In Agenda, each note is either in a collapsed or expanded state. This state is remembered even if users change to another project or close the app. This is an interesting way of viewing a list of notes compared to other apps. How do you guys like this approach?
For me, I felt like I spent lots of time collapsing and expanding the notes. I want them all collapsed, and if I want to check one of the notes, I expand it. After I finished with the note, it should be collapsed automatically.
In most of the apps, there are three layers:
folder->list of notes->note itself
In Agenda the last two layers are mixed together. I’m interested in why developers choose this approach as well.
I’m not aware of any other apps that 1) allow expanding / collapsing notes or b) showing multiple notes at a time. All the other apps I know of show a single note’s full content at any time.
I am a big fan of the current expand & collapse. I can add a bunch of things to the Agenda, collapse them all, and then only expand the ones that I’m actively working on. That actually makes me think it would be great if a search filter is expanded / collapsed - so it’d be possible to actually only see the ones that are expanded (and not have to scroll past them). But opening notes side by side is much more compeling to me 
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I would say the collapse all notes most of the time is indeed the approach of other apps. Effectively, you select one note at time in those apps, which is like expanding it to view it. As soon as you select another one, it collapses the previous one (hides it).
Agenda is completely unique, as far as I know, in that it has the project timeline, with multiple notes. I guess it will appeal to some people, and not to others.
I typically only collapse a note when I’m done with it pretty much for good. I think of it as a bit like archiving. It is there if I need it, but it doesn’t need to take up space.
Anything that is still relevant, I tend to keep expanded, to quickly see the content. I can even see multiple relevant notes at once. I use On the Agenda a lot, so it makes it easy to keep track of the 3-4 notes that are most relevant, even if these are in different projects. I can quickly move between them, have a spatial picture of where they are etc.
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Yes it is one of Agenda’s uniquness. Thanks for your reply, I didn’t know I can collapse all notes in one click before. It kind solves one of the issues I have.
That’s intersting, Thanks for sharing. I guess it pairs well with the “Mark as Done” feature for each note (which I do not know how/when to use it in my workflow). I will try to think it this way.
I am a big fan of “Mark as done”. I have a “Pending” overview which shows me all notes that are not complete. It’s a high-level overview that helps me make sure nothing actionable falls through the cracks. I periodically go through those and clean them up, and add tags if I want them to show up in other overviews. Done = archived for me. I have no need to actively look at the note anymore, it’s only for reference.
The other thing is that in “Search all” you can filter on “Unmarked as done” and that filter will persist as you click other overviews or projects. So if I want a quick look at the incomplete notes in any project, I just click on the project and it’s focused on incomplete notes (or command-click multiple projects to see them as a collection).
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