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Posted by dan7000
Nov 18, 2010 at 06:38 PM
Hi Rael,
See below for some responses
Rael Bauer wrote:
>Hi Dan,
>
>Thanks for your post. I found your work-flow description and reasons for
>choosing EN to be enlightening..
>
Thanks!
>However..question:
>I used EN a while back
>(around the time of 3.0), mostly for odds and ends. As time went by, I found the more I put
>into it, the more difficult it became to actually “know where anything is..”. A single
>tag would include more and more stuff (notes), and become more and more vague…and
>less useful at containing a specific set of information.
>
Hm. I guess I haven’t had that problem.
>So do you then spend a lot of
>time (or considerable amount of time) adding numerous tags to each note?
No. I usually tag once when I create the note. The nice thing about tags is that I don’t really care if I get them right. (In contrast, with folders, you have to get it perfect because a note can only be in one folder, so you will never find it if you put it in the wrong place.) Some notes have no tags, some have 3. Rarely more than that. Some types of information I rigorously tag one way, other types I am lazy about.
> And then
>again, when searching for a note or group of notes you have to create a search query of
>all relevant tags to get back that information. (I guess EN does allow to save search
>queries…maybe that is then important for you).
No. I generally search for the *content* of the note, rather than for tags. I will often click on a tag in the left pane of evernote to narrow the search, then type in some content to search for.
>
>Although a hierarchical tree has
>it’s drawbacks..it seems (to me) to be the more natural way to group data together.
>Essentially simply adding a note in a specific place, by context, is like adding all
>the tags you would otherwise need to add. And then also, finding a group of related
>information is also simple. When you go to one note, you immediately see related
>information. With my experience of tags, you seem to lose that.
In EN, If I click on a tag that specifies a client name, I see all notes related to that client. How is that different from what you describe?
The advantage of tags is that I don’t have to decide on one place to store a note—I can have multiple tags for each note. With folder-based systems I find I am always second-guessing which folder I put something in. Should it be “client name” or “IP Law” or “Team meetings?” It is much faster and easier for me to not have to make these decisions.
>
>As said, I was
>working mainly with bits and pieces of data, so these points didn’t matter as much, but
>if you are using EN for groups of serious information, I’m wondering how you get
>by??
>
>Thanks
>Rael
>www.bauerapps.com
Posted by Daly de Gagne
Nov 18, 2010 at 07:13 PM
Rael, I have a similar concern w EN in terms of having a sense of dis-ease as to knowing where everything is.
When I use folders, in Surfulater for example, I make clones of an item and put it into more than one folder.
I guess when selecting a variety of tags for an item that could be thought of as a similar kind of process except we are bringing the categorization to the item, rather than the item to a variety of folders.
Either way can be problematic once there are 1,000s of items.
Searches work well as long as the word being searched for is in the item - thus the need for tags, which often may match, but not always, specific words in an item.
I prefer a combination of tags and folders - folders being a structure which I set, and having multiple levels thru sub fodlders.
Unfortunately most tagging systems let you search for an item using only one tag at a time.
InfoHandler, once actively developed, was phenomenal at allowing one to search based on a combination of tags.
Surfulater has a neat system of automatically reflecting in its tag tree occurances of an item with two tags.
In Surfulater I use both tags and folders and have a much greater sense of where stuff is, and being able to access items quickly and reliably.
A hope I’d have for Surfulater is that it would allow me to search for only those items having tags B, F, H, and X where the alphabet letters are representing for this example specific tags in my tag tree. Then Surfulater would be as functional tag wise as InfoHandler was.
Daly
Rael Bauer wrote:
>Hi Dan,
>
>Thanks for your post. I found your work-flow description and reasons for
>choosing EN to be enlightening..
>
>However..question:
>I used EN a while back
>(around the time of 3.0), mostly for odds and ends. As time went by, I found the more I put
>into it, the more difficult it became to actually “know where anything is..”. A single
>tag would include more and more stuff (notes), and become more and more vague…and
>less useful at containing a specific set of information.
>
>So do you then spend a lot of
>time (or considerable amount of time) adding numerous tags to each note? And then
>again, when searching for a note or group of notes you have to create a search query of
>all relevant tags to get back that information. (I guess EN does allow to save search
>queries…maybe that is then important for you).
>
>Although a hierarchical tree has
>it’s drawbacks..it seems (to me) to be the more natural way to group data together.
