I really love Agenda and use it daily; Agenda has become my central hub for notes and planning. That said, I miss a few features from other note-taking apps (for example, UpNote) that I think would make Agenda even stronger:
1. List View for Notes in Projects
Right now, projects show all notes in one long scroll. In projects where I have dozens (sometimes hundreds) of notes, like my Meeting Notes project, it becomes hard to quickly find what I’m looking for. Other apps, like UpNote, solve this with a 3-column UI:
Left sidebar = projects (like Agenda already has)
Middle column = a scrollable list of notes in the selected project
Right column = the open note
This middle column makes navigating large projects much easier. Basically, I would like to be able to “pin” the list of project notes that is currently accessible in the pop-up when you click on the selected project name in the toolbar (toolbar buttons to expand/collapse all notes in a project would be nice, too).
2. Automatically Open Notes Selected from Pop-up
If a note was previously collapsed and I navigate to it using the pop-up, it doesn’t automatically expand. From a user perspective, that feels like broken expected behavior; if I’ve actively chosen a note, it’s almost certain that I want to actually view it. Having to double-click to expand adds unnecessary friction.
I’d suggest that notes navigated to in this way expand automatically. It feels like a small change, but it would make the flow smoother and more intuitive.
3. Formatting Bar on Each Note
I know this was discussed back in 2018 (link to the old thread) and the team decided against it at the time. That said, I wanted to resurface it, because my experience is that the floating palette and slash commands are pretty clunky for my designer brain. Other apps like UpNote have a lightweight inline bar that makes these actions super quick, and it really smooths out my editing workflow.
The Agenda timeline is pretty much what makes it unique. If we went to the 3 column approach of UpNote and Apple Notes, it would just be another notes app. Being able to see full notes and scroll them is the unique feature of this app.
Note that you can bring up the jump menu with a keyboard shortcut, and you can navigate using typing to filter the list. So it can be very fast if you learn those shortcuts, probably as fast or faster than other apps with the type filtering.
The auto opening of collapsed notes also was something we didn’t really want to do. For a start, if we expand the note automatically, and you navigate elsewhere, you leave a trail of expanded notes, which you may not want. You may just be looking for something, and don’t need to see all content to decide. We decided it would be better to let the user always decide this. Again, you can learn a keyboard shortcut do it fast if double click is too slow.
The formatting bar idea: we decided against this simply because it brings a lot of clutter. Instead, you can tear off the formatting palette if you want permanent access to the controls. It can just float near your notes.
Appreciate the feedback. Some of these things cannot easily be changed, simply because we have many, many users who are used to the app as it is now. Eg removing the notes timeline would cause enormous frustration.
We’ll take along some of the other ideas for future design discussions. Thanks!
Thanks for the thoughtful reply, Drew. I really do love Agenda and use it daily—especially the calendar integration, which is the real “unique” for me. That calendar sidebar connection to recent notes is incredibly powerful. The timeline view, on the other hand, feels more like a simple chronological list; I think having a way to “pin” or dock that project note list (instead of only accessing it via the pop-up) could really strengthen navigation without losing Agenda’s unique feel.
On the auto-expand point, I understand and agree with your concern about leaving a trail of open notes. Maybe a middle ground could be making it an option, e.g. “temporarily auto-expand notes when navigating via search or jump menu.” That way, users looking for quick context can enable it, while others can stick with the current behaviour.
And on the formatting palette, I get the reasoning behind keeping clutter down. The floating just palette feels dated to me. Modern macOS UI patterns lean more toward docked, inline, or integrated toolbars rather than floating palettes that hover disconnected from the main window as in classic Mac OS. Even when opening a note in its own window, the palette feels foreign to today’s Mac window management. A lightweight docked version with the most commonly used commands could preserve clarity while feeling more native.
Again, really appreciate the dialogue and the continued work you’re putting into Agenda. It’s become the anchor of my workflow, and I’m glad you’re open to hearing where users see opportunities. I won’t be switching to UpNote, some of its good features just caught my eye from far, but it’s far from good compared to your work on Agenda.
There are so many different existing solutions to the issues mentioned. Here are a quick few.
1: Set to ‘view’ the first paragraph or summary or links or lists or whatever is pertinent to identifying it. Perhaps divide your projects into a smaller scope if you can, ie; type of meeting, customer, topic or whatever, tags or links if they are connected in some way. Be more descriptive with note names and don’t be afraid to make them long. Middle column, waste of screen space, redundant, and distracting!
2: Automatically automatically gives me cause for concern by reducing options and often forcing one into corrective action. What if you only want to copy a link, change a date, on/off the Agenda, connect to an event etc?
3: Regarding the Giorgio Armani version of the formatting pallet; I will agree that cosmetically the pop-up in is a bit ‘casual or un-business like’ but you can immediately see all in one place, apply multiple actions even on multiple open notes.
As for the slash commands, there would be an Agenda user rebellion if removed.
I started this note last night. Wish I had said that but a lot of people don’t have a sense of humor these days.
Hi, and thanks for the thoughtful response. I had to smile at Drew’s comment—I work in product & design myself, so I know every feature request comes with trade-offs.
Reflecting on it, I realize I haven’t used the timeline pop-up much, mostly because I forgot it was there. I’ll give it more of a try in my day-to-day. I also use slash commands regularly and wasn’t suggesting the floating palette be removed—just that having the option to dock it to the window would feel more modern and integrated. That said, I recognize that may just be my personal preference.
For what it’s worth, I don’t actually use UpNote; I mentioned it simply as another example. It doesn’t feel like a first class Mac citizen, and I have to say, after updating to Agenda 21 on Tahoe, the updated Agenda UI looks fantastic!
Thanks again for the good conversation and for pointing me toward some new things to try.
Other apps like UpNote have a lightweight inline bar that makes these actions super quick, and it really smooths out my editing workflow.
