Better UI for switching between notebooks

[rmunn]

I just tried out having more than one notebook: I created a notebook called NB1, and another one called NB2, and I created a tiddler in each. I then opened https://noteself.github.io/edge/ in two different tabs, and in each tab, the Getting Started page loaded up with "My Notebook" as the default. Changing the Notebook Name to NB1 and NB2 respectively in each tab worked, and I was able to access the tiddlers in each tab the way I would expect it to work.

But I think the UI for having multiple notebooks could be improved. I feel like a good design might be:

• If there are zero notebooks in the browser storage, create one with the name "MyNotebook" (as NoteSelf already does).
• If there is just one notebook in the browser storage, open that one. Or if there are two notebooks, but one of them is named "MyNotebook" and is empty (apart from the default GettingStarted page) while the other one is named something other than "MyNotebook" and is not empty, then open the non-empty one since that's clearly the one that the user is using as their only "real" notebook.
• If there are two or more notebooks in browser storage and one of them is set to be the default, open that one. (There will be UI in the notebook-selection screen to set one as the default).
• If there are two or more notebooks in browser storage and none of them is set to be the default, bring up a notebook-selection UI. The title (and possibly name) of all notebooks in browser storage will be visible, and you can click on one of those notebooks to switch to it (which might require a page refresh, but that page refresh probably won't require confirmation since there's no risk of losing edits at this point when the user doesn't yet have a tiddler open). There will also be a button or link next to each notebook to set it as the default, so that next time you open https://noteself.github.io/online/ you will go directly to that notebook.
• Somewhere in the sidebar, perhaps between the Settings icon and the Save Changes icon, there will be another icon that takes you to the "select the notebook you want to work with" page. This icon will only be visible if there are two or more non-empty notebooks. Alternately, there could be a tab next to "Tools" or "More" called "Notebooks", which contains a list of all non-empty notebooks. It, too, would only be visible if there are two or more non-empty notebooks.

I imagine that most users only use a single notebook, so this would probably only help power users — who can probably figure out how to use the control panel to manage multiple notebooks, just like I did. But I think that some non-power users might also have a use for having more than one notebook, yet not be able to figure it out without some help from the UI, hence this suggestion.

[danielo515]

Hello @rmunn ,

Thank you very much for your suggestions. I really like them all.
Maybe I will not make so many assumptions, for example opening a notebook just because it has a name, but your overall sugestions are very good.

I imagine that most users only use a single notebook,

I think the same, In fact I only use two.

this would probably only help power users — who can probably figure out how to use the control panel to manage multiple notebooks

The only problem is that any of those power users is coming back here and making a PR to integrate their additions.

I have a very simple switch in mind, that I wanted to implement since long ago, but I always put it at the bottom of the list.

[johnd0e]

Hello.

I would like to use several notebooks, where some could be local-only, some - syncing with external db (and even more - db could be different for each notebook)

[danielo515]

That is already possible @johnd0e

[johnd0e]

Oh, I see now, thanks.

Than the only one feature I still miss is to be able to switch between notebooks in main NS interface (not in Settings).

[danielo515]

Yes, me too. Ad that is what this issue is all about 😄

[mauloop]

I wrote a little macro as a workaround. I posted it here