Joplin is SO superior to Evernote

AdmiralSpunky · 2023-11-01T18:54:18.936Z

Leo:

As for the sorting notes by title, I feel so dumb. Thanks twice!

You can't sort search results; maybe that's what you saw. (Also, Joplin, please let us sort search results!)

Leo · 2023-11-01T19:08:48.907Z

One thing I miss about Evernote is the tagging functionality, where there were hierarchical / nested tags, and case differentiation. There seems to have been a lot of discussion about these in this forum. But these I have learnt to live without.

Ah yes, I forgot to mention that. Also, Evernote had a nice, all-screen view of tags, so we didn't need to view them in the narrow left-side list.

@jb261
Ah, nice! I'll take a look into that plugin.

@AdmiralSpunky
No, I actually meant the regular notes list. But of course it would be absolutely handy to have search results sorted too.

JackGruber · 2023-11-01T19:09:10.682Z

AdmiralSpunky:

Joplin, please let us sort search results

A PR for this feature was not accepted.

github.com/laurent22/joplin

Desktop: Add option to select the search result order

laurent22:dev ← JackGruber:searchOrder

opened 03:39PM - 15 Jan 23 UTC

JackGruber

+213 -118

Add option to select the search result order. ![grafik](https://user-images.git…hubusercontent.com/24863925/212550621-c3bce3b1-0fcb-4957-b3af-002ebf809953.png) The topic of search result order has already come up several times and the relevance (bm25) sorting is not always what the user wants. https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/search-result-order/3763/12 https://discourse.joplinapp.org/t/sort-search-results-by-date/28875 https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/issues/1388 https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/issues/5524 https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/issues/4220 ## Changes made - Add a menue option to sort search results by BM25, title, creation or updated date - BM25 is selected as the default sort order - For title sorting the `localeCompare` is used to get numbers in strings correct sorted - `SearchEngine.test.js` converted into typescript

Leo · 2023-11-01T19:10:50.494Z

Well, the man said it. It's for another day then.

AdmiralSpunky · 2023-11-01T19:12:03.917Z

JackGruber:

A PR for this feature was not accepted.

Yes, I saw. No, I don't agree with that decision. However, I've found that by starting my note titles with YYYY-MM-DD, the search results are mostly in the correct order, and that's good enough for me for now.

Leo · 2023-11-01T19:17:38.430Z

Leo:

The scrollbar CSS: it works! But only on the source (edit) pane. Do you know the element for the rendered markdown pane?

@JackGruber speaking of, remember the CSS on the scrollbar above?

::-webkit-scrollbar {
    width: 12px;
}

Look, it only applies to one pane:

scrollbar1033×639 193 KB

Do you know the selector for the rendered markdown pane?

JackGruber · 2023-11-01T19:30:53.043Z

Add it also to the userstyle.css

former_evernotist · 2023-11-01T23:35:55.415Z

jb261:

This is a feature in the Note Tabs plugin: Plugin: Note Tabs

I think this plugin will resolve this issue for you, as well as resolve an issue you didn't even mention since it's super convenient to be able to pin notes you're working on, separately from Favorites

IMHO both Favourites and Note Tabs should be part of the core functionality of the app. For new users coming from Evernote, OneNote and the like, it's not always easy to understand the plugin system (which can pose a security risk as well).

AFAIK some plugins are going to be integrated in the main code of the app: Thumbs up for this - and let's hope it's materializing soon.

jb261 · 2023-11-01T23:53:38.685Z

I currently have 19 plugins installed, and I consider both Favorites and Note Tabs to be must-haves, so I agree that these should be incorporated into core Joplin.

That said, there are plenty of others that I also think should be incorporated into core Joplin: Automatic Backlinks, Folding in Code Mirror Editor, Hotfolder, Note Overview, Outline, Quick Links, Simple Backup.

There are others that are must-have for my use case, but I think the above are universal must-haves for everyone - though not all Joplin users may have realized those are must-haves!

laurent · 2023-11-02T00:41:52.943Z

One thing to mention regarding search is that our implementation of BM25 was buggy and I'm not sure it was sorting anything at all. It's been fixed in recent version.

