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What is Evernote's rational for not allowing more deeply nested notebooks?


J Henry

Idea

I've looked over the 33 page long thread regarding more deeply nested notebooks and some other threads. The only posts from verified Evernote employees that I saw only offered alternatives to notebook nesting (which is usually the hierarchical tagging system), which seem to have been clearly identified as useful, but not identified as negating the use of a more "folder" or "directory" like hierarchy, which also clearly seems to be desired by many many users.

Personally, I'm at the point where I will be looking for an alternative, or making my own.. probably using Github, and making a small OSX wrapper app that is just a text editor along side the repository so I can make many generations of happy little folders. I'm sad to say that, because Evernote is superb in every way except this one, but this is the one I need most.

My question is to Evernote, what are your reasons for not implementing this feature?

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2 hours ago, TheMagicWombat said:

Let me put it into perspective so the Fans might be able to understand: I do not have a toothache. Been... decades since I have had one. But if I was to be out with a pal who had a toothache, it might be helpful for me to suggest that swishing some cool water on it might help. If my friend says that he has already tried that, and what he really needs is his oil of clove, it would be really, really wrong for me to then state:

"Well, I have no need for oil of clove, and I think swishing water over it works just as well so you don't know what you are talking about! Just swish water or not, up to you, but you do not need oil of clove!" 

True, I have tried to be helpful, but when I then told my friend he didn't know what he needed and I did, I was wrong--in a lot of ways. 

Your analogy is more like your friend going to the dentist office, and being upset that they don't sell oil of clove.
He stays there for days, declaring oil of clove is the best solution.

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3 hours ago, gazumped said:

I have the same problem with nested folders/ notebooks as I do with tags - accumulate enough of them and you start to forget where things are filed. 

Bingo!  EN is a good place to store things, but a so much better place to find things.  Notebooks and tags are ways to condense the search results when needed.  The fewer the better.  Who cares where the note is, let the Big Dog eat with search.  ?

If folks want nested notebooks and EN provides, fine by me.  But as per @jefito, I wouldn't use.  

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This debate boils down to two sides:

 

1. The Tags Fans. They state: "Tags work just as well."

2. The Nested Notes/Folders Needers. They state: "No they do not. I've tried it your way, and it is not as good!" 

The Fans just don't get it--they think that just because they don't need nesting, no one else should.

The Needers have tried all the work-around solutions, and having been faced with a specific need that the work-arounds simply do not fill.

As others have said, this subject has been discussed to death. Based upon a search for the subject, it is a subject that has been discussed to death^2. It gets brought up a lot, and the debate always boils down to two sides stating the above. 

Let me put it into perspective so the Fans might be able to understand: I do not have a toothache. Been... decades since I have had one. But if I was to be out with a pal who had a toothache, it might be helpful for me to suggest that swishing some cool water on it might help. If my friend says that he has already tried that, and what he really needs is his oil of clove, it would be really, really wrong for me to then state:

"Well, I have no need for oil of clove, and I think swishing water over it works just as well so you don't know what you are talking about! Just swish water or not, up to you, but you do not need oil of clove!" 

True, I have tried to be helpful, but when I then told my friend he didn't know what he needed and I did, I was wrong--in a lot of ways. 

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To make the analysis complete you should add the "Wild Westers", those who say you don't need tag or notebook structures.  

And I'm not really saying folks don't need nested notebooks, just I don't.  EN's call as to whether or not to add, and we know how that sits at the moment. 

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Nobody is saying anyone's wrong to wish for one or the other (although some folks seem to take explanation as opposition..:)).  There's no debate here,  just the basic fact that 1) no folder hierarchy is currently available,  and 2)  see 1.

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45 minutes ago, TheMagicWombat said:

1. The Tags Fans. They state: "Tags work just as well."

Wrong. You need to re-read the posts. The correct statement is:

1. The Tag Fans. They state: "Tags work better than nested folders."

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15 minutes ago, TheMagicWombat said:

The Fans just don't get it--they think that just because they don't need nesting, no one else should.

Not true. We tend to stick with Evernote as it is because we like the idea of tagging and it works well for us. I'm in favor of people finding tools that work well for them; if Evernote doesn't work well for you without nested notebooks, then it's probably not a good choice for you. On the other hand, I do realize that some people don't have choice in the matter, or find enough value in Evernote to want to use it, but also want changes that make it a better tool for them; fair enough. I get that. But muddying the waters with weird claims or false analogies; I don't see how that helps anyone...

