[Feature]: Vault/Folder/Notebook like structure

[Nosttromo]

What would you like?

I've been using Obsidian for a while, and they have the Vaults, groups of notes that we can take separately. When trying out Notesnook, I've come across Notebooks. I wanted to try Privacy Notes, moving some of my projects over, but I haven't found any way to have any sort of isolation from my workspaces. I can arrange everything in between the premade groups (notes, tasks, vault) but I have no option to have separate groups of those items.

Why / what problem does it solve?

Currently, I have some projects that I'm running. I'm writing a few stories that I have as a separate vault/notebook/folder, and two youtube channels, where I write scripts for each of them. Being able to have isolation between different groups of content would enable me to work on multiple projects simultaneously.

Tags aren't really enough because I usually create subfolders with different topics inside a vault, and since I deal with vastly different types of notes, wouldn't be good to have everything crammed into a single place while being separated by tags only. on top of that, I can't create subtags.

[LifetimeLabsDev]

Received this via email yesterday, as well: "Hope you don't mind me adding a future request for consideration: "Folders". Other than that, PrivacyNotes has everything for me."

@Nosttromo I'm open for this, but i'm wondering if a multi tag selection / filter would solve this request? This way tags could feel like folders basically: Select your main tag, and filter further with another tag.

Could you provide some examples/structures that you would prefer for this? I have to be honest though, I'd rather improve the tag sorting/filter/sub-tags at this stage of the project instead of implementing a new feature. It's not a no, just brainstorming here on features we already have.

Edit: We're working on possible concepts.

[Nosttromo]

My feedback in fact was a bit poorly phrased. It's 2 things actually:

-Folders to group up notes that are related to each other but still require some sort of separation
-Some sort of isolation between different projects. I'll use "vaults" from Obsidian to refer to that.

Why folders?

People are used to store varied objects in containers. We usually store documents on folders in real life, or some sort of organizer. It's a very deeply rooted concept that is most present in our digital world but also present in our day to day lives.

It's a familiar design, especially since we store everything in folders on our PCs. Since we are talking about a notes app, it makes sense to organize everything into a familiar structure that everyone can recognize easily.

Vaults

People will look into your application seeking to potentially use it to write essays, books, study and potentially organize their lives, since Privacy Notes supports passwords and even journaling. It has the potential to be the personal companion for its users for pretty much all aspects of life.

Given that flexibility, which I personally think is amazing, it would make sense to organize aspects of life separated from each other. I cook, I exercise, I'm writing a story and I write my youtube video scripts in Obsidian. I have 4 different vaults. I wouldn't want the notes from the book im writing visible when I'm looking for recipes to cook.

Would folders work? They could, but we would need folders for each category (notes, tasks, vaults) for each activity. The other option would be vaults, which would isolate everything depending on how the user wants to organize it.

Wouldn't tags be enough?

Given that, tags could still be a part of the system, but in a way to characterize different things. Let's say that I have a folder containing things about a carpentry project I'm doing, one for recipes that I want to try, and another for gym related stuff. I could make lists of purchases that I want to make for each category, tag each of them as "shopping", and when I go out, I can just pull up the "shopping" tag and each item from each vault and folder will come up so I can buy everything at once.

If I could choose, which one would I prefer to see introduced first?
Folders are the feature that I see requested the most in any application that doesn't have them. Vaults would be nice but users could make do in the meantime with folders.

Final consideration:
I'm coming with this perspective taking into account other notetaking/writing apps that I used (apple notes, notesnook, standard notes, obsidian) and things that I miss from each of them. Since your project has some similarities with all of them, I'm providing feedback taking into account that Privacy Notes has the aim of becoming a notes/lists/writing app.

[LifetimeLabsDev]

Thanks for your detailed feature request and the reasoning behind it, that helped us a lot. This is considered work in progress now:

"but we would need folders for each category (notes, tasks, vaults) for each activity"

Current concept: Notes/Journals/Files/Tasks/Logins can be assigned to a folder. That folder lists down all the items assigned to it. That folder could have another filter to only show Notes/Journals/Files/Tasks/Logins, either tabs / toggle / dropdown- not sure yet. Please let me know if that is a direction you had in mind, too.

[Nosttromo]

That is amazing! It's exactly what I had in mind.

I didn't know that we could post pictures here, so I'll take a screenshot of my obsidian screen so you have an idea of what vaults would be

Notice how I have my folders organized in the traditional folder like structure, but then I got the option to switch between different vaults, similar to notebooks from onenote. That is the isolation I was talking about. Think of it as a sort of "master folder", or different browser profiles that store logins, favorites and history separate from each other.

The issue with Obsidian is that the isolation is absolute, I can't reference a note from one vault in another. That's where your tag system could fill in the gap. The tags could be universal so different Vaults or Notebooks could be cross referenced. I don't see this kind of feature anywhere.

But wouldn't the regular already implemented folders be enough?

Kind of, but users would still have different projects bumping into each other from time to time. Similar to the browser profile I mentioned above, isolating projects is often desirable.

Why don't you use Obsidian then?

Obsidian is primarily an offline markdown editor. It has a sync service which is $10 for 10 vaults, I only use 4, so I'd have 6 that would be unused. Coming from the perspective of paying for something and not using, it's not very cheap. There are community made plugins, which Obsidian supports, that introduce backup and sync with phone features, but they are often clunky, prone to conflicts, and overall don't work well.

I have tried other applications, each with their different sets of issues:

-Scrivener: purely a writing program. Doesn't have backup/sync.
-Standard Notes: related to Proton, I infer good privacy practices, but folders are paid, no vault feature, can only use tags
-Obsidian: markdown editor, primarily offline, has the best set of features but the paid plan is either not enough or too much.
-Notesnook: sketchy pakistani jurisdiction, can create only 50 folders, no vaulting
-Onenote: Microsoft
-Cryptee: horrible interface that looks sleek but has terrible usability, can only make folders

Privacy Notes has been the only one to combine most of the features from the others, offer different notetaking formatting options, each with their own category (lists, journaling, password managing) which increases its value with "everything in one place", while also offering several privacy features.

You guys are also actively listening, so that's another positive thing.

The Pro offer is getting more tempting the longer I follow the project. When we get the iPhone app I'll probably get it and migrate my stuff to PN. Being able to sync between devices is important to me as I usually write on the go.