Hi! I was an active Joplin user but almost abandoned it a year ago, partly due to usability concerns. I took another look at app several days ago and found that thread and generally like the design, but think there are still some way to improve
Current situation with screen usage is not good with 4 (!) toolbars beneath each other + menu bar + window title, and It's sad, but last ver.4 of new design barely address that issue - still 4 different static lines/bars, and as I measured ver.4 render - approx. 30% of vertical space of note pane is occupied by non-hideable and non-scrollable elements. Combined with window menu and title it would take even more precious vertical space.
Current notebook - full line of note screen is dedicated to that info. If user is actively managing notebooks right now, current notebook is clearly shown in notebooks pane. Or it may be displayed in notes list as in ver.2. If notebooks pane is hidden, user in completely dug into current notebook and has no ways to interact with notebooks, alter naming, move note between notebooks etc, interacting with notebooks in completely out of workflow, why waste line on notebook name?
Ver.2 shows consistent approach - notebook contents (notes) under notebook title like note contents under note title, without taking additional screen space. Also for just-in-case situations, we have completely unused window title, which it good place for information "what this window is about".
I think ver.4 current notebook line is waste of screen space.
Note title size - it's obvious that ver.4 rendering of note title tries to contribute to completed nice look of note itself, with big title in front of it. But I think that achieving completed look of the note is task for the note itself, not of the way of displaying note's metadata (which note title is). In any case you have to do it inside the note for export, printing, presenting, etc, where fancy title displayed by app would not help. And current render suddenly support that - same content as in big bold and fancy note title is repeated in first big fancy H1 in the first line of the note , shown as soon as you open the note.
When you are deep into editing note, there is no use of big fancy and obvious (you are editing this note, dude) title taking up space from note contents.
I think note title size from ver.3 is the most appropriate for it's functions (editing and displaying note title, not contributing to note design)
Note properties and date - almost like current notebook, but regarding to notes list. I think date can be moved to notes list like ver.2, as well as properties button (or button may be left where it is just because it does not take much space) cause these controls has no meaning outside of note management workflow, which assumes note list open.
And that data may be added to titlebar as well (Like "Joplin - Notebook - Note (date)"), if we want to have some static info available at screen all the time. It's also helpful when switching windows in OS window overviews. As long as titlebar is still present...
Tag panel - again note metadata taking full line of space from note contents. I would suggest still placing tags on same line with note title (which is freed in previous steps ) , not because of unusual position but because of wasted line of screen space, with overflow button and menu for long list of tags. I don't use a lot of tags, but if there is such demand - hideable panel with tag list may be useful.
Last, but not the least one - gigantic scale of UI, so stupid question - is it just rendered for 13'' screen scaling or that's static element size (like 14 notes in list vertically on any screen size)?
Could the scroll bar track be made just a pinch wider, and the color scheme changed? In the current version, it’s pretty hard to see - particularly in the default dark-on-dark color scheme in the Notebooks list.
The thumb / tab / knob / slider-thing is also a bit too dark to see easily - as a way to compensate for this, I find myself trying to click anywhere on the scroll-bar, so that the slider-thing’s motion makes it’s position apparent to me. However, since the bar is so thin, I generally find myself clicking blindly on the perimeter of the Notes sidebar, and eventually find it by trial and error.
A nice bright silver color would make it easy to know where the bar is at all times for some of us.
I like that in Version 1 and Version 2, the date/time is shown in the Notes List. I’m coming from Evernote and that’s one thing I miss, because I can often narrow down what I’m looking for just by using the date.
The design suggestions are alright, though I might suggest a few ideas. Mostly they have to do with screen real estate.
Why is so much space used? The UI is HUGE. Or is it scaleable like VS Code and you just made it this big for the screenshot?
Am already happy that the new design is a bit more space efficient. Yet, can we go further? Do we really need a button bar? Esp. one this big? I am sure there is people who select text and then click on the "B" button, but I would venture that those who use Markdown tend to just hit "CTRL+B". So, could we make this at least optional? Or display it inline when text is selected (e.g. Wordpress Divi does that)? Or take a look at QOwnNotes button bar (which is still huge, but more sleek and customizable; it also represents more fully what one can do with markup and the program). Or go the OneNote way...
The switch "MD/WYSIWYG" could be placed much smaller on the bottom right or left. Same is true for the info icon and all those others up there. Vivaldi shows how this can be done with their statusbar.
Tags. Why not place them next to the title? Am just concerned that another line of screenspace goes away for this. Protonmail found an excellent solution. A small "Tag" button which opens a list of tags. I can even add/remove tags from there. Just an idea to save space. Or if there is a reason to show them all like this, could they be placed into the above mentioned statusbar?
Why do we need an extra pane for the notes? Could they not be displayed in the Notebook-pane? Or make that optional? I know OneNote does that... so maybe there's a reason I don't understand right now. But if we go the OneNote direction, could the Noteboks get color tabs too?
I realize its an Electron limitation, but the Menu remains white in dark mode. A dedicated, colorable menu bar would be nice.
Can we get more colors in the markdown editor? As referenced earlier, QOwnNotes has an excellent default font (& size), colors for various style elements (e.g. [x], links, etc.). These could be customizable from the interface without knowing CSS?
There... my two cents. this is what I see immediately. Other things are for another time.
Keep up the good work. Looks like this project is on the right way!
, shown as soon as you open the note.