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1 hour ago, csihilling said:

Bingo!  EN is a good place to store things, but a so much better place to find things.  Notebooks and tags are ways to condense the search results when needed.  The fewer the better.  Who cares where the note is, let the Big Dog eat with search.

This might be true. Maybe the Evernote people have a more specific use case for evernote than some of their users do. Statistically speaking, that is very likely true. But you end up getting many people with very different organizational styles using it. 

That leads to my curiosity about why they wouldn't add it, which based on the evidence, will not be answered by the Evernote team :(

6 hours ago, gazumped said:

Nest tags how you like (I think it's us users that decided nesting tags was a good way to emulate a folder hierarchy) but I've seen folks who used parent tags A - Z to collapse lots of tags into 26 lines,  and those who use Personal and Business (and all the other possible variations) to collapse them into two. 

Haha, those are clever solutions, but seems it would be a pain in the butt to use A-Z listed tags. I suppose I do not have the problem @gazumped has. I like to use a directory structure, and rarely have a hard time finding things. But that is mostly because I don't use search very often. Instead, I already know which notebook to go to, and that breaks my notes down enough to only have to look through a few notes to find the note I want. Searching has always been such a pain in the butt when you can make 1 click on the left nav to get to the note you want.

I am tired of this conversation, honestly. Haha. 

Anyway if anyone wants to keep discussing features, you can always start discussing why Evernote built in stacks at all for just two layers of hierarchy. That ought to keep the discussion going :D

Thanks for all the input everyone. 

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5 hours ago, DTLow said:

I'm not opposed to nesting for notebooks
I didn't up vote because I have very few notebooks; I find tags serve the purpose for organization.

I'm not actually opposed either; if they were added, I probably wouldn't use them. 

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1 hour ago, jbenson2 said:

Wrong. You need to re-read the posts. The correct statement is:

1. The Tag Fans. They state: "Tags work better than nested folders."

I stand corrected. You offer, sadly, a better example.

What the Tag Fans don't realize is that for some of us, our own brain is the best tool we have, and nesting things within hierarchies helps us to decide what goes where not just in the program, but also in our brains. I am making do with Evernote, but what I have done is what everyone else who wishes to organize their data has been forced to do--treat tags as notebooks/folders. I literally have two notebooks: 

 

Collection Box

Processed

 

Once a note has been tagged, it goes into "Processed" to sit with every other tagged note that I have. I then look down at my tags, and pretend those are notebooks/folders. However, unlike true notebooks/folders, there is one vulnerability that the tagging system carries with it that folders/notebooks do not--orphaned records. It is possible for me to make the mistake of looking at a note, and thinking, "That shouldn't really have this tag" and I click to remove the tag.

*POOF*

At that point in time, the note is lost. It isn't sitting anywhere that I can find it. I would have to browse all of my notes to find it, or get lucky and do a search that happened to dredge that note to the search results.

Barring that, an untagged note is forever lost. 

Yes, I could prevent that from happening--if I create a notebook that corresponds to every tag. In that case, deleting the tag a would not relocate the notebook the note is in. But, it is redundant to build a tag structure that makes sense, and then build a notebook structure that is different--while also being as duplicate of the tag structure as possible.  

 

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32 minutes ago, TheMagicWombat said:

Barring that, an untagged note is forever lost. 

To find untagged notes, you can sort on tags      or    Search   -tag:*

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57 minutes ago, DTLow said:

To find untagged notes, you can sort on tags      or    Search   -tag:*

I did wind up using that command once. Found a handful of notes that were untagged. 

I guess what I should have said is those note will forever be hidden unless you take proactive steps to find them. 

And, it has been months since I have used it... guess I should check now. I am also thinking about making a reminder that on the first of every week, I look for untagged notes.

 

EDIT: That command does not work. Or does not work anymore. I found none untagged, so I deleted the tags from one, and ran that search again. Evernote did not find the untagged note. 

Thoughts?

 

Edit 2: Nevermind -- I found it using that command. But I had to be IN the Notebook it was in.

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2 hours ago, TheMagicWombat said:

Barring that, an untagged note is forever lost.

There's always plain old search.  Notes have been mis-notebooked or mis-tagged or mis-keyworded, without the intent of the operator before.  Might have done it myself once or twice....  :blush:

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On 9/1/2016 at 9:29 PM, TheMagicWombat said:

It hasn't been done because the Evernote team thinks it knows better for you what you should actually be doing than they think you know for yourself.

