Hierarchical notecards

[aechallu]

I would like to propose a hierarchical note stream.

My proposal to implement this is to make the headers from paragraphs starting with "#". The latter is my favorite because it's more multimarkdown-like.

In the note fields, they would look almost the same as in the current implementation:

Code: Select all

# TITLE

@65 this is a note

@67 another note

# ANOTHER TITLE

@90 yet another note

But in notestream mode, this would make it easier to navigate notes and easily identify themes. Headers would be identifiable with a different background color (i.e. a darker shade of yellow/orange?), and may be just one or two lines long. By clicking on the cute arrow thingies the user would collapse/expand headers (ideally it would also work with right/left key as it is standard in most OSX apps). Mail's thread interface may provide some ideas on this.

I hope this makes sense and looks like an useful feature to consider in the future.

Thanks!

[Jon]

Not quite sure I got this. You want to make a note that begins with a # a folder? And when you opened the folder the notecards in contains would be made visible? Is that it? If so, how would you indicate end-of-folder? An empty line containing only #?

Jon
Sonny Software

[aechallu]

I made a mockup of what I'm thinking on.

The first image is the current setup, using an actual record from my database.

current.jpg (55.51 KiB) Viewed 12614 times

This is my proposal. In the Notes field I identified the headers or folders with "# " (it can be anything else, maybe a choice?) and the notestream view interprets them as headers with a different size and color coding:

proposed-expanded.jpg (49.71 KiB) Viewed 12614 times

That's the default view. The user can collapse headers by clicking on the arrow (or pressing the right arrow), and this is what it'll look like:

proposed-collapsed.jpg (31.74 KiB) Viewed 12614 times

The collapsed header shows that it has 4 notecards in it, similar to the Mail.app interface to message threads.

Two notes: 1) the notecard sizes are still fixed, the only difference is that headers have two lines; 2) To me the color coding and size would be a great benefit to easily identify the structure of the notes. The collapse/expand feature may be useful, may be not.

I hope it makes better sense now!

Thanks for your time.

[ozean]

Interesting idea!

[Jon]

Yes, it is interesting. I'll add this to the list of feature requests and think some more about how something like it could be implemented.

Jon
Sonny Software

[Jon]

I'm resurrecting this thread to get feedback. It's not possible for me to implement this entire feature request, but it wouldn't be difficult to add headers in the note stream. What I propose is, as the OP requested, to use the # character in the Notes field to denote a header. Headers would be displayed at full height and not be collapsable. But they would be shown in a different color (probably light gray), and the text would be centered and in bold face. Headers would be draggable and editable, just like notecards.

Would people find this useful, or not?

Jon
Sonny Software

[ozean]

Useful.

[w.yaqoob]

Definitely useful.

[Jon]

How about this?

Jon
Sonny Software

[Jon]

Does the lack of comments mean the people asking for this feature are happy with this? Or they no longer care? Please comment, one way or the other.

Jon
Sonny Software

[w.yaqoob]

Do the headers need to be centered? I think they'd look better left-aligned.

More importantly, if they have to be displayed full height then I think I'd reverse my earlier support; I'm not sure the significant screen estate they take up would be worth it in that case.

[Jon]

They're not centered. They're indented a bit.

Creating variable height cells would require completely rewriting the listbox, which hardly seems worth it for this small, cosmetic feature. It would be possible to split the cell and use the top for a colored and bolded header and the bottom for text (each ~2 lines, with an ellipsis if they run over). Or I'm open to other suggestions.

But I'll take this as a "no" for the concept I posted. Thanks for the feedback.

Jon
Sonny Software

[w.yaqoob]

Sorry Jon, obviously I'd prefer other users to come in before you shelve it, but if no comments are forthcoming...

[Jon]

Sure, I want to hear from others, too. BTW, if we tweak the concept a bit so that the header applies to the associated note (rather than necessarily a stream of notecards), we come up with something I think is more pleasing (make sure to scroll down the image so you see the difference in size between a notecard with and without a header. What does everyone think (looks and usefulness)?

Jon
Sonny Software

[Wanderer]

I like the second choice. It looks better for me.


Wanderer