Nesting Multiple Notebooks / Creating Sub-Notebooks

[cswsteve 85]

I think Evernote is a fantastic product, especially with the iPhone integration. I currently use a program called UltraRecall because of it's heavy use of subfolders. This makes organizing my data very logical. I was wondering if Evernotes has a way to create subnotebooks under existing notebooks to help group numerious notebooks together?

Example Notebooks:

Work

Clients

Customer1

Customer2

Customer3

Customer4

Personal

Electronics

Web Clips

[blaster219 18]

As is the case with so many new ideas, that some people are opposed to change or learning a newer, better way of doing something.

That is an incredibly arrogant and insulting position to take. Even with the smiley. I suggest you look in a mirror. Your way is not the ONLY correct way of doing things. It is painfully obvious that the virtual organisation that tagging employs is simply not enough for some people. And insulting people with opposing viewpoints is not the way to evangelise a product. :-x

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

As is the case with so many new ideas, that some people are opposed to change or learning a newer, better way of doing something.

That is an incredibly arrogant and insulting position to take. Even with the smiley. I suggest you look in a mirror. Your way is not the ONLY correct way of doing things. It is painfully obvious that the virtual organisation that tagging employs is simply not enough for some people. And insulting people with opposing viewpoints is not the way to evangelise a product. :-x

It's not my way. It's Evernote's way. I didn't invent it & I had a bit of trouble adapting at first, too. But once I realized the tags are every bit as useful as nested sub folders and yet offered so much more flexibility, then I was sold.

And, IMO, the best way to evangelize a product is to show people how to use it as it is, rather than gnash their teeth, wring their hands & lament the lack of a feature that does not exist & (from all indications) may never exist in the product. Of course, for some people, that will be a deal killer & that's why there are other apps out there.

[megsaint 441]

That is an incredibly arrogant and insulting position to take. Even with the smiley. I suggest you look in a mirror. Your way is not the ONLY correct way of doing things. It is painfully obvious that the virtual organisation that tagging employs is simply not enough for some people. And insulting people with opposing viewpoints is not the way to evangelise a product. :-x

Funny, I keep getting the sense that people who want a more defined hierarchy seem to think that their way is the only valid way. If how EN has chosen to do things doesn't work for you AND they've said they don't really intend to change, why are you continuing to frustrate yourself by trying to use the wrong tool?

[blaster219 18]

I do not believe I have EVER in insinuated that tags are wrong, that hierarchical organisation is the only solution to all organisational issues, nor have ever insinuated that people who believe differently are ignorant luddites who refuse to adapt.

And for the record, I do use Tags. I just would like the option to mix and match tags and stacks to suit the particular need I have at the time. Tags are not the answer in every case. Stacks are not the answer in every case. Sometimes, it helps to use both.

Edit: I'm not saying the Enote is a piece of poo, or far from perfect. Out of all the software solutions I've tried, its comes close to being perfect. I adapted to not having Onotes "write anywhere" method, and no prefer Enotes. I find the cross-platform existence of clients incredibly useful when sharing notes. There are just a few features I wish it had that would bring it just that one step closer to perfection. Stacked stacks is just one, having a button on the toolbar (desktop, mobile and web to strip the formatting from selected text (or the entire note) is another.

[jbenson2 2,147]

And yet, the topic of structure (be it sub notebooks or stacked stacks) keeps coming up. That in and of itself says something.

Coming from a marketing background, I agree with your comment. For every written comment, there are dozens of unwritten, but similar supporting views.

[karatedog 1]

which end up being restrictive when you have thousands of notes.

How can "having more depth in hierarchy" be more restictive than having 1?

I understand your point and it works well for people who have so much information that they have to use search functionality all the time. They really need to categorize the data (tagging), that data can be anywhere, because its location just doesn't matter. These people wouldn't be harassed by even a totally flat note structure.

However project managers like me (and around me) are cursed with some data organizing habit. So I keep my projects in folders (named by the project's name), and when I want to work with something I can usually pinpont it, I don't need to search. This makes tags completely useless to me.

Then I tried to think outside the box, as you suggested , because the file-system example is wrong if we look at the fact that file-systems don't support tagging functionality at all and that's why we are used to use folders. But I immediately missed features which would ease the pain on tags:

Introducing tags in the note creation process very early: There are a lot of people arguing about the missing stacked notebook feature, and the answer is usually 'use tags'. So these people need to be taught to use tags. But - for example - if I select a tag (or more tags), the right-click menu does not contain a "Create note with tags" entry. I don't know how much of the documents are automatically imported into Evernote instead of creating it in Evernote, but I usually do the second (and not scan, send a document into Evernote, or whatever).

The illusion of usefulness of nested tags: adding the deepest entry of nested tags won't add its parents. Which makes tag nesting useless and confusing. A simple tag grouping would have been better to understand, although useless as well. Even if there were some "auto-adding nested tag's parents" feature, it would be still useless, as when tags are added to a note, they immediately loose their child/parent hierarchy (so why create them in the first place?).

I hope I wasn't nitpicking too hard, I might have done lot of UX and UI projects this year

[hherbzilla 3]

Like others, I've wished for the ability to have deeper hierarchy of notes. I have to think harder about using tags to achieve this; it just hasn't been a "natural" approach for me.

For those looking for an alternative, check out PersonalBrain - http://www.thebrain.com/products/personalbrain/. Actually, I'm a heavy user of both apps, so maybe alternative isn't the right word. Frankly, I've been struggling with how to either 1) create a workflow leveraging both apps or 2) settle on one over the other. I don't have the inclination to go into a detailed comparison of the two atm, but here are a few top of mind thoughts...

What I like about PersonalBrain is that it allows me to be more organized (with parent / child hierarchical relationships). What's nice, though, is that you can have multiple parents for any though, so it's much more powerful than the traditional folder structure people are used to. You can also have "jump" thoughts to connect one thought to another ("sideways") without making either one a parent or child to the other.

PB also allows you to assign both multiple tags AND thought types to any thought. It's incredibly flexible.

What I've been trying most recently is to use EN as the initial repository, dumping everything into it. And then seeing if how it works to put what I think is the more powerful PB interface on top of it: i.e., copying EN hyperlinks and pasting them into PB. Ideally, though, I would just use one app to reduce the amount of time spent organizing data. It sometimes feels like I'm doing double the work.

While PB lets you publish your brains to the cloud, this means I need to have connectivity in order to access. I appreciate that I can store notebooks locally with EN and access them from anywhere regardless of whether I'm connected.

Anyway, if you haven't checked out PB, I would encourage you to do so. There's a free version. I think it will give you some interesting thoughts (no pun intended) on how you organize your data. Perhaps when I have more time, I'll show some examples of how I would tackle the same activity in either app... and what I see as the pros and cons of each for my own usage.

Any other joint PB and EN users out there? I would definitely like to hear how you're managing the relationship between the two apps.

[karatedog 1]

Funny, I keep getting the sense that people who want a more defined hierarchy seem to think that their way is the only valid way. If how EN has chosen to do things doesn't work for you AND they've said they don't really intend to change, why are you continuing to frustrate yourself by trying to use the wrong tool?

You need to get to now Set theory deeper . If you want exactly 1 level of stacks and I want unlimited level of it, my "valid" way contains your "valid" way. If the software knew unlimited levels of stacks you could still use only 1 and we could both have our "valid" ways without clashing. Those "valid" ways would collide only if we wanted the same thing but with a different predefined property (you want 1 level, I want 2).

And you are generalizing that the whole tool is wrong just because one of its - smaller - functionality is wrong. Evernote has problem, but for this one there are no workarounds. Take "Paste as Text" as an example. A very simple function, yet it is a *****. I don't know what it does wrong, because it is irreproducible. Every time I try it, the text looks good in Evernote, but if I copy/paste it into another software, it becomes garbage. So I paste text first into Notepad++, then copy it from there, then paste it into Evernote. Then it will be good everywhere. But I'm lazy to file a ticket, because this workaround solution is fine for me.

[megsaint 441]

You need to get to now Set theory deeper . If you want exactly 1 level of stacks and I want unlimited level of it, my "valid" way contains your "valid" way. If the software knew unlimited levels of stacks you could still use only 1 and we could both have our "valid" ways without clashing. Those "valid" ways would collide only if we wanted the same thing but with a different predefined property (you want 1 level, I want 2).

All of which might be a valid point if EN had infinite resources. You apparently missed the rest of my post where I stated that I didn't care if they added additional levels of hierarchy unless the time spent on that detracted from other things. They're a small company. I'd hate to see them waste time becoming like other programs when the direction they're going in suits me so well.

We will have to agree to disagree.

[jefito 5,589]

The illusion of usefulness of nested tags: adding the deepest entry of nested tags won't add its parents. Which makes tag nesting useless and confusing. A simple tag grouping would have been better to understand, although useless as well. Even if there were some "auto-adding nested tag's parents" feature, it would be still useless, as when tags are added to a note, they immediately loose their child/parent hierarchy (so why create them in the first place?).

