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Nesting Multiple Notebooks / Creating Sub-Notebooks


cswsteve

Idea

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1 hour ago, jeffsf said:

in fact that is the genius of nested file structures (notebooks, folders, directories, etc.). You only have to remember the broad general category, or find it in a short list of folders at the top level. Then you navigate through easily browsable lists at each level, so precise recall is not in the least the issue.

58b3521dce181_ScreenShot2017-02-26at2_03_55PM.thumb.png.7597b905cc6bf852cf29d2d520e23d93.png

You're right about the tag hierarchy missing on the iPhone/iPad
I'm forever hopeful that it will by implemented someday

And if nested notebooks get implemented, I hope the hierarchy gets shown on the IOS platform

I make use of the tag hierarchy on my Mac
I only have to remember the broad general category
or find it in a short list of tags at the top level
Then I navigate through easily browsable lists at each level
 

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I just checked if tag hierarchy is implemented in Android, and it is. I'm only discovering this now because I never use the tag hierarchy on my phone. I only ever 'browse' my notes by hierarchy in EN Windows.

On the phone, I use EN Android pretty much how @JMichaelTX describes using EN iOS:

56 minutes ago, JMichaelTX said:

For most of my use of EN iOS, I make use of:

  • Tags used as Categories
  • Saved Searches
  • EN Shortcuts
  • General Search

 

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I check back maybe every year of so to see if EN is headed toward nested folders, which is maybe the most ubiquitous idea in computing.  Sorry to say that I see here yet another thread where someone asks about this simple feature and gets pounded into the ground by EN zealots who believe that workaround=solution.  See you guys in another year or so.

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18 hours ago, Flier said:

another thread where someone asks about this simple feature and gets pounded into the ground by EN zealots who believe that workaround=solution

You're welcome to create a request for nested folders or add your vote to the the request for nested notebooks

However if you're going to post a comment and make claims like "most ubiquitous idea", don't be surprised if you get a discussion

 

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4 hours ago, DTLow said:

However if you're going to post a comment and make claims like "most ubiquitous idea", don't be supprized if you get a discussion

Actually @Flier said:

4 hours ago, Flier said:

nested folders, maybe the most ubiquitous idea in computing

Operative word being "maybe".

In the history of personal computers, directories and sub-directories were there virtually from the beginning, or at least as I best remember going back to the early 1980s.  I'm pretty sure the MS-DOS delivered by Microsoft to IBM included them.  IAC, I don't know of any computers in modern history that does not support them.

A mystery we may never solve is why Evernote chose not to support nested Notebooks, which are functionally much like folders/directories on computers.
Maybe when Evernote co-founder and former CEO Phil LIbin writes his memoirs. . . ?

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5 hours ago, JMichaelTX said:

In the history of personal computers, directories and sub-directories ...

And the discussion starts again

I have no objection to nested folders being ubiquous to computer organization.  It's true now, and true when Evernote started

From the very beginning Evernote has presented themselves as delivering an alternative organization method (Tags)

I understand completely that this alternative does not appeal to everyone and consequently, they don't use Evernote

 

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3 hours ago, DTLow said:

And the discussion starts again

LOL.  I think you prompted it with:

10 hours ago, DTLow said:

However if you're going to post a comment and make claims like "most ubiquitous idea", don't be supprized if you get a discussion

All I was trying to do was to show that he had made a reasonable statement.  But then, YMMV.

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On 3/11/2017 at 6:04 AM, Eduardo Estefano said:

I am against this feature. It would make the notebook structure just as messy as every folder structure I have ever come across. 

The folder structure used is entirely user-designed.

My folders are generally very logical and well-organized, thank you.  Folders are just another tool.  Any tool can be misused.

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On 2017-03-11 at 4:04 AM, Eduardo Estefano said:

I am against this feature

This is nothing wrong with user's posting a request; I see no harm with Evernote implementing Notebook hierarchy

>>.It would make the notebook structure just as messy as every folder structure I have ever come across

 I agree.  Notebook hierarchy is not a feature I'd use and I've posted many times on how tags are a superior form of organization

edited: Superior because of increased flexibility; it's hierarchical vs relational organization 
Notebooks provide a hiarchical organization - you can only assign one notebook to a note
Tags allow a relational organization - you can assign multiple tags to a note

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1 hour ago, DTLow said:

I've posted many times on how tags are a superior form of organization

Tags are NOT inherently a better form of organization.  It depends greatly on the use case and user preference.

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Tags are great. But I personally need notebooks in order to share groups of notes.

Currently, the note sharing process is not so great. The note is only visible via workchat.

A combination of notebooks and tags for me at least eliminates the need for nested notebooks.

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On 2017-03-14 at 4:08 PM, Eduardo Estefano said:

Tags are great. But I personally need notebooks in order to share groups of notes.

Likewise, I use Notebooks for the purpose of Sharing, Local/Sync, Offline

I also have an Inbox Notebook; its a GTD thing

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Organization of all notes?  Everyone's notes?  The point is this:  You cannot possibly know all possible uses for Evernote, so you can't ever say logically that tags are superior to hierarchical folders without qualifying the statement to state the uses for which you consider tags to be superior.

You like tags. Fine.  You're a zealot for tags.  Fine.  But it is logically impossible for you to know that tags are superior in all possible uses.  Said another way, it is sloppy thinking.

What can be said is the capability of a union of truly hierarchical folders and the tag system provides a superset relative to the capability of the tag system alone.  Hence, it is likely that the  union will be superior to tags in at least some applications.

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On 2017-03-14 at 5:37 PM, Flier said:

You cannot possibly know all possible uses for Evernote, so you can't ever say logically that tags are superior to hierarchical folders without qualifying the statement to state the uses for which you consider tags to be superior.

I updated my post with: 
Superior because of increased flexibilityit's hierarchical vs relational organization 
Notebooks provide a hiarchical organization - you can only assign one notebook to a note
Tags allow a relational organization - you can assign multiple tags to a note

I choose to make use of the increased flexibility offered by Tags

I believe in knowing my tools and using the best method.  I'm a zealot for this.

>>What can be said is the capability of a union of truly hierarchical folders and the tag system provides a superset relative to the capability of the tag system alone

I see a problem with using two organizational systems at the same time.

Even if this request is implemented, I would not be using hierarchical folders/folders

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Agree! I would also like to see a sub-notebook feature! Tags are great but they are cumbersome to get to because they are in a completely different section than the notebooks. So a lot of scrolling or moving around the screen has to happen to find the tags, especially in the android app. Notebooks in the real world often have "dividers". So if we're going with that analogy, EN should have Stacks>notbooks>dividers>notes that would make keeping all the information organized so much easier. I've tried other way to "work around" this issues, such as creating custom searches. This allowed me to show notes from a particular notebook with a particular tag, however, the searches show up at the very bottom of the side menu. So that leads to a lot of scrolling to find what I needed. Then on the app, those same searches are in a different place. The same with shortcuts, on windows it's at the top, on android It's at the bottom. A lot of people are accustom to this type of file folder system. Tagging is just too cumbersome to use as a "folder" system. 

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I got to say this is just ridiculous, not serving either of us the sub notebook people nor the nested tag people with both unusable across platforms!

Isn't organization supposed to be the most important thing here and not just dump notes in one notebook and choose tags from a list of millions of tags, that is the most non-standard and frustrating way of working for me.

All the other features of Evernote are great but the organization of notes is just horrible.

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On 11.3.2017 at 1:04 PM, Eduardo Estefano said:

I am against this feature. It would make the notebook structure just as messy as every folder structure I have ever come across. 

What the heck? You don't have to use sub-notebooks if you don't want, people here are just too attached just because they get a batch saying "Guru".