What I'd like to investigate next is how much weight it's giving to more recent notes versus older ones.

JackGruber · 2023-11-02T06:41:44.039Z

laurent:

BM25 was buggy

Buggy or not, I think the user should decide how he wants his search results to be sorted and not some algorithm that may or may not work.

laurent · 2023-11-02T09:38:02.010Z

It's the old debate - adding more options may be more user friendly but it also makes the app harder to maintain (and for having refactored the search engine recently, I'm glad there wasn't more complexity).

Also when we add this kind of options as workaround for bugs, it means there's no incentive to actually fix the bugs, and I'd rather just get things working even it may take a bit more time.

JackGruber · 2023-11-02T10:02:10.580Z

laurent:

Also when we add this kind of options as workaround for bugs, it means there's no incentive to actually fix the bugs, and I'd rather just get things working even it may take a bit more time.

I don't know why this should be a work arround. The notes can be sorted (title, creation, modification date and user defined), even by notebook level. Then why not in the search as well?

No matter if BM25 works or not, it should be an option and not hard coded how the search is sorted.
But ok, I will stay out of the discussion and say nothing more about it because I know that it is useless.

laurent · 2023-11-03T12:28:38.320Z

It came up often enough that I'd still like to get to the bottom of it. As mentioned in the original PR, we're going to check what other apps do, and whether we can improve the search algorithm or provide certain options if needed.

Leo · 2023-11-09T01:47:29.362Z

I also forgot to mention how the Web Clipper functionality is so much more flexible than Evernote's.

semyl · 2023-11-11T01:57:59.965Z

Leo:

The synchronization issue. It takes too long to sync for the first time, and even after the bulk of it is on the second device, a note updated from there seems to take longer than expected to show up in the first.

Some settings appear to require the app to restart in order to take place, and there is not a 'restart' function. It would streamline if there is a 'restart app' functionality. Or even better: have all settings apply immediately!

Totally agree with these.

I know how long the sync takes now, so just wait it out.

When making changes to userchrome.css I am always having to quit Joplin and restart it. Would love a 'restart' option in the menu.

toootone · 2024-01-03T04:28:13.170Z

JackGruber:

Leo:

Lack of a favourites section. We could add our most accessed notes to that small club!

On the desktop it could be solved with Favorites Plugin

What about using a tag to group your favorites? Then, just click on that tag to display them...

Leo · 2024-01-23T09:29:54.889Z

That would be a useful workaround! Still, a favorites button would always be handier, especially for less tech-savvy users. I think.

SteveShank · 2024-01-30T03:02:03.727Z

I totally blew it when I got my new tablet. It is pretty powerful and I have a good internet connection. It ended up downloaded and indexing over 45,000 items and taking over 3 hours. That surprised me. I started too late at night, and wouldn't go to bed until it was finished.

xose83h3btypj0tj2nzf · 2024-08-26T23:28:52.705Z

laurent:

It came up often enough that I'd still like to get to the bottom of it. As mentioned in the original PR, we're going to check what other apps do, and whether we can improve the search algorithm or provide certain options if needed.

I agree with @JackGruber that notes returned by a search should be allowed to be sorted. I've looked at the PR Desktop: Add option to select the search result order by JackGruber · Pull Request #7622 · laurent22/joplin · GitHub, but I think it's not the right UX.

@laurent : The best UX I've experienced is with Evernote Legacy: it has a list view of search results with columns (Created, Updated, Title, and Relevancy). By default, it's sorted by Relevancy, but users can click on a column to sort by that column. Evernote 10 removed that UX (no sorting by column). Joplin doesn't have a list view with columns yet, but I hope it will get there.

As a workaround, I've recreated the UX (sort search result by clicking on column) with a web page and Joplin search API. I hope the screenshots below demonstrate the UX

image2308×1090 203 KB

I can click on Title column to sort by Title (there's a little arrow to indicate it's sorted)

image2304×1114 185 KB

Thanks for your hard work on Joplin!