I have been using Agenda for some time and have now bought the full version. Not so much because I absolutely need it to use Agenda on a daily basis, but because I find the pricing system very fair and want to support the developers.
There are a few things that I still miss in Agenda, and I would like to suggest them.
For one thing, I think a tag overview would be very helpful, so that you can simply drag saved tags into a note. I always use the same tags across programmes, so having them in front of me is helpful.
It would also be good if you could do an intelligent search based on these tags (e.g. #Meeting) or according to the GTD method (@Telephone). Regarding this, a link to the address book would be nice, so that linked contacts can be called up directly and you can send a mail or make a call. Since Agenda is linked to the calendar, this should not be a big problem.
The second suggestion is the possibility to replicate notes. That is, not to duplicate, but to create a reference in another project that updates with the original. This is an option that I really appreciate in Devonthink. Like many users here, I have different projects that often intertwine or points from different projects are discussed in a meeting. A replicant of a file would be a helpful way to avoid duplicate entries and extra work.
Otherwise, the workflow takes a bit of getting used to, but I increasingly enjoy working with Agenda and, along with 2Do and Devonthink, now use it as my most important tool in project work.
On the tags I would like to add a few comments as well.
Using Tags as for example OmniFocus uses tags is really helpfull. There you create a tag and when you add a tag you choose from the list or add a new one. This is an explicit operation to do. In Agenda it is easy to make a typo in a tag en thus rendering the tag unuseable due to this type. This happens easily especially with someone like me. Als the list function in OmniFocus helps to easily find the existing tag that you need.
I use Agenda and Omnifocus very intensifly and would realy like Agenda to implement this working method as well. The best of both worlds I would say.
Thanks to both for the feedback! You will both be very happy with our next release. The tag changes you request are on the way. We are working on them right now.
The note replication idea is interesting. Have not heard that one before. We’ll keep it in mind. For now, I recommend setting up saved searches to gather together notes from different places, perhaps in combination with particular tags. I also simply use On-the-Agenda for this. I put notes on the Agenda that are relevant to a meeting, and stay in there.
We also have some big improvements to linking between notes coming. Hopefully that will also make moving to the notes you need much easier.
Thanks for the feedback.
Regarding the replicas, please allow to point it out a bit.
It is, more or less, an alias of another note. The main difference to a copy, it is still linked with the original. So any change you make in one of the replicas or the original will be changed in any note. In DT, replicas are marked in color and you can check, how many replicas of the document you have and where they are.
As mentioned from other users above, this is very comfortable, due you can’t miss a change and have the same information level while saving space and number of notes.
Thanks for explaining it in more detail. I think it’s basically the same thing as @trebso points out, it’s a single note that can appear in multiple projects. While I can see the use case it’s a bit of a Pandora box for us I’m afraid. It’s something that while certainly useful for certain use cases, also adds a lot of complexity. The moment we allow the same note to appear in multiple projects, aside of the technical difficulties, now require extra UI or confirmations from the user, e.g. do you want to move a note or have it show in both projects. And do you want a copy or a “replicated” note.
I can imagine this is also where the “replicated” note term comes from, as a way to describe this special status of what is essentially the same note in multiple projects but something you’d have to explicitly opt-in to (as opposed to photos in albums in the Photos app or songs in playlists where the default is to always “replicate” the item).
Anyway, long story short, I don’t think this is something we’ll support anytime soon (again for both technical and complexity reasons). However, you’ll see in the next update that linking between notes will be much improved. This is probably also the direction we’ll be looking for the solution. I could imagine that at some point in the future you could have a “live link” to another note where you could insert a quoted part of another note for example. But I have to be honest in that the latter is still a long way out.
Thank you for your reply. I can fully understand the reasons why it is not in your focus. That was only a suggestion, of course you can not fullfill anybody’s expectations.
But i am looking very forward to your mentioned updates and news, that sounds very interesting and will help a lot to integrate Agenda even better in lots of daily workflows.
Thanks for your support.
Regarding “alias” notes, yes, one actual note seen in many places. Don’t need duplicates; we can copy and paste if we need that, but being able to easily see the same notes 9with any changes) in different projects. Not unlike collaboration I’d guess.
As @mekentosj explained, this is really a can of worms. It has the potential to make the rest of the app much more difficult to use, by introducing ambiguity.
We are working hard on improving linking, so that is probably the best way to navigate to notes in other projects. As well as existing options, like making a saved search for a tag, and using On-the-Agenda to make an ad hoc grouping of some notes.