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On 24.4.2016 at 4:07 PM, DTLow said:

You can't have notebooks inside of notebooks

God damnit, you do know that old school paper notebooks have flaws? We're in a digital age where we can have whatever functions we want, or do we still need to create notes on stones? That argument makes no sense and its persistent defense even less.

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There's endless discussion of tags vs folders vs search vs hierarchies in the forums but while it's fine for everyone to have their own opinion of how Evernote 'should' be set up,  what you see is what you got.  

Evernote may or may not have plans to change - but they don't share.  

So the choice boils down to:  find a way to make the current layout work for you,  or look for a more acceptable alternative.  Given that users have been munging the options for several years without there being visible change as yet,  any imminent update seems unlikely.

Bad weird or horrible as it may appear,  this is what you have to work with.  Search works pretty well for me most of the time,  padded out with some tags and sensible titles.  

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58 minutes ago, amort said:

Isn't organization supposed to be the most important thing here

For me, the most important thing here is to retrieve my data.  

The solutions offered by Evernote work for me, and I'm happy I don't have to bother with "organization" when storing my data

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4 hours ago, amort said:

Isn't organization supposed to be the most important thing here and not just dump notes in one notebook and choose tags from a list of millions of tags, that is the most non-standard and frustrating way of working for me.

I'm with @DTLow, finding things is the most important thing here.  So organize around how to find based upon your use case.  A million tags or notebooks most likely isn't the optimal path.  Notebooks and/or tags can be used to cull down to a manageable number of notes when searching. 

See if you can put a structure in place such that the majority of searches return a set of 20 or less notes, and if not, can be quickly refined with the addition of text..  IMO, care less about where you put it (notebook) and more about how you find it (text and tag).  My searches are All Notes context anymore, 32k notes and climbing.  FWIW.

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5 hours ago, mcascone said:

I haven't read all 36 pages of this thread. I am able to create sub-notebooks very easily, by drag-and-dropping them where I want. Are people not aware of this feature?

People want more levels of notebooks, they want full nesting, not just stacks..

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12 minutes ago, mcascone said:

You can create three levels of notebooks; it's not infinite but it feels about right to me

It's actually two levels.  Notebooks, and then a Stack of notebooks.  That's what you're showing in your image

I also find this sufficient.  In fact, I have minimal notebooks and prefer to use Tags for organization

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9 minutes ago, DTLow said:

It's actually two levels.  Notebooks, and then a Stack of notebooks.  That's what you're showing in your image

I also find this sufficient.  In fact, I have minimal notebooks and prefer to use Tags for organization

Some people like tags, others use notebooks - they're really quite similar when you think about it, like Gmail's tags are basically folders (in fact that's how they're managed outside of native gmail). Some people like one giant bucket and use pure search to find what they want. It depends on your use case, and your style. I prefer a mix of notebooks and tags, actually tags are losing their usefulness for me. An app can't be everything for everyone, and there are usually workarounds; if not, try another tool.

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15 minutes ago, mcascone said:

Some people like tags, others use notebooks - they're really quite similar when you think about it,

In Evernote, Tags and Notebooks are very different

  • Tags can be organized into unlimited hierarchy.  
    This isn't that important, but it might be a fix for a folder addiction
  • The most important point is that multiple tags can be assigned to a note
  • Notebooks are required to identify notes as Local/Synced, Shared, Offline

 

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3 minutes ago, DTLow said:
  • Tags can be organized into unlimited hierarchy.  This isn't that important, but it might be a fix for a folder addiction
  • The most important point is that multiple tags can be assigned to a note

I hadn't thought of that. If you really need 158 layers of notebooks, then tags might be for you. And the 1-to-many approach offers a lot of flexibility.

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3 hours ago, mcascone said:

You can create three levels of notebooks; it's not infinite but it feels about right to me.

You can only put notes in a notebook, and then you can put notebooks in a stack.  Not sure All notes would quality as a notebook.  IAC some folks would like to have more levels of notebooks with the ability to put notes in all those notebook levels.  I'm with you, current set up works for me, but not for all hence the request.

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8 hours ago, mcascone said:

You can create three levels of notebooks; it's not infinite but it feels about right to me.

If it works for you, that's great.

But, to be clear. there is only ONE level of Notebooks:

  • A Notebook can contain ONLY Notes, NOT other sub-Notebooks
  • Stacks are NOT Notebooks, but only a container of Notebooks
  • Stacks can contain ONLY Notebooks, not Notes.
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Yes, you can't please all the people all the time, that's true. However, just one extra level would add a great deal of extra flexibility for a large number of people. I see so many people asking for this feature. It doesn't make sense as a company for them not to want to implement it. However, we'll never know if this is something EN is working on until we get it or don't.

I for one would just like to see "Dividers" or "Sections" (sub-notebooks), that would only add one extra layer but it would make my life so much more organized. That would make the hierarchy as such: Stacks>Notebooks>Divider or Section>Notes. This would be in line with the whole notebook analogy that Evernote has created. Notebooks often come in multiple subjects with dividers in them for different topics within the same notebook. I think added this sub-notebook level makes perfect sense. 

Tags don't seem to work for my brain. I use them, but in the traditional way they were originally designed for, as a way to add to the organization of things. Not as the main focus for organization. For me and the way I think, Tags are too cumbersome to organize and access. Searching and then narrowing said search by tag feels like way too much work or remembering search complex syntaxes just to find one note. If I put certain things in a designated folder, I can just go straight to that folder and know it'll always be in there. It's very straight forward type organization. Again to each their own but if there are enough people that want a feature and it is withing their power to add that feature, why not add it. 

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14 minutes ago, WolfChild said:

feels like way too much work or remembering search complex syntaxes just to find one note. If I put certain things in a designated folder, I can just go straight to that folder and know it'll always be in there. It's very straight forward type organization. 

Like this example for Insurance Documents

Tag: Insurance

vs

Folder: House/Insurance + Boat/insurance + Car/Insurance
             Or is that Insurance/House ....  (complex syntaxes?)
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Evernote really don't seem inclined to add this extra feature,  although I'm sure they have the technical skills to do so.  They have to look at the costs involved though,  and the chances of their getting more business off the back of the new feature and/ or stopping paying folks leaving because they really want that option.  For the moment the sums just don't - apparently - add up...

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10 minutes ago, DTLow said:

Like this example for Insurance Documents

Tag: Insurance

vs

Folder: House/Insurance + Boat/insurance + Car/Insurance
             Or is that Insurance/House ....  (complex syntaxes?)
 

By Complex search syntax, I'm referring to the search function. For example, if you want to find a note but you only want to search the title or you have other specific parameters, you need to use the various search function syntax such as "intittle:" before the name of the note. It can get complicated to try to search for one note. I am not referring to tags as complex search syntax. 

Again, different strokes. To each their own. And everyone is different. 

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53 minutes ago, WolfChild said:

Tags don't seem to work for my brain.. I use them, but in the traditional way they were originally designed for, as a way to add to the organization of things. Not as the main focus for organization. 

And yet you use adjectives, which are entirely similar. Tags are designed to be like keywords: to describe the content of some larger document. They're really quite simple in that respect. But the bonus is that you can use Evernote's tags for organization as well. I don't see the problem.

56 minutes ago, WolfChild said:

For me and the way I think, Tags are too cumbersome to organize and access. Searching and then narrowing said search by tag feels like way too much work or remembering search complex syntaxes just to find one note.

How are they too cumbersome? I clip or add some content, select one or more tags and put it into one of a small number of notebooks. Easy. To find it, I don't aim to search to narrow to exactly one note; narrowing it down to <10 will do, using a combination of tags and text, which is not complex. I do the same thing with web searches.