>Essentially simply adding a note in a specific place, by context, is like adding all
>the tags you would otherwise need to add. And then also, finding a group of related
>information is also simple. When you go to one note, you immediately see related
>information. With my experience of tags, you seem to lose that.
>
>As said, I was
>working mainly with bits and pieces of data, so these points didn’t matter as much, but
>if you are using EN for groups of serious information, I’m wondering how you get
>by??
>
>Thanks
>Rael
>www.bauerapps.com
Posted by Daly de Gagne
Nov 18, 2010 at 07:16 PM
Dan there are a number of program which enable one to put an item into more than one folder by cloning - eg Surfulater, MyInfo, UltraRecall, to name three.
Daly
dan7000 wrote:
>Hi Rael,
>
>See below for some responses
>
>
>Rael Bauer wrote:
>>Hi Dan,
>>
>>Thanks for
>your post. I found your work-flow description and reasons for
>>choosing EN to be
>enlightening..
>>
>
>Thanks!
>
>>However..question:
>>I used EN a while back
>
>>(around the time of 3.0), mostly for odds and ends. As time went by, I found the more I
>put
>>into it, the more difficult it became to actually “know where anything is..”. A
>single
>>tag would include more and more stuff (notes), and become more and more
>vague…and
>>less useful at containing a specific set of information.
>>
>
>Hm. I
>guess I haven’t had that problem.
>
>>So do you then spend a lot of
>>time (or
>considerable amount of time) adding numerous tags to each note?
>
>No. I usually tag
>once when I create the note. The nice thing about tags is that I don’t really care if I get
>them right. (In contrast, with folders, you have to get it perfect because a note can
>only be in one folder, so you will never find it if you put it in the wrong place.) Some
>notes have no tags, some have 3. Rarely more than that. Some types of information I
>rigorously tag one way, other types I am lazy about.
>
>> And then
>>again, when
>searching for a note or group of notes you have to create a search query of
>>all
>relevant tags to get back that information. (I guess EN does allow to save search
>
>>queries…maybe that is then important for you).
>
>No. I generally search for the
>*content* of the note, rather than for tags. I will often click on a tag in the left pane
>of evernote to narrow the search, then type in some content to search for.
>
>
>>
>>Although a hierarchical tree has
>>it’s drawbacks..it seems (to me) to be the
>more natural way to group data together.
>>Essentially simply adding a note in a
>specific place, by context, is like adding all
>>the tags you would otherwise need to
>add. And then also, finding a group of related
>>information is also simple. When you
>go to one note, you immediately see related
>>information. With my experience of
>tags, you seem to lose that.
>
>In EN, If I click on a tag that specifies a client name, I
>see all notes related to that client. How is that different from what you
>describe?
>
>The advantage of tags is that I don’t have to decide on one place to store a
>note—I can have multiple tags for each note. With folder-based systems I find I am
>always second-guessing which folder I put something in. Should it be “client name” or
>“IP Law” or “Team meetings?” It is much faster and easier for me to not have to make these
>decisions.
>
>
>
>>
>>As said, I was
>>working mainly with bits and pieces of data, so
>these points didn’t matter as much, but
>>if you are using EN for groups of serious
>information, I’m wondering how you get
>
>>by??
>>
>>Thanks
>>Rael
>>www.bauerapps.com
Posted by Rael Bauer
Nov 18, 2010 at 08:52 PM
@Dan
> (In contrast, with folders, you have to get it perfect because a note can
>only be in one folder, so you will never find it if you put it in the wrong place.)
Unless the search is good…
>The advantage of tags is that I don’t have to decide on one place to store a
>note—I can have multiple tags for each note. With folder-based systems I find I am
>always second-guessing which folder I put something in. Should it be “client name” or
>“IP Law” or “Team meetings?” It is much faster and easier for me to not have to make these
>decisions.
Oh well…your needs / way of working must be different to mine..
I haven’t really used tags all that much. In my experience though, as you say with tags “the nice thing .. is that I don?t really care if I get them right” - so then if you use slightly different tags, your info gets split into different parts. And on the other hand if you are careful to put info into the same tag then the tag gets “overloaded” i.e. contains unrelated stuff, and loses it’s meaning.
I guess for me, when I move to a note it is important to see related information (in hierarchical fashion - i.e. closely related…sub related..etc..). With tagging you don’t seem to get that easily.
Anyway interesting discussion :)
-Rael
Posted by Rael Bauer
Nov 18, 2010 at 08:54 PM
@Daly
>Unfortunately most tagging systems let you search for an item using only
>one tag at a time.
Well for example EN allows multi tag search..
-Rael