Manual order for Notebooks and notes

Features & ideas
1

Hi @craftzdog
I wonder if there is any possibility to implement manual order/sort for notebooks and notes.

Currently, I’ve to use numbers to have a slight sense of control. The worst is a notebook I named Z9 - Personal just to make sure it’s the last notebook as I had to number other notebooks to be on the top.

Even in numbered notes, I have to make sure to write 2 digit number to keep the correct order

image
so I have to do it this way

image

Here is how the notebooks look

image

I would really appreciate if manual order is implemented

Thanks

1 Like
2

Hi King,

Thank you for the suggestion as always.
I’d like to know why you need manual order for notebooks and notes.
Maybe I think it’s a usage issue rather than the app design.
Because I think manual order is for wiki-like purposes.
Inkdrop is basically designed for note-taking, not for writing documents or things like that.
It would, of course, be nice to write various things with it though, it can’t be perfect for everything.
Personally, I don’t need to sort notes or notebooks manually for my daily note-taking.
Notebooks should be organized in a structured way.
They should not be like a long list like you have to sort manually.
That’s why Inkdrop supports nested notebooks.
That’s my perspective.

On top of that, the features that I don’t use tend to be broken.
If I added them, left them, then they will be soon broken by other changes.
So, I have to carefully understand and agree with why you need them.
I’m afraid to say no at the moment.

3

Hi @craftzdog
I take notes and documentation for:

  • Work projects managements and tracking
  • Training courses summarization which needs to order my notes per modules and chapters and its topics
  • My technical documentations
    • There are many notes are ordered based on its topics

To circumvolve this issue, I had to put numbers in each title to force sort by title A-Z

I wish I can take a screenshot but it’s going to expose too much.

Side notes: I’ve been using markdown for sefl-documentations and other porpuses for more than 10 years now. Markdown notes always turn to documentation. If it’s just about taking simple notes, then most people won’t need all the great features in Inkdrop or its community plugins.

I understand that you are trying to keep it as simple as possible for maintainability and expandability, which totally makes sense.

Thank you

1 Like
4

Thank you for the explanation! Happy to know how you use it.

  • There are many notes are ordered based on its topics

You can also change the order by modifying the created date time here:

Screen_Shot_2021-02-21_at_16_04_10
Screen_Shot_2021-02-21_at_16_04_10920×1020 245 KB

Hope it helps a bit with your use-case.

Manual ordering sounds useful but I don’t think it solves the issue in my experience because it takes time to manage notes.
Maybe you don’t agree with that, but the app should be an opinionated software instead of being as flexible as possible to please everyone.
Inkdrop has already a lot of features, and now the main big issue is performance as I wrote in the current roadmap.
I’m working hard to make it “just work without frictions” at the moment.
Last week, downloading images has been significantly improved. And the mobile app performance will be significantly improved as well soon.
I believe that those efforts will absolutely make the most existing users happy.

Thank you for your understanding!

5

Thanks man for taking the time to explain your point. I totally agree with that and I understand your point.
Yes, working on the performance and perfecting the exciting feature is more important.

I will continue using Inkdrop with all its great features, it’s absolutely worth it.

Meanwhile, let’s make inkdrop fast and less memory consumers together.

cheers!

1 Like
6

Thanks!!

7

Hi @craftzdog , would like to have this feature for the Active tasks section as I think prioritizing tasks are very important and is the one missing feature stopping me from using Inkdrop vs a seperate todo app.

8

Hmm, I haven’t ever needed manual-ordering notes myself, to be honest.
I don’t know your workflow but you can click tags on the sidebar while holding Cmd to filter the current notes by tags. So you can see only notes with a tag like ‘important’.

9

What if you need to do something step by step?
i.e.

  • Set up Firebase backend
  • Set up frontend
  • Deploy to App Store
    etc.

If it can’t be added on core app, could it possibly be done via creating a plugin?

10

I don’t strictly manage tasks on the note app.
I would create a note that includes those tasks with checkboxes like:

- [ ] Set up Firebase backend
- [ ] Set up frontend
- [ ] Deploy to App Store

BTW, recently, I found that this approach is kind of annoying.
I would write rather something like so:

## Set up Firebase backend

Task and memo

## Set up frontend

Task and memo

## Deploy to App Store

Task and memo

When I finish working one of them, I add a checkmark emoji like:

## ✅ Set up Firebase backend

or, add a checked tasklist item:

## Set up Firebase backend

- [x] Done
11

In

  • Set up Firebase backend
  • Set up frontend
  • Deploy to App Store

I think the problem here is that the tasks are not easy to jump through, i.e. if you want notes for Set up frontend you will have to scroll and dig through to find it, which becomes confusing when there are a lot of them.

What do you think of an idea for a Table Of Contents Plugin similar to the sidetoc one, but for tasks that you can jump through and even check? Task statistics can also be in there, i.e. % progress and it should preserve subtasking (through indentation).

12

That’s interesting.
Before adding more features to the editor, I’d like to upgrade the core editor component from CodeMirror v5 to v6 and the Markdown renderer to the new version.
That will involve many breaking changes though, it must be done for the app’s longevity.
The mobile version has been already migrated to the new versions.
After that, I’ll be happy to consider adding navigations like sidetoc.
Thanks for the feedback as always!