59 minutes ago, WolfChild said:

If I put certain things in a designated folder, I can just go straight to that folder and know it'll always be in there.

?? If I apply a tag to a note, I can go straight to that tag and I know that the note will always be there.

1 hour ago, WolfChild said:

It's very straight forward type organization.

Sure, strict hierarchical systems (which nested notebooks would be) are straightforward but they're not as flexible as tagging systems, since items may validly belong to more than one hierarchy. Tags can handle that situation nicely in a way that hierarchies can't. 

For people who really want to build hierarchical structures, you can do that with Evernote's tags too. I don.t but many people do.

 

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2 hours ago, WolfChild said:

I for one would just like to see "Dividers" or "Sections" (sub-notebooks), that would only add one extra layer but it would make my life so much more organized. That would make the hierarchy as such: Stacks>Notebooks>Divider or Section>Notes. This would be in line with the whole notebook analogy that Evernote has created. Notebooks often come in multiple subjects with dividers in them for different topics within the same notebook. I think added this sub-notebook level makes perfect sense. 

I agree, and obviously so do lots of other users who have requested a similar feature in this thread, and others.

2 hours ago, WolfChild said:

Tags don't seem to work for my brain. I use them, but in the traditional way they were originally designed for, as a way to add to the organization of things. Not as the main focus for organization.

This is a point that some don't seem to understand.  I've come to believe it is related to how a person thinks.  Some see the advantage of a hierarchical organization for some use cases, others don't.  We all know people who seem to be very organized in all things in their life, and others who are very disorganized.

 

2 hours ago, WolfChild said:

It's very straight forward type organization. Again to each their own but if there are enough people that want a feature and it is withing their power to add that feature, why not add it. 

Who knows?  Unless you are an inside member of the Evernote design team, you have no way of knowing, until/if they ( Evernote ) choose to share it with us.

I see a definite benefit to having BOTH hierarchical Notebooks and Tags.  

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22 hours ago, jefito said:

And yet you use adjectives, which are entirely similar. Tags are designed to be like keywords: to describe the content of some larger document. They're really quite simple in that respect. But the bonus is that you can use Evernote's tags for organization as well. I don't see the problem.

How are they too cumbersome? I clip or add some content, select one or more tags and put it into one of a small number of notebooks. Easy. To find it, I don't aim to search to narrow to exactly one note; narrowing it down to <10 will do, using a combination of tags and text, which is not complex. I do the same thing with web searches.

?? If I apply a tag to a note, I can go straight to that tag and I know that the note will always be there.

Sure, strict hierarchical systems (which nested notebooks would be) are straightforward but they're not as flexible as tagging systems, since items may validly belong to more than one hierarchy. Tags can handle that situation nicely in a way that hierarchies can't. 

For people who really want to build hierarchical structures, you can do that with Evernote's tags too. I don.t but many people do.

 

 

I understand how to use tags and the tagging system. I find the way you have picked apart my post about my personal opinions to be insulting. This is the way I work or like to organize things. You do things one way and that's fine, I don't do things your way. That's all I'm saying. Everyone does things differently, just because you don't see a problem doesn't mean there isn't one. 

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14 minutes ago, WolfChild said:

I find the way you have picked apart my post about my personal opinions to be insulting.

The purpose of a forum is to discuss a variety of viewpoints.

jefito's reply was not an insult. It was a thoughtful reply that explains a different perspective that you don't agree with.
 

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11 hours ago, WolfChild said:

I understand how to use tags and the tagging system. I find the way you have picked apart my post about my personal opinions to be insulting. This is the way I work or like to organize things. You do things one way and that's fine, I don't do things your way. That's all I'm saying. Everyone does things differently, just because you don't see a problem doesn't mean there isn't one. 

By replying, I didn't mean to insult you; I certainly questioned a couple of things you wrote, and I disagreed with a couple of others. This is a public forum, and different viewpoints are common and expected; sometimes disagreements are caused by misunderstanding or lack of clarity, sometimes by not knowing the problem domain, and sometimes it really is just different preferences/beliefs. Discussion can still happen most of the time, hopefully.

I do understand that people have learned to do things differently by widespread use of file folders, but I think that most of us here can learn to use different methodologies (e.g. tags) as well if our preferences aren't provided for, provided that the tool at hand provides some greater benefit for using it. Of course, it's certainly fair game to ask for new features or improvements, but they may never come (nested notebooks have been fervently requested for over 8 years now, and Evernote rarely provides timelines for future features), so we're really stuck with the tool we have now, with its hierarchical tags and flat folders (that's kind of the it-is-what-it-is clause). Moreover, Evernote's capabilities and best uses aren't always known to newer users -- they sometimes even escape longtime users like me and others here -- so sometimes you may get explanation about capabilities that you may already know about.

Anyhow, I apologize if I gave offense.

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Jefito,

The key problem with the tags "solution" is that tags are not well-implemented in iOS. There they simply cannot be used in the same way as nested notebooks. In iOS, there is no tag nesting, and the tags list is hidden away, several clicks deep, in the settings tab. As to "offense," I'm sure you didn't intend to offend, but there is a certain patronizing tone to all the posts that just tell notebook/folder fans to just get over their (implied) rigidity and get with the program (i.e. the way the commentator does things). That might be fine if it worked, but it simply doesn't for many of us. We aren't asking others to change their preferred method of organization; we're simply asking to be given tools that are quite customary in the computing world, and for good reason. For certain tasks, they work better. However, I fear we are whistling in the wind, since I don't think Evernote is willing to consider that point.

jeffsf

 

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23 minutes ago, jeffsf said:

The key problem with the tags "solution" is that tags are not well-implemented in iOS.

This is true; tag hierarchy has not been implemented in IOS

And if Notebook hierarchy is implemented, likely the same; it will be a Win/Mac feature

23 minutes ago, jeffsf said:

I fear we are whistling in the wind, since I don't think Evernote is willing to consider that point.

I think so too, from Day 1; although Evernote did implement Notebook Stacks

If your workflow requires nested notebooks; you're looking at the wrong product

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19 minutes ago, jeffsf said:

the tags list is hidden away

Small point, but the tag list is accessible though one press on the Notes screen.  The tag list in the settings area is for deleting a tag or making it a shortcut.  Tags get added through note maintenance.  That's about it for tag handling on IOS.

29 minutes ago, jeffsf said:

We aren't asking others to change their preferred method of organization; we're simply asking to be given tools that are quite customary in the computing world, and for good reason. For certain tasks, they work better. However, I fear we are whistling in the wind, since I don't think Evernote is willing to consider that point.

"quite customary" and "for good reason" are a couple more subjective qualifiers, don't know how they help.  You want nested notebooks to manage your stuff, EN doesn't do it, you want EN to change, got it.  Don't know if EN is ever going to add the capability (your whistling may be an accurate assessment after all these years).  If they do, great.  If not and you like the rest of EN, decisions to make as to how to best leverage stacks and tags and search.  

Frankly, IMO, at this point it doesn't have much to do with the merits of the nested notebook versus tag models, more to do with what EN  wants to do.  There is an implication in the inactivity on this function.,

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53 minutes ago, jeffsf said:

The key problem with the tags "solution" is that tags are not well-implemented in iOS

Sorry, I don't know iOS (or OSX), just Windows and Android. Curiously, the tag hierarchy is built into Android (and obviously Windows), so you can do the simulated folder thing (I have other quibbles about Android search/filtering, but that's besides the point here). I can't speak to why it's not in iOS; one of those puzzling Evernote mismatch thingies, unfortunately. For that, I'll give you that "no, it doesn't work" in some cases and that's a drawback to the simulated folder approach, and I'd certainly be for having that work on all platforms. 