Mind you, implementing nesting would require a minimal amount of coding skills, and a LOT of people would like, and have worked around somewhat by using tags to simulate notebooks. 

That was my sarcastic answer, bitter over the fact I want notebooks that stack.

Another answer is because they are marketing a feel. You know. Free-flow. Millennial. Not your gray-haried daddy's nested notebook rigic heirarcy database storage system. This is ... Evernote. Forever as free-flowing as a wandering hippy chick at Burning Man...

That was my less sarcastic but still upset answer.

Another answer is... Because they don't have direct competition yet. They will. There will be a product released to challenge Evernote that has Nested Notebooks, and you can best believe that on that day, CEO O'Neil, or whoever replaces him, will through clenched teeth tell his personal assistant, "Release the nested notebooks patch! NOW!!!"

That was my honest answer, looking at my crystal ball I purchased from this strange man at a wandering carnival...

KKKKKK, very good, excellent.

I have been observing a Chinese tool called Wiznote. It is more user friendly, have folders, tags, keywords and bookmarks available in case you want to use one of them, and a lot of other interesting features (tables are superb) and plugins to expand its capabilities.

The biggest problem so far: The English version if half Chinese and half English and sync is terrible. Also the fact that they do not appear to be interested to expand beyond the Chinese´s market. Those issues ruin it all

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3 minutes ago, javiermz said:

I have been observing a Chinese tool called Wiznote. It is more user friendly, have folders, tags, keywords and bookmarks

What, no Notebooks!!

Also, Evernote is multi-platform and multi-language.
I only use English but I've been told other languages are well covered

I feel one of Evernote's strengths is that I'm not restricted to the Evernote editor
When I need word processing features, I simply use a word processing app and attach the file to a note.

I like the Tag feature, but the extended search feature works quite well

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6 minutes ago, DTLow said:

What, no Notebooks!!

Also, Evernote is multi-platform and multi-language.
I only use English but I've been told other languages are well covered

I feel one of Evernote's strengths is that I'm not restricted to the Evernote editor
When I need word processing features, I simply use a word processing app and attach the file to a note.

I like the Tag feature, but the extended search feature works quite well

Well, you can call a folder as notebook or stack, as you prefer , kkkkk

Wiznote do the editing part far better. When editing a note, you can select right in the editing window a third party software. For example, you can determinate that Word will be that editor, so click on an icon and a Word window will be opened, when you finish, click on save and you will have your note inside of Wiznote, but the built-in editor is enough. Maybe you could use Word to put some cliparts on the note. The Wiznote´s code is open-source and I do not know how a western´s company has not used it to build a great product. 

I use Spanish and Portuguese too in Evernote and the spelling/correction is very good

 

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1 hour ago, javiermz said:

When editing a note, you can select right in the editing window a third party software.

I really like that feature.  I'm a great fan of using alternate editors in Evernote, but I admit the process is convoluted.

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18 minutes ago, TheMagicWombat said:

It hasn't been done because the Evernote team thinks it knows better for you what you should actually be doing than they think you know for yourself.

I think the same applies to those know-it-alls at Ford.  I've been arguing for years that every car should have at least five wheels but they arrogantly insist that four is enough.

Of course they keep on saying that they have the data,  the experience,  the market information - and since they make the cars,  they get to choose,  but what do they know?

<_<

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21 hours ago, J Henry said:

My question is to Evernote, what are your reasons for not implementing this feature?

I'm not an Evernote Employee, just a user.

As you observed, EN has not implemented a folder filing methodolgy 
If that's a requirement for you, you should be looking at other products.

Evernote has implemented Notebooks to identify Local/Offline/Sync'd/Shared notes

I can see one reason for not implementing nested Notebooks
The potential confusion, for example having a Local Notebook with sub-Notebooks that are Shared

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8 minutes ago, DTLow said:

The potential confusion, for example having a Local Notebook with sub-Notebooks that are Shared

Local notebooks can't be shared so, in theory, sub-notebooks of local notebooks wouldn't be shareable either.

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7 minutes ago, s2sailor said:

Local notebooks can't be shared so, in theory, sub-notebooks of local notebooks wouldn't be shareable either.

You can implement rules like that, however that is not built into a hierarchy.

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1 hour ago, DTLow said:

You can implement rules like that, however that is not built into a hierarchy.

