that, until desktops adopt the iPad or WIki / Blog architectures I use Dropbox. (But I sure as hell would rather loose the folders any day if I could)

If you really want a good content archiving application that uses an old-paradigm object-container interface get OneNote.

[kevin2i 0]

Interesting post - but your assessment does not 'fit' all

Some information is structured. Some information is best organized in an hierarchical fashion.

"

Representing data as 'things' that can be put in a 'container' that exists in some 'place' is useful. But it has problems. People don't actually categorise their data or work that cleanly. It creates 'monster' problems - if I have a folder for 'square' things and a folder for 'green' things, that works fine until I need to file a square green thing.. will I always check two folders to find it, just remember which one I chose, or create two and manage the double handling? What if you want to organise some of your information by time, reports from May, June, etc, and some by major projects... what to you do with the June update on project X.

Where to file the square green thing? Look at the invoice. File it under the vendor. There is no decision making required in an organized filing structure with non-arbitrary items. With key words (or tags) it is possible to search for all the 'green' stuff you have ordered, but for bookkeeping purposes organizing invoices by vendor is a requirement. Moving from paper to digital gains the ability to search using other criteria (all green objects), however the information should still be stored logically, and 'containers' provide the best method. For example, I want all my employees' information to be segregated by employee. Each employee needs to have a separate 'container' or file. (Because of the notebook limitation and lack of subnotebooks, I can't setup a system with employee files)

Also, having a structured storage system allows for simple workflow. (With paper) I can hand a new employee a hundred receipts, show them the file cabinet and just say "file these by vendor". A digital system should be as easy.

WIth a paper system, I rarely 'search' for items. I just get it. Grab the folder for XYZ bank, current statement is on top. Easy to find, because I know what container to grab, no search required. Now I have them archived on google docs. No search required - go to 'company/bankstatements/' and what I need is there.

There is a difference between information organization and information retrieval. Just because retrieval becomes more powerful, doesn't mean (structured) information should not be organized in storage. Tags are great, but using only tags creates a 'messy file cabinet'.

Of course, for information collection, for notes and free form data EN is fantastic. Web clippings, notes, passwords, important emails, contacts . . . EN is great at grabbing information, and this information is available wherever I am at.

As I begin to digitize my filing system, the limitations of EN are apparent.

[jefito 5,589]

Where to file the square green thing? Look at the invoice. File it under the vendor.

There is no decision making required in an organized filing structure with non-arbitrary items. With key words (or tags) it is possible to search for all the 'green' stuff you have ordered, but for bookkeeping purposes organizing invoices by vendor is a requirement. Moving from paper to digital gains the ability to search using other criteria (all green objects), however the information should still be stored logically, and 'containers' provide the best method. For example, I want all my employees' information to be segregated by employee. Each employee needs to have a separate 'container' or file. (Because of the notebook limitation and lack of subnotebooks, I can't setup a system with employee files)

The 'file it under the vendor" operation is semantically equivalent to assigning the vendor's tag to the invoice note.

To segregate employees, assign each employee a separate tag. Tag their stuff with their tag.

WIth a paper system, I rarely 'search' for items. I just get it. Grab the folder for XYZ bank, current statement is on top. Easy to find, because I know what container to grab, no search required. Now I have them archived on google docs. No search required - go to 'company/bankstatements/' and what I need is there.

"Grab the folder" is an operation that entails more than t seems. Which folder? Oh yes, you have to search for it. In general, the folder metaphor doesn't scale all that well. Our source code tree comprises some thousands of folders. Searching is a must.

There is a difference between information organization and information retrieval. Just because retrieval becomes more powerful, doesn't mean (structured) information should not be organized in storage. Tags are great, but using only tags creates a 'messy file cabinet'.

That's only if you don't have a good tagging strategy, or are looking at the whole filing cabinet. Tags help you to filter and view your filing cabinet in different ways, which are hard to do using strict hierarchies. Let's try grabbing all of the invoices from last week for all vendors in the aforementioned folder system. Oops.

As I begin to digitize my filing system, the limitations of EN are apparent.

Learn to tag well, and those perceived limitations fade away.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Also, having a structured storage system allows for simple workflow. (With paper) I can hand a new employee a hundred receipts, show them the file cabinet and just say "file these by vendor". A digital system should be as easy.

Of course. And IMO & IME, Evernote is MUCH easier than a paper system.

WIth a paper system, I rarely 'search' for items. I just get it. Grab the folder for XYZ bank, current statement is on top. Easy to find, because I know what container to grab, no search required. Now I have them archived on google docs. No search required - go to 'company/bankstatements/' and what I need is there..

You're splitting hairs here. Of course, you "search" with a paper system. Walking to the correct filing drawer/cabinet & getting the proper folder is, of course a "search."

There is a difference between information organization and information retrieval. Just because retrieval becomes more powerful, doesn't mean (structured) information should not be organized in storage. Tags are great, but using only tags creates a 'messy file cabinet'.

I don't think organization & retrieval can be split. If the information (or your socks, shoes, shirts or manuals for your home appliances) are not organized, then retrieval is difficult. The question of how difficult is a question of scalability. Most people don't have that many pair of shoes. So if all your shoes are tossed into a single box in your closet, digging around your closet may only take 2-5 minutes to find both shoes for the pair you're looking for. If you have 100+ pair of shoes, finding both shoes for the pair you're looking for will be more difficult & time consuming if they are just tossed into a box in the middle of the closet.

And tags, as has been proven more than a few times, elsewhere on this board, produce the same results as if you were using nested folders/notebooks. So no need to revisit it in yet another thread. Unlike nested folders/notebooks, tags are much more flexible. Jefito has posted at least a couple of times, his example of a red ball, to exemplify how tags are more flexible than subnotebooks/folders.

[jefito 5,589]

Jefito has posted at least a couple of times, his example of a red ball, to exemplify how tags are more flexible than subnotebooks/folders.

That red ball keeps following me around all over the place. I wonder if anybody's figured out some days it's a clown nose...