1 hour ago, jeffsf said:

However, I fear we are whistling in the wind, since I don't think Evernote is willing to consider that point.

Given that the first post in this topic is 8+ years old, and posts by Dave Engberg, the previous CTO indicate that he didn't particularly want to add nested notebooks (or at least didn't see any deep need for them), I wouldn't hold my breath (even though he's not around any more). 

My take is that it's fine to ask for them, but since they don't exist now and if you can't learn to love tags and they're critical for your use case, then your time is probably better spent seeking a different product that works better for you (btw, this is the general "you", not you in particular). That's hardly patronizing, it's just practical advice that applies to any tool you're evaluating.

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2 hours ago, DTLow said:

This is true; tag hierarchy has not been implemented in IOS

And if Notebook hierarchy is implemented, likely the same; it will be a Win/Mac feature

I think so too, from Day 1; although Evernote did implement Notebook Stacks

If your workflow requires nested notebooks; you're looking at the wrong product

 

It's unfortunate because there really isn't a product that is as integrated as Evernote. At least none that I have found that serve my needs. I just deal with the limited notebook structure for lack of a better option. I really do love everything about Evernote, there are just a few things I personally would tweak. For the most part they have updated or added all the features I've had issues with or wanted in their own time. 

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6 hours ago, jefito said:

your time is probably better spent seeking a different product that works better for you

It makes me sad, but I fear you are right. After spending many years promoting Evernote to family and friends, I now find myself casting about for another solution. I never thought that would happen (and I don't know if I'll succeed) but a once-very-loyal Evernote user and premium member is now heading for the exit, if he can find one.

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Even with tags, I am constantly wishing I could Visually group my notes into sub-categories that don't require a complex search string to identify.

I prefer to think of the Sub-Notebook more like a Section  maybe...

So as of now we have;

  1. Stacks (Multiple Notebooks)
  2. Notebook (Multiple Notes)

but I think I would personally prefer

  1. Stacks (Multiple Notebooks)
  2. Notebook (Multiple Sections)
  3. Section (Multiple Notes)

Tags are ok, but I can't visually narrow down to what I need to from a Tag level unless I create a rather convoluted search.

A very simple example I can give based on a comment I saw (or maybe it was the original description);

  1. Work (Stack)
    1. Client 1 (Notebook)
      1. Income (Section/Tag)
      2. Expenses (Section/Tag)
    2. Client 2 (Notebook)
      1. Income (Section/Tag)
      2. Expenses (Section/Tag)

I could add tags "Income" and "Expenses" to the relevant notes within each Client Notebook, but then the search is [notebook:"Client 1" tag:Income] because the Income Tag will be used across multiple notebooks, across multiple stacks even, or I have to view Client 1 and sort by Tags.

I admit that the Search Functionality in Evernote allows for tons of customization that would allow for this behavior, but the end-user experience should be taken into account, not everyone can set up the perfect search; most people can organize their thoughts by groupings though.

That simple example can get complicated fast once you start adding in other tags that would work better if there were sectioning and not child tags. Income and Expenses could have tags for "Credit", "Rebate", "Donation" and others that would need to be nested either within the parent Tags or set aside as their own tags requiring two tags minimum, now we have [notebook:"Client 1" tag:Income tag:Donation] (I have not used nested Tags yet so my example is based on experience) that must be used instead of quickly looking at the Income Section for Client 1 and picking out the notes tagged with Donation.

Try visualizing this example, and how you might optimize it, with tags alone;

  1. Work (Stack)
    1. Client 1 (Notebook)
      1. Income
        1. Credit
        2. Rebate
        3. Donation
      2. Expenses
        1. Credit
        2. Rebate
        3. Donation
    2. Client 2 (Notebook)
      1. Income
        1. Credit
        2. Rebate
        3. Donation
      2. Expenses
        1. Credit
        2. Rebate
        3. Donation
  2. Home (Stack)
    1. Spouse 1 (Notebook)
      1. Income
        1. Credit
        2. Rebate
        3. Donation
      2. Expenses
        1. Credit
        2. Rebate
        3. Donation
    2. Spouse 2 (Notebook)
      1. Income
        1. Credit
        2. Rebate
        3. Donation
      2. Expenses
        1. Credit
        2. Rebate
        3. Donation

Can you see why a Section/Sub-Notebook/Folder would work better?

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Quote

y take is that it's fine to ask for them, but since they don't exist now and if you can't learn to love tags and they're critical for your use case, then your time is probably better spent seeking a different product that works better for you (btw, this is the general "you", not you in particular). That's hardly patronizing, it's just practical advice that applies to any tool you're evaluating.

Hi. I'm a first time board poster, and a user of Evernote for a few months now. I just wanted to say that I think this approach is very sad (not a shot at you, but at the ecosystem solution as a whole) as it demonstrates that Evernote cannot:
 

  1. Teach people to use to use the existing system. 
  2. Update itself to the needs of paying customers. 

 

Its not much more complicated that this. After reading around the forum (and actually coming across your excellent contributions Jefito multiple times), it seems as if evernote does have 3-tier nesting solutions built into the software through the tagging function. That said, noone told me that I had to use the tagging function to accomplish this upfront when I downloaded the app. Instead, I could make notebooks and notebook stacks. Nowhere is it even mentioned officially that to go to a level "below" a notebook, I have to use hierarchical tags. That is actually very counter-intuitive. If someone had told me that this was the only structure supported to accomplish a basic folder hierarchy like:

Education -> Economics -> Econ 201

I would have been more reserved in getting a membership in the first place. Its honestly pretty disappointing that I had to come to the boards to learn how to implement it, if making hierarchical tags is such a potent way to organize the system. Teach me when I open up the app somehow. Advertise this feature. 

 

Beyond that, if such a sizeable fraction of the userbase wants this feature, Evernote should be chomping at the bit to give it to them, frankly. What happened to the customer is always right? I'm not even saying make up a whole new system to make this work. What if they just added a "folder view" for hierarchical tags inside a notebook, and made the folder tag easy to give to notes that were added? That would be a perfectly functional solution in my uneducated view. If such a feature already exists, its been poorly marketed and taught as I mentioned earlier, because I've been using Evernote for over a year and didn't known it existed. Its been over 8 years. Its not particularly acceptable for any company to fail to resolve their customers problems for that long. This is really not acceptable.

And FWIW, I think that all this pontification on the paradigm shift that searching and tags based structures bring (that I have seen on the boards generally) is condescending at best and ignorant at worst. The whole notion is very offputting to people who want to learn about the application. Don't essentially tell me to "put up or shut up" with this particular feature. I am a paying customer just like all the people who like the system as it is, and I love all of the other features of Evernote. I'm not wrong for asking for this. I just want to see all of my sub-categories beneath a notebook or something close to that, in addition to all the other goodies that evernote has going for it. 

 

In any case, I'm off to learn how to use hierarchical tags through one of the fancy guides that I saw around when I was researching this. 

Best regards.

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23 hours ago, VoidSerpent said:

Can you see why a Section/Sub-Notebook/Folder would work better?

What would the search syntax for a section be?

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9 hours ago, r.m. said:

What happened to the customer is always right?

There's a story that if Henry Ford asked customers what they wanted, they would have said faster horses

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9 hours ago, r.m. said:

if such a sizeable fraction of the userbase wants this feature

Actually 64 votes,  while pretty high in the current Forum,  is a drop in the ocean compared with the hundreds of millions of existing users.  Evernote do get feedback from other sources too,  so maybe their collective requests for other features has so far taken precedence.  In general Evernote don't comment on what might or might not be in development,  so it's possible that sub notebooks will be along in a few months. 

