Better tag autocomplete

[Aseem Bansal 19]

Hi

It would be great if the tag autocomplete works in a better way when adding tags to the note. Currently it starts from the first alphabet

e.g. I have tags the following 3 tags - > apple, green apple, black apple

If I type a then the autocomplete just shows me apple. It would be great if it also shows the other 2 options. I use multi word tags and sometimes I am trying to type from the 2nd word. I know it is a small thing to start typing from the beginning but it would be more intuitive if it works like this.

Thanks

Aseem Bansal

Edited July 20, 2016 by Aseem Bansal
added details about autocomplete

[CalS 3,805]

One option available is Match tags by word prefix in the Tag Picker.  For adding a tag to a search it works per the below.

1. When checked, the results are based upon the beginning of the tag.
2. When not checked, the results are based upon the sequence of characters entered.

When adding a tag, either the drop down in the note header or Ctrl-Alt-T it only works per the beginning of the tag.  Which does not make sense based upon the title of the option or the help text.  Doesn't bother me since I prefer search from the beginning of the tag, but still doesn't look right unless I am missing something.

[jefito 5,332]

16 hours ago, csihilling said:

When adding a tag, either the drop down in the note header or Ctrl-Alt-T it only works per the beginning of the tag.  Which does not make sense based upon the title of the option or the help text.  Doesn't bother me since I prefer search from the beginning of the tag, but still doesn't look right unless I am missing something.

This appears to come into play when you use the tag picker that's invoked if you click on the tag icon in the lower right of the Search Info panel above the note list; it's not a true dialog with a name, so you don't see 'Tag Picker' displayed anywhere. It's just a dynamic list that responds to your text entry. The same UI is also used if you right click on the 'Tags' header of the tag tree in the left panel.

It should probably be applied more consistently in other places, like the 'Add tag' item in the note header. 

Ctrl+Alt+T (Assign Tags) is something else altogether. The tag list allows a match-by-prefix-as-you-type navigation that's also used in Windows Explorer. That's pretty standard stuff.

[contributor 0]

It should be added to this that the Android app provides such autocomplete behaviour, so there really isn't any reason to not keep the desktop app consistent with that.  It's effectively treating the tag search as a wildcard search.

All of the workarounds are just fine, but they all involve contorting to the tool vs. the tool just providing the behaviour in an easy way.

To address the other user segment who would be thrown off by typing "w" and not immediately having "weather" be the first choice... this can be managed by how the search results are displayed, e.g. display everything that starts with W first, then everything else that has a W in it, alphabetically sorted.

 

[contributor 0]

1 hour ago, gustavgi said:

A better workaround that has been introduced more recently is that you can now drag and drop a search result from the ctrl+q search onto the note body.

That's handy, I didn't know that.

It's still a bit of a two step process, vs. just using an autocomplete approach in the same fashion the mobile app provides.

I explored a bit further and the "Assign Tag" dialog in the desktop app is actually just as bad.

[CalS 3,805]

3 hours ago, contributor said:

 

Great find!  I'm having some trouble following a few things though:

1. What are your steps for "adding a tag to a search"?

2. Agreed that the option doesn't seem to affect the drop-down in the note header, or Ctrl-Alt-T dialog.  The note does mention a "Tag Picker" though - is that something else within the app?  I only found the "Tag View", which has a search, but also doesn't seem to be affected by this option.

3. Further on the previous point, the Evernote help does not have any references to "Tag Picker", even though it appears to be a formal "thing", given the capitalization, and so I couldn't find any more information in the Help info (this is a note for Evernote folks).

 

1. I use the tag picker icon in the search info are, per @jefito above.
2. I believe tag picker represents the above icon, or Ctrl-Shift-T
3. Same as 2 I think.

I'm with Jeff, it makes sense that add tags and search tags work the same way depending on how the option is set.  I would even go so far as to have the Assign tags dialog (Ctrl-Alt-T) work the same way, but that's me.  

[gustavgi 295]

I agree! Hopefully there will be an option in the near future. Evernote's @kvitekp recently hinted to that they might be able to make this happen by using the "tag picker" as an alternative autocomplete for adding new tags to notes.

[CalS 3,805]

Try replacing the space with a period in the tag names.

Edited July 20, 2016 by csihilling
Not accurate

[gustavgi 295]

21 hours ago, csihilling said:

Try replacing the space with a period in the tag names.

What effect does that have?

[nicobro88 7]

On 18/7/2016 at 17:26, Aseem Bansal dijo:

e.g. I have tags the following 3 tags - > apple, green apple, black apple

If I type a then the autocomplete just shows me apple. It would be great if it also shows the other 2 options. I use multi word tags and sometimes I am trying to type from the 2nd word.

 

On 19/7/2016 at 5:42, gustavgi dijo:

I agree! Hopefully there will be an option in the near future. Evernote's @kvitekp recently hinted to that they might be able to make this happen by using the "tag picker" as an alternative autocomplete for adding new tags to notes.

In the latest windows beta there're options to configure this for the tag and notebook picker, but, or I don't understand what those pickers are or how they work, or the options don't work because i can't find any behavior change. BTW, for me it's working as Aseem says, it searches multi word, what it won't do is search inside words (e.g. 'ppl').

[gustavgi 295]

2 minutes ago, nicobro88 said:

 

In the latest windows beta there're options to configure this for the tag and notebook picker, but, or I don't understand what those pickers are or how they work, or the options don't work because i can't find any behavior change. BTW, for me it's working as Aseem says, it searches multi word, what it won't do is search inside words (e.g. 'ppl').

