Can I sort notes manually

Yorkshireman · 2019-03-27T23:15:19.303Z

Lovin’ Joplin, but having one sticking point.

I am trying to use it for write a non-fiction book using notebooks and notes. Problem is Joplin won’t seem to let me order the notes manually, which means they either appear in a chronological order or in title order. Neither allows me to easily reorganize the notes in to the order I need them to be in.

I’m used to using Scrivner where I take this for granted so it has really put a spanner in the works for me with Joplin.

Hope someone has some ideas.

CalebJohn · 2019-03-28T01:30:34.146Z

What I’ve seen recommended before is to name your notes with leading numbers. E.g.
01 chapter one
02 chapter two
03 chapter three
Etc.

It’s not the most beautiful solution but it should do what you want.

foxmask · 2019-03-28T06:04:06.760Z

Hi welcome
I'll answer like @calebjohn and will wait for a tip or solution from @laurent in case a non sorted solution exists

Yorkshireman · 2019-03-28T12:54:49.682Z

Yes. That's the way I've been doing it so far, but it is far from idea as if I want t insert several notes between 2 and 3 I end uo with 02a, 02b, 02c, etc. Makes it look messy.

I think there are many occasions where being able to manually sort notes would be useful such as prioritizing a list of things to work on, sorting out notes I've edited and ones I haven't etc.

I take it for granted that you can do this kind of thing in Scrivener, but totally understand it adds a whole new need for recording the current manual sort order.

Have to say though, that with a few tweaks here and there, Joplin could be an excellent writers tool in which they could store all of their work from multiple projects.

Keep up the great work - you've done an AMAZING job so far - and if it is ever possible to add manual sorting of notes, note status (e.g. ability to set it to draft, completed, etc), and a built-in thesaurus then I'll be a fan forever

foxmask · 2019-03-28T14:43:28.984Z

One thing I did is to create one note that just own link between others notes
Thus this “summary note” is ordered as I want and whereever the note is located in joplin
So I created a note , then slide the notes into this “summary” notes, one link under the other.
I try to put a picture to show you

Screenshot_20190328-154359.png1080×1920 282 KB

Screenshot_20190328-154409.png1080×1920 174 KB

that way I have a summary note, and in the footer of each one I added link to summary note + next note and + previous note, so I can go back and forth

Yorkshireman · 2019-03-28T16:23:47.810Z

That’s an excellent idea. I will give that a go. It would also give me a chance to add some summary notes for each chapter/section in that overview document so that’s actually a benefit. Thanks!

foxmask · 2019-03-28T17:58:09.287Z

Happy that suits your needs

tessus · 2019-03-28T18:31:15.930Z

@Yorkshireman Welcome to the forum!

I’d love to give you a more satisfactory answer, but there’s no manual sorting option available. From a technical standpoint I’d say this would be a rather complex change, but I might be wrong. I’m not sure, if @laurent has ever considered adding that.
Until then, you will have to use one of the workarounds above.

CalebJohn · 2019-03-29T00:57:29.788Z

It looks like he said the backend is there, and it just needs to be implemented

github.com/laurent22/joplin

Issue: Re-order notes/to-dos

opened by internetjanitor on 2017-12-01

Operating system
[X ] Windows
Application
[X ] Desktop

When dragging a note, the cursor changes to indicate that it's being dragged but the order...

enhancement essential

wikispish · 2019-03-29T17:32:50.913Z

If you choose the numbering scheme as a workaround, start with 000 and increment by, say, 100 for chapters and 10 for sections. That makes it much easier to insert/rearrange the sort order.

000 Intro
010 Intro text
090 Thank yous (give it a high 10 number bc I’m pretty sure I want it to be the last section in the chapter)
100 Overview
110 History of the issue
112 Problems Remaining (oops, I left this part out!)
120 Persons Involved
200 Possible Solutions
300 Getting Funding
400 Implementation
500 Conclusion

Yorkshireman · 2019-03-30T20:12:39.119Z

Good suggestions @wikispish. I will do that.