Creating notes from calendar

I’m prepping for several upcoming meetings. I’m scrolling through the Calendar sidebar, selecting the next meeting, clicking ‘new note linked to event’ - and then realising the note will not be created in the correct project, because the current note is one I created for another meeting!

So I have to abandon the note creation, navigate to the correct folder, and start again.

Would be really helpful to be able to select the project during the creation of the note.

Perhaps the dialog would offer a choice:

  • create note in current project
  • create note in another project

Thnx!

1 Like

Forgive me if this is obvious, but you can create the note anywhere and then move it to a different project afterwards. So at least you do not have to abandon the note creation.

Yes, indeed, that’s also an option.

But it still breaks the flow when I’m creating several notes for different projects one after the other.

I see where you are coming from but instead of adding more clutter the workaround @Pat_Maddox suggests is probably the more obvious to follow. We do have some ideas that fit both in the “preparation” scenario as well as in the flow of doing so in a single project before redistributing the created notes. Stay tuned!

1 Like

Hi there — sorry to be late to the party!

@mekentosj Any updates on these “ideas”?

If I understand what @mekentosj was referring to — it has been 5 1/2 years! — we haven’t gotten to those ‘ideas’. In the end they got less priority.

To be honest, I’m not sure they would have helped that much with this. Either way, you would have had to make the notes, and move them to the final location. So would not really gain in this instance.

I think the fix is pretty straightforward: you can hit undo to remove the new notes and then navigate to the correct project, or you can drag the new notes over there.

Not sure we could add much to help out. Yes, we could make you choose from a menu every time to pick a project, but that would make the standard path much less nice, just to avoid the niche path, if you see what I mean.

If you have more concrete ideas, let me know.

@trebso I have a similar situation in scheduling various items for the days ahead so I try to do the calendaring first from my “Daily” project. Some have existing notes some don’t. For the ones that don’t I create the event in Ag and immediately create a new note which picks up the name, date and time of the event and also updates it when I move them around. When I’m finished with the scheduling I add content to the linked notes and move them to where they belong with a link back to the daily. Everything, ideas, ‘don’t forgets’, tasks, todo, events, whatever, goes in the daily either as a stand alone or as a link to where it is. I’m now ~💯% date based.

:vulcan_salute:

1 Like

But isn’t there also a way to use templates?

  1. Select an event in the calendar sidebar.
  2. Click on “Create new note from template…”
  3. Select a template from the list
  4. Select the appropriate project in the “Create note in:”
  5. The note opens and I start typing

Everything that was missing from the topic above is now included.
Please excuse me if I have misunderstood something.

I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t think of that! I’ve gone thru several system/workflow iterations for over a year since committing to the objective. Talk about wearing blinders. Thanks for the suggestion.
image

1 Like

RE-WRITE
OOPS! I just tried the template way but no selection there either. @drewmccormack was correct. There is no magical method to create a new event note w/o the correct project being in focus or move it afterward. SO, I’m happy with my current flow of creating in my Daily project and moving it. The other thing mentioned that I also am not so fond of is the “New Note Linked to Event”. I still select it sometimes when I want to create a new note after the command.

Edit…!!!
This works, but only if you are not currently in a project but in the overview.
You are right, focusing on a project prevents selection.
I’m not sure if that was the intention. :cockroach:?

But when I’m working in the Overviews or Smart Overviews area, it works very well.
In the template, the title can be taken from the event using \event-title. The link to the note in the calendar is also transferred, and the jump to the note works as expected. Everything else can certainly also be organized in the template using placeholders and text actions. I haven’t missed anything so far.

Yes, it is designed that way. Notice that if you click the + button in On the Agenda, you get a menu of projects, whereas if you do that in a project, it just creates a note immediately in the project.

The reason is simple: notes go in projects, and if you haven’t actively selected one, Agenda doesn’t know where you want the note. I think this is a good balance: most of the time you are working on some project, and it would be silly to make you go through an extra step to add a note. But we also don’t prevent you adding at a note at other times, we then just require you to clear up the ambiguity.

Hope that explains it. Quite intentional.

2 Likes

Yes, that’s completely understandable and plausible. Thanks for the feedback.

Basically, using the template is still easier than moving the note. At least on iOS, where I only have to leave the project briefly.