But that would be one straight forward way to avoid the problem that you suggested.  

I'm with the OP on this one.  I understand that tags are the preferred approach for EN but it would be interesting to hear why sub notebooks are not supported (not that I expect it to ever happen).  Is it a performance hit they are concerned about or some other reason?  They have not budged, well except for adding stacks, since day 1 so they must have a definite reason and it would be interesting to know why.  

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Hi @J Henry,

I went ahead and moved this to the Product Feedback Thread. If you have any future feature requests or suggestions, you can refer to this thread on how and where to post them:

I hope that helps. Please let me know if you have any questions.

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On 08/08/2016 at 9:48 PM, J Henry said:

My question is to Evernote, what are your reasons for not implementing this feature?

Evernote don't usually share roadmaps,  plans,  whatever,  though they are always (see above) happy to get feedback.  So far they haven't released any sort of folder structure beyond Stacks > Notebooks > Notes.  If you'd like to see it happen,  vote at the top left of this page.

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Hi @BSR,

Thanks for responding. My question still lingers. Seeing all the other threads that are feature requests, I decided not to make this thread one. Instead just a question about Evernote's thinking regarding not implementing this feature. e.g. is it something you don't believe in? is it something that is not that important? or maybe is it something you're planing to implement soon?

Hopefully I have made myself clear, I do not mean to suggest that it should be done, or anything else. I am only curious to know why it hasn't been done, and what your thinking is behind that or doing it in the future. This could help me know if it's something I should hold out for. If this is not something you are able to discus, please say so, I will understand.

Thanks

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It hasn't been done because the Evernote team thinks it knows better for you what you should actually be doing than they think you know for yourself.

Mind you, implementing nesting would require a minimal amount of coding skills, and a LOT of people would like, and have worked around somewhat by using tags to simulate notebooks. 

That was my sarcastic answer, bitter over the fact I want notebooks that stack.

Another answer is because they are marketing a feel. You know. Free-flow. Millennial. Not your gray-haried daddy's nested notebook rigic heirarcy database storage system. This is ... Evernote. Forever as free-flowing as a wandering hippy chick at Burning Man...

That was my less sarcastic but still upset answer.

Another answer is... Because they don't have direct competition yet. They will. There will be a product released to challenge Evernote that has Nested Notebooks, and you can best believe that on that day, CEO O'Neil, or whoever replaces him, will through clenched teeth tell his personal assistant, "Release the nested notebooks patch! NOW!!!"

That was my honest answer, looking at my crystal ball I purchased from this strange man at a wandering carnival...

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I have the same problem with nested folders/ notebooks as I do with tags - accumulate enough of them and you start to forget where things are filed. 

Some of my HDD child folders are still duplications - I started to use in-file search app - http://www.x1.com/products/x1_search/ - (paid-for and Windows only,  sorry...^_^) to ensure I could find the 'right' location for any given file,  and collate other similar files on my machine.  Then I got into Evernote and it became academic...  just dump* most things in one place and use the generic search features to sort them out.  :)

* 'Dump' in the sense of using a structured taxonomy within one(ish) destination folder(s)

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While I can appreciate the humor, the analogy is backwards. Most databases and folders allow nesting. This is because things are usually subsets of other things. The most efficient logical order is to start with the largest set and then divide down into smaller sets. This is precisely what you do with your physical folders. You have a file cabinet that is either broken down by subjects, alphabetically, or numerically. Within each draw is a range usually listed on the front of the drawer. Inside the drawer are files. The files are then broken down into sections, and then individual pages or reports. 

What Evernote has done is to take that efficient system, and give everything a tag, and count on the CPU index crunch to allow the computer to find the files you want.  This is akin to placing all files in file cabinets randomly, but using an index system to keep track of what is where. Thus you must first consult the index to find where the files you want are hidden. This system is normally only used when files do not relate to each other--as in client files in a law office, or doctor files in a medical office. In both of those cases, there is no reason for "like" files to be near each other, since every case is often unique. 

However, most of us do not operate in that manner--we have material that is related to each other. E.g. all of my media contacts should be in one spot. With Evernote, I can make a "media contacts" Notebook. But if I wish to further sub divide them down to magazines, radio, and television, I am screwed. There is NO nesting. 

Now, Evernote has allowed us nesting tags. Why? Because they didn't wish to admit that nesting notebooks was a good idea. Think about that, users have to use nesting tags because they want a logical series of sub divisions, and Evernote, rather than admit they were wrong and supply nesting notebooks, opted to have tags EMULATE notebooks! No other reason at ALL for tags to nest. 