Nested tags in Evernote are mainly for organizational purposes, and not for exposing semantic hierarchies. It's been that way since Evernote added the nesting capabilities, and was acknowledged by them at the time. And they understand the difference. That tag nesting exists doesn't make them non-useful; they are exactly as useful as before nesting came around, but now you can organize them, which makes them more manageable, so long as you don't fall into the trap of assuming that they behave hierarchically with respect to searching. Auto adding tag parents is problematic; in my opinion; it's coming at the problem from the wrong end. I think that enhancing search to allow for hierarchical functionality would be the way to go: i.e., the ability to search for notes labelled by a tag and any of its subtags would give users the ability to treat their tag trees as semantic hierarchies, which seems to be what some of them want.

[Owyn 457]

I think that enhancing search to allow for hierarchical functionality would be the way to go: i.e., the ability to search for notes labelled by a tag and any of its subtags would give users the ability to treat their tag trees as semantic hierarchies, which seems to be what some of them want.

Agreed. I ended up using prefixed tags to get around this problem.

[Reflexx 5]

And yet, the topic of structure (be it sub notebooks or stacked stacks) keeps coming up. That in and of itself says something.

Coming from a marketing background, I agree with your comment. For every written comment, there are dozens of unwritten, but similar supporting views.

+1

[karatedog 1]

Agreed. I ended up using prefixed tags to get around this problem.

This is the proper sign of an underlying architectural problem. These "tags" are tied together on the wrong level, which results in tags like "project_documents" and "project_info" and you'll have "project" duplicated. Although the Search functionality is smart enough to find text fragments, that way searching for "projec" will work.

[jbenson2 2,147]

Agreed. I ended up using prefixed tags to get around this problem.

This is the proper sign of an underlying architectural problem.

Not necessarily.

The prefixed tags are a helpful mnemonic device to remember the tag name.

[karatedog 1]

I think that enhancing search to allow for hierarchical functionality would be the way to go: i.e., the ability to search for notes labelled by a tag and any of its subtags would give users the ability to treat their tag trees as semantic hierarchies, which seems to be what some of them want.

If I understand properly, this would result in multiple levels of notebooks represented by tag hierarchy.

Which leads back to my original question (which popped in my mind, reading a lot about the tagging system): If the tagging system is to be enhanced (and not the notebook hierarchy), why there is a one level depth at all?

[jefito 5,589]

I think that enhancing search to allow for hierarchical functionality would be the way to go: i.e., the ability to search for notes labelled by a tag and any of its subtags would give users the ability to treat their tag trees as semantic hierarchies, which seems to be what some of them want.

If I understand properly, this would result in multiple levels of notebooks represented by tag hierarchy.

I don't think that you have. The suggestion is to allow (but not force) search to be able to honor the tag hierarchy, without affecting the current system of stacks, notebooks or tags. In other words, this mode of search would allow you to search for tag "A", and match not only explicit matches of tag "A" (which is what it does now), but also notes tagged with subtags of "A".

Note that this is something I'm suggesting could be useful, but I've never see any posting by Evernote folks that would lead me to think that they're considering it.

[hherbzilla 3]

This discussion forced me to look harder at how I'm using Evernote and how I'm using PersonalBrain. I use both programs on a daily basis and have struggled with getting ONE of them to do everything I want. I think I've decided that PB is better for general projects and data that needs a bit more organization, and EN is better for the stream of consciousness stuff that I just want to quickly capture. For those unfamiliar with PB, I made some screen captures tonight that highlight some of the differentiating features that I wish could be done in EN.

At first, I tried to share the note from EN but the page looked blank to me.... so I sent it to my Posterous instead.

http://supherb.posterous.com/some-featu ... lbrain-vis

http://www.evernote.com/shard/s1/sh/689 ... 388dec00e6

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

This discussion forced me to look harder at how I'm using Evernote and how I'm using PersonalBrain. I use both programs on a daily basis and have struggled with getting ONE of them to do everything I want. I think I've decided that PB is better for general projects and data that needs a bit more organization, and EN is better for the stream of consciousness stuff that I just want to quickly capture. For those unfamiliar with PB, I made some screen captures tonight that highlight some of the differentiating features that I wish could be done in EN.

At first, I tried to share the note from EN but the page looked blank to me.... so I sent it to my Posterous instead.

http://supherb.posterous.com/some-featu ... lbrain-vis

http://www.evernote.com/shard/s1/sh/689 ... 388dec00e6

You know, a lot of people seem to want/be searching for a single app that does it all. I don't think such an animal exists. I've been writing/using software for over 35 years & IMO, it boils down to some apps do some things amazingly well but no app is going to do it all (or do it all well.) Fact of life. I don't know why some people seem to think they need to decide between OneNote & EN. I use both. OneNote I use occasionally. EN I use pretty much every hour of every day. Do I use either one for budgeting/balancing our books? No. Use the app that's best suited to the task.

[Owyn 457]

I tried to share the note from EN but the page looked blank to me

Current bug in web client/service.

I don't think such an animal exists.

Agreed. Evernote does a great job of replacing Delicious and Browser bookmarks. My use of browser tabs is way down now, clip and close. But, I still use other apps e.g. Google Docs/Spreadsheets, Remember the Milk, etc. for what they do best. Evernote is a good repository but it is not, and should not be, a swiss army knife.

[Harald_S 0]

The drawback on tag structuring in flat collections is that you only see the immanent structure by searching and not by showing.

If you want to share structured information, like projects/circumstances where the structure of presentation is part of the information itself

a) it forces you to put all information/notes into a single notebook, because there are no overall tags once shared

the structure within has to be outlined by a "keynote" or people won't know the structure inferred otherwise by obvious organisation

This means that Evernote generally is more applicable for sharing collections than constructions.

P.S. The concept of "inheriting" context by nesting entities of understanding is quite a real world model and natural, not so much just "old" thinking habit.

[Owyn 457]

I usually put structure into my note titles. e.g "Hardware - Scanner - ...", "Evernote - Web -..", "Client - Project -.." etc.

[Harald_S 0]

I usually put structure into my note titles. e.g "Hardware - Scanner - ...", "Evernote - Web -..", "Client - Project -.." etc.

Thanks for the proposal. You're right, flattening out the directory path into the title is a feasible workaround and probably my means of choice.

Nevertheless it's a bit of a drag with growing complexity and only of moderate elegancy ;-). Just imagine a little adjustment in "directory structure" leading to editing all of the titles.

Harald

[Owyn 457]

I usually put structure into my note titles. e.g "Hardware - Scanner - ...", "Evernote - Web -..", "Client - Project -.." etc.

Thanks for the proposal. You're right, flattening out the directory path into the title is a feasible workaround and probably my means of choice.

Nevertheless it's a bit of a drag with growing complexity and only of moderate elegancy ;-). Just imagine a little adjustment in "directory structure" leading to editing all of the titles.

Harald

Yep. There are times I would kill for a regexp find & replace for a collection of note titles.

On the other hand, the adjustment in structure may not be that useful. What you are talking about is essentially a view problem. Tags and/or saved searches may be an adequate alternative.

If I need an elegant solution to a specific data management problem then in all probability Evernote may not be a perfect solution. The issue becomes one of is it good enough. In many cases the answer is yes. In some cases the answer is that some other tool is needed for the job. e.g. I have very large media libraries. I would not even think of using Evernote to manage those libraries, however, I do use Evernote to keep track of potential acquisitions for those libraries.

The art of the possible.

[jefito 5,589]

Some people expose a hierarchy in their tag naming schemes. See this earlier post from this thread: http://forum.evernote.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=20719#p116181, for example. Again, not necessarily convenient, but possible.

[Harald_S 0]

The issue becomes one of is it good enough.

It is, I made my mind up about that. I'm just trying to push the limits for greater acceptance by my colleagues where practicability within known concepts is an issue.

[Harald_S 0]

Some people expose a hierarchy in their tag naming schemes. See this earlier post from this thread: http://forum.evernote.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=20719#p116181, for example. Again, not necessarily convenient, but possible.

Quite OK, one could tag each "subdirectory" accordingly so notes of that level will show up when clicking on the tag.

Drawback again: In a client visualizing the shared tag tree the hierarchy of the original is lost and not displayed. Also the introduction of tags by the co-users is not supported.

[jefito 5,589]

Drawback again: In a client visualizing the shared tag tree the hierarchy of the original is lost and not displayed.

Actually, the hierarchy is embodied in the name of the tag, so long as you mirror the hierarchical structure or the original tag tree in the name. Which is sorta the point: you see the tag, you see the implied hierarchy.

[99lives 1]

Please add the ability to have multiple folder levels, like notebooks within notebooks. This would make it much easier to organize my (and I'm sure many others) ideas. Thanks.

[spg SCOTT 736]

Hi 99lives, welcome to the forum

Currently, there is only the possibility to have one level of notebooks within stacks

i.e.

Notebook Stack 1

- Notebook 1

- Notebook 2

Notebook Stack 2

- Notebook 3

- Notebook 4

Whether this will change or not in the future, I don't know. I think that the general consensus is that it wont.

One option would be to try a similar thing with tags, and there are various threads about this on the forum.

One example:

http://discussion.ev...nested-folders/

Scott

[99lives 1]

Thanks.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

and there are various threads about this on the forum.

Indeed. In addition to the thread Scott posted, please use the search function to find other threads as this has already been discussed at great length. As Scott pointed out, there is no indication sub-notebooks will be added any time soon, if at all.

[rockky 32]

play around with Note Links also....helps with "subnotes" within Notes....fact you can multiselect entire category of your notes and insert really anywhere.

