This idea was born from the Ability to Lock Notes post.
Let's think about situations when we want to "lock" our notes from changing:
- we wrote something important what does not work if would be changed accidentally (contact information, bank accounts, piece of code)
- we wrote a summary of some situation that was accepted by someone (an agreement, meeting minutes, plan of work, strategy)
In both these cases, if we change something in our note, it would not be reliable anymore. But if the "lock" function solves the first use case, it does not solve the second. Because sometimes you need to change your agreement, plan, etc. You should know that the "locked" note was changed and does not contain "accepted" information anymore.
So the solution for both cases would be a "snapshot" for note. By doing a snapshot of a note with a comment on why you decided to snapshot it, you will be able to realize why you chose to "lock" this note at first. By highlighting the differences between the current note and snapshot, you will be able to decide what you should do with changes. Either implement them by doing a new snapshot or discharge them by returning to the previous snapshot.
An exclamation mark before note name might highlight notes with a snapshot where the current version is not equal to the snapshot.
Snapshot feature solves problems with unnecessary changes but gives more flexibility for changing notes. For example, you had a note with a friend's phone number, but you can not reach him by this phone. You asked people if he changed the phone and they give you a new one. You add it to note as a new phone. Now your note has a name like "! Mike's contacts". You reached Mike with a new phone, assured that the new phone is correct and made a new snapshot, so now the name does not contain the exclamation mark "Mike's contacts". The same for your code, meeting minutes, agreements and so on. Snapshot is flexible and solves problems with accidentally changes. They would give you the possibility to monitor and accept changes if you needed.
I will be glad to hear your thoughts about this feature.