Some further observations and thoughts after using Joplin for a further few weeks since I posted my first list. If I've posted something because I don't know how to use the program, I apologize. No replies necessary, just some comments for your consideration.
Option to clear or retain tags when duplicating notes.
Do any bad last file close cleanup automatically without informing user and without requiring a restart of the app after cleanup.
Should moving a note to a new notebook cause it to appear first in the list of all notes?
Consider a different file structure as I have 100 notes so far but 400 Markdown files all within the root folder.
Search ignores single quotes. For example, search for 'now returns all notes containing the word now.
Don't shift notes to the top of note list when sorted by most recently updated until user moves off current note. Makes it simple to note lose place in note list when moving down list reviewing notes.
Ability to have OCR text extracted from attachments pasted into body of note.
Drop-down list of search suggestions based on recent searches.
Easy way to move highlighted text to another note.
Way to merge notes: Move all text from one note to the bottom or top of another note. Possibly a Move feature like implemented by Android file managers.
Built-in programming interface like QOwnNotes.
Way to purge note history.
Is there a way to hide items that are checked off within a note?
After exporting a note that has embedded files in it to the HTML format, option to save the attachments with the name in the bracketed portion of the link plus the file extension if none in the bracketed link description.
Highlight search results in both the editing and rendered panes, and in both the note list and note title field.
Add action to create new note in notebook when right-clicking on a notebook name in the notebooks list.
Are the Back and Forward buttons mapped to keystrokes?
Show key mappings for toolbar buttons in pop-up tooltip.
Bug in line sort algorithm: Try sorting the Favorite Recipes note.
Way to exclude certain notes from search. For example, for older versions of notes that have been explicitly retained.
Check all and uncheck all for - [ ] checkboxes.
Ability to pin most important notes with them displayed in Notebooks tab under TAGS section.
Way to embed a Joplin search within a hyperlink?
Keys to scroll page without changing cursor location. Ctrl-UpArrow in Microsoft Visual Studio Code.
Android app displays too many blank lines at the bottom of the page.
Summary view that only shows headings.
Way to expand and contract lists and sub-lists.
Easy way to paste a link to a file on an operating system drive?
Open notes in a new window so multiple can be open at one time.
How to enter a Tab in the Android mobile app?
No way to see when blank lines are highlighted in Markdown editor.
Can I run multiple instances of the portable version of Joplin simultaneously?
Way to view / edit the spelling dictionary from within the program?
Way to open all the links on a page at once.
After doing a search and updating a note, the sort order of all the notes in the note list changes.
Character, word, line, and paragraph counts in the editor.
Blank error message appears when attempting to paste in a picture that is too large.
Allow separate sort order for specific tags that does not affect default sort order.
Way to visualize newlines, tabs, and other special characters in the editor.
Line numbering within the editor.
Special up-arrow / down-arrow key modified that moves to previous or next item in a list.
Search in note feature that restricts list to only show lines that match the search pattern.
Editor mode that allows lines to be dragged around to be reordered.
Is there an easy way to find all Notes that refer to a specific Note?
Add arrow on TAGS entry in Notebooks List to indicate if it's expanded or collapsed.
Subtle visual indication in Notebooks List that notebooks or sub-notebooks have their own sort order enabled.
Allow custom ascending or descending sort orders for notebooks that allow their own sort order, instead of having the sort order apply to all folders.
Allow separate note history retention policies depending upon folder.
Right-click on a Notebook in Notebooks List: Provide option to create a new Note in that Notebook.
Fields that can be entered into the text editor like {{First Name}} that will appear as fields in the [First Name] layout view.
How are search results ordered? Title matches first, but what after that?
Ability to set sort order for specific folders in the Android app just like in the Windows desktop app.
Add editor feature: When right-clicking on a word, add an option to perform a search on that word.
Joplin Backup Add-in keeps resetting / defaulting the backup folder whenever there is a problem accessing the chosen folder.
Keystroke shortcut to move the current line to the end of another note.
Way to combine topics by inserting the title and body of one note into another: paste instead of paste shortcut.
Way to assign hotkeys to specific Notebooks that would be the equivalent of clicking on the notebook in the Notebooks List.
Way to search notes within a specific folder.
Way to embed Joplin searches as links within notes.
Any way to recover deleted items?
