[Managing] Introducing Keywords, Catchwords?

[Thomas Lohrum]

In many of my notes i add keywords to the first line of the text. I use them as a meaning to find notes more easy.

Example:

Title: CintaNotes - great tool for taking notes

Text:

• Keywords: managing notes pim outlook tasks recommended by ct
• really fast
• simple but powerful gui

Tags: outliner software

I use tags to categorize notes. Tags have a generic meaning and can be applied to many notes. Keywords can relate to the circumstances of why i created the note. Keywords might be used for one single note only. Keywords can be different words having the same meaning.

I would like to have keywords as an extra field, that could be placed between tags and link in the note editor.

[CintaNotes Developer]

Thanks for the suggestion, but I didn't quite get how having keywords as an extra field will really help you with anything?
Probably you'll also want to be able to limit the search to this field?
I'm just wary of the confusion "keywords vs. tags" it might wreak, since definitely not all users will have the same amount of clarity about the differences between the two as you have.

Now there also exists a workaround: if you prepend your keywords with some rarely used symbol like "#" you can search for keywords without problems.
Also when tag hierarchy gets implemented, you will be able to create the "keyword" tag and all keywords will be subtags of it.

[Thomas Lohrum]

Hi Alex,

you could also name them "extra search words", e.g. to this thread these could be: "Alex Thomas discussion". I don't want to introduce these words as tags/subtags. I use them for searching only. Limiting the search for keywords might be a useful option.

Keyword-definition:

• words not used in title or text
• used to extend search
• don't use as common tags

kind regards,

Thomas

[CintaNotes Developer]

OK let's see what other CN users think.
I've added the idea to the roadmap here: http://roadmap.cintanotes.com/topic/91837-/
Everyone please vote!

[Thomas Lohrum]

Thank you Alex

[Noddy330]

As an alternative to using a tag I sometimes use text bracketed between semi-colons, e.g. ;history;
Works for me.
Nod

[CintaNotes Developer]

Idea: what if we call it the "Remarks" field?
Sometimes when I clip text from somewhere else I want to write a comment/remark to it as a whole.
I reckonThis would be a nice place to put your search hints as well.

To some extent this is related to http://roadmap.cintanotes.com/topic/86915-annotations-comments-in-notes/

[ale]

Something like described here is in QSnipps, a code snippet manager I use (very lightly)

sshot-1.png (30.73 KiB) Viewed 34073 times

[Thomas Lohrum]

Idea: what if we call it the "Remarks" field?
Sometimes when I clip text from somewhere else I want to write a comment/remark to it as a whole.
I reckonThis would be a nice place to put your search hints as well.

That's fine with me. I don't insist on the term "keywords". Most important to me, is to have it as a separate field. Call it "Remarks". Great! Limiting the search to remarks might complete the search concept, though it's not a must to me.

Thomas

PS: the german term is "Bemerkungen".

[ChrisCN]

may I repost my comment from the roadmap here:

ChrisCN
posted 3 days ago
@Thomas: I find that suggestion interesting because I think I am using CintaNotes in a similar way (at the moment I assure that what you call 'keywords' occur at least in the title and/or in the text).

In the forum discussion you don't mention why you don't want to add the keywords as tags (with a special prefix). So I wonder what additional value you expect from an extra field (putting the keywords into the title and/or text is working fine - at least for me).


The benefits I could think of only appear with additional features added around this request - like:
- the option to limit the search to the keywords (already mentioned in the forum)
- show a list of keywords (similar to the tag list on the left) - maybe on the right side
- ...

I know why I don't put the keywords into the tag list. My reason is, because I can't do a search for the tags like I can do it for the words in the title/text (see my request here: http://roadmap.cintanotes.com/topic/908 ... -or-a-tag/ ).

If you don't want to mess up your list of tags - maybe another feature request like "hiding tags from the list if they start with a certain character" could help - just brainstorming?

I am really interested in this discussion because at the moment I can't decide if I would like this feature or won't use it.

regards
chris

To make a long story short: Could you please explain what benefit you hope to get from this feature?