It's also possible that the technical problems of making that work across all the operating systems and devices that Evernote support mean we'll have to wait for another year or two for one OS or the other to catch up.

If you really can't live without folders,  then Evernote may not be the product for you...

I've gotten up to 40k notes since I started in 2008,  with the majority in one notebook.  I do remember in the first year or so being frustrated by lack of folders - and I even used another more hierarchical product for some work.  But then I found that the work I had done fitted easily into the notebooks and tags system (and I got tired of searching in two places) so it got moved into Evernote. 

Haven't found any problems using titles and tags (and Search) yet...

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8 minutes ago, csihilling said:

What would the search syntax for a section be?

The searching from the global level with or without sections would be almost identical, going off my original example, if I wanted to filter down with a search to Credited Income notes for Client 1;

With Tags

  • notebook:"Client 1" tag:Income tag:Credit

With Sections

  • notebook:"Client 1" section:Income tag:Credit

But users want to be able to click and view instead of search, so with sections, I could select "Work > Client 1 > Income" and scan for the credit tagged notes or even do a simpler local search for "tag:Credit". Without Sections Income and Expenses would all be under Client 1 and an extra tag is still needed in a local search if viewing the Client 1 notebook.

I also want to mention now, I thought earlier that you could create Child Tags of the same name under different parent tags, this is not true. So from my original example, "Income", "Expenses", "Donation" and "Credit" are four unique tags regardless of if any exist as the parent or child of another, and have to be applied individually regardless of inheritance. 

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Yup, tag names have to be unique.  In your example you could create a notebook by client (250 limit might get in the way in which case a client tag would be needed) and create a parent tag of Income with child tags of Income.Credit, etc.  You could then navigate the tag hierarchy in the left panel once you had selected a client.  

Just me, but I'm comfortable with a tag for client and a tag for income type (without the prefix unless I want to see all income types at the same time) and just using search in side list view.  Not saying more levels of notebooks wouldn't be helpful to some, just that the tool in its current incarnation lends itself to tagging.  FWIW.

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5 hours ago, VoidSerpent said:

The searching from the global level with or without sections would be almost identical, going off my original example, if I wanted to filter down with a search to Credited Income notes for Client 1;

With Tags

  • notebook:"Client 1" tag:Income tag:Credit

With Sections

  • notebook:"Client 1" section:Income tag:Credit

In the latest IOS version, we can do searches at the Notebook level.  There's also a tag picker list, so we just click on Income and Credit

You might think about a different tag naming structure; for example tag:Income_Credit and tag:Income_Rebate

Also, have you noticed the 250 Notebook limit. You might want to use tag:Client_1

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6 hours ago, csihilling said:

What would the search syntax for a section be?

We're not talking about search syntax. Nested notebooks/folders is an alternate way of thinking - a collapsible outline of categories where you can simply (and simple is the point here) click your way to where you have gathered related materials. Search (including using tags) is great for leaping deep into a great quantity of material, or finding things that are related but stored in different notebooks and folders, but the notebook/folder system is very intuitive and always there in front of you. You don't have to remember a vast set of tags or keywords to find the grouping you are looking for. Each system has it's advantages, but Evernote only seems to value search.

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6 hours ago, DTLow said:

There's a story that if Henry Ford asked customers what they wanted, they would have said faster horses

But those were not his customers. They were the people who didn't buy and promote his product. He asked Model T customers and the result was the Model A, a better car.

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4 hours ago, jeffsf said:

Nested notebooks/folders is an alternate way of thinking

There's no question that there are alternate ways of thinking; I accept that

Evernote has chosen to implement nested tags (Win/Mac); can you accept that? If not, you should be looking at a different product

I also use an iPad (IOS).  We don't get any nesting on that platform.  My solution is to prefix my tagnames so they are grouped.

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47 minutes ago, jeffsf said:

We're not talking about search syntax. Nested notebooks/folders is an alternate way of thinking - a collapsible outline of categories where you can simply (and simple is the point here) click your way to where you have gathered related materials. Search (including using tags) is great for leaping deep into a great quantity of material, or finding things that are related but stored in different notebooks and folders, but the notebook/folder system is very intuitive and always there in front of you. You don't have to remember a vast set of tags or keywords to find the grouping you are looking for. Each system has it's advantages, but Evernote only seems to value search.

Yup, horses for courses....

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On 9/4/2008 at 7:26 PM, engberg said:

Hierarchical notebooks are not in the next release of any of our clients. However, if you want to make hierarchical ontologies to organize your notes, you can do that in all of our clients today by using tags.

"ontologies"  !??!  Cute.  Do you talk like that in real life?

Tags are a workaround for a serious deficiency.  Noting wrong with tags, but nested folders have been around since the dawn of computers because this is a useful paradigm.

I stop back here about every six months to see if there is any clue that Evernote will be bringing its product up to the 50-years-ago state of the art.  So far, no joy.

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6 hours ago, Flier said:

"ontologies"  !??!  Cute.  Do you talk like that in real life?

Ontology and hierarchy are part of my vocabulary; it might depend on your work

>>bringing its product up to the 50-years-ago state of the art

Folders were the traditional filing method
Tags are a more recent advancement

You really need to open your mind to new concepts
You present yourself as really close minded

 

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Hi.  The fact that Evernote's attitude to folders hasn't apparently altered since 2008,  despite many changes since then (including the fact that Dave Engberg doesn't work there any more),  would suggest that if you had any optimism for a change you should abandon it here.  The tagging system really isn't offered as a work-around,  it's an alternative option and a feature of this particular product.  Others embrace the folder concept (some are lousy at tags) and may be better suited to your needs...

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12 minutes ago, DTLow said:

Ontology and hierarchy are part of my vocabulary, but it might depend on your work

>>bringing its product up to the 50-years-ago state of the art

Folders were the traditional filing method
Tags are a more recent advancement.

You really need to open your mind to new concepts.  
You present yourself as really close minded

 

Tags are NOT a more recent advancement, I know from experience that if you were to step inside an old professor's office who still uses filing cabinets you'll see folders and tags have been around 50+ years, before we started trying to figure out the best way to organize digital information, there are no new concepts involved here, just modifications to analogue techniques. So why not modify and implement sectioning like you'd see in a binder/notebook that is itself thoroughly tagged and filed in a labelled cabinet drawer?

I have implemented a new tag naming system, as suggested, but it is still insufficient so I opened my mind to where things could be improved and notebook sectioning is still what I would do.

If anything your mind is closed to all other possibilities that should be explored to improve the product instead of trying to assimilate users to use it as is when ultimately it will still fail to meet their needs.

Tags and Folders should be used and improved upon with equal significance. I think too many people fall back on "nothing is perfect" or "you can't please everyone" and stop trying to improve at all. Those nice little aphorisms are good for the psyche and to help one sleep at night but bad for the work ethic.

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2 hours ago, DTLow said:

Ontology and hierarchy are part of my vocabulary, but it might depend on your work

>>bringing its product up to the 50-years-ago state of the art

Folders were the traditional filing method
Tags are a more recent advancement.

You really need to open your mind to new concepts.  
You present yourself as really close minded

 

Quite a funny post, actually.  You betray your lack of experience with databases.  Well over 20 years ago there was Lotus Agenda, which was actually quite an interesting piece of software with tag-like features.  It failed miserably in the marketplace.  (Wikipedia: " New users confronted with so much flexibility were often overpowered by the steep learning curve required to use the program."  Sound familiar?)

"A recent advancement" ?? Hardly.  Long prior to computers, there were card systems where the edges of the cards listed all possible tags (maybe 20 depending on the size of the card)  There were holes for each tag and a tear-out section which, when torn out, indicated that the particular card had the corresponding tag..  Knitting needle type rods were inserted into the stack of cards and the cards corresponding to a particular tag or a logical AND of tags fell out.  Doing a logical "OR" or implementing more complex logical equations required multiple passes.

