Half-baked features

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Posted by Luhmann
May 4, 2021 at 06:28 AM

This is a bit of a followup on my post about task management in note taking apps. What I really wanted to say was that it really bothers me how many apps these days add a whole bunch of features without bothering to fully support or implement them. Add the ability to have a check list in a note, without having a way to see all unchecked items across your notebook was just one example, but there are others:

- Tags without any way to rename or organize your tags
- Backlinks without the ability to filter the list of backlinks
- Collaborative editing without any way to see a history of what changes others have made
- Import but no export

I’m sure there are more, but these are the first that come to mind. With so many new apps entering the market these days, it often feels like they rush to add a bunch of features so that they can list them on their website, but don’t do the work to make sure that these features actually function in a useful way. While it is true that some apps might improve these features later on, in my experience many of these features are never properly implemented if they aren’t done well right at the beginning.

Posted by MadaboutDana
May 4, 2021 at 11:14 AM

Yes, I’d have to agree with your comments. And in fact, this is why it’s so important to work with developers, urging them to include the features that will make their apps indispensable, rather than the latest in a long list of less-than-optimized attempts.

I think your point about the filtering of back-links is an excellent one – I hadn’t really thought about it, but it makes absolute sense. I shall suggest it to Eduard at NotePlan!

Posted by Simon
May 4, 2021 at 03:49 PM

I’ve been using a plaintext file with everything in for a while and it’s been pretty useful. The most powerful thing in any app in my opinion is a good search. I’ve been using BBEdit’s ‘Find All’ feature which is superb. It just filters all the lines with the search criteria. You can create your own # or @ tags and filter by them and see every line with that item on.

Posted by MadaboutDana
May 4, 2021 at 07:25 PM

Searches that filter are a great idea – I didn’t realise BBEdit did that. I’ve been doing the same thing with Excel, but it’s horribly limited…

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