I do not seem to have the same problem. Out of curiosity, could it be that the unicode characters screw up the formatting? I’m not using any emojis or symbols in my notebook names and my notebook tree looks perfectly formatted.
Do you mean you don’t find it problematic or that yours looks different?
Here is how the same hierarchy looks without emojis:
I would argue again that the end of a nested hierarchy is difficult to discern. See how the Personal notebook seems to be a level higher than the Joplin tutorials one even though they are both root notebooks. The reason being - the large +/- icon. Also Computing seems to be a higher level than Music or Privacy for the same reason.
Perhaps one or a couple of these changes could help:
- a 1-2px vertical line between root notebooks
- a uniform icon which is merely grayed out when there are no sub-notebooks instead of the +/- which is non-existent when there are no sub-notebooks
- a more subtle icon instead of the boldface +/-
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Also, the solution that Joplin already has for bullet points might work great:
The vertical line guides your eyes and you can keep track at where the higher hierarchy is. This is standard in hierarchy lists such as file managers.
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Yes, I find that too.
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I meant that I don't use emojis and my hierarchy looks just fine.
There was a feature request open or even a PR that should have reduced the background color for sub notebooks by 5%. I don't know what happened to it. @laurent, do you recall that discussion? I think that was actually not a bad idea....
Some of the examples i saw at that time were pretty good indeed. I'd definitely accept a PR with this.
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I started a PR with this morning. Here is the progress so far
Right now I have the notebooks getting lighter with depth, but would darker be preferred?
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Nice. Going darker is probably harder to do, because after 2 levels you will be at black already 
I can't recall if the discussion was going on on gh or in the forum, but the screenshots and the mockups were quite nice. I'll try to find that post.
Darker would be preferred with maybe an indicator like ┗ or something. It might be a help for older people or people with aging eyesight.
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Can you please explain to me how you go darker when the deafult sidebar background color is already very dark? I was not joking, after 2 levels it’s going to be black. This makes no sense. Either you want to have a clear distinction of levels or not.
I certainly do not want the notebook sidebar background to be changed to white.
Here's the link to the previous discussion about this topic:
I didn’t phrase it correctly, my bad. I meant don’t lighten the subnotebooks. Just use the same white we’re used to with maybe pipe indicators.
I liked this idea, with the current colors of course
PS: As an example, if you have a Windows installation available, go to a folder (preferably with subfolders).Shift+Right Click, open cmd and do a tree /f command.
This is probably too complicated to implement, but maybe I'm wrong.
Ah, I see. Looks not bad either, but I prefer the other variant, since it's going to be too much white, when you have more than just one notenook open (on level 1). But this is a matter of taste, and as you know, there's no accounting for taste. So I guess we'll have to wait and see how it's going to be implemented.
Maybe it's even possible to make this configurable. But I guess this would make it only more complex.
Again, I dunno what is wrong with me today. I’m using a lot of badly phrased sentences. Apologies.
I meant, I liked that idea with the current Joplin colours that is.
ok, I’m still seriously confused.
You either start with dark (the current color) and go lighter (which at one point will be white - after 20 iterations (20x5% = 100%)).
Or you can start with light and go darker. The link you sent showed that as soon as click on a notebook, the entire notebook switches to a white background color, which goes darker per level within that notebook.
So how would you use Joplin colors for option 2? If you start with light, you have to start with white or a very faint blue/marine (close to white).
Never mind. I just saw that there’s a PR already open:
I chose to highlight the background because this was the more difficult option, but it's probably still fairly simple as long as we use straight pipes |.
That said, visual changes are often fairly contentious, would people prefer the option to toggle the pipes or highlight on and off? Should I add that to the pull?
I certainly love to have as many options as possible (even if they are hidden or masked behind an expert switch), but that's just me. But I am not the one who makes the decisions. I believe Laurent wants to keep it simple as to not confuse users with a myriad of options.
Joplin has developed rapidly in the last few months. I had stopped using it because of its interface which I feel is rather awkward compared to mainstream note-taking applications. However, Joplin is really very useful and I’ve seen some nice changes in the UI.
My suggestions on the UI were posted here: Suggestions for improvement Suggestions #1-5 are features of outliners that I’ve been seeking for over 10 years. In short, the user interfaces used by ActionOutline, MyInfo, MyBase, RightNote are proven designs: they make optimal use of screen space and provide the user with an instant understanding of note categories, subheadings and their contents.