The popup window for publishing notes (Note > Publish note...) is a little confusing and could easily be improved:
The Issue:
When pressing the button for "Copy Shareable Link", the user (especially me) can easily be unsure about whether they're publishing, generating a new link, generating a different link or just copying an existing link. This confusion is increased by the Share icon that appears for already-published notes. Clicking this icon doesn't share the note - it unpublishes instead.
The Proposed Solution:
Have three buttons as follows:
"Publish Note and Create Shareable Link" - this button does just what it says, and some sort of waiting graphic appears while the publishing is done.
"Copy Shareable Link" - this button simply copies the link to the clipboard. This button should be greyed out until the publishing has been done.
"Unpublish Note" - this button stops the note being published to the internet. Clicking it would first generate a warning/confirmation clarifying that the note would no longer be available on the internet and perhaps (if this is true) that re-publishing the note will result in a different Shareable Link. This button would also be greyed out when a note is not yet published.
I agree. I extensively publish notes on via my self-hosted Joplin server - I have over 50 published notes, and this dialog box trips-me-up often. Your suggesstions are spot-on.
One feature I would like added is to be able to customize the URL. Such as:
Yes. Very much like this. I agree completely. I use this feature a lot and keep being confused by it. Furthermore, the copy shareable link would make what I do, which is paste the link into the bottom of each note, unnecessary. I often share a link many times over some months and am still confused by the interface. I’m afraid to copy the shareable link button and instead paste the link at the bottom of the note so I can copy it.
I would like to add a fourth point to these suggestions:
#4 If the note is no longer published Joplin now says “Not found” when you open the (now invalid) URL. This is fine.
But Joplin also show link “Go to login page”…. That link should be removed as there is no reason for anyone to log in to the server in that context.
It’d be lovely to get a response on this thread from someone in the development team, perhaps @laurent ? I tried to phrase the request in a clear and actionable way. There’s clearly support for it and it remedies a weakness in the GUI. From a coding point of view, I’d imagine it’s simple to implement. I’d love to see this request move into the github development process.