None.

So, let's work on that Ford analogy...

For 100 years, cars have had 4 wheels. Some really small ones have three wheels, but those usually can only carry one or two people. Regardless, the front wheels turn. You grew up driving a Ford, and you decide to switch over and drive the new eco-friendly Evernote. But when you start to drive it, you notice it doesn't turn. It only goes straight. You complain, saying you need a car that turns, but the engineers at Evernote only thank you for your input and go on deciding new paint colors and windshield slopes for the next year. A few years later, you find out that the new models of Evernote vehicles DO turn, so you rush out and purchase one! You get in to drive, and when you go to turn, the car advances one car length forward, a center pedestal extends downwards, hydraulics lift the car, and rotate it to the direction you wanted. The pedestal retracts, and the car starts to move forward in your new direction.

Technically, it does now turn. 

You take it back to the dealer and complain, saying the car doesn't turn, it rotates! The dealer, beaming with satisfaction, rebukes you and says the car does turn. You tell him the Evernote system of "turning" is inefficient and other companies around the globe for over a century have used front wheels that turn in both directions, and it is way more efficient.

The dealer smiles and says, "We know what we are doing. You should prefer our method."

There, now the analogy works. 

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53 minutes ago, TheMagicWombat said:

While I can appreciate the humor, the analogy is backwards. Most databases and folders allow nesting. This is because things are usually subsets of other things. The most efficient logical order is to start with the largest set and then divide down into smaller sets. This is precisely what you do with your physical folders. You have a file cabinet that is either broken down by subjects, alphabetically, or numerically. Within each draw is a range usually listed on the front of the drawer. Inside the drawer are files. The files are then broken down into sections, and then individual pages or reports. 

What Evernote has done is to take that efficient system, and give everything a tag, and count on the CPU index crunch to allow the computer to find the files you want.  This is akin to placing all files in file cabinets randomly, but using an index system to keep track of what is where. Thus you must first consult the index to find where the files you want are hidden. This system is normally only used when files do not relate to each other--as in client files in a law office, or doctor files in a medical office. In both of those cases, there is no reason for "like" files to be near each other, since every case is often unique. 

However, most of us do not operate in that manner--we have material that is related to each other. E.g. all of my media contacts should be in one spot. With Evernote, I can make a "media contacts" Notebook. But if I wish to further sub divide them down to magazines, radio, and television, I am screwed. There is NO nesting. 

Now, Evernote has allowed us nesting tags. Why? Because they didn't wish to admit that nesting notebooks was a good idea. Think about that, users have to use nesting tags because they want a logical series of sub divisions, and Evernote, rather than admit they were wrong and supply nesting notebooks, opted to have tags EMULATE notebooks! No other reason at ALL for tags to nest. 

I understand you want the folder methodology to organize your notes.

Evernote doesn't have folders, but you see this item called Notebooks and you're saying Notebooks = Folders.  It seems more logical to think Tags = Folders

Evernote set up Notebooks to identify notes as Local/Syncd/Shared/Offline.  
I'm thinking - Nesting doesn't apply to that function.

In your example "I can make a "media contacts" Notebook, there's nothing stopping you from making a "media contacts" Tag.  You can even create Sub Tags for magazines, radio, and television,

You expressed a concern for the "CPU Index" to identify the location of a note.  
Of course this index applies to Folders, Notebooks, Tags
There are no actual Folders or Notebooks that notes are put in - they're just "CPU Index"

As you said, "Most databases and folders allow nesting".  Evernote allows nesting of tags.

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18 minutes ago, TheMagicWombat said:

There, now the analogy works. 

Due respect for an entertaining argument,  but no,  it doesn't.  At no stage have Evernote ever said "we know best".  They built something that works in a specific way.  It may or may not have been a wise choice to make at the time.  But you have no knowledge of their decision process.  The choice is to either work out how to use it,  or to find some other software. 

Discussions about hierarchy versus tags already occupy a big chunk of the forums,  and Evernote will -someday- make up its mind whether or not to change based on market share,  priorities and competitors.  At the moment,  it appears,  there's either no incentive for them to change,  or they've changed already and the fix is in the pipeline.  We'll find out if and when a new version gets released.

This issue still only has one vote (top left) where some others are now into the high 40's.  I'll be interested to see how far and how fast this one moves.

