Winston

Explain the problem as you see it

Sometimes I can utilise up to 20 fields on a single supertag.

Why is this a problem for you?

Too many fields can be difficult to navigate.

Suggest a solution

I would love to be able to create headings/groups for each group of supertags, this would allow better organisation of supertags.

Explain the problem as you see it

When filling out huge databases by clicking the AI button, sometimes it generates answers that you do not quite like. As of now, there is no way to kill the remaining queues sent to openAI. It burns all of your tokens, and there's nothing you can do about it.

Why is this a problem for you?

Money.

I get things like this:

Suggest a solution

Allow us a way to kill all remaining processes. We need a queue system for AI tasks/commands.

Explain the problem as you see it

Why is this a problem for you?

Sometimes I just want to fill one cell with AI, not the entire column. How can I achieve that in Table view? In the current implementation - I can't.

Suggest a solution

When hovering over an empty cell, allow me to click the AI button to fill that individual cell.

Explain the problem as you see it

There are a lot of repeated questions in the Slack/reddit, and sometimes there are some variations.

Why is this a problem for you?

Not a problem for me, but for users, sometimes it can take a while for them to get their answers. Also, things may already be answered in the past, it just seems like an efficiency waste to not store these answers to help answer something else in future.

Suggest a solution

Might be a good idea to have some kind of LLM/AI to help answer 'how do i do this in tana' questions, maybe on the help.tana.inc site, or even in-app.

Explain the problem as you see it

Currently, the only way to find a date is to specify it exactly.

Sometimes I'd like the option to generically mention a more 'generic date'. For example:

• Thursday - and this would refer to ALL Thursdays, not just one particular Thursday
• January - and this would refer to ALL Januarys, not just this year's
• Quarter 1 - and this would refer to ALL Quarter 1s of all years
• Week 52 - and this would refer to ALL Week 52s of all years
• 15th - and this would refer to 15ths of ALL months

Why is this a problem for you?

When I want to create a recurring date, this becomes a problem.

For example, if my pay-day is on the 15th of each month, I want to be able to specify exactly that.
When I type:

• payday @Every 15th

I would want this node to appear everytime on the daily note node under References. This would serve as a reminder for me to work on that node.

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Or another example, if I gym on Mon/Thu/Sats, then I want my node to surface on these days. When I type:

• gym record @Every Mon @Every Thu @Every Sat

I would want this node to appear everytime on a Mon/Thu/Sat under References. Likewise, this would serve as a reminder for me that such a node already exists and I do not create a duplicate, neither do I need to go hunting for the node and thinking about what I named it.

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Another example, if I want to do a monthly review, then I want my node to surface on the 31st of every month. When I type:

• monthly review @Every 31st

I want to be able to see what I had written in the previous month in one go. This referencing allows me to have continuity to "build and accumulate things over time". This makes compounding nodes much easier.

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Yet another benefit that would arise from generic date references is that when you visit the node itself - that's when the magic happens. It would serve as a 'container' to house all the different reviews you've made over time (especially if I used contextual nodes). I would be able to see trends over time, how things changed, or whether there are any patterns over time.

I believe whenever a system is amassed with a large amount of data, there always needs to be some form of clustering - and generic dates can do what specific dates cannot do - they can clarify patterns over time.

I can already think of many ways to use this - for example, if I filtered the different week days vs energy levels, I would be able to see which days I am more energised and see a pattern over time. Or I can see what my spending habits are like.

At the same time, this would easily work for any kind of recurring date, if you could at the same time, specify the Start and End date as a date range (which is already possible in Tana).

Suggest a solution

Would love generic date specifiers.

Explain the problem as you see it

Sometimes when I am processing several 'literature notes' (as it's called in Zettelkasten), I often end up wanting to link these notes all into one single 'permanent note'.

Or sometimes, when I am processing several items/tasks at the same time, I want to add them all to one newly created project and edit the project directly after.

Or sometimes, when I am processing several events, I want to add a new date to all of them at the same time.

Tana is great at divergence methods - which is basically one node giving birth to multiple other children nodes. However, it has not solved one of the problems that outliners tend to have - the problem of spiralling complexity, unused nodes, etc. Developing convergence methods hence would help to increase the ability of finding common threads between disparate nodes.

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The way it is done (painfully) in Tana right now, is like this:

1. Create the wanted node in Field X of Node 1
2. Copy this node, and paste it as a reference in Field X of Node 2, 3, 4, and 5. (Or alternatively, select it from the instance list if it is an Instance Field).