(Edit:  It looks like tags were "a recent advancement" in 1896. http://kk.org/thetechnium/one-dead-media/)

There is a reason that tag systems are nearly extinct.  They were outcompeted by nested folders, a system that is much easier to work with even though it lacks some of the power of tag systems and by relational database systems (E.F. Codd, circa 1970) because of their orderliness and power.  One could even argue that Codd absorbed the more primitive tag system and imposed order on it.  That is not to say that Evernote's tag system wouldn't be a good thing to keep after adding a hierarchical folder system, but the more modern folder system is still needed.  Darwin has spoken.

So, child, you present yourself as really naive and inexperienced. 

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21 hours ago, VoidSerpent said:

Tags are NOT a more recent advancement
....
Tags and Folders should be used

 

21 hours ago, Flier said:

"A recent advancement" ?? Hardly.  Long prior to computers
...

They were outcompeted by nested folders

We're getting off topic here (Nesting Multiple Notebooks / Creating Sub-Notebooks)

If I recall, tags were introduced to my Mac computer files sometime after 2010.  
Prior to that, the organization method was restricted to Folders

Evernote has never used a Folder methodology for organization
The best you can do is Notebooks and Tags
- Notebooks can be organized into Stacks
  (the discussion we're posting in is a request for notebook hierarchy)
- Tags can be organized into an unlimited hierarchy

>>You betray your lack of experience with databases.

I'm quite familiar with databases

On Macs, we get to access the Evernote database and view the metadata
For each note, I see
- a column for Notebook
- a column for Tags
- a column for Folder (Macs use a separate folder for each note)
Thats what the Folders/Notebooks/Tags are; columns in a database table
Another table is used to store the Tag Hierarchy; a 
similar table would be required for Notebook hierarchy

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2 hours ago, DTLow said:

Folders were the traditional filing method
Tags are a more recent advancement.

Tags might be an adequate substitute if they were fully implemented and integrated. On Evernote for Mac one must go to a separate screen. The main view is organized around stacks and notebooks. If tags are to replace that "old fashioned" folder-like tool, then they should be built into the core note view in place of stacks and notebooks (and, if Evernote were fully functional, sub-notebooks). However, the make or break issue for tags is that they are not implemented in iOS. True, they *exist*, but only as one long unmanageable flat file list. There is no way to browse them in a hierarchical way, so they CANNOT function as a tool to organize information hierarchically. Evernote assumes that Find should be the main organizational tool. Find is helpful, but categorization is equally important, and sometimes way more important. I don't ask partisans of Find to give up their tool. I just want the choice to use fully-implemented categorization. What's so wrong about that? Why isn't there a choice? Would implementing subfolders be so difficult? Dropbox does it on the web and the desktop. I think the reason there are no sub-notebooks is that the Evernote staff think they know best and are intent on teaching all us poor fools to be "modern." Bottom line: I love tags, but they are NOT a substitute, unless they are built into the most basic interface and implemented on all platforms.

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10 minutes ago, jeffsf said:

However, the make or break issue for tags is that they are not implemented in iOS.
True, they *exist*, but only as one long unmanageable flat file list.

That's true; the tag hierarchy is not represented anywhere in IOS (and other platforms)
It's also not shown in various lists on my Mac

I've managed to cope with the lack of hierarchy in Notebooks and Tags

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As observed by several people, Evernote has been very consistent (one might say obstinate and not particularly customer-focused) in not implementing a hierarchical system of notebooks and sub-notebooks or folders. As a result I have turned from a consistent evangelist, turning many people on to the program over the years, to simply an individual user. I use it less and less, as I more more and more material back to the Dropbox/computer file system. I just think it's sad that a program with so much potential suffers from this limitation simply because it's creators seem to have a zealot's ideological opposition to an intuitive system that millions have used successfully and happily for years. Folders would cost them so little, and benefit them and the users so much. 

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20 minutes ago, jeffsf said:

I use it less and less, as I more more and more material back to the Dropbox/computer file system.

I'm exactly opposite.  Evernote is my only file system; I use it more and more
I never want to go back to the Dropbox/computer Folder file system

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7 minutes ago, DTLow said:

That's true; the tag hierarchy is not represented in IOS (and other platforms)
It's also not shown in various lists on my Mac

I've managed to cope with the lack of hierarchy in Notebooks and Tags

I applaud you for being able to do so, but the phrase "cope with" says volumes. At their best, programs make things easier, rather than presenting challenges to be coped with. I've been waiting, fingers crossed for a long time, but now I'm moving away from Evernote, or rather, making it an active but far less central part of my work flow.

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23 minutes ago, jeffsf said:

As observed by several people, Evernote has been very consistent (one might say obstinate and not particularly customer-focused) in not implementing a hierarchical system of notebooks and sub-notebooks or folders. As a result I have turned from a consistent evangelist, turning many people on to the program over the years, to simply an individual user. I use it less and less, as I more more and more material back to the Dropbox/computer file system. I just think it's sad that a program with so much potential suffers from this limitation simply because it's creators seem to have a zealot's ideological opposition to an intuitive system that millions have used successfully and happily for years. Folders would cost them so little, and benefit them and the users so much. 

I''ll agree with obstinate but I'm not so sure about zealot.  Granted there is a suffocating lot of fan-boy zealots that attack anyone broaching the idea of hierarchical folders, but from many years in technology development my guess is that reliance on tags was an architectural decision made very early in the product's life that now underpins the whole contraption.  In the beginning, people usually have an idea of where a product is going and that idea usually turns out to be wrong.  So as user behavior veered away from the expectations of the developer, some of the initial architectural decisions turned out to be wrong.    But going all the way down to the foundation code to implement major architectural changes is both  risky and expensive, hence "obstinate" probably applies for good business reasons.  The appearance of stacks is probably a symptom of this.  Stacks are a band-aid that was probably easier and less risky to implement than going to a full file system.

The reality is that the longer this type of nearly-inevitable change is postponed, the more difficult and risky it becomes.  In the mean time, it's entirely possible that a competing Evernote workalike with  a competent file system will emerge and capture significant share.  There is an old business rule:  "If you don't compete with yourself, someone else will do it for you."

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Flier,

All well said and convincing. And in a world of flamers, I appreciate the measured and useful tone of your comments. I confess to getting worked up and being less than my best self on line sometimes. Your reply is a reminder to take a deep breath. Thanks.

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5 hours ago, Flier said:

Lotus Agenda, which was actually quite an interesting piece of software with tag-like features.

Interesting view - I was an early (and initially enthusiastic) Agenda user,  and I don't remember tags at all... the idea was: enter all your random unstructured data,  and allow the "AI" engine to analyze your data and answer any and all queries about the content.  (If anyone wants any 'how to' books on the subject I do have several.)

Example:  Enter all the apartments available for rent, and find the one with a pool and nearby shops?  No problem.  Also - no tags required.

I've been dealing with databases for around 50 years (so far) and I'm pretty sure there is no 'best way' to structure data for analysis.  Evernote offer an option with tags.  They are not (AFAIK) under any obligation to offer anything different if their commercial priorities or institutional preferences dictate otherwise.

Users can buy in to that world view,  or check out other options.

'Competition' is frequently dragged out as a reason for change,  and no doubt if and when Evernote feel the need to react to the market they'll have a few features they prepared in advance to trot out as options.  Unless and until that happens,  what you see is what you got.  Enjoy it or not.  Entirely your choice.

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Database is one thing, actual physical storage of individual files the other. The combination of both in the Evernote SQL database is the core issue of I'd say 95 % of all problems with Evernote. 