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2 hours ago, TheMagicWombat said:

CEO O'Neil, or whoever replaces him, will through clenched teeth tell his personal assistant, "Release the nested notebooks patch! NOW!!!"

Haha, lets hope.

@TheMagicWombat, yes, that is more of an accurate analogy.

 

21 minutes ago, DTLow said:

It seems more logical to think Tags = Folders

 Well, if I go to Wallmart I can buy all sorts of notebooks with categories, and sub categories. Some are even extensible so I can make as many levels as I want! 

Also interestingly enough, no where else in all my tech experience have I encountered a nesting tag function (anecdote, I know). It breaks with tradition though, and reverses the dichotomy between hierarchy, and random cross-association.

If all the notebooks are for, as I've heard multiple people on the forum say, is to identify groups of notes as local, shared, etc (I don't use this feature), that is more what a tag is for. Not 100%, because tags are really non-exclusive. Maybe "label" is what is more accurate. And you could still have local/shared notebooks even with more hierarchy.

It's the interface of Evernote that leads to so many people's confusion I think. Setting up notebooks is just like setting up directories in a file browser. But then you find out they don't work that way, and the other feature, tags, which you expected to work like a tag, has this nesting feature. What you gonna do? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I'm not arguing against the nesting tags, I just think it confusing that Evernote decided to sort of switch the two, so now neither is what it seems it should be, at least in reference to previously defined concepts.

19 minutes ago, gazumped said:

This issue still only has one vote (top left)

@gazumped, yeah, this was never intended to be a feature idea, but one of the Evernote team turned it into one. Lol oh well. I was just trying to see if they would answer the question so many of us have. 

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40 minutes ago, DTLow said:

In your example "I can make a "media contacts" Notebook, there's nothing stopping you from making a "media contacts" Tag.  You can even create Sub Tags for magazines, radio, and television,

The problem is that with nested tags tags still must be unique. For example, if I have two top level tags for broad concepts: "concept a" and "concept b". Now both have random assortments of sub-tags, but both also should have a subtag called "subtag a", they cannot both have "subtag a" as a child. "subtag a" must be a top level tag. This destroys the actual usefulness of nested tags unless you are willing to name all tags uniquely. If you're doing that though you're basically just making a rigid directory like structure out of tags, which is not how tags have ever worked, and thats not the purpose of tags. Tags are supposed to be randomly applicable to any item, non-exclusively. At least that's how tags work in every other application that I've seen them used in.

So trying to mimic a directory system with nested tags really isn't the same. You can mimic it, but it's not going to replace it completely, or meet the same usefulness. 

Nested tags have their own usefulness, and it seems they meet many users needs. I wouldn't try to convince people that it's all they need though, but offering it as a potential, incomplete workaround is accurate for what it is.

It's just that for a lot of users, they only need the tree structure, and the tree structure is all they need :D

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2 hours ago, DTLow said:

Evernote doesn't have folders, but you see this item called Notebooks and you're saying Notebooks = Folders.  It seems more logical to think Tags = Folders

No, that's not correct at all. Notebooks are notebooks: containers of notes. They don't contain other notebooks (that would be a Notebookbook??). In the real world, we don't really do that, nor do we nest physical file folders arbitrarily deep.

The flip side is that tags are certainly not folders. Fully nestable folders, such as we find in a file system, imply that a note resides in exactly one branch of the tree, inside exactly one folder. Tags do not have that limitation (though you can impose it on yourself). Tags are labels we can apply to notes to describe them; a note can have multiple tags, and a tag can be applied to multiple notes.

2 hours ago, TheMagicWombat said:

Now, Evernote has allowed us nesting tags. Why? Because they didn't wish to admit that nesting notebooks was a good idea.

?? If they had introduced nested notebooks, then that would be an admission that they thought that nesting notebooks was a good (or necessary business-wise) idea. But they haven't, and tags are not notebooks, as we already know. But yes, tags can be organized into a tree; for the longest time, that's really just seemed to have been a convenience for organizing tags rather than notes (though you can kinda sorta organize notes that way, too). Recently, they added the ability to apply tag hierarchy in searches (something I think is interesting, but probably won't use very often). But tags are still more powerful than folders in many respects.

2 hours ago, TheMagicWombat said:

However, most of us do not operate in that manner--we have material that is related to each other. E.g. all of my media contacts should be in one spot. With Evernote, I can make a "media contacts" Notebook. But if I wish to further sub divide them down to magazines, radio, and television, I am screwed. There is NO nesting. 