[Thomas Lohrum]

Hi ChrisCN,

one more example:

Title: international phone numbers in Outlook using "+"

Text: Problem: Can not enter international phone numbers using "+"
Solution: Control Panel\Phone and Modem\create your location

Tags:iphone windows tipps

Remarks:Syncing ios plus symbol

Why i use remarks:
Maybe "syncing" and "ios" could be tags on their own; "plus" and "symbol" surely not. I use them to describe an alternative to what i used in the title "+". When reading the title i can easily recognize my note. But searching for "+" could be a problem. Thus the remarks "plus" and "symbol" add an extra search quality. (Hint: Google add's a huge benefit by adding such quality into the search engine, making it pretty intelligent. As for a simple notes manager a "remarks" field would satisfy my needs). Remarks can be different words, having the same meaning. I don't want them to repeat in the title. Each entity such as title, text, tags and remarks has it's own quality of information. I like the text clean, i don't want to mess it with "remarks". I could add other remarks such as "synchronize" or a common approach such as "sync". Remarks (keywords) are a meaning of adding additional search terms. As you can see, cluttering the title or the text with such words can make the note "unreadable". That's why i want them "isolated" in an extra field. I hope this could make things a bit clearer.

Thomas

PS: I don't need to have a smart input combo such as the tags field has. I don't need a keywords-sidebar either. A plain text field will do the job.

[Thomas Lohrum]

One more example:

I keep forgetting the name for AMD's virtualization technology, which is called IOMMU. So as a remark i add Intel's name for whose virtualization technology is called "vt-d". I can easily remember this one.

The example illustrate's that a remark can, but must not relate to the note's content. It relates to me, to what make's me remember the note! This could also be the name of a person or an event, that introduced the term to me.

[Noddy330]

Hey TL,
I’m with you on this.
I clip some text, and I want to add a comment like “works for me”, “ok, but not as good as CN”; and like you, some keyword that will help me find it later (anyone else saved some key info and not been able to find it?), AND to be able to easily differentiate between the clipped text and my own notes.
I sometimes ‘bracket’ my comments with double brackets, e.g. [[Ok, but not as good as CN – 23/01/2012]], or [[vt-d – 03/07/2007]], or [[Good for Post code look up - 16/12/2003]].
Nod
PS I always date stamp.

[Guest]

I don't want them to repeat in the title. Each entity such as title, text, tags and remarks has it's own quality of information. I like the text clean, i don't want to mess it with "remarks".

Thanks for clarifying your reasons. That's exactly what I do at the moment. I am messing up the titel with some additional keywords.

Let me explain why I like this request and what additional feature I need to make use of it:

If you have collected many notes a full text search will give you to many hits and it is difficult to find the one you are searching for. My approach to this is: Using keywords in the title and then limit the search to the title only. If you manage to choose clever keywords - your hit rate can be significantly improved.

With an additional keyword (or remarks) field I would not have to mess up the title but need an additional option: search within the title AND the keywords field!

regards
chris

[Thomas Lohrum]

Hi Chris,

i'm happy this topic is much clearer now. It sure is to me Let's vote for it http://roadmap.cintanotes.com/topic/91837-/

Thomas

[Guest]

Let's vote for it

done

[Noddy330]

I’ll give you a real life example
I came across an article on Sugru, and thought ‘that could be useful’, and clipped it.
A couple of days later a colleague had a problem (broken interior car mirror) where I thought 'that stuff I found the other day may work', but I could not remember the name, and I could not quickly find my note.
I had to go back to LifeHacker and do several searches to do with tablets in bottles (that’s what I remembered), and eventually ‘pill bottle’ worked.
I went back to my Sugru note and added
[[glue superglue super-glue 19/01/2012]]
This might not be logical, but it works for me.
And now I can find it all the time.
Nod

[Thomas Lohrum]

[[glue superglue super-glue 19/01/2012]]

Yep. That's a point. different spellings of the same word to help the search engine

Thomas