How does everyone separate with Notebooks, sections, outline levels?

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Matt
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Mar 31, 2021 10:41 am

How does everyone separate with Notebooks, sections, outline levels?

Post by Matt »

Hi everyone! :D

New poster (and trial user of MI7) here. Hope you're all well.

I am wondering how everyone lays out their MI databases. Essentially, do you use lots of notebooks with a few sections each, or just one notebook with many sections? There seems to be so much flexibility on structure, it would be great to know of any benefits/draw backs to either approach.

I've noticed I can only seem to link to pages within the same notebook, so that might be an argument for "one big notebook" I guess? 8)

Thanks in advance
Matt
lbw2112
Posts: 139
Joined: Tue Mar 12, 2019 12:55 am

Post by lbw2112 »

Hello Matt, welcome to the Forum.
Thanks for the well wishes and I hope you and yours are doing well also.

The One Big Notebook can work fine depending on how you're using MyInfo. Off the top of my head, a few I can think of right away-
Advantages
- All your info in one notebook, easy peasy lemon squeezy.
- Not having to think which notebook some new info needs to go into.
- Easier to maintain one database than many i.e. backups, optimizing, etc.
- You can easily copy Perspectives to other sections.
- You can more easily Move and Copy notes to other sections with right click "Move or Copy Notes" function without having to cut and paste.
- And as you stated, page links.
- Searching easier.

Disadvantages
- Can get cluttered or have a lot of sections to move around in.
- If you make a mistake or delete / move or something a bunch of stuff it may be harder to notice as soon as a smaller notebook would most likely would.
- File size may get really large. Nowadays no problem for storage or backup but depending on if you use a syncing service it can take longer to sync or even grow larger than your sync capacity storage size allows.
- If you use the Send to Myinfo or Quick Paste your new clips can be added somewhere that's hard to find if the selected Section and place in the tree is elsewhere than you want them in. There is an easy solution to this I use though.

Personally I have around 6 to 8 notebooks. The least amount of notebooks I would ever have would be 2 or 3 depending on if I use MyInfo for work related things. They would basically be -
- Personal (A One Big Notebook for my personal stuff)
- Work (A One Big Notebook for my work related stuff)
- Clips (A Notebook I create with MyInfo that I have all the "Send to Myinfo" and "Quick / Fast Paste" options set to. This is the easy solution to the above mentioned Disadvantage).

I also have a few other notebooks for main things like data from other Programs I import weekly or Emails I need to keep as originals so I print them out in PDF form and add them to that Notebook. They're ones I don't need access to all the time so I don't keep them in the main notebook.

That's a few for the way I use it that I can think of. In my opinion, I would at least have your main Notebook and another for Clips. After you clips things you know all of it will be in the Clips Notebook, where you can go in then and give them Tags, Attribs or edits and then cut and paste them into whatever section of your main notebook you want them in. I think the developer is working on a Clip Manger so that will change if given the option of where to send the clips after you clip them. In Options you can set the Notebook it will "Send to Myinfo" and "Quick Auto Paste" to. I don't have sections in that one to make it easy, I know where the clips are. That's confusing the way I worded it.

As for Sections I keep those to a minimum and have them set as I would have other Notebooks I would need. There's posts on this forum about one or two users that have or may need hundreds or thousands of sections and that it may be hard to navigate. You can do a search on here for that and see what they're saying about it.

Again, welcome to the Forum.
Larry
Matt
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Mar 31, 2021 10:41 am

Post by Matt »

Hi Larry!

Many thanks for your kind welcome, it's great to be here.

It seems we have a similar set up! I'm trying to get a delicate balance between separation without restricting being able to link what I'd like to link. Currently I have:

- Inbox (Notebook) - no sections, for web clips
- Knowledge (Notebook) - sections for the major areas I tend to learn/make notes about
- Home (Notebook) - one section at the moment, for home records and personal todos


My home/work life tends to overlap quite a lot, so I've bundled personal and work interests in to the Knowledge notebook. I'm just conscious of structure decisions I make now impacting the future when I have many, many more notes!

Again, really appreciate your input and welcome Larry - I think MyInfo has a very happy new user :D

Matt
Telesto
Posts: 3377
Joined: Fri Dec 15, 2017 5:32 pm

Post by Telesto »

There plenty of different workflows. I do see lots of overlap between web browser usage. Some use the same tab for everything. Some want a new tab for everything the click on. Some have multiple profiles with default tabs set. Some use tab stacks. Some want clean slate on lauch. Some want to restore the old session. Some user horizontal tabs, so use vertical tabs. Some have big history, others clean that regularly. Some save the whole download history, some want it clean. Some use tiled windows, some don't. Note: kind of addicted to Vivaldi browser (Chromium based, as Edge/Chromium/Brave and so on) where you have plenty of options to make it your own.

But anyhow, I have a database for linguistic purposes.
I have databases for (continental law) annotations. So I can add notes/comments insight related to every law there is
I have some interest in the Stock Market so keep notes about company's or derivate products which have my interest. (different database
I read certain articles in papers which have I want to save. Different database.
I have databases about allergy's and intolerances. Keeping track of different sites (stored bookmark notes). And making additional notes being able to keeping structure in it. It also makes it easier to share.
I have number of scientific papers I want to store. So I'm using MyInfo as (Zotero/Mendely) kind of app

& You can use it as evidence database. So collection of all proof (documents, photo's).
Works for advocates.
But probably also for detective of journalistic purposes. (Also different databases)
It works for people who have to store tremendous amount of manuals (say of Kitchen appliances); So you're small repair company.

I also use MyInfo kind of password manager (again separate database). For the common used, not very interesting webshop logins :P. If this wise to do, we can argue about. But well Nirsoft is able to recover plenty of those. Clipboard content can be intercepted anyhow. And typing password.. well keyloggers. Maybe it's possible to intercept wireless keyboards too. So the whole security is relative anyhow. And there are enough people using the same password over and over. I have variety out of security concerns. And I can't remember > 100 generated passwords with 8-12 characters (including special symbols and such). If those are save is topic to, reminders me a comic saying generated passwords being hard to remember for people but easy to guess for computers. 2-Step Verification will be norm soon. Even for webshops at some point.

It's possible scrivener alternative (for Writers)

A user here uses 1500 sections for managing building descriptions (and documentation) in single database.

So more matter of what works for you. But having items 'sorted' on topic makes it easier. (I use the pinned notebook panel) And notebook with 1500 notebooks of all sorts of topics is pretty overwhelming. But for the user with 1500 simply makes sense, all those sections are about the 'same topic'. Except different buildings (estate agent or architect).

Another concern is database size. My databases tend to expand. But like to keep within proportions. Say around 400 MB each. Which requires me to split.

Again this is Swiss Knife. You develop you're own style within you're own use cases. And takes what works for you best. And same time trying too look at what design issues. Which would make MyInfo even more flexible to fit in any workflow, in business cases or for private use.

MyInfo is already great, but can be become even better. Have put forward enough ideas to fill the development for the next 5-7 years. I want to go more or less the route where SeaMonkey failed. So plenty of 'simple tools' in one. Not specialized tool for ever stupid element. MyInfo should handle mail and calendar as (EssentialPIM) does. And having some basic brain storming tools (Scapple alike; not mindmap craze with lots of colorful toys something simple.
I really don't want to tike about box border size & color &fill color and position to much. It's really distracting. But well those fancy toy like programs look nice. And it would mean that a program is done at some point (but if you're company living form revenue you have to create more features to make upgrade worth it).
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