Native multi-window, tabs
Jonathan Ragan-Kelley
I find the special treatment of a single window in NotePlan a constant impediment to my work, and really wish it worked more like any regular multi-window app, an arbitrary number of windows and no special "main" window. The inability to use the command bar, or show today/yesterday/tomorrow, to navigate to other notes, or to show/hide sidebars, in any but the one blessed main window (which without sidebars is impossible to visually distinguish from other windows) constantly leads to me trying to take actions and failing with an alert sound. Whenever I'm working with more than one note (very common with today + any non-daily notes) it adds lots of cognitive overhead to the process of ever trying to rearrange my workspace or navigate.
(Things and Craft both work much more smoothly with an arbitrary number of equally first-class windows, and are worth looking at as models here.)
From that foundation, I'd love to see this extended to support the modern macOS model of tabs, where a single physical window can host multiple logical windows. Switching quickly and maintaining a mental context without having to go through the command bar is very useful.
Finally, to fit in with this, the command bar should include an option to open the selected note in a new window rather than always only the main window (or, in the world of multiple first-class windows I'm advocating here, the frontmost window) or a new tab.
Ishir Bhan
Agree this is still a glaring omission. Splits are helpful, but the management can use improvement. When I have a split view, it's a guessing game where the next item I open will show up. There's no visual indication of which split is "active" and will be the target of the next open command. Some views (e.g. filters, search) only populate the leftmost split. Obsidian has great flexibility with both tabs and splits, as well as the ability to pin so that you don't inadvertently close a note you meant to keep open.
Boris Anthony
Dunno if this fits in here or should be a separate post but: being able to rearrange "splits" would be nice (as I guess I find myself expecting them to behave a bit like Tabs).
Eduard Metzger
I have recently added split view to the last alpha version: https://noteplan.canny.io/general-feature-request/p/split-multi-pane-view-on-mac-to-see-notes-side-by-side
This could help out in this regard. Also opening windows from the command bar (CMD+Click) or as a split view (Opt+Click) works now in this alpha version. Will release soon a full beta and then the official release.
Javier Escribano
Hey! I see the CMD+click to open in a new window has already been implemented. But I still agree with Jonathan, we miss more power to view multiple notes.
Building on previous comments, and after my experience in other related apps, I see two other phases or approaches:
- Have two notes in parallel
It is really useful so you can write in one note reading info or copying block references from the other note. This is like Roam or Obsidian already supports. For me this is kind of a "must".
We can even go further, and support many notes in parallel, like Andy has done in his website https://notes.andymatuschak.org/Evergreen_notes
- Show multiple tabs
You may be working on parallel paths, and having the notes open at the same time on the same window is very helpful. Each tab can have its own notes opened (if we do the 1st approach). Open a new window is a minimum because the speed and UX is much better with tabs.
How does this impact the calendar sidebar?
My impression – but I am new to the app – is that the calendar doesn't need to be shown every time. It can be opened just when needed.
D
Daniel Danilov
💯 Agreed! Honestly working with multiple windows/notes is quite a requirement with notes, so I really hope this can be implemented.
> Finally, to fit in with this, the command bar should include an option to open the selected note in a new window rather than always only the main window (or, in the world of multiple first-class windows I'm advocating here, the frontmost window) or a new tab.
This is super important for me, too! I actually suggested a simpler solution here: https://noteplan.canny.io/general-feature-request/p/hold-cmd-in-command-bar-to-open-an-item-in-new-window
Essentially, a quick workaround can be to allow users to hold CMD while in the command bar, giving us an option to open in a new note instead. This can also work to select a specific choice (for example, CMD+1 for 1st option, 2 for 2nd, and so on) similar to how it's done in Alfred app.
Craig Pinegar
Can this be implemented for iPadOS?
Eduard Metzger
Craig Pinegar: Technically yes with the multi-tasking capabilities by showing multiple "windows".
Craig Pinegar
Eduard Metzger: good to know! I believe this request has been around in one form or another for a while. Is this capability on the NP3 iPadOS roadmap?
Eduard Metzger
Thanks for elaborating this problem, I see what you mean here!