[crshortt 0]

Just recently started using Evernote again after having installed it several years ago and not really getting into it. But things have changed in the way I manage my files and I find I am loving Evernote now after having used Catch for a few months after getting an Android.

Anyway, I am unclear about one thing regarding notebooks. I know there is a limit of 250 synced notebooks including stacks. That's where I'm not sure if a stack with 10 notebooks inside it counts as 1, 10, or 11 notebooks of your total Can anyone clear this up.

BTW, this limit is what finally swayed me to switch over from Catch. I actually did like that app, even though it didn't have a desktop application - only phone and web. But the free account only allows 3 streams (their equivalent of notebooks). Now I'm finding Evernote vastly superior in almost every way as i use it more and more.

Thanks for any help,

Rick

[jbenson2 2,147]

Anyway, I am unclear about one thing regarding notebooks. I know there is a limit of 250 synced notebooks including stacks. That's where I'm not sure if a stack with 10 notebooks inside it counts as 1, 10, or 11 notebooks of your total Can anyone clear this up.

A stack of 10 notebooks = 11 notebooks

A word of caution - many of the Evernote power users have found fewer notebooks are more useful than many notebooks.

[crshortt 0]

OK. Thanks!

I'll keep your advice in mind as I continue to decide how I really want my Evernote set up in the long term. I currently have 28 notebooks but am still trying to decide if that number should be more, less, or is about right for the number of subjects. It's kind of a balancing act between the effective use of stacks, notebooks, and tags.

[peterfmartin 221]

I have ~9,000 notes in one notebook, and I recommend trying out that setup. Notebooks are very weak for searching, since you can't search more than one notebook, and you can't remove individual notebooks from your search. (That is, of your 28 notebooks you can only search in one of them or in all of them, not in 2 through 27, unless you create stacks just for the purpose of searching.) Tags let you search any number of combinations that you want. And you never have to think, "Does this note belong in Notebook A or Notebook B?" With tags, you just tag it with both.

If you're interested in trying to switch to a tag-heavy, notebook-light structure, we're happy to answer any questions you have about this. You might also want to search the forums for more about this. Here's one conversation to start with:

[jefito 5,589]

That being said, notebooks are still the smallest granularity for offline notes (sets of notes that stay always resident on a mobile device, e.g. Android) and for local notes (sets of notes that reside only one a local machine, and not synced to the Evernote cloud), and are also the containers used for sharing sets of notes all at once. They're also useful as the targets of import operations or other external source that add untagged items to Evernote, like Google Reader via IFTTT or auto-forwarded emails, giving you an Inbox of sorts that you can paw through and categorize at your leisure. Those may be considerations for how you structure your Evernote note database.

[jbenson2 2,147]

Notebooks are very weak for searching, since you can't search more than one notebook

For people with more than one notebook:

When "All Notes" are selected in the Left Panel, all notebooks are searched.

[jefito 5,589]

They're still weak with respect to searching: you can only use a single Notebook, a single Stack, or All Notebooks as your search scope. A stack lets you get multiple notebooks into a search, but it's not particularly flexible, but not bad if you don't have a lot of notebooks and you don't really care all that much about how they're structured -- just make an ad hoc stack and search away (but you can't really then persist that search, since it's ad hoc).

[peterfmartin 221]

Notebooks are very weak for searching, since you can't search more than one notebook

For people with more than one notebook:

When "All Notes" are selected in the Left Panel, all notebooks are searched.

Yes, that's what I hoped to make clear in the next sentence:

Notebooks are very weak for searching, since you can't search more than one notebook, and you can't remove individual notebooks from your search. (That is, of your 28 notebooks you can only search in one of them or in all of them, not in 2 through 27, unless you create stacks just for the purpose of searching.)

[peterfmartin 221]

They're also useful as the targets of import operations or other external source that add untagged items to Evernote, like Google Reader via IFTTT or auto-forwarded emails, giving you an Inbox of sorts that you can paw through and categorize at your leisure. Those may be considerations for how you structure your Evernote note database.

What do you mean? I use ifttt, and it adds tags automatically, which is how I organize my different feeds.

[jefito 5,589]

They're also useful as the targets of import operations or other external source that add untagged items to Evernote, like Google Reader via IFTTT or auto-forwarded emails, giving you an Inbox of sorts that you can paw through and categorize at your leisure. Those may be considerations for how you structure your Evernote note database.

What do you mean? I use ifttt, and it adds tags automatically, which is how I organize my different feeds.

You're right -- I guess what I wrote was a little misleading; since I read articles in Google Reader that I would wish to tag differently, based on content, I don't add any tags at all, I just send them to my Inbox notebook, for later winnowing. So yeah, you can add tags; I just don't find it very useful for my purposes.

[crshortt 0]

Wow! Lots of food for thought. These are all valid considerations for me to mull over.

I had perhaps 100 notes in Catch so far with only two streams and had not yet had a problem finding anything but it just seemed too limiting knowing that I could only create one more stream for free. But one concern I have with a too tag heavy approach is not wanting to have to spend 5 minutes on every note looking through a huge list of tags trying to decide how many are truly applicable and important to a single notebook approach. Perhaps I am overthinking it tough or getting the wrong idea about this approach?

I'm not praising Catch or criticizing Evernote but simply trying to complete my transition - but there was one feature in Catch I really liked that I have not yet figured out how to do in Evernote - or if I even can. That was an easy way to narrow results with multiple tags. For an exaggerated but realistic example, let's say I had 500 notes in a "Hiking" notebook. 250 have a "trails" tag and 25 of those have a "New Hampshire" tag. Other trail notes may have tags of "Virginia", "Tennessee", etc. for trails in those states. 20 of the 25 trail notes tagged "New Hampshire" are tagged "peaks" and 10 of those 25 are tagged "waterfalls" Many of the VA and TN trails notes have varying mixtures of these two tags as well. Now, let's say there are several other notes in this notebook also tagged "New Hampshire" but not "trails". In Catch, while on either All Notes or the Hiking stream, if I pulled up the tag interface and selected trails, it would show all 250 notes tagged "trails" but no other notes. The interface would also show that these notes included 25 New Hampshire tags, X number of Virginia and Tennessee tags, as well as X number of waterfall and peaks tags. The notes with New Hampshire tags but NOT with trails tags have already been excluded. If I then select New Hampshire in the list of tags it will then display only the 25 notes tagged with both "trails" and "New Hampshire". It will also show that there are now 20 notes tagged "peaks" and 10 tagged "waterfalls". Continuing, I select "waterfalls" and am left with only the 10 notes tagged "trails", "New Hampshire" and "waterfalls". I will no longer see notes tagged "waterfall" AND "Virginia" for example. Nor will I see other "New Hampshire" tags that got culled when I originally selected trails.

Is there anything similar and equally easy in Evernote? If not, that would seem to justify a larger number of notebooks to my way of thinking.

Rick

[jbenson2 2,147]

There are many different ways to attack this.

One solution which I strongly support is to have a well-structured format for the title of your notes.

Saved Searches for frequent searches is also helpful.

In Evernote Windows, I would have the "Show Search Exploration" turned on. (Ctrl + F10)

This will let me see the count of my different searches.

Because I have a lot of tags, I rely on the search window for 100% of my searches.

I use copy and paste a lot, with Notepad. I also always clear my search (Win + Shift + F) before running another search.

Other people might use the Left Panel and selectively "Ctrl-Click" the tags.

My tag format would be Parent / Child.

The notes would be put into the Hiking notebook. The trail notes would contain the word Trail in the title.

State

NH

VA

TN

Sights

Peaks

Waterfalls

Then I would use the search window for:

intitle:Trail tag:NH tag:waterfall

Remember, I said I use the notepad frequently.

If I decided to look for peaks instead, I'd change it to:

intitle:Trail tag:NH tag:waterfall

[crshortt 0]

Excellent! That gives me the exact same fuctionality I was looking for, at least on the desktop and web apps. I had been trying to click on the tags in the left sidebar but that only allowed me to search that one tag and not narrow to notes with that tag and also another by clicking another tag. I had tried typing more tags in the search bar as well but had not yet learned that I needed to add the word Tag: in front of it. Works perfectly now, though having to actually type in the tags isn't quite as quick and simple as clicking on them in succession to narrow results down. Nevertheless, it will work just fine for me.

Is there an easy way to do this on the Android app as well. It would be nice if you didn't have to type existing tag names in the seach bar there.

Rick

[crshortt 0]

One more question. Since this thread rather quickly veered off the original subject matter, is there any way for me or perhaps a moderator to add another tag to it? Perhaps "folders vs tags"? Other people might also find this thread helpful for that discussion.

Rick

[jefito 5,589]

though having to actually type in the tags isn't quite as quick and simple as clicking on them in succession to narrow results down. Nevertheless, it will work just fine for me.

As jbenson wrote, you can Ctrl_click on tags to add them to your search (or remove them, too).

Is there an easy way to do this on the Android app as well. It would be nice if you didn't have to type existing tag names in the seach bar there.

Not so far as I know.

[crshortt 0]

Thanks! I am at work messing around with the web-interface now but was going to try the Ctrl_click way on the desktop app once I got home this evening.