Problem with the sync timer in the Android mobile app: Sometimes shows very large number of seconds that is inaccurate.
When a topic was in a folder with custom order, is moved to another folder, then moved back to the original folder, it resumes its place in the custom order; whereas, it should go to the bottom of the custom list.
Keystrokes to move a line down, move a line up, etc.
Backup Plugin backup location keeps changing, even when backup location is on local drive.
After adding a word to the dictionary, program leaves other instances of that word on the page still underlined as if they're misspelled.
In the Android app, with the Notebooks tab open in which the notes in the current folder are shown on the right side of the screen, clicking on one of those note titles should display the note instead of just closing the Notebooks tab.
The beta editor should make this possible. I don't know how to activate line numbering though. See the second screenshot in the first post here: Mobile: Plugin support
Multiple plugins do this in different ways. The Note Link System plugin shows a list of referrers. Multiple graph plugins show visual connections between notes. Other plugins should also be able to do this.
Try notebook:folder query.
Alt+UpArrow and Alt+DownArrow do this.
As for any bugs, report them on the Github issue tracker if they aren't already reported.
Hi. I appreciate your taking the time to read my post and reply.
With respect to file structure, I have since learned that I was looking at the sync folder and not the data folders that store the core data for my notes. All of the changes to be synced except for the resources (attachments) seem to be stored in the root of the sync folder. This does not seem ideal as I have been using Joplin for about one month, have ~700 notes, and this sync folder contains 3,900 files.
I tried the beta editor along with the plugin that adds line numbering. It looks very promising and I would like to use it. Unfortunately, the beta editor would crash Joplin often with routine edits that I was making. The most common error was something about attempting to edit beyond the end of the page whenever I removed extraneous blank lines at the end of a note. I hope they're able to fix this. I will try the beta editor with each new release of Joplin.
I am still trying to figure out what it is about my installation that causes so many problems with the backup plugin. The errors I have received were mostly about problems moving the completed backup from its temporary location to its final destination. I have changed my temp and final backup locations to folders that are not automatically synced to my file server because I think maybe my sync software was causing the temp copy of the backup to be locked during sync, thus preventing it from being moved. I now run a post-backup command that syncs the backup to my file server and that has been running well without errors for the past couple of days.
I haven't been able to reproduce this locally. More details would be helpful here:
Does Joplin show an error message when it crashes? If so, knowing the content of this message could be very helpful, as it might show where Joplin is crashing.
Does this happen with all plugins disabled?
One possibility is that a plugin is causing this crash (or perhaps the interaction between two different plugins). Some plugins are incompatible with the beta editor (or only partially compatible). Knowing if a plugin is causing the crash, and which one would be very helpful in fixing this bug.
An example note that causes this crash.
I haven't had this happen locally, but that could be because of the kinds of notes I'm working with. One possibility is that the beta editor doesn't work well with certain types of characters or other note data. It would be helpful to know if that's the case.
The version of Joplin and OS.
If you have time, reporting an issue for this using the GitHub issue template would also be very helpful. Thank you for reporting this!
Edited
Edit 1: Clarified reasons for requesting this information. Edit 2: Added list item requesting error message.
Hi. Thanks for your reply. I have tried the beta editor and that plugin. It's just what I want! Unfortunately, bug crashes in the beta editor stop me from using it now, but I look forward to switching to this editor once it's more stable.
Hi. I appreciate your detailed reply that contained much great info and advice.
My first point is, I think that there should at least be an option to consider a note modified if it has been moved between folders, so that it will appear at the top of the list of notes when sorted by descending updated date.
I also think that any custom sort order for a specific note should be cleared when the note moves to another folder, so that if that note is moved back to the original folder with the custom sort order, the note will appear at the bottom of the list of notes.
There is obviously a bug in the Windows desktop app's handling of sort orders such that some sort order changes to folders with their own sort order affect the ascending or descending sort order of other folders that should not be affected. I have yet to figure out exactly what triggers this problem. Once this bug is fixed, I will be very satisfied with this feature.
I appreciate all your search advice and plugin recommendations. I spent a few hours yesterday trying several plugins, including most of the ones you mentioned. Good stuff!
Joplin does display an error message that is its equivalent of Windows' BSOD. I'll reproduce the error and post it here and on GitHub, after checking that it's not a known error.