I dispute that viewpoint. Utterly, Tags are like adjectives -- they are used to describe things. Things that don't fit into single, neat hierarchies, things in the world: John is a man, John has red hair, John is left-handed, John's last name is Smith. And so on. These are are all tag-like operations, not a single all-encompassing tree operations. We -- all of us -- do this sort of thing, all the time in the real world, naturally and without even thinking about it. And it's even more useful: we can now find all the people named Smith, or who are left-handed women, and on and on. Gosh, even the language that you use: "material that is related to each other" begs for a tag solution, not a folder solution. Things in the real world are related to numerous other things in multiple ways: tags solve that. There are multiple hierarchies in the real world: it can be hard to figure the exact single hierarchy an item belongs in. Your media contacts: what if one is your friend: do you put them in the "media contacts" folder, or your "friends" folder? Or do you just tag with both, and get on with your life? Historical romance fiction, anyone? Um, what's the Dewey Decimal designation for that set of categories?

Tagging is the a Kool Aid that Evernote makes and sells (every company makes Kool Aid of some sort or another), and it's a Kool Aid that I happen to prefer (I got it pretty early on); if I liked someone else's Kool Aid more, I'd use their product, but this works well for me. This is not some PeaceLoveAndUnderstanding hippie smoke they're pushing, as you so blithely (and inaccurately) implied. The concepts analogous to tagging (labeling, applying keywords, categorizing, whatever) are as commonplace, flexible, intuitively applicable, and just plain useful as human language, and used in all sorts of rigorous applications: do keywords on a scientific paper ring a bell? Hierarchies have their place, but tags give you the ability to have multiple hierarchies, all at once.

So why did they choose to focus on tags and eschew fully nestable notebooks? I don't know (and don't really care; I do remember Dave Engberg, the CTO for quite awhile -- and a frequent poster in the forums in my early years here -- would just suggest using tags when asked about nesting notebooks. You can probably still find his postings out on the web, which by the way, we search associatively with Google, not hierarchy-wise as Yahoo had it early on). I've found that I rarely need notebooks, except mainly for sharing collections of notes, but I use tags all the time, plus plain text search.

My usual take is that it's fine to want or prefer nested notebooks, but hanging onto Evernote in hopes that they'll deliver them any time soon is a fool's game (though they might, who knows?). Why not just seek out something else that has that critical feature that you really want, and save yourself the hassle in case Evernote doesn't ever see the light that you seek?

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1 hour ago, jefito said:

No, that's not correct at all. Notebooks are notebooks: containers of notes.
...
The flip side is that tags are certainly not folders.

My reasoning in saying its more logical to say Tags = Folders instead of Notebooks = Folders
is in terms of this discussion i.e. Nesting
-You can nest Tags
- You can't nest Notebooks

When/If EN adds hierarchy to notebooks,
I will agree its more logical to say Notebooks = Folders

I don't disagree with the other points.  To make Tags function like Folders, you have to impose the conditions you identify.  And as @J Henry pointed out, Tag Names have to be unique; Folder names do not.

Back to the discussion, I'm not opposed to nesting for notebooks
I didn't up vote because I have very few notebooks; I find tags serve the purpose for organization.

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7 hours ago, J Henry said:

no where else in all my tech experience have I encountered a nesting tag function

Try adding a tag to that little outfit known as Google Mail (they're 'labels' there) - you get asked 'nest this under...?'

5 hours ago, jefito said:

But yes, tags can be organized into a tree

...and I think this purely cosmetic and due to complaints from users with 1,000+ tags that the left-hand window was too full/ scrolling too slow. 

Nest tags how you like (I think it's us users that decided nesting tags was a good way to emulate a folder hierarchy) but I've seen folks who used parent tags A - Z to collapse lots of tags into 26 lines,  and those who use Personal and Business (and all the other possible variations) to collapse them into two. 

If you needed to have the 'same' tag under both,  you'd need to call them 'psnl_receipts' and 'bus_receipts' or some combination.  It's easy enough to search for both if you need to,  and searching for one wouldn't get hopelessly confusing as it would with two tags named identically.

But if anyone needs any more than this - please search the forums.  The question here is "what's Evernote's rationale" and the answer is - they don't (usually) say,  and despite lots of speculation,  we don't know. 

Evernote is what it is - we just have to deal with it... ;)

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