Evermote's editor needs lots of improvements and that's why some many prefer to use  dedicated editors outside of Evernote, However, at least in my assessment, it is the database structure with its tag and not much else basis that is so outside all of Android, iOS, Mac and Windows logic that anyone could imagine.

Either make it a topnotch note editor  or drop that notion and turn Evernote into the digital cloud drive  with the best content manager going. 

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2 hours ago, JohnLongney said:

Database is one thing, actual physical storage of individual files the other.

It's a complicated combination
On Mac, they separate the two; metadata is stored in a database, the actual files are stored separately in a folder for each note
On Windows, everything is combinded in a single .exb file

I can't say what works better

>>Either make it a topnotch note editor  or drop that notion and turn Evernote into the digital cloud drive  with the best content manager going.

I'd go with the digital cloud drive; dedicated editor apps are readily available

I think the marketing people are driving the push of making Evernote a word processing product
- Users too, you can see this in the user requests
I'm satisfied with basic editor functions

Also, I think the multi-platform support causes problems with editor development
Features have to not only work with one editor, but also the editors on all platforms

>>it is the database structure with its tag and not much else basis that is so outside all of Android, iOS, Mac and Windows logic that anyone could imagine

As backup, I export my notes to a cloud drive
To make this more functional, I could also transfer my tags/notebook to the file tags
I can work with this, but it's the Evernote editor that ties everything together

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1 hour ago, JohnLongney said:

it is the database structure with its tag and not much else basis that is so outside all of Android, iOS, Mac and Windows logic that anyone could imagine.

Evernote use SQLite for local storage*..  According to the website - https://www.sqlite.org/

Quote

SQLite is a self-contained, high-reliability, embedded, full-featured, public-domain, SQL database engine. SQLite is the most used database engine in the world

- And (you may remember) Google for their backend bulk stores - along with a dozen other global companies who store their data here.  Gmail (on a different,  but probably very similar network) store billions of emails for their global customer base.  Interestingly Gmail use tags-not-folders too,  and have done (AFAIK) for as long as they have been around.  That system seems to work for them.

The original founders of Evernote seem like pretty smart folks,  and in their less-than-infinite (but still pretty good) wisdom,  decided when starting out,  to adopt this one means of labeling data.  They and their (presumably) equally smart successors haven't seen fit to change that situation (yet) since.  No one knows why not - but they presumably have good reasons,  and since its their party,  they get to choose the music.

Since there are some valid issues I'd like to see addressed first - syncing / tables / styles / shared tags / note linking amongst them - I'm happy to let this float for the time being!

Edit:  * Windows local storage - before I get shouted at...

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On 7/21/2017 at 3:14 PM, jeffsf said:

opposition to an intuitive system that millions have used successfully and happily for years. Folders would cost them so little, and benefit them and the users so much. 

And adjectives and keywords have not been used successfully and happily by millions for years?

Pretty much all of the new "debate" is rehash of the prior discussions. Bottom line: Evernote made a design choice; it works for many, but not for all. Hey, user choice!! Er, horses for courses.

And maybe dead horses for some...

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10 hours ago, jefito said:

And adjectives and keywords have not been used successfully and happily by millions for years?

Pretty much all of the new "debate" is rehash of the prior discussions. Bottom line: Evernote made a design choice; it works for many, but not for all. Hey, user choice!! Er, horses for courses.

And maybe dead horses for some...

"it works for many, but not for all", so this is why the "feature request forum" is made for, isn't it?

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10 minutes ago, kingtrn said:

so this is why the "feature request forum" is made for, isn't it?

Absolutely, and you are  encouraged to add your vote to the feature requests you find useful.

-  Voting buttons are in the upper left corner of the discussion

You are also encouraged to participate in the discussion; pro’s, con’s, workarounds ...

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On 24/07/2017 at 4:47 PM, jefito said:

Evernote made a design choice; it works for many, but not for all.

In my opinion - wrong choice. If you try to swim against this tide you will be swept away.

The world of GUI interfaces has worked out how to do the folder metaphor and moved on. If you use folders in your product then people expect them to behave in a certain way (e.g. have nesting) or they will not understand your product and will choose not to use it when a more natural alternative presents itself - as it will. 

It's not really about the merits of the case it's about what people want, what feels natural to them. Apple have built an empire developing products which are built on this idea and have crushed numerous "superior" products in the process.

Take your engineer's hat off and consider a 17 year old with an Iphone and laptop and a million apps to choose from. Any patience there, do you think, for non standard folders and a quirky way of using tags?

Now, you may say that 17 year olds are not today's typical Evernote users - but they are tomorrow's, they have to be or Evernote doesn't have a future. 

The IT world is littered with the corpses of perfectly good products which didn't heed this message. 

In the 1990s WordPerfect used to rule the universe of word processing and used to lecture the IT world with the arguments in favour of non GUI editors with keyboard shortcuts (they were faster, more efficient, typists preferred them etc.) and then Word came along with its GUI and point and click and WordPerfect disappeared overnight. 

It's about survival.

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On 8/6/2017 at 1:41 PM, Julian Winter said:

In my opinion - wrong choice. If you try to swim against this tide you will be swept away.

Seems to work for GMail (tags in GMail are "labels", the folder system is essentially flat, etc.). *shrug* People have been predicting Evernote's demise since, oh, probably since this thread was started, or before. OneNote (to pick an obvious alternate) isn't perfect either; I found converting my Evernote database to OneNote -- using the Microsoft tool, mind -- to be a perfect disaster. Tags are not quirky, and they are not unnatural (many natural languages support the concept of 'adjective', which is very similar), they are less familiar because they are less obviously available in places that could use them, e.g. the Windows file system...

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On 8/6/2017 at 1:41 PM, Julian Winter said:

The world of GUI interfaces has worked out how to do the folder metaphor and moved on.

Another way to view it is that software merely copied the physical file and folder structure along with its limitations, rather than use the power of digital to overcome the weaknesses of physical files and folders. Tags does that.

On 8/6/2017 at 1:41 PM, Julian Winter said:

Take your engineer's hat off and consider a 17 year old with an Iphone and laptop and a million apps to choose from. Any patience there, do you think, for non standard folders and a quirky way of using tags?

Now, you may say that 17 year olds are not today's typical Evernote users - but they are tomorrow's, they have to be or Evernote doesn't have a future. 

I'm not 17, but I've been using tags in Gmail for years. In fact, once Gmail introduced tags, it was obvious to me that this was superior to folders. As for 17 yr olds, think about all those Gen Z kids on Gmail. Folders are going to seem archaic to them, and tags will feel natural.

The benefits of tags have been explained many times, but one thing that I don't often see mentioned in these tags vs folders discussions is scaling. Folders seem great when the total quantity or emails or notes is small. But when you scale up to thousands of saved emails or notes, folders get unwieldy. And when you get to a large number of saved emails or notes, you do much less browsing of your emails (does anyone browse their old emails???) or notes, and much more searching.

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23 hours ago, jefito said:

Tags are not quirky, and they are not unnatural (many natural languages support the concept of 'adjective', which is very similar), they are less familiar because they are less obviously available in places that could use them, e.g. the Windows file system...

Interestingly, tags work well in some cases in Windows.  I started storing my pictures in the Windows file system back when (backup to Google Drive) and use tags to denote who is in a picture.  So one can go to the root of pictures and do a find on a tag and search all folders therein.  It's how Windows works and fits my use case.  More automation with other products I know, but this is fine for me.  

As a tagger, if it were to put the pictures in EN I would tag with the folder name and the "who"s.  I might create a picture notebook, the notes are specific enough and there are a lot of them.  