Rick

[deverill 54]

The way I use Evernote, as an example, is to have notebooks like a student in school, one for each major subject. Tags can go cross-notebooks, of course, so a note in the Math notebook could have "Test material" the same way a note in the English notebook could. I'm not a student but this way of looking at it helps me conceptualize it. I also have tags for year and month for various bills, lab reports, etc. If I get an electric bill I'll tag it "2012" and "04 - April" and "Bill" so I can search them all together if I need to see where my money went - a common occurrence lately

The downside to this approach is if I make my notebooks too detailed. "Medical" is fine, if I make one for "Doctor Visit", "Lab Report", "Bill", etc then I'll make myself crazier. Even if they are grouped into the same stack it's easier to not have to decide if this bill for a lab test goes under lab or bill!

The bottom line is, of course, that Evernote is flexible enough for each of us to do what works for us. Do what works for you and enjoy it instead of trying to fit into someone else's model.

[Romarain 1]

Hi

I'm new in Evernote. I'm basically a MyNotesKeeper user, and I've a request about the tree on the left panel !

In MyNotesKeeper, we can have main categories displayed by tabs (on the top), and we can create as many notes and sub-notes as we want in these categories ! I absolutely need the possibility to create as many sub-trees as I want !! For me, it's a must-have, a basic function.

Why?

Because of this :

http://www.evernote....41d6785f24375d9

My use of a notes manager is more complex than what you propose : I sort my thoughts in many subtrees, as you see.

I don't understand why you didn't work about this aspect, wich is, in my opinion, a priority : how represent what is inside our brains, how let people express the complexity of their thoughts ?

It can't be by only 1 sub-level (stacks > notebooks) !!

So, it would be a godlike improvement if you could implement this tiny function, wich is, by the way, known since... the begining of computing !

[jefito 5,589]

There is much forum discussion on the topic of sub-notebooks, sub-folders, sub-notes, etc. etc. Evernote the company and the community are very aware of what these concepts are, and what they mean. The short answer is that chances are, this will not be added to Evernote any time soon, if ever. Hierarchies are not the only way to organize knowledge. Evernote chose tags (the equivalent of MS Outlook categories, or GMail labels), and these are a very flexible way to organize your notes. If you absolutely need subnotebooks, then Evernote may not be the product for you. If you want help on how to use tags to help you organize your notes, then the forum is the right place to be.

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

In MyNotesKeeper, we can have main categories displayed by tabs (on the top), and we can create as many notes and sub-notes as we want in these categories ! I absolutely need the possibility to create as many sub-trees as I want !! For me, it's a must-have, a basic function.

I had not heard of MyNotesKeeper before, but after a quick review of their website it looks like an impressive program.

I do like the hierarchical, collapsible folder list in the left panel.

So what brings you to Evernote?

Are you switching to Evernote from MyNotesKeeper?

If so, what Evernote features do you find compelling?

Unfortunately, Evernote has resisted all suggestions that they provide a hierarchical folder/subfolder or Notebook/SubNotebook organization.

It doesn't look like it is in the cards for the foreseeable future.

[Romarain 1]

Thanks guys for your answers !

@jefito : unfortunatly tags are not the solution, because I feel the need to deploy trees, sub-trees etc. Let's imagine I want to create a 2nd sub-level by cheating and using tags, all these tags will be bulk (is this the right expression in english?) and not connected to any stack/notebook. I could have a thousand tags bulk, lol ! Impossible... Anyway, thank you for this idea.

@JMichael : Yeah, MyNotesKeeper is impressive :

- for the tabs

- for the hierarchical

- the possibility to export in .CHM (Windows Help File), I love this !

One other similar software is TreeDBNotes, but no export in .CHM !

What brings me to Evernote is :

- I was searching something more "modern". I'm a perfectionnist in ergonomy, I like having smooth designs, even if I lost features by using an other software I'll always prefer having a better design (ex : I prefer "Musique" to "Mediamonkey").

- Evernote propose an online account (cloud).

Moreover I love :

- The web clipping feature.

- The attachment possibilities

- The Share function

- The interface...

- Etc, Evernote is well done.

Excepted the problem of the left tree, and the fact that a portable version of Evernote is no longer released, Evernote is perfect for me.

But the fact that the devteam don't want to listen to users and implement the sub-tree feature is a strong sign that I won't adopt this software.

I absolutely HATE when developpers are blinds, depth and bounded. "I don't see the utility, so I won't implement it" = bye bye !

The entire computing is slowed and filled by this kind of mentality.

What is the use of Evernote for me? Nothing.

Why? Just because of a miserable consideration of sub-level.

Bravo !

A guy talking with a car-dealer :

- Your cars don't have trunks?

- No. No need to.

- Yeah yeah... =>Bye.

[jefito 5,589]

Dude, I saw in your last post that you were not very opened mind. This time, you proved it to me.

Uh, "dude", I am just giving you information. It's nothing to do with how open my mind is, or not.

You actually may be able to organize your data using tags, but if you're blabla...

No, NOT AT ALL. Pure pretention. You don't know how complex is my need to write everyday on many subject and organize my thoughts, even by watching a screenshot of the soft I actuallay use.

Did you actually try? Did you ask anyone here to help you? Or did you just assume that you cannot organize your information using tags and notebooks, only based on your experience, as opposed to the experience and advice of some knowledgeable folks here? Is that the open-mindedness that you seek?

Even with a picture you don't see how complex is the organization of thoughts.

Please. It's a rather ordinary tree structure. The question of whether Evernote can help you is not in the picture of your tree, it's actually how you want to use your data (create and access).

This indicates me 2 things :

- you have a small conception of thinking/writing/organizing thoughts, wich is impressive related to Evernote wich is a software that claims to help for this kind of activities, a software that you follow and defend.

- You're blind.

No, but I am half-deaf.

I won't waste more time with you, I know so much how people like you are just fanatics and not real users/thinkers.

Yeah yeah, I don't have to blame a software that wants to help me to note many things, yeah yeah... blablabla.

Evernote works the way that it works. *shrug* If you want to use it as it is, then that's cool, we're here to help. If you have suggestions as to how to make it better, then that's cool too, though they might never be implemented. If you are looking for different functionality than Evernote provides today, then that's no problem; go ahead and use something else -- it'll be less frustrating to you.

Seriously, for god sake . Excuse me mate, you just pissed me off. My bad.

On that we agree.

[Romarain 1]

It's not an ordinary tree structure.

Please explain what is the problem with implementing more sub-levels.

Thanks a lot.

Cheers.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

It's not an ordinary tree structure.

Please explain what is the problem with implementing more sub-levels.

Thanks a lot.

Cheers.

hi. welcome to the forums!

thanks for posting on this topic. personally, i use no hierarchies (no notebooks or tags), so it isn't a concern for me, but i know it is of great interest to many users. i don't know if evernote plans to add more hierarchical possibilities to notebooks.

in the current system, there are some workarounds (i actually prefer some of these to traditional folder hierarchies).

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

It's not an ordinary tree structure.

Please explain what is the problem with implementing more sub-levels.

Thanks a lot.

Cheers.

You've been very rude to a moderator who was trying to help. You accuse him of being close minded while you are exhibiting that same flaw you accuse him of. As has been pointed out to you, there is already much discussion on the topic, if you simply use the search function of the board. It's doubtful with this attitude you will receive much more help.

[Romarain 1]

The attitude of many devs and moderators, wich is fanatism and close-minded, is much more negative than fighting it.

Here again, what is being close-minded :

[EDIT:] Content deleted by moderator. Please watch the language. http://discussion.ev...ore&module=help

The bolded sentence is very important.

Evernote proposes... notes, notebooks. So, the logic of development is : I open my eyes, I watch around how we usually make a Notes Manager, and I use the best ideas. What people need? They need to save their ideas, not only like traditionnal reminders, we have Stickies or PNotes for this. Ideas are complex. Some note managers have trees with unlimited levels, it's cool to store complex structures of notes. Not only mathematicians or physicians need it, but anybody who wants to store information and sort it in many categories, and store categories in other categories to be more logic.

Since the begining of ancient holly times, arborescences in computing are unlimited :

- Windows Explorer (folders, sub-folders, etc)

- Help Files (.chm)

- Even bulleted lists in text editors

Wtf did happen? What did happen is limitation of intelligence in certain people who usually work in softwares development. It's very current.

Until I have a real argument to explain the limitation of Evernote's tree feature, my explaination is the devs only think in 2 levels and want to create a tool FOR THEM.

Thanks for the links ! I'll see if I'm wrong.

[gazumped 11,652]

I've been using Evernote for a little while now - around 2 years seriously, and initially I was very uncomfortable because there were no folders and sub-folders in Evernote. It seemed impossible to adequately sort my information into categories and cases that could support a specific thesis. However as I got used to the tagging system I began to see many advantages in using tags, not folders - and as I develop my usage of Evernote I'm beginning to think that I have overtagged my notes anyway. The search syntax is so powerful (again, once you get used to it..) that filing and finding information doesn't really require any organisation on my part. I'm moving towards tagging notes only to show that they form part of an ongoing grouping that relates to a client, or an action.

As example I'll look at dozens of notes related to banking regulation; I'll find them through searches for obvious keywords, and probably discard 70% of what I find as being repetitions, background or just irrelevant static. The ones I'm going to quote from though, in an article, letter or report will be tagged with the name of that action so that if (when) I get any ensuing grief, I can check back with the source material easily and without repeating the search and discard part of the exercise.

