It looks like there’s a bug in the sort order for notes.
Precondition:
I’ve set the sort order to Assigned Date and Latest Date First
Verified that grouping is Ungrouped
Verified at project level the above settings
Expected outcome:
Notes sorted with most recent date at top of window
Notes without a date collected at the bottom of window (typically) as undefined values are usually sorted last
Actual outcome:
Notes without a date are randomly interspersed between notes with a date
Otherwise (except for random interspersion of un-dated notes) the remaining notes appear to be in the right order… just, not collected together as would be expected
This is actually working correctly or at least as intended. We place notes in their relative position within their project as we see each project as a timeline, i.e. imagine having:
Project A:
Note 1 - Today
Note 2 - No date
Note 3 - Yesterday
Project B:
Note 4 - Yesterday
I think it’s clear from the above that Note 2 belongs somewhere between Yesterday and Today, hence in the mix it’s sorted at that position, despite having no explicit date. I think most people would expect that, otherwise a lot of people will be surprised and feel some notes are “gone” if those notes were all sorted to the bottom (despite being arguably not wrong).
I do see that what you are looking after is slightly different and in essence you try to do two things at once, 1) filter out all notes that have a date and 2) sort those at the top in descending date order. In most cases I don’t think the users want to necessary do step 1 as it would force them to always date every note, which wouldn’t make too much sense, for example in a project like this:
Note 1: Team meeting - Last Tuesday
Note 2: My thoughts on the meeting - No date
Note 3: Team meeting - 1 Month ago
Note 4: My thoughts on the meeting - No date
It would be a shame if I would have to date note 2 and 4 just to be sure that in overviews they would be thrown to the bottom instead of staying nicely paired like they do now.
Good news is, in Agenda 19 you will be able to filter on dated notes only if you like.
You should introduce a third sort option, “Relative position.” As you wrote, you aren’t sorting by “assigned date” – you’re sorting by something else (just as you said, you are sorting by "notes in their relative position within their project” – that is not by assigned date).
It’s confusing and, quite frankly, just contributes to the problems I have related to finding stuff in Agenda (poor sort options + poor search options means Agenda becomes a hopeless mess of notes where I can’t find what I need).
I also agree with Zac, have some sort of way to select all notes that have dates assigned could help a lot. But, I will wait to see how the agenda 19 is gonna turn out to be.
I also agree with Zac, have some sort of way to select all noted that have dates assigned could help a lot. But, I will wait to see how the agenda 19 is gonna turn out to be.
Yes, this will be possible in Agenda 19, plan is to have the first betas within the next few weeks.
To me it makes sense to have undated notes in between. I can actually place undated notes exactly where I want them in the project by drag and drop. This is very useful for me. If I don´t move them they appear with a sort of associated date when created, and most often I let them be.
I could say, why would one create a note with an unassigned date in a date focused notes app ? But there are reasons why a notes date could be considered irrelevant, at least a third or more of mine are. A big one are notes containing a reference, usually links to a web page or file. My assigned date is usually synonymous with due date regarding some sort of action or event. In @mekentosj 's second example my notes 2 & 4 would have at least the same assigned date as 1 &3 but probably sometime later and preferably would be created by “create new note” (cmd+/) which implies a continuation or connection between the two that I assumed would keep them together but that’s another matter.
I do agree that the current sort by assigned date makes sense as a practical method but I would consider it as an ungrouped- “journaled sort” - by assigned date. According to a wise man, a true sort by assigned date would need to include a grouping.
Nearly all my notes are dateless, but I still use the Agenda timeline, and expect my notes to be in chronological order. To me, that order is even more important than the dates themselves, but that depends on how you use it.
In any case, I think we definitely made the right choice in maintaining the chronology, even when no date is associated. Moving everything to the bottom with no date would not fit the chronological timeline model of Agenda, and be frustrating most of the time.
What frustrates me is that I sort by date, and then I see this on my screen:
a note due today
a note due tomorrow
more notes witout dates
And I think, ah, great, that’s all my notes that have a due date. Excellent, I’m done.
What I don’t realize is that there are more notes that actually have dates off the bottom of the window, that I didn’t see:
a note due today
a note due tomorrow
more notes witout dates
……bottom of window here……
a note due next week
And now I’m screwed because I missed something important.
I’m still very puzzled why anyone can look at this behavior and think that “sorted by date” includes notes that do not have a date.
Hoping that the new version (coming soon) let’s me control for this situation all the time. I need a way for my default view to solve for “notes that have a due date and are not marked done, so I can plan for things that are actually due in the future, without missing important ones in all that clutter."
I think the disconnect is that you are expecting the date to be a “due date”, and it isn’t. It’s just a date, not even the creation date, and be used for sorting/searching etc.
Undated notes effectively do have a range of possible dates, given their position in the chronology between other notes. That’s why you see them there. We deliberately try to preserve the chronology, even if you don’t explicitly assign a date.
Agenda 19, which we are working on now, will give more control over what you search for, and what is shown, and Agenda 20 will build on that more. Best to get in early on the beta and make sure it addresses your needs so we can adapt as needed. (Beta is probably a month or so away.)
