Don't treat folder as section group

[Felix E. Klee]

Often, I would like to put an entire folder with non-OneNote-files
into a OneNote notebook folder. This works, of course. However, I am
very annoyed that OneNote then creates "OneNote Table Of
Contents.onetoc2" files in every subfolder. Can this be avoided?

How do I tell OneNote not to treat a certain folder as a section
group?

 

[Kathy Jacobs]

How would you want it to be treated?

--
Kathy Jacobs, Microsoft MVP OneNote and PowerPoint
Author of Kathy Jacobs on PowerPoint
Get PowerPoint and OneNote information at www.onppt.com

I believe life is meant to be lived. But:
if we live without making a difference, it makes no difference that we lived

 

[Felix E. Klee]

How would you want it to be treated?

As an ordinary folder and not as a Section Group.

I just don't want OneNote to create these TOC [1] files all over the
place. I just imagine accidentally opening a large directory structure
as a OneNote notebook and afterwards having to clean up the mess -
*shudder*.

A simple proposal: When you open a folder as a OneNote notebook, then
a TOC file should be created only in that folder. All sub folders
should by default *not* be treated as Section Groups.

Another simple proposal: Simply get rid of the TOC files alltogether.

[1] TOC: "OneNote Table Of Contents.onetoc2"

 

[Ben M. Schorr, MVP]

If you get rid of the TOC files altogether you would lose information about
how the sections are ordered.

--
-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr, MVP
Roland Schorr & Tower
http://www.rolandschorr.com
http://www.officeforlawyers.com/onenote.htm

How would you want it to be treated?

As an ordinary folder and not as a Section Group.

I just don't want OneNote to create these TOC [1] files all over the
place. I just imagine accidentally opening a large directory structure
as a OneNote notebook and afterwards having to clean up the mess -
*shudder*.

A simple proposal: When you open a folder as a OneNote notebook, then
a TOC file should be created only in that folder. All sub folders
should by default *not* be treated as Section Groups.

Another simple proposal: Simply get rid of the TOC files alltogether.

[1] TOC: "OneNote Table Of Contents.onetoc2"

 

[Felix E. Klee]

If you get rid of the TOC files altogether you would lose information about
how the sections are ordered.

Ah - didn't think of that. Was a bit late yesterday.

So, another proposal: Only create a TOC file when there actually is a
section in the current folder.

I wonder if there is any way to extend OneNote to compensate for the
problem I described. Hm, probably not as it's not OpenSource ... The
only workaround is to run OneNote as a user which doesn't have
permissions to create TOC files on most of the HDD. But that's
cumbersome, especially to non-tech-savvy users.

BTW, maybe I can report the problem as a bug (it's a border case)?
Where?

 

[Felix E. Klee]

BTW, maybe I can report the problem as a bug (it's a border case)?
Where?

Hm, it looks more and more like a bug since OneNote's behavior is
simply not consistent: The problem seems to occur only with notebooks
on network drives, due to OneNote's caching mechanism.

When I open a folder hierarchy as a OneNote notebook on a local drive,
then TOC files aren't automatically created, just like I want it.

Again the caching mechanism is getting in the way. Why can't one turn
it *off*?

 

[magoo]

Often, I would like to put an entire folder with non-OneNote-files
into a OneNote notebook folder. This works, of course. However, I am
very annoyed that OneNote then creates "OneNote Table Of
Contents.onetoc2" files in every subfolder. Can this be avoided?

How do I tell OneNote not to treat a certain folder as a section
group?

Just out of curiosity: Why would you put non ON files/folders in a ON
Environment?
Assigning a certain place on your harddisk to an application should assure,
that this is the applications space.
ON having assigned some folder, has to make assumptions, such as "this is my
space, and everything in it belongs to me". Without these assumptions
standardsoftware could not exist.

Example: Why would I organize my private photos in a subdirectory of a
windows driver directory?
I would say I`d never do so, because only drivers go there...

 

[Felix E. Klee]

Just out of curiosity: Why would you put non ON files/folders in a ON
Environment?

I love to have my data in one place.

Example: Why would I organize my private photos in a subdirectory of a
windows driver directory?

Don't know. I wouldn't. But what I would do is put the photos of my
last trip in the same folder as the report of the trip. For writing
trip reports, OneNote is perfectly suited and I can link to the photos
using relative "file:"-links. Now, there are many cases, where you
don't have just photos in the same folder but also deep folder
structures containing other information.

Anyway, the problem only occurs with OneNote notebooks that aren't
stored locally. So, I simply assume that I've hit a bug, and I hope
that it will get fixed quickly.

 

[Felix E. Klee]

[Bug]
[local caching]

As it turns out, this is very serious for me. I'm willing to hire an
expert to either quickly fix the bug or to tell me how to turn off
caching of OneNote notebooks on network drives. Where do I find such
an expert?

 

[magoo]

I love to have my data in one place.


Don't know. I wouldn't. But what I would do is put the photos of my
last trip in the same folder as the report of the trip. For writing
trip reports, OneNote is perfectly suited and I can link to the photos
using relative "file:"-links. Now, there are many cases, where you
don't have just photos in the same folder but also deep folder
structures containing other information.