Some of the really good notes now have several tags indicating that they've been in different forms of output at different times.

I don't say this style of working couldn't work in a hierarchical filing model, but it is possible to do quite complex things 'only' with tags.

Some visitors to the forum have insisted that post-it notes are essential if they are to use Evernote; others that a Mind Mapping layout is required. I don't suggest that Evernote disregard all such requests - the owners of the software have to make their own decision what development is physically and economically feasible within their own business plan. They'll likely be driven by sales take-up - when numbers of new customers start to dry up, they'll need to see what might restore their attraction; but currently with 20Million (ish) largely satisfied users, Evernote can afford to take the long view.

They have a reasonably smooth, well-liked product and lots of detail work to iron out the rough edges between different clients, not to mention the new ones that come online in the next few years. The existing customer base will get unhappy if the product slows down, or adds unwieldy bloat to the menus, so EN have to keep massaging their infrastructure to keep pace with demand.

For the forseeable future, Evernote will look pretty much like it does now - that's the "if it ain't broke" principle we all know and love - so if you really, REALLY require something else before you'll accept the product, it's not an unhelpful attitude to say "try elsewhere", it's just realistic.

There are apps out there that add in the post-it feature; there are MindMapping and dozens of other specialist tools (I use several myself) to add functionality to Evernote. It's a mistake to think that Evernote should be the singe piece of software that anyone requires - extra features will always be available; it's what your laptop / smartphone / pad is there for!

And of course if the next Better Mousetrap function is sadly lacking from Evernote, the Trunk and the Apps Markets, you always have the Evernote API from which you can develop your own...

[jefito 5,589]

It's not an ordinary tree structure.

I'm not sure what it un-ordinary about it; it's a tree, correct? Similar to the directory (folder) structure in any desktop user's file system, right? Unless there's some cross-linking, or other search operations available in MyNotesKeeper, that's pretty basic (though admittedly you seem to have a fairly elaborate tree).

Please explain what is the problem with implementing more sub-levels.

Given that that's Evernote's choice not to implement nested notebooks, it would probably be better to try to focus on how to organize your data in Evernote.

Example: if you were to create a tag named the same as each folder/subfolder in your system, and apply them in that way, that might be a way to go, but you will lose the hierarchical organization (though if you have unique folder names, you can approximate it by building a tag tree that mirrors your folder structure). But maybe the hierarchy stuff isn't really that important, and you can do without it (that's my approach).

Another way might be to build a system of what, for better or worse, we can call "hierarchical tags", that is, tags that encode the hierarchy in their names. Lot of work to do that, but it has its benefits.

Or maybe you can decide that hierarchies and tags aren't needed at all, and just do content searches to find your stuff (I call this "going commando").

[jefito 5,589]

Since the begining of ancient holly times, arborescences in computing are unlimited :

- Windows Explorer (folders, sub-folders, etc)

- Help Files (.chm)

- Even bulleted lists in text editors

Wtf did happen? What did happen is limitation of intelligence in certain people who usually work in softwares development. It's very current.

I'll tell you "Wtf" happened:

People realized that depth-first exploration of deeply nested tree structures is not efficient (though better search tools can help).

People also realized the hierarchies are not always the best way to organize objects that are multi-attributed.

The "limitation of intelligence" you posit is in people who can only think hierarchically (I'd phrase that more charitably, something more like a limitation of experience).

Trees give you one way to categorize objects; any object is in exactly one place in the tree. Tags afford the opportunity to create multiple independent organizational schemes; any object can have any tag

Until I have a real argument to explain the limitation of Evernote's tree feature, my explaination is the devs only think in 2 levels and want to create a tool FOR THEM.

I think that Evernote devs are clearly capable of thinking beyond the limitations of hierarchies in general. But you can believe what you want to believe.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

The attitude of many devs and moderators, wich is fanatism and close-minded, is much more negative than fighting it.

Here again, what is being close-minded :

[EDIT:] Content deleted by moderator. Please watch the language. http://discussion.ev...ore&module=help

The bolded sentence is very important.

Evernote proposes... notes, notebooks. So, the logic of development is : I open my eyes, I watch around how we usually make a Notes Manager, and I use the best ideas. What people need? They need to save their ideas, not only like traditionnal reminders, we have Stickies or PNotes for this. Ideas are complex. Some note managers have trees with unlimited levels, it's cool to store complex structures of notes. Not only mathematicians or physicians need it, but anybody who wants to store information and sort it in many categories, and store categories in other categories to be more logic.

Since the begining of ancient holly times, arborescences in computing are unlimited :

- Windows Explorer (folders, sub-folders, etc)

- Help Files (.chm)

- Even bulleted lists in text editors

Wtf did happen? What did happen is limitation of intelligence in certain people who usually work in softwares development. It's very current.

Until I have a real argument to explain the limitation of Evernote's tree feature, my explaination is the devs only think in 2 levels and want to create a tool FOR THEM.

Thanks for the links ! I'll see if I'm wrong.

i get it that you want hierarchical organization, and you don't see why evernote doesn't have more options available, but i think you know that the people who developed an app adopted by millions of people around the world probably have a fair bit of intelligence. they are, after all, the only corporation i know about that has a robot with lasers in charge. true story.

i think they have chosen a different model of organization than you are suggesting. that's all. people have suggested hierarchies since i started using evernote years ago, so they are aware of the concept. you can google around to find out more about why they do what they do. maybe it will change in the future, but at least for now, evernote is what it is.

it's always good to get suggestions for features (i think), but take a look at the links i posted and see if those don't appeal to you.

[jbenson2 2,147]

...i think you know that the people who developed an app adopted by millions of people around the world

Evernote had 20 million users in December and close to hitting the 30 million users now.

They are adding 100,000 new users every day

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Or maybe you can decide that hierarchies and tags aren't needed at all, and just do content searches to find your stuff (I call this "going commando").

Good to know. Just in case you start talking, on this board, about going commando.

[Romarain 1]

However as I got used to the tagging system I began to see many advantages in using tags, not folders

I don't see this as an advantage, but as a disadvantage :

- the list of tags can be... infinite !

- how having a full visibility of all the tags existing (to choose the good ones), when they are displayed in a bulk list?

- folders make possible to gather some similar concepts : without them, how do I sort my bulk list of thousands of tags?

Some visitors to the forum have insisted that post-it notes are essential if they are to use Evernote; others that a Mind Mapping layout is required.

Not me. I don't want to add a new feature. I just want the devs to "unblock" a feature. They created the possibility to create one sub-level, there is no valid neither logic explaination to limit this function during the development. They're just lazy to take 5 minutes, go on the source code and change 2 lines. I'm exaggerating guys, don't flame, it's just a "picture".

I don't suggest that Evernote disregard all such requests - the owners of the software have to make their own decision what development is physically and economically feasible within their own business plan.

Same argument seen in every project I criticized. We're not talking of something new, complex to implement : we're talking about something that exist in a limited form and wich DOES NOT requiere to change anything around.

The existing customer base will get unhappy if the product slows down, or adds unwieldy bloat to the menus, so EN have to keep massaging their infrastructure to keep pace with demand.

Same here.

For the forseeable future, Evernote will look pretty much like it does now - that's the "if it ain't broke" principle we all know and love - so if you really, REALLY require something else before you'll accept the product, it's not an unhelpful attitude to say "try elsewhere", it's just realistic.

It is unhelpfull since there is no other note manager with such quality and features, moreover using a cloud conception.

And it is NOT realistic to say "try elsewhere", just for a miserable tiny improvment of a yet existing feature !

There are apps out there that add in the post-it feature; there are MindMapping and dozens of other specialist tools (I use several myself) to add functionality to Evernote.

I have X-mind for drawing diagrams. I'm not talking about adding a feature like that.

(I need to separate my answer in several posts)

[Romarain 1]

It's a mistake to think that Evernote should be the singe piece of software that anyone requires - extra features will always be available; it's what your laptop / smartphone / pad is there for.

I understand your point of view, but I don't have enough money to have iPhones, iPad etc. Moreover I don't like the idea to switch from a device to another for the same activity, just because people don't want to gather them on the same software. We should do Notemanagers / Stickies / Driagrams both on computers, smartphone and tablets, and let the people chose what they want to use instead of forcing them.

I'll tell you "Wtf" happened:

People realized that depth-first exploration of deeply nested tree structures is not efficient (though better search tools can help).

Correction : "is not enough efficient, and need to have a complementary feature".

People also realized the hierarchies are not always the best way to organize objects that are multi-attributed.

Not the best way don't mean to replace it with an other. You'll understand what I mean just below.

The "limitation of intelligence" you posit is in people who can only think hierarchically (I'd phrase that more charitably, something more like a limitation of experience).

Wrong. I don't think only hierarchically, people think only with tags.

I know what you're talking about : building a tree is an imperfect solution. Because anybody can came and say "I'd prefer to sort it like... this!"

It's a matter of relationship between concepts : thoughts have no begining, and no end.

In real life (not in mathematics, in our brains), to prove/explain something, an argumentation can start anywhere, pass throught a certain path, and reach a conclusion. And you can prove the same thing by using not exactly the same path, or even by trying a complete different path !

BUT... (the next is below)

Trees give you one way to categorize objects; any object is in exactly one place in the tree. Tags afford the opportunity to create multiple independent organizational schemes; any object can have any tag

When I start this post to answer to gazumped, I talked about the way to display the tag list. I explained that anyway, we go back to the problem of gathering things. So, now I'll give you the solution : use a hierarchical display of categories that can be used as tags !