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On 8/6/2017 at 0:41 PM, Julian Winter said:

Take your engineer's hat off and consider a 17 year old with an Iphone and laptop and a million apps to choose from. Any patience there, do you think, for non standard folders and a quirky way of using tags?

And all along I didn't realize Facebook and Twitter were hierarchical.  ;)  #learn.something.new.every.day

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On 8/6/2017 at 1:41 PM, Julian Winter said:

Take your engineer's hat off and consider a 17 year old with an Iphone and laptop and a million apps to choose from. Any patience there, do you think, for non standard folders and a quirky way of using tags?

That's actually not such a great example for folder hierarchies. 17 year-olds (or most 30 year-olds, for that matter) do not muck around with hierarchies. They use phones. They search by typing on their phones for what they want, not where it is.  Even Windows has this (Start Menu, start typing). The web is inherently hierarchical under the hood, sure, but you don't find things that way, not since Google appeared on the field. A much more apropos example here than the Word/WordPerfect history (which has nothing to do with hierarchical organization) is Yahoo's approach to finding things on the web ca. 1998 (hierarchical) vs. Google (just describe what you're looking for). Sure Yahoo still exists, but it's pretty much a footnote, just ahead of AOL.

No patience for folders, standard or not, sounds about right...

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I used to want this idea but I am not against it. Since Evernote already offers nested tags, that would be better system to use. Additionally, creating a complex set of options for organizing information may make it that much more difficult for some users to find the best organizational strategy. It is likely useful that Evernote limit the options they make available.

I actually think their workflow needs to change. Gmail effectively uses a tagging system throughout that allows items to exist in multiple places. You can create a Tag that represents a parent and then create children. Regarding the workflow, Evernote does not make it easy to organize or view your tags. When I'm in Gmail, I can literally view a sidebar of tags and sub-tags. I can quickly find what I need. I can have the same emails within separate tags.

Evernote instead promotes the idea of Notebooks which are large, non-hierarchical buckets of information. They serve a purpose but obviously a serve a very narrow purpose. So I am against your idea because I believe Evernote instead should better feature tags on the sidebar, copy the structure of Gmail and encourage people to use tags for their tree-structure needs.

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36 minutes ago, estevancarlos said:

Regarding the workflow, Evernote does not make it easy to organize or view your tags. When I'm in Gmail, I can literally view a sidebar of tags and sub-tags. I can quickly find what I need. I can have the same emails within separate tags.

?? Evernote already does this. Certainly the desktop clients offer all of the same functionality with respect to tags (what GMail calls 'labels'); I tag notes with multiple tags all the time.

 

38 minutes ago, estevancarlos said:

Evernote instead should better feature tags on the sidebar, copy the structure of Gmail and encourage people to use tags for their tree-structure needs.

 

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2 hours ago, estevancarlos said:

Additionally, creating a complex set of options for organizing information may make it that much more difficult for some users to find the best organizational strategy. It is likely useful that Evernote limit the options they make available.

I agree with this.  Users argue that organization must be nested Notebooks (even Folders).  I’ve adjusted to the term Tag.

I don’t need multiple organization methods beyond the current features

It would be great if the tag hierarchy was displayed on all platforms.  I compensate somewhat by using a naming convention to ensure alphabetical sequence

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1 hour ago, estevancarlos said:

Evernote instead promotes the idea of Notebooks which are large, non-hierarchical buckets of information.

Not so sure about EN promoting notebooks.  Notebooks exist as large non-hierarchical buckets for sure, but I think EN is more about promoting tags for organization and notebooks as limiters for search and on-line/off-line storage.

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15 minutes ago, DTLow said:

I agree with this.  Users argue that organization must be nested Notebooks (even Folders).  They can’t adjust to the term Tag.

We don’t need multiple organization methods beyond the current features

It would be great if the tag hierarchy was displayed on all platforms

A couple of amusing things I notice about the zealots who unfailingly arrive to attack posts requesting conventional folders:

1) They say the same things over and over, in old posts and new ones.  Believing that repetition is a debating technique?

2) Frequent ad hominem attacks. i.e., "They can't adjust ... "

2) Unfailing arrogance, assuming that they are qualified to speak for all users .  i.e., "We don't need ... "

I am too old to know everything, but it is a stage that most of us, but not all, outgrew in our 20s.

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1 hour ago, Flier said:

2) Unfailing arrogance, assuming that they are qualified to speak for all users .  i.e., "We don't need ... "

I edited my post to avoid this confusion; I was speaking for myself.
I try to control it, but sometimes my "unfailing arrogance" slips out     mea culpa

1) They say the same things over and over, in old posts and new ones.  Believing that repetition is a debating technique?

Is this a reference to the folder zealots, or the tag zealots

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1 hour ago, jefito said:

?? Evernote already does this. Certainly the desktop clients offer all of the same functionality with respect to tags (what GMail calls 'labels'); I tag notes with multiple tags all the time.

 

 

I'm realizing now that the clients for Evernote might vary in many ways. I do have the ability to view children tags of parent tags in my version of Evernote on OSX.

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2 hours ago, estevancarlos said:

I'm realizing now that the clients for Evernote might vary in many ways. I do have the ability to view children tags of parent tags in my version of Evernote on OSX.

Right, but not on iOS, making tags a non-starter as the mail organizational system.

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53 minutes ago, jeffsf said:

Right, but not on iOS, making tags a non-starter as the mail organizational system. (Hierarchy)

Can you explain that further.  I actually use Evernote as a mail archive

What features are you looking for?

At a minimum, the sender is identified by a tag.  I add tags if the mail relates to a project, vendor,  ...

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2 hours ago, Flier said:

A couple of amusing things I notice about the zealots who unfailingly arrive to attack posts requesting conventional folders:

The so-called zealots are often the folks who have been around long enough to understand that Evernote has historically and consistently been uninterested in providing nested notebooks (this particular thread is a prime example). Pointing that out, and advocating for the use of tags, and offering examples like GMail to show that hierarchical containers aren't necessary features in a product like Evernote isn't attacking anyone; it's giving some context to the conversation. I feel like I understand the use case pretty well (and I'm sure that Evernote does as well), and while I don't need nested notebooks, I understand why some folks believe that they do, or maybe actually do. Sometimes it does indeed come down to the fact that they don't understand tags, and sometimes some tips can help that.

Regardless, only Evernote can make the decision to implement nested notebooks, and since they haven't, we users have the power to choose whatever competing product that suits our needs / budget / aesthetics is available, while those that want them in Evernote can continue advocating for them. If that's done respectfully and reasonably, then that's welcome to the conversation as well. Some of it is not, however, and I think that that's when most conflicts occur. *shrug* 'Twas ever thus, on the Internet.

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30 minutes ago, jefito said:

Sometimes it does indeed come down to the fact that they don't understand tags, and sometimes some tips can help that.

From the many threads and posts complaining about the various notebook/nesting limits, it seems to me that most (with some rare exceptions) do not understand the full functionality potential of tags. And it's easy to see why that's the case because EN doesn't really delve deeply into this in their help materials. I only really started to appreciate tags as I learned about them from other users in this forum. And from then on, I only used notebooks to delineate notes based on access (synchronized, local, offline, shared), not based on content.

So for those who have been pining for unlimited notebooks and nesting for years and are unwilling to move to competing products that embrace notebooks, I'd suggest taking an open-minded approach and learn more about what tags can do. If you have a specific use case where you feel EN's limited notebook functionality is constraining your workflow, just describe it and I'm sure one of us taggers can suggest how it can be accomplished using tags. You might be surprised, and you may just get converted.

Of course the alternative is to continue complaining - we're only at page 39 of this thread and as far I know there is no post count limit for threads, so have at it. ;)  

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