Thanks, the "relative-file-link" could acually be interesting.

Anyway, the problem only occurs with OneNote notebooks that aren't
stored locally. So, I simply assume that I've hit a bug, and I hope
that it will get fixed quickly.

I hope you`ll post the solution, if any, here ;-)

 

[Felix E. Klee]

I hope you`ll post the solution, if any, here ;-)

Well, at the moment there are two solutions AFAICS:

* Simply, don't put notebooks on network drives (or
other media where OneNote uses caching).

* With mklink under Vista make network drives
appear as local drives (untested).

I hope that there will be a bug fix soon. As said in this tread, I'm
willing to pay for someone coming up with better solutions.

 

[Ilya Koulchin]

To answer some of your questions in this thread:

how to turn off caching of OneNote notebooks on network drives

There is no way to turn off caching in OneNote, as it relies on the
cache as a fundamental part of the synchronization mechanism to allow
automatic save in a multi-user/offline environment.

When I open a folder hierarchy as a OneNote notebook on a local drive,
then TOC files aren't automatically created, just like I want it.

OneNote will create the TOC files in every folder, including local
drives. However, they will be hidden files by default, so you may simply
be not seeing them in the local drives. Check your remote server
settings to make sure that it is properly preserving the hiddenness
attribute on files.

As it turns out, this is very serious for me.

Could you elaborate? Is it causing additional problems down the line,
aside from extra files being created?

Another suggestion is to make the notebook a sibling to the folder that
contains the data. To use your trip example, you may have a folder named
after the trip, then within it have an images folder and a notebook
folder. You can then open just the notebook folder in OneNote.

Ilya

 

[Felix E. Klee]

Hi Ilya,

Thanks for your clarifications - I indeed didn't check for the
hiddenness.

Could you elaborate? Is it causing additional problems down the line,
aside from extra files being created?

Another suggestion is to make the notebook a sibling to the folder that
contains the data. To use your trip example, you may have a folder named
after the trip, then within it have an images folder and a notebook
folder. You can then open just the notebook folder in OneNote.

It often happens that I work with complex projects with deep directory
structures, for example containing C++ projects in sub directories
(and I don't want these to be cluttered). At the moment, for
documentation purposes, mostly README text files are being used to
document individual directories and files therein. I'd like to
introduce using OneNote notebooks instead. Of course, one could create
a directory structure where the notebooks are stored in separate sub
directories. But I don't like that:

* Creating a sub directory (i.e. new one or two page notebook) each
time is time consuming.

* One cannot simply jump to a section deeper in the directory
structure. One has to open the notebook associated with each directory
separately.

* One cannot use the "file:"-link feature to link to files in the same
directory since they, obviously, are then in a separate directory. Of
course, links such as "file:../file.doc" may work, but I don't like
that.

On a typical work day, several of these README files are created, and
using OneNote instead would be awesome. But if I have to create a new
notebook for each README, then it's probably not worth the trouble.
Also, I don't like the prospect of, on a busy work day, accidentally
opening the wrong directory in OneNote and then - after the damage
(TOC clutter) is done - having to restore data from the backup.

I repeat my offer: I'm willing to pay for someone who is able to find
a decent solution, ideally by providing a corresponding OneNote
extension/modification.

- Felix

 

[Felix E. Klee]

[...]

To bring it to a point: OneNote could be the perfect tool for
annotating data stored in folders (roughly one page per folder). In
fact I'm not the first to suggest this. In this group you can even
find a feature request for making OneNote a substitute for Windows
Explorer by also showing non-OneNote data. That's something that I
don't request. What I do request is simply that OneNote doesn't
pollute entire folder hierarchies with TOC files. In fact, I consider
this a bug, actually quite a dangerous one.

- Felix

 

[Felix E. Klee]

How do I tell OneNote not to treat a certain folder as a section
group?

I created a bug report, please vote for it:

https://connect.microsoft.com/onenote/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=322729

Hopefully the problem will get fixed soon.

 

[John Guin]

While OneNote is not open source, we do have a shared source Object Model
project at www.codeplex.com/onom. It sounds like there is enough
functionality with it and the windows .net framework to do everything you
need it you want to create an addin for yourself. But I'd be VERY careful
with accidentally deleting infromation I really wanted.

I also suggest checking David Rasmussen's tip for "virtual folders." That
technique may eliminate some of the overhead you are seeing:
http://blogs.msdn.com/david_rasmuss...tebooks-that-include-files-from-anywhere.aspx

 

[Felix E. Klee]

Hi John

While OneNote is not open source, we do have a shared source Object Model
project atwww.codeplex.com/onom.  It sounds like there is enough
functionality with it and the windows .net framework to do everything you
need it you want to create an addin for yourself.

I'll have a look at it - thanks for pointing me to the project.

But I'd be VERY careful
with accidentally deleting infromation I really wanted.

What information are you referring to? Could you elaborate?

I also suggest checking David Rasmussen's tip for "virtual folders."

That does indeed look quite interesting. Thanks!

Nice workarounds, but no reason to retract my bug report: The auto-
creation of TOC files is not only impractical and ugly, but it's also
very dangerous.

- Felix