Then, you can "dupplicate" instantly files and give them an infinite localisation ! By deploying the tree and editing a note, the note is edited for each of its occurences ! Under Windows, it's called a hard-link : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_link

When I said this exist since the holly ancient times, I was not kidding, and when I say limitation of intelligence is a common problem of devs' world, I was meaning it.

I think Evernote devs are humans, and they make mystakes. And I don't think hierarchical or tag organization was a central discussion during the development. Tags are born few years ago, in people's heads directly from the experience of Search Engines wich were the fastest way to proceed about listing the web.

What Search Engines "inspire" us, is to find stuffs by entering words. It's not like the entiere web was sorted by humans in categories. We could have done this way, but it was too much work, and the way we discovered/build the internet induced us in one mentality.

So naturally, devs finished the work by inventing tags, and everybody, included Evernote's devs, just mechanically used this conception without questioning it.

[Romarain 1]

My opinion now, is the following.

When I discovered the web, I instantly had all this thoughts coming to my mind :

• Information is drowned under a sea of useless information for me at the moment.
  
• Indeed I need to read an entiere page before finding it, and often I don't find it and I go back into the search result to try something else.
  
• It take time for me to find information : many results displayed in the search engine.
  
• When I find it, information is partial/fragmented.
  
• I need to search again : so, in fact, information is dupplicated everywhere.
  

So, I asked myself : why not sort websites and even gather information into a tree?

I discovered Internet directories, like http://www.dmoz.fr/

I say to myself "yeah, cool", but very quickly I was disappointed :

• Categories are not very relevant.
  
• Ergonomy don't seems to not be an important part of devs mentality (yeah again), and they don't see the link between such projects and the very important need of ergonomy.
  
• This kind of project are not very provided, and quite deserted.
  

I asked myself : but... why? Why people don't understand the interest of such philosophy?

It's not about sorting ALL the internet and forsaking search engines, but about trying our best to give a human alternative and sorting manually information.

Why? Because of this :

• It's always better to have a full vision for trivial question like, for example : what are the actual website giving information about... let's say, politic? Or ecology?
  
• I can give you ideas : by seing the entiere "tree" or a branch, you can explore what you never had the idea to explore.
  
• So you can increase and stimulate your knowledge.
  
• And even solve some of your problem, because discovering mysterious things can be usefull for something else you did not solve in the past and forget...
  
• etc.
  

And after a couple of years, I saw the birth of tags in websites, and social networks (with bulk and anti-ergonomic display of information) and news-podcasting like Twitter (idk if it's the exact english term to define this kind of application). And I laughed. I said to myself : lol, always the more irrationnal way to do things.

Not that I don't like the ideas : but they are always fragmented, limited and filled by a prehistorical way of thinking.

Dematerialization give us bad ideas, wrong approaches : it give us the believe that using a non-linear way to think is the best way.

And unfortunatly, it is not the best way. It's just a way.

Recently, by reading an article in Philosophy Magazine (a french magazine), about financial markets and trading, I find that a psychologist, named Kahneman, explained the functioning of humans in a familiar way compared to my own experience of society and interacting with people : for him, there is two systems.

• The System 1 is under automatic pilot : it generate a flow of thoughts, by association of ideas, by intuition, without control neither efforts. This flow is often together with emotions.
  
• The System 2 (the one I personnaly think I'm in) is the one of rational reasoning. It's slow, meticulous, analytic, and it has a cost : thinking in a rational way takes efforts and concentration, and no one is capable of using it permanently.
  
• The System 1 often takes over the System 2, even with people who are trained to mathematics etc.
  

I think I don't have to explain you the conclusion.

Since the begining of this thread, we're talking and talking... just for adding more sub-levels, and it seems to be a problem for you and the devs, because it does not match with your paradigm. An unsignificant.... miserable... tiny modification is discussed... just because you can't understand the whole picture !

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Hi Romarain. I appreciate that you are passionate about your position, but I wonder if people (including the developers) understand what you are saying, have put thought into the product they have devoted their careers to, and reached a different conclusion.

In other words, rather than saying everyone who disagrees with you is wrong because they suffer from some kind of deficiency (humans, lazy, whatever), you may want to consider the possibility that they just don't agree with you.

Regarding your point about how easy this is, in my experience, even small changes with a program can cause havoc. And, I only program on a single platform. Evernote has to match everything across eight major platforms, and they have millions of people depending on them to do it well. So, I think as users we certainly ought to suggest things (it is great that you are), but we also ought to show some respect to the developers for the hard work they have done, and refrain from ridiculing them. There are people at the other end of your post.

Besides, they might be a little more amenable to your suggestions if you rhetorically hug them instead of kick them

[Romarain 1]

According to the fact I've been kicked all my life by people and socially excluded, I find the accusation funny.

I never kick people, I never sulk them (only if they exclude something, by denying it with no explaination wich is for me a defeat by forfeit), I certainly never exclude them, I never close threads (very common reaction on the web, I'm surprise this discussion isn't already locked).

Firstable, I don't think devs have reached a different conclusion. They create 2 levels of nested notebooks. Why not only 1, if tag is the final solution?

Where is the proof of that conclusion?

Secondly, yes, I think people are often wrong (not always, of course), because they use the System 1 wich is base on irrational conceptions, emotion and force relationship.

Moreover, even people are not wrong, they never see the 2nd solution that is implicated in the complete reality of the phenomenon. They only see half of the solution, their solution, and don't listen to others' point of view, or pretends to, but never apply, because they refuse to see the reality as a paradoxical object.

Thus, developers are reluctant to add a simple checkboxe in option panels, to add a feature, even the tiniest, if they don't see the utility in their own way of using their product.

Finally, I need to clarify something :

• Everybody in the world, I mean e-v-e-r-y-b-o-d-y, we've all experienced at least one some good discussions, with a friend or anybody else, where we admit we are wrong somewhere, or that our argumentation lacks from something and has weakness on some parts.
  
• So I've experience this. Yes, I confirm. So your accusation is not only impossible, but also really emblematic of the mentality you are in.
  
• The actual mentality I'm talking about is as follows : you [all defenders] don't agree with me, I don't agree with your disagreement wich is irrational, I explain why, I explain the 2 kinds of intelligence/paradigm for you to get the picture in mind, and finally you use it to exclude my proposition, when I never wanted to excluded the use of tags, wich is, wheter you like it or not, an irrationnal method (that's what makes you mad). We're not even in a traditionnal opposition of paradigm, where only one must survive : we're in a dual and paradoxical paradigm, and nobody has to be excluded (nb : very funny/exciting about brain, thoughts and quantum physic, isn't it?). But nothing works in front of your state of mind.
  
• System 1 always take over System 2. You confirm the conclusion of Kahneman.
  
• Q.E.D
  

I understand your point of view about respect, GrumpyMonkey, and you're right about it. But what you perhaps don't understand, is the effect of being often if not always faced with this kind of situation and absurdity. If I was always fully "respectfull", my contributions on internet will always proceed like :

• I propose something.
  
• It is rejected : "thanks, but no, everything is perfect, thanks!" (respect has nothing to do with this).
  
• I say goodbye and the communication is over very quickly.
  

Finally, I would never start a discussion, and progressively lose interest in proposing suggestions, because it would not have the tiniest interest.

I remind you we're talking because of a simple sub-level feature, already implemented !

I won't insist, it would be in bad taste and I've yet exceeded the limits of your patience, to all of you, I'm fully conscient of this.

But it breaks my heart to drop a soft like this, just because of a stuff like "one or two more sub-levels on a left panel".

So pathetic and representative of our world : we always see the millions of followers, without seing the millions ones who would follow if an absurdity was not driving them away.

[jbenson2 2,147]

Thanks, but no. My mentality is the current Evernote system works fine.

Stacks - meh.

Notebook and tags plus a strong search are fine with me.

I don't have any desire to spend a lot of additional time climbing a new learning curve, even it is better.

[Romarain 1]

• It is rejected : "thanks, but no, everything is perfect, thanks!" (respect has nothing to do with this)
  

Thanks, but no[...]

epic. Are you trying to do an inception on me?

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

According to the fact I've been kicked all my life by people and socially excluded, I find the accusation funny.

I never kick people, I never sulk them (only if they exclude something, by denying it with no explaination wich is for me a defeat by forfeit), I certainly never exclude them, I never close threads (very common reaction on the web, I'm surprise this discussion isn't already locked).

Firstable, I don't think devs have reached a different conclusion. They create 2 levels of nested notebooks. Why not only 1, if tag is the final solution?

Where is the proof of that conclusion?

Secondly, yes, I think people are often wrong (not always, of course), because they use the System 1 wich is base on irrational conceptions, emotion and force relationship.

Moreover, even people are not wrong, they never see the 2nd solution that is implicated in the complete reality of the phenomenon. They only see half of the solution, their solution, and don't listen to others' point of view, or pretends to, but never apply, because they refuse to see the reality as a paradoxical object.

Thus, developers are reluctant to add a simple checkboxe in option panels, to add a feature, even the tiniest, if they don't see the utility in their own way of using their product.