There is an alternative method which is to use the command "Set field as _____" but this is extremely limited because (1) it's a command and has no continuity to edit the field content afterwards, (2) it cannot create new nodes in the command, and the workflow is disrupted.

This is also different from clustering - clustering is rearranging sibling nodes under smaller heading nodes which is possible via 'cluster children with embeddings'. The other advantage convergence mechanisms have over this is that one node can belong to multiple other nodes through fields.

Why is this a problem for you?

This problem is not singular, because it shows the lack of 'convergence mechanisms' in Tana.

By solving this, I can link several paragraphs in an essay / article to one single idea. For example, I can ctrl-click paragraphs 1, 3, 7, and then add them to a topic that I can pursue later. Meanwhile, I could ctrl-click paragraphs 2, 7, 8 and add them to a second topic to pursue.

Similarly, if I am creating a permanent note for several literature notes, I can just select some of them, then edit all of their fields at the same time to create a new item, etc.

Or, if I'm creating a new project birthed out of several tasks, I want to be able to edit the common field among them and then edit the project directly.

There are endless usecase examples!

Suggest a solution

After selecting the nodes that I want to 'converge' and edit common fields of, I would like the field to appear in the side-bar or an overlay window. The reason for this is that it allows me to continue my work in further developing the content of this field node.

Explain the problem as you see it

I'm trying to create a button which when clicked does the following:

1. Creates a reference
2. Sends this reference to the Today node

Why is this a problem for you?

I want to automate this process instead of having to copy and paste

Suggest a solution

Create a command: Send reference to ...

and it can be "(user) Today", "(user) Inbox" etc.

Explain the problem as you see it

Under my daily node, I use spaced repetition. After processing it, it changes the date - so I would have expected it to disappear. However it shows up as:

Why is this a problem for you?

It creates a lot of unneeded clutter.

Suggest a solution

Would love a way to filter deleted nodes out by default.

Explain the problem as you see it

Would be really nice to be able to right click > select emoji/icon/custom ico or favicons

Why is this a problem for you?

Right now I am using Debug Node > add it under Icon

Suggest a solution

Right click > select icon

Explain the problem as you see it

I have a particular usecase where I tag certain nodes that contain fields with images (or is an image node itself) with something like #photo or #memory. When using an instance field that is set to this supertag, I sometimes wish that I could look directly at the picture instead of having to crawl through text.

Why is this a problem for you?

Sometimes a node's primary content is its image, not the text. It would be really nice to be able to select according to its primary content.

Suggest a solution

Perhaps allow an instance field to display in the dropdown menu according to one of its fields (then I can set it as the image field). And also display it like an album, so I can select it.

Explain the problem as you see it

Screen real estate is very valuable in a notetaking app. It would be nice if we could toggle or switch between word wrap (and non-word wrap) when in a Table Livesearch view. It's a very useful function in Excel.

Why is this a problem for you?

Sometimes I have long nodes and it can create 'very tall cells' which makes it difficult to process data (this includes descriptions). It then looks very awkward.

Suggest a solution

Allow disabling of word-wrap in tables (by columns)

Explain the problem as you see it

There's a problem with the flexibility of use of aliases, especially when I'm working with academic stuff that requires a lot of citations. In roam, it's rather easy to just 'paste as alias' or convert a block of text into an alias "*". It's not easy to do in Tana.

Why is this a problem for you?

Friction, a lot of it. It makes working in Tana for this use case very difficult.

Suggest a solution

I'd suggest a command for 'copy as alias' and 'paste as alias' which I can then assign a hotkey to work with this more easily.

Explain the problem as you see it

Tana Publish needs something like this:

Why is this a problem for you?

It just helps with organisation, allows the user to toggle - hide/show - sections of content which are otherwise quite complex to look at.

Suggest a solution

Implement toggle-lists please. Would be useful for things like FAQs

Explain the problem as you see it

Sometimes after updating information in a Table View, I'd want the table to automatically sort the information.

Why is this a problem for you?

For example, when I sort by field X, and change the field value, I'd want it to disappear from the first row - instead it just persists right there, which is a little disruptive.

Suggest a solution

I think this was done automatically previously while editing was taking place, which was disruptive. But I think a possible solution could be to process it once we exit the row or stop editing the row. Otherwise, a 'refresh button' would be very useful, so that at least we can update the view while changing values in the live search table.