(Archived) REQUEST: Smart notebooks

[firefusion 8]

It would be great if saved searches could be turned into smart notebooks that could then be then shared with others. That way i could keep notes in my normal structure but still share them.

[evermullah 8]

It would be great if saved searches could be turned into smart notebooks that could then be then shared with others. That way i could keep notes in my normal structure but still share them.

i really like this idea

and i'm curious what more advanced users will tell, how we can accomplish this with current features in EN.

clicking on a tag for example is a kind of a hassle sometimes, as tags grow and grow by day, so finding them is kinda timestretching :-)

also, the sharing is not possible.

so,

++support.

cheers,

[bengrossmann 0]

I didn't see this before I posted a long-winded version of pretty much the same thing.

So, you get my vote too!

-ben

[missdipsy 2]

I like that idea. I think that, in general, the "saved searches" feature should be much more integrated with the notebooks &/or tags, more like the old auto-categories were in Evernote 2. And if it was done in such a way that we could then share these "auto-tags" &/or "auto-notebooks", that would be fabulous!

I just don't use the saved searches much because it's a funny little tagged-on bit at the bottom that doesn't really mesh with the tag & notebook structure. If it were more fully integrated, so that saved searches behaved just like tags or notebooks (like auto categories in EN2), I would use it all the time.

[evermullah 8]

Using EN over half a year by now, i perceived, that i used the "saved search" feature almost 5 times.

I configured some searched, like "find all updated the last week", or "find all notes without tags", or "find notes with an URL created within the last week",

but the "Saved Searches" Button is never seeable because I have to scroll to the bottom of the Notebooks Tab.

Although, I really like the idea of "smart notebooks", which, placed on the right place on the desktop would offer help with a fast click :-)

[davidbgonzalez 0]

I'm fore smart searches being "notebooks" with all the rights and privileges hereunto pertaining, namely sharing.

[JMichaelTest 19]

It would be great if saved searches could be turned into smart notebooks that could then be then shared with others. That way i could keep notes in my normal structure but still share them.

This is a great idea and a very powerful one at that.

Another way of defining this is that Notebooks (NB) could be defined as either "Static" or "Dynamic".

Dynamic NB would be define as those whose Notes meet the criteria of a Saved Search.

I work with an ERP system that has the notion of Dynamic Groups.

This works very well.

The only downside I can think of is unintentional exposure of a private Note.

One possible solution to this is to create a tag named "Public" and make this tag part of all Dynamic NB that are made public.

[shimra 14]

I think Evernote is generally afraid of scaring away casual users (for good reason, those are probably the majority of their customers) so discussion of static and dynamic notebooks isn't going to get very far with them

[MartinPacker 2]

This idea is analogous to SQL Views. I like it.

[evermullah 8]

I think Evernote is generally afraid of scaring away casual users (for good reason, those are probably the majority of their customers) so discussion of static and dynamic notebooks isn't going to get very far with them

hi shimra,

i do not understand this argument.

why do you think, casual users are not going to use features like dynamic notebooks, if they were available?

or did i missunderstand you?

[engberg 89]

We keep the "smart" views (Saved Searches) separate from the manually-managed collections (Notebooks) to prevent confusion about why one of them allows you to manually assign notes and the other doesn't.

If we tried to represent saved searches as a virtual "Notebook", then you'd get confusing behavior when you tried to assign a note to that "Notebook".

[evermullah 8]

We keep the "smart" views (Saved Searches) separate from the manually-managed collections (Notebooks) to prevent confusion about why one of them allows you to manually assign notes and the other doesn't.

If we tried to represent saved searches as a virtual "Notebook", then you'd get confusing behavior when you tried to assign a note to that "Notebook".

i don't agree to the "confusing" thing :-)

give that notebooks other colors, or a special icons,

like local and synced notebook.

or write some text to that notebooks top, like the trash notebook.

or:

-write a tip of the day.

-include that info in the videos you show, when a user installs EN.

-write about it in some blogs

-talk about it in your podcast.

voila :-)

[jefito 5,589]

I think that what Dave is getting at is that in the Evernote universe, Notebooks are discrete containers of notes (each note goes into exactly one notebook), while saved searches are ways to filter the collection of notes based on criteria (a note may match the criteria of multiple searches). Assigning a note to a saved search would be weird, with many awkward counterexamples: what if my saved search included a search for some text, say 'xyz', but didn't actually contain that text. What should Evernote do in that case?

Notebooks and saved searches are not the same thing, they serve different purposes and they don't act the same; there's not a lot of gain trying to stuff them into the same mental container -- I believe that confusion would result.

~Jeff

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Notebooks and saved searches are not the same thing, they serve different purposes and they don't act the same; there's not a lot of gain trying to stuff them into the same mental container -- I believe that confusion would result.

~Jeff

I agree.

[JMichaelTest 19]

It would be great if saved searches could be turned into smart notebooks that could then be then shared with others. That way i could keep notes in my normal structure but still share them.

Going back to the original request, perhaps the simplest solution is to be able to make Saved Searches public, like you can with Notebooks.

This would meet my needs.

Would this work for you, firefusion?

[engberg 89]

Yes, publishing saved searches would be a nice feature.

Thanks for the feedback.

[jefito 5,589]

A workaround to publish saved searches for today's clients is to copy the text from your search bar to a note in a shared notebook. It's not perfect, because it doesn't capture the notebook selection (at least in version 4, which I mainly use nowadays), so if that's important, you'd need to add it yourself via the "notebook:" attribute selection, but it can be done.

Another thing that saved searches don't capture, but would be helpful, is the sorting criteria for the resulting note list.

~Jeff

[evermullah 8]

perhaps the simplest solution is to be able to make Saved Searches public, like you can with Notebooks.

Thanks to all who explained the details to me.

I agree, that this is a very good idea and would fix my needs too.

i'd make a tag "publish worldwide" and all notes could be seen by others.

[carmour24 0]

Publishing on saved searches (whether called saved search or smart notebook) would be invaluable to me also.

[firefusion 8]

Good to here others would like this too. I think it would make a huge difference to be able to make public saved searches.