+11
Under review

Allow multiple links per note

jeroen ophetweb 12 years ago updated by Alex Jenter 7 years ago 12

i would like to be able to have multiple links to a note.

for instance i just was authorized for a certain network application and received the credentials by mail. i saved them to cintanotes and added the server-address to the link section of the note. when i am on the note and hit f7 then the correct webpage is started.

however i also received the documentation and a training powerpoint for the software to start learning the tool.

i do not want to add a new note because for me this information is one. i saved the documentation and the powerpoint to a folder in mydocuments and can access them there but it would be nice when i can also go to that folder using the link functionality. then i have one place to start from theren.

links
Jeroen, you can already use file links inside the notes text, e.g. file:///C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start%20Menu\Programs . It is also possible to store any number of HTML links inside the notes text too. I have also added a feature request to open all links contained in the notes text. You can vote for it here http://roadmap.cintanotes.com/topic/94058-open-all-links-inside-a-single-note/ 

Thomas
Answer
Under review
The reason I do not want the links to be a part of the note-text is that there sometimes is not a clear and simple way to describe the link. 

And I do not want to add text to my note just to create a link to another note because that link-text add's no true value to the text in the note and distracts when reading it. The text of the note and the link are independant of each other. 

Especially when you have multiple links (2 websites, a folder on your computer and about 5 internal links (persons for example) to other notes) you have to add all that textually into your note. That removes the focus on what the note was all about. 
Maybe it will fit the bill if the links are not in the text but in a separate field?
Please take a look here: http://roadmap.cintanotes.com/topic/104471-note-to-note-generalize-link-field-adding-power-and-flexibility/
Combining different functions in one field will be fine. I still would like a way to add multiple links to one note. A seperator might also do the trick. For example a ";" or a "|".

For example : "http://www.google.com | http://www.microsoft.com | file://d/mydocuments" in the link field would open both URL's in different tabs in the browser and open the explorer in the  d:/mydocuments folder.

Even better would be when CN recognized the "|" in the link (or remarks:-) ) field and offers a dialog with all parts (seperated by the "|") of the link field on a seperate row and gives you the choice to open one (or some).

You still get one field in the GUI but advanced linking (mayby also to other notes) might be possible.  
Jeroen, i understand your desire. Obviously different people prefer different ways to manage their data. Sounds like you want to increase the height of the "link" field (dynamically) and store all links inside it. The only other solution i can think of is to use a feature that is on the roadmap already "linking notes internally". That way you could create a note with text you want to save and link to another note, which would contain URLs and file-links only (inside the notes text). As for a desciption of the link i usually add the page title. Thomas
As an alternative to the discussion here and the "note to note" discussion i have created a mockup-gui that might satisfy all needs.



The main tab is similar to the existing design with the difference of having a "remarks" field instead of the "link" field.



The tab "links" offers a big edit field for adding multiple links each saved in its own line, separated by CR+LF.

Compared to the current design the "only" change is the visibility of the two tabs. This design satisfies peoples request not to clutter the UI while at the same timer offers new possibilities. Other tabs might come handy in the future for adding other features. Also it could be possible to allow the user to set the visibilty of tabs. That is all tabs except the first (main) tab can be turned off. When one tab is left only (the main tab) it could be even optimized to don't show a tab row at all. In which case the design would be absolutely identically to the current design.

Instead of labels i used a design approach taken from iOS. As long as the edit field is empty show the label inside the edit field in italic font. As soon as the user enters text, the label-text gets removed. This allows for an even cleaner design, saving space and still allows new users to understand the gui right away.

I like the mockup's.

Personally I would like to see all the fields in one tab (the link fiels can be like 4 rows and a scrollbar when needed). 

It does give a lot of room for later additions so taking that in mind this might be a good way to solve it. 

The reason i came up with TABs is because other users do have concerns that one field more, would clutter the UI. Also tabs do have the advantage, that they can easily be turned off (made invisible), when not needed. For example, users that might not want to use attachements could turn off the tab and keep focused on their perspective.
Thomas, thanks for the mockup! It is really nice. Here are my thoughts:
  • I like the idea of the "inline" labels. They really remove clutter.
  • Just one line for "Remarks" is definitely not enough. I think "Links" and "Remarks" need to be swapped. However the "Links" field can contain multiple links and will autoexpand to multiline when it is filled.
  • Later the tab for attachments can be added.

Imo, the remarks field needs to be on the first tab! Why? Because it contains valuable information itself. Infos that i want to read right away, without changing the tab. The links on the other side do not contain information. They point to information somewhere else. Thus i think they can be in a different tab. If you want to read the links content you can press F7 and open (all) links in the browser. 99.5% of my remarks content fits into a single line. Since others might have different needs i think it is the remarks field that can start with a single line and auto-expand as needed.

Is this still relevant, or does the "Remarks" field resolve the need?