Finally, I need to clarify something :

• Everybody in the world, I mean e-v-e-r-y-b-o-d-y, we've all experienced at least one some good discussions, with a friend or anybody else, where we admit we are wrong somewhere, or that our argumentation lacks from something and has weakness on some parts.
  
• So I've experience this. Yes, I confirm. So your accusation is not only impossible, but also really emblematic of the mentality you are in.
  
• The actual mentality I'm talking about is as follows : you [all defenders] don't agree with me, I don't agree with your disagreement wich is irrational, I explain why, I explain the 2 kinds of intelligence/paradigm for you to get the picture in mind, and finally you use it to exclude my proposition, when I never wanted to excluded the use of tags, wich is, wheter you like it or not, an irrationnal method (that's what makes you mad). We're not even in a traditionnal opposition of paradigm, where only one must survive : we're in a dual and paradoxical paradigm, and nobody has to be excluded (nb : very funny/exciting about brain, thoughts and quantum physic, isn't it?). But nothing works in front of your state of mind.
  
• System 1 always take over System 2. You confirm the conclusion of Kahneman.
  
• Q.E.D
  

I understand your point of view about respect, GrumpyMonkey, and you're right about it. But what you perhaps don't understand, is the effect of being often if not always faced with this kind of situation and absurdity. If I was always fully "respectfull", my contributions on internet will always proceed like :

• I propose something.
  
• It is rejected : "thanks, but no, everything is perfect, thanks!" (respect has nothing to do with this).
  
• I say goodbye and the communication is over very quickly.
  

Finally, I would never start a discussion, and progressively lose interest in proposing suggestions, because it would not have the tiniest interest.

I remind you we're talking because of a simple sub-level feature, already implemented !

I won't insist, it would be in bad taste and I've yet exceeded the limits of your patience, to all of you, I'm fully conscient of this.

But it breaks my heart to drop a soft like this, just because of a stuff like "one or two more sub-levels on a left panel".

So pathetic and representative of our world : we always see the millions of followers, without seing the millions ones who would follow if an absurdity was not driving them away.

It sounds like experience has taught you different lessons than it has taught me. It is certainly your prerogative to persist in the belief that 1) developers don't listen or just pretend to if they don't agree with you, 2) showing respect to others is less effective than ridiculing them, and 3) I am mad/angry about your posts. I think I will have to disagree with you about all three!

I am not sure you will find much debate here about your points. I don't think anyone is disagreeing with your main point by saying that there is something wrong with adding more sub-levels to the notebooks. Rather, I think I hear them saying they are fine with the current system.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Dare I say troll...???

[jefito 5,589]

Since the begining of this thread, we're talking and talking... just for adding more sub-levels, and it seems to be a problem for you and the devs, because it does not match with your paradigm. An unsignificant.... miserable... tiny modification is discussed... just because you can't understand the whole picture !

I'm sorry. For awhile, I thought that part of the problem in this thread was the language difference; obviously English is not your first language, and I give you credit for using it.

However, I have since come to believe that you really, really believe that Evernote and its users are too stupid to understand your oh-so wonderful ideas, even though your notion that they are somehow easy to implement (two lines of code? seriously?) is preposterous. Sorry, but there's too much heat here, and not enough light, so I'm checking myself out of the thread. Good luck with your quest for.. well, I'm not really sure what your quest is, but good luck anyways.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Yeah, this thread is pretty much qualifying for getting locked, IMO.

[Romarain 1]

I don't think anyone is disagreeing with your main point by saying that there is something wrong with adding more sub-levels to the notebooks. Rather, I think I hear them saying they are fine with the current system.

What do you mean?

People say "I think there is something wrong with adding more levels" and you conclude that it's not a disagreement?

Or that no one said that there is something wrong so no one is disagreeing?

You used a paradoxical form of syntax, do you see it? We can interpret the meaning in both ways (the word "by" is ambiguous).

I'll just comment the end : if 3 millions or even 3 billions of people are fine with a system, it does not mean for me that this system is valid or better than an other.

even though your notion that they are somehow easy to implement (two lines of code? seriously?)

No, that's why I said it was just a picture. Can we see a dev here?

How can we submit an idea and see them admiting/rejecting it?

Sorry, but there's too much heat here, and not enough light, so I'm checking myself out of the thread. Good luck with your quest for.. well, I'm not really sure what your quest is, but good luck anyways.

Thanks jefito, for your patience even in my darkest moment.

There is not enough light because, IMO, the approach of hierarchical tree VS tags implicate a real complex questioning about our way of thinking. It's about brain, it's about thought, it's about cognition, semantic, etc.

My conviction is human are uncomfortable with thinking/calculating and always prefer the easiest way. Our time is proving it, by deploying much more technology based on an irrational structure than a rational one. Everybody adulate Search Engines, Tags, etc, and people have a serious problem with the "traditionnal method" of building theories, models, hierarchical, pathes.

But for me, the only method wich belongs to human is unfortunatly the rational one : we can't cheat, we can't run away from it, it always came back. That's why I ask you to bring here some screenshots of your tag lists, and why I pointed the fact that => imo this list as to be, soon or later, displayed in an ergonomic way !

You can't avoid it ! You can't watch your tag list like you watch a thousand words written on little pieces of paper, chaotically scattered on your desktop, and select them (for a search function or to attribute them to a note) in a mysterious way you don't want to know neither modelize => The modelizing, the gathering, is called a rational model : concepts are gathered BECAUSE of the meaning, of the PATH you CREATE.

So I'm not ok with what is explained here : http://discussion.ev...nested-folders/

You don't have to physically dupplicate the notes, as BurgersNFries said ; no, you can virtually dupplicate it !

Just keep in mind :

• 2 Systems : rational VS irrational, tree VS tags
  
• Paradoxical where the 2 systems are complementary.
  
• It has been realized before : it's called Hard links.
  
• Moreover we're talking about a little improvment of a yet existing feature.
  

Now, here is how I see it :

• We can merge the tree and the tag : categories of the tree ARE the tags !
  
• When you create a cat/tag in a branch, if it already exists in an other branch => it is connected.
  
• Ticking a checkbox near a cat/tag, or typing his name on the search function will display only these sub-folders, in their respective branches.
  
• When you add a note in such a cat/tag/sub-folder, if there is many occurences of the tag, it ask you if you want to connect the note with the other tags (you can select eah one).
  
• Extra : We could have several sets of tree, to display the tree in different orders of sorting, depending on different path we create in our mind.
  

I know what you're thinking : "he does not understand that tags actually avoid this kind of autistic conception and laborious work".

Well, what you perhaps don't understand is the interest of doing it I guess. Hard link model is something much more intelligent and complete. Seriously, can you give me a screenshot of your tag list !

[jbenson2 2,147]

Seriously, can you give me a screenshot of your tag list !

Seriously, I don't think anyone wants to play your game anymore.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

I don't think anyone is disagreeing with your main point by saying that there is something wrong with adding more sub-levels to the notebooks. Rather, I think I hear them saying they are fine with the current system.

What do you mean?

People say "I think there is something wrong with adding more levels" and you conclude that it's not a disagreement?

Or that no one said that there is something wrong so no one is disagreeing?

You used a paradoxical form of syntax, do you see it? We can interpret the meaning in both ways (the word "by" is ambiguous).

I'll just comment the end : if 3 millions or even 3 billions of people are fine with a system, it does not mean for me that this system is valid or better than an other.

even though your notion that they are somehow easy to implement (two lines of code? seriously?)

No, that's why I said it was just a picture. Can we see a dev here?

How can we submit an idea and see them admiting/rejecting it?

Sorry, but there's too much heat here, and not enough light, so I'm checking myself out of the thread. Good luck with your quest for.. well, I'm not really sure what your quest is, but good luck anyways.

Thanks jefito, for your patience even in my darkest moment.

There is not enough light because, IMO, the approach of hierarchical tree VS tags implicate a real complex questioning about our way of thinking. It's about brain, it's about thought, it's about cognition, semantic, etc.

My conviction is human are uncomfortable with thinking/calculating and always prefer the easiest way. Our time is proving it, by deploying much more technology based on an irrational structure than a rational one. Everybody adulate Search Engines, Tags, etc, and people have a serious problem with the "traditionnal method" of building theories, models, hierarchical, pathes.

But for me, the only method wich belongs to human is unfortunatly the rational one : we can't cheat, we can't run away from it, it always came back. That's why I ask you to bring here some screenshots of your tag lists, and why I pointed the fact that => imo this list as to be, soon or later, displayed in an ergonomic way !

You can't avoid it ! You can't watch your tag list like you watch a thousand words written on little pieces of paper, chaotically scattered on your desktop, and select them (for a search function or to attribute them to a note) in a mysterious way you don't want to know neither modelize => The modelizing, the gathering, is called a rational model : concepts are gathered BECAUSE of the meaning, of the PATH you CREATE.

So I'm not ok with what is explained here : http://discussion.ev...nested-folders/

You don't have to physically dupplicate the notes, as BurgersNFries said ; no, you can virtually dupplicate it !

Just keep in mind :

• 2 Systems : rational VS irrational, tree VS tags
  
• Paradoxical where the 2 systems are complementary.
  
• It has been realized before : it's called Hard links.
  
• Moreover we're talking about a little improvment of a yet existing feature.
  

Now, here is how I see it :

• We can merge the tree and the tag : categories of the tree ARE the tags !
  
