In August, we previewed what’s coming to OneNote on Windows. Today, we’re excited to announce an upcoming refresh to OneNote that will help the app feel both familiar and modern. Under the hood, we’r...
Updated Feb 08, 2023
Version 2.0
Blog Post
As heavy user I fully disagree and see a much worser usability now compared to the UWP-App.
Only the colors and control shapes are little bit more modern, but this doesnt improve the usability tasks/workflow at all.
- Vertical navigation pane
Having more than 5-7 entries horizontal is just an UN-USABLE user interface (and sometimes I have more than 30 entries...).
The decision to go back to the horizontal navigation pane is the BIGGEST ISSUE making it unusable to store larger hierarchies.
PLEASE(!!!): Provide a feature switch to (optionally) display a vertical navigation pane like in UWP app before. - Remove old-thinking Notebook-Metapher with just folders
Having a limited OneNote structure like Notebooks/section groups/sections/etc. is a BIG ISSUE when trying to save infos/data from an endless WWW.
THIS IS THE MAIN DESIGN/USABILITY ISSUE in OneNote!
(Do the initial inventors of this really think this is the optimal structure/hierarchy to write down any info/data in the world???
The Notebook-Metapher originates from Physics Lab to write down recurring, same experiments to see differences for different tests faster, but doesnt work for all infos/data at all)
Having just folders (and also any deeper sub-folders) that include pages would be much easier in the usability and handling (and moving just any folder to any level without the need to use another object type. e.g. is it now SectionGroup/Section/etc. I dont want to bother!!!). - Add vertical search-pane (like in MS-Word)
- Add vertical navigation-pane with headings (like in MS-Word)
- Add better/easier handling for headings in text (like in MS-Word)
Currently it is a PAIN to add headings. If there is just an empty line before an heading the heading-numbering is distroyed/stopped.
Adding a consistent style to heading1/2/3 is much to compliated (compared to MS-Word). - Better tag/categories handling
Those are just the big pain points.
If you succeed in solving these, only then you are going equal/ahead competitors like Evernote, Pocket, etc.
Thanks for any improvement(s) in advance!