The tag/notebook picker are those found by clicking the magnifying glass in the left panel, next to the header in the tag/notebook sections, or if you click the tag with the magnifying glass in "search desctiption". If you uncheck prefix search, it will search inside the words of tag/notebook names and highlight that part in yellow.

[nicobro88 7]

hace 3 minutos, gustavgi dijo:

The tag/notebook picker are those found by clicking the magnifying glass in the left panel, next to the header in the tag/notebook section, or if you click the tag with the magnifying glass in search desctiptions. If you uncheck prefix search, it will search inside the words of tag/notebook names and highlight that part in yellow.

Thanks! That was exactly what I thought but it wasn't working for me. Restarted Evernote and it's working fine now, sadly I can't reproduce the bug to report it.

So I suppose that Aseem was refering to the action of assigning tags to the note, and note the search... if that's it, forget what I said 

[CalS 3,805]

3 hours ago, gustavgi said:

What effect does that have?

None, my bad.  I was thinking of something else when I posted, a little too quick on the draw.  Sorry about that.  I will edit the post above.  Thanks.

[gustavgi 295]

22 minutes ago, csihilling said:

None, my bad.  I was thinking of something else when I posted, a little to quick on the draw.  Sorry about that.  I will edit the post above.  Thanks.

Too bad, I was hoping you had something

[nicobro88 7]

Looking at your example @Aseem Bansal it seems like apple is the main word on your tags. Maybe renaming them to apple green, apple black, apple could help?

[gustavgi 295]

12 minutes ago, nicobro88 said:

Looking at your example @Aseem Bansal it seems like apple is the main word on your tags. Maybe renaming them to apple green, apple black, apple could help?

It's just an example, and in that way you won't get any hits if you search for green or black, and you therefore have to remember that you named yout tag in a "unituitive" matter

[nicobro88 7]

hace 7 minutos, gustavgi dijo:

It's just an example, and in that way you won't get any hits if you search for green or black, and you therefore have to remember that you named yout tag in a "unituitive" matter

yep, i assumed it was a example . But maybe it could help changing the naming convention, e.g.:

* Evernote Receipts -> Receipts Evernote
* Food Receipts     -> Receipts Food
* Work Receipts     -> Receipts Work

Just an idea that may or may not be useful 

[Aseem Bansal 19]

I can always change the tags but this should not be a very big thing to change and can make evernote more intuitive.

[gustavgi 295]

4 hours ago, Aseem Bansal said:

I can always change the tags but this should not be a very big thing to change and can make evernote more intuitive.

The "problem" is that it has to be an option. As tags are sorted alphabetically, changing it for everyone would ruin the workflow of those people that quick tag using the incremental search function.

Say you have three tags called Weather, Good Weather, Bad Weather. If you only enter "w" today, it would only show Weather, so you can just press "w" and then enter to tag the note with Weather. With my & your preference, those people would have to scroll everytime, as both Bad Weather and Good Weather would display before and Enter would pick Bad Weather, and there is no way to type differently to only show Weather.

However, I do believe those people are in the clear minority.

[Aseem Bansal 19]

It should be possible to add a checkbox to turn on or off this feature in settings.

[jyc23 35]

On 7/18/2016 at 4:26 PM, Aseem Bansal said:

Hi

It would be great if the tag autocomplete works in a better way when adding tags to the note. Currently it starts from the first alphabet

e.g. I have tags the following 3 tags - > apple, green apple, black apple

If I type a then the autocomplete just shows me apple. It would be great if it also shows the other 2 options. I use multi word tags and sometimes I am trying to type from the 2nd word. I know it is a small thing to start typing from the beginning but it would be more intuitive if it works like this.

Thanks

Aseem Bansal

Here is a workaround that allows you to keep your existing tag system. What you need to do is first open the note that you want to tag into its own window (e.g. by double-clicking on it in the note list). Then, go back to the main window and click on Tags to show the full list of tags. The search in the full list of tags does partial matching anywhere in the tag, so just type a few characters in (like "apple") and you'll the tags that contain "apple" anywhere in them. Then just click and drag the desired tag(s) from the filtered tag list to the note which is open in the other window. 

The iOS version of the app behaves the way that you describe, so I'd be willing to bet the Windows version will be updated to follow shortly ..

[gustavgi 295]

A better workaround that has been introduced more recently is that you can now drag and drop a search result from the ctrl+q search onto the note body.

[contributor 0]

7 hours ago, csihilling said:

One option available is Match tags by word prefix in the Tag Picker.  For adding a tag to a search it works per the below.

1. When checked, the results are based upon the beginning of the tag.
2. When not checked, the results are based upon the sequence of characters entered.

When adding a tag, either the drop down in the note header or Ctrl-Alt-T it only works per the beginning of the tag.  Which does not make sense based upon the title of the option or the help text.  Doesn't bother me since I prefer search from the beginning of the tag, but still doesn't look right unless I am missing something.

 

Great find!  I'm having some trouble following a few things though:

1. What are your steps for "adding a tag to a search"?

2. Agreed that the option doesn't seem to affect the drop-down in the note header, or Ctrl-Alt-T dialog.  The note does mention a "Tag Picker" though - is that something else within the app?  I only found the "Tag View", which has a search, but also doesn't seem to be affected by this option.

3. Further on the previous point, the Evernote help does not have any references to "Tag Picker", even though it appears to be a formal "thing", given the capitalization, and so I couldn't find any more information in the Help info (this is a note for Evernote folks).

 

[Rob Freundlich 109]

On 9/28/2017 at 6:09 PM, gustavgi said:

A better workaround that has been introduced more recently is that you can now drag and drop a search result from the ctrl+q search onto the note body.

The problem with this workaround is that it requires using the mouse. If you're a user who prefers the keyboard, this interrupts your flow.