• When you create a cat/tag in a branch, if it already exists in an other branch => it is connected.
  
• Ticking a checkbox near a cat/tag, or typing his name on the search function will display only these sub-folders, in their respective branches.
  
• When you add a note in such a cat/tag/sub-folder, if there is many occurences of the tag, it ask you if you want to connect the note with the other tags (you can select eah one).
  
• Extra : We could have several sets of tree, to display the tree in different orders of sorting, depending on different path we create in our mind.
  

I know what you're thinking : "he does not understand that tags actually avoid this kind of autistic conception and laborious work".

Well, what you perhaps don't understand is the interest of doing it I guess. Hard link model is something much more intelligent and complete. Seriously, can you give me a screenshot of your tag list !

i don't see the paradox in what i said. i guess i just don't get it. sorry. about all i can add is to say that sure, it would be nice to have more sub-levels (for people who organize using notebooks). but, we don't have them. and, i am not even sure you need them. i appreciate your requesting it, and i see that it is very important to you, but it isn't a feature that i am terribly enthusiastic about myself.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Locking thread.

[Archgirl 0]

I am in real estate and I want to start a stack that is called sales and within that stack I want to have all my properties listed and then within that I want to have various clients on those properties - so files within files. I can seem to put one notebook within a notebook but no more. What am I doing wrong?

[jefito 5,589]

This Knowledge Base article might be able to help you: http://evernote.com/contact/support/kb/#/article/23530443

You might also be able to drag a notebook onto your stack icon as well.

[peterfmartin 221]

I can seem to put one notebook within a notebook but no more. What am I doing wrong?

You're not doing anything wrong. Stacks can only be one level deep. If you need more than that, you might try tags. They're not identical, and they don't replicate the folder structure so many users are used to from their OSes, but they're far more flexible in Evernote. I highly recommend organizing with tags over notebooks or stacked notebooks. Here's just one conversation on the matter that you may find helpful:

[jefito 5,589]

Ah, right -- misread that a bit, and was thinking that the OP was having problems putting more than one notebook into a stack, rather than trying to nest notebooks. Peter is correct: Stacks can only contain notebooks, and not notebooks (or notes). Notebooks can only contain notes, and not notebooks or stacks. And notes can contain any content, but not notebooks or stacks. Thanks, Peter.

[deanouellette 23]

What I do is run two stacks

Real Estate

and

Z-Closed

In the Real Estate I will have notebooks such as

B-Smith

B-Thompson

S-Harris

S-Jones

S-Nichols

The Buyers all get the B prefix and the Sellers all get the S to keep them grouped and in order.

THen when they close I move them from the Real Estate to the Z-Closed stack

Dean Ouellette

Evernote for Realtors

DeanOuellette.com

[mluka 0]

Hi all.

Are we going to get a definitive answer from Evernote to this question?

I need to know because I'm at the point of making a decision to stick with EN or resume my search for a better tool.

ALL my data (on other devices) is organized in a hierarchical way. I easily find my documents (notes or whatever) by going to their logical location (Building B/Apt. 3/Outstanding problems/Leaking shower head).

I can't afford the time to multiple tag every note (scan, snapshot, etc) that I create.

(I suspect that for some technical reason, probably a design decision that was made by the architect of EN way back when, it's now impossible to implement a nested notebook structure that is more than one level deep...)

I would really appreciate it if EN came out openly and stated clearly what their intentions are regarding this often-requested feature!

Thanks.

P.S. For what it's worth, here are two of the other products I'm currently looking at (in parallel with EN): NoteBook (by Circus Ponies Software) and Curio (by Zengobi).

[rockky 32]

Other than flat out bug fixes I've never seen EN indicate the enabling of any upcoming features.its their policy not to do that. And....based on all the discussion I've seen on thai topic I'd say its highly unlikely we'll ever see that.

I've really learned to use note links and clusters of notes fairly well to serve that purpose.

[jbenson2 2,147]

Are we going to get a definitive answer from Evernote to this question?

I need to know because I'm at the point of making a decision to stick with EN or resume my search for a better tool.

No, you will not get a "definitive answer" from Evernote.

Evernote does not publish a roadmap of planned features.

And with the flexibility of tags, OCR and search, it is unlikely they will offer more levels of Notebooks.

.

[Metrodon 2,184]

Having multiple levels of notebooks seems contrary to Evernote's ethos and has been discussed many many times on here. I think it is extremely unlikely that it will ever be implemented.

[bruceweinstein 0]

Initially I wanted to Create a New Evernote account. I already have one that I purchased Premium Services for. If I create a new account is there a way to have the two accounts covered by the one premium service or that is not allowed?

If so then what I would like to do is take all my current notebooks and make them sub-notebooks to a newly created parent notebook. Is this possible and if so how. Once I have done this I will create a new notebook for Work purposes. I do not want to combine the two. if i do this then it will fall uner the account that has the premium applied against it.

As mentioned my initial thought was to create new account. I just did not want to buy another premium subscription for the new account.

Thanks and I look forward to your reply.

...Bruce

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

AFAIK, you cannot combine multiple accounts for a single premium account.

EN does not have sub notebooks. There are notebooks & stacks. I'm sure if you perused the existing messages on the board and/or played with EN some more, you will get a better understanding of how EN works. Probably also helpful to search the board on tags vs notebooks.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Initially I wanted to Create a New Evernote account. I already have one that I purchased Premium Services for. If I create a new account is there a way to have the two accounts covered by the one premium service or that is not allowed?

If so then what I would like to do is take all my current notebooks and make them sub-notebooks to a newly created parent notebook. Is this possible and if so how. Once I have done this I will create a new notebook for Work purposes. I do not want to combine the two. if i do this then it will fall uner the account that has the premium applied against it.

As mentioned my initial thought was to create new account. I just did not want to buy another premium subscription for the new account.

Thanks and I look forward to your reply.

...Bruce

Hi. Welcome to the forums!

As BNF said, you purchase a premium account, and the subscription only applies to it. You can make sub-notebooks (called "stacks") by dragging the notebooks into another one (if I remember correctly) for the Mac and Windows clients. Could you tell us why a "professional" and "personal" notebook would not be enough, and you want to have two accounts instead? Of course, you could create two accounts, but I wouldn't recommend it, because there are very few benefits to doing a hemispherectomy on your external brain!

[bruceweinstein 0]

The reason i am pursuing this is because I just received a ScanSnap. I want to go to a paperless office. So I was thinking a new account would allow me to keep it separate from my other account. But seeing as this is not an option I wanted to consolidate my current notebooks under one parent notebook. That way I can collapse it to clean up interface. And then I would create another parent for which I would begin another 'stack' for my paperless office. Am I on the right track here? Just need some confirmation or if you have a better solution I would appreciative to hear it.

[jbenson2 2,147]

Yup, have two stacks with appropriate notebooks.

Let the default notebook catch all your ScanSnaps and then move to appropriate notebook.

Notebooks can be moved and renamed. My default notebook is Actions-Pending.

Try to keep the number of notebooks to a minimum.

example:

Work

Clients

Expenses

Projects

Home

Bills

Family

Friends

Hobbies

Maintenance

[bruceweinstein 0]

Thanks JBenson. I will proceed with this strategy. At least I know now I am on the right track.

[jbenson2 2,147]

Good luck. If you also use an iPad or Mobile device with Evernote, you might want to consider eventually renaming the notebooks for easier identification and less confusion.

example:

Work

Wk-Clients

Wk-Expenses

Wk-Projects

Home

Hm-Bills

Hm-Family

Hm-Friends

Hm-Hobbies

Hm-Maintenance

.

[Samnnz 2]

The title is self explanatory, but to reiterate. It would be useful if you could stack 'notebook stacks' into "notebook stacks", (much like a file folder system) then for people like me who are soon chalking up 1000's of notes for one particular topic it would become well used.

I understand that tagging allows as many 'tag' subcategories as necessary, and this is a great idea except it lacks the feature of you being able to have the simple function of "Create notebook in <tag>" which would essentially bypass the need to use the notebook stack system. I don't use tags simply for the reason it's another task tacked onto the notebook stack system, I must use that system and then --if I remember-- tag it later.

Which is another feature request that I posted in another thread.

Thanks

[spg SCOTT 736]

Hi Samnnz,

This is a much debated topic here in the forums. Currently Evernote only allows one level of stacks, and this appears to be the decision made by Evernote. As far as I am aware, this is not likely to change in the near future.

I understand that there are advantages to this, but that is the choice that EN have made for now.

One possible reason behind this decision (that I have just realised myself) may be related to the notebook limit.

Currently you can have up to 250 notebooks (including each stack) and so if you were allowed multiple levels of notebooks, you could reach this limit very easily with a moderately complicated folder structure...

Scott

[Risney 0]

We need to be able to nest our notebooks - a tree like structure on both the windows and web version

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Hello. Welcome to the forums!

This is an oft-requested feature. We can currently nest one level (stacks). I don't know if Evernote plans to offer more.

If you search the forums, you'll find lots of discussion about tags. These could offer a workaround for you, and you might find (like I did) that they are far better than nested notebooks

[Candid 167]

I agree with Grumpy Monkey. When I first came to Evernote I was sure I needed nested notebooks with many levels. I have learned that I was wrong about this. Tags can be even more useful because I can some tags that run through multiple notebooks.