rename a recording

[Howard]

When I rename the section name the audio recordings doesn't get renamed. If
I do it manually it will break the link to the onenote file.
How do I rename a section and its recordings?


Howard

 

[Daniel Escapa [MS]]

I don't believe that you can rename a recording in this way. Once you
rename the section the recording will keep the same name (though people can
prove me wrong).

 

[Ben M. Schorr - MVP]

Aloha Daniel Escapa [MS],

I haven't tested it but I think you're right. Renaming the section won't
change the name of the recording and renaming the recording will break the
link. You can manually recreate the link but if you do that you'll lose
the "follow the bouncing ball" feature (I'm fairly sure).

-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr - MVP
http://www.rolandschorr.com
Microsoft OneNote FAQ: http://www.factplace.com/onenote.html

 

[Howard]

I have at least 20 recordings in that section. Guess Im out of luck
Maybe this could be a feature in OneNote 2007
Also save related files to a folder like when you save a web page in IE.
Section1_files

Is onenote 2007 going to adopt xml format?

 

[Daniel Escapa [MS]]

OneNote 2007 is not switching to the XML file format like some of the other
Office apps are (Word, Excel, PowerPoint).

However with our export API you can export content out of OneNote in an XML
format.

 

[Grant Robertson]

I have at least 20 recordings in that section. Guess Im out of luck
Maybe this could be a feature in OneNote 2007
Also save related files to a folder like when you save a web page in IE.
Section1_files

To MS:
This is a good idea. You could just treat the audio recordings the same
way you do imported files. Put them in the SectionName_onefiles folder.
If someone renames the section the OneNote should also rename the folder
and adjust the links to both the imported files and the recorded audio
files.

You always have to remember that this program has to be useful for
someone's entire note-taking life. Not just good enough to put together a
demo. People are going to move things around and rename things as their
notebooks grow. OneNote has to handle that gracefully or you will have
some very ticked off customers a year down the road.

 

[Ben M. Schorr - MVP]

Aloha Grant,

Yes, that would be a good idea. Let me just say though that in most cases
when WE rename a section (which we do occasionally) we don't care to have
the recordings inside renamed as well. For example: We may have a recording
of a meeting which we named "April Sales Meeting". Maybe we renamed the
section from "Sales" to "West Coast Sales" (to reflect that we're going to
have multiple regional sales sections) but the recording should still be
named "April Sales Meeting."

-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr - MVP
http://www.rolandschorr.com
Microsoft OneNote FAQ: http://www.factplace.com/onenotefaq.htm

 

[Grant Robertson]

Yes, that would be a good idea. Let me just say though that in most cases
when WE rename a section (which we do occasionally) we don't care to have
the recordings inside renamed as well. For example: We may have a recording
of a meeting which we named "April Sales Meeting". Maybe we renamed the
section from "Sales" to "West Coast Sales" (to reflect that we're going to
have multiple regional sales sections) but the recording should still be
named "April Sales Meeting."

When you start a recording does it give you the opportunity to name the
sound file? As I recall, ON 2003 just named it according to the section
name or page name.

Do you allow people to take notes on different pages while they are
making a recording? While this may sound like the more flexible option, I
strongly recommend against it. You should practically insist that people
use a separate page (or page group) for each recording and a separate
recording for each page (or page group). Then, if someone decides to drag
and drop a page with a recording associated with it then OneNote can
easily find the correct recording to move with it and can easily modify
the links in the page pointing to the sound file to reflect the new
folder name that the sound file has been moved to. The actual file name
of the sound file can remain the same but the path to that file will have
changed. The page groups would have to be tied more intrinsically
together to keep from splitting up recordings or breaking the links to
major portions of notes all the time.

Without these kinds of restrictions (or at least warnings to the user)
then ON would have a rat's nest of links to keep track of and
continuously modify when people moved things around. If they cut and
pasted text that had a sound file associated with it most people will
expect that link to the sound file to stay intact. You must either warn
them to prevent them from ruining the integrity of their data or truly be
able to keep that link functioning no matter what the user did. I don't
think I would want the overhead that would be necessary to accomplish
this.

Now, if you kept all the sound files in a completely separate folder
structure then you could move the pages around and even allow cutting and
pasting of snippets of notes and the links would remain intact. However,
this would then require that the sound files always remain in exactly the
same place once they were created. It would also be very difficult to
keep track of when the last link to that sound file was deleted and ask
the user if they wanted to delete that sound file.

This is why I can't wait for the new file system. With files actually
records in a database it wouldn't matter where in the "directory
structure" a file was stored or moved to. The "directory structure" would
be just one more field in the record. All links to files will only need
to include the unique key of the record for the "file system's" database
engine to find the record. The only time you will need to modify a link
is if the file linked to gets moved to a different logical volume with
respect to the link itself.

 

[Ben M. Schorr - MVP]

Aloha Grant,

When you start a recording does it give you the opportunity to name
the sound file? As I recall, ON 2003 just named it according to the
section name or page name.

No, 2007 does what 2003 does in that regard. Names it for the page and doesn't
present an opportunity to rename. I'd actually like to have the ability
to name the sound file when the recording is initiated.

Do you allow people to take notes on different pages while they are
making a recording?

Yes, however on playback the "follow the bouncing ball" will not take you
to the other page(s) when it reaches those points in the recording and there
is no indication on the other pages that there is an associated recording.
I guess it would be incumbent upon the note-taker to make a note on the
primary page that they took related notes on another page (and create a hyperlink
if they want to I suppose) otherwise those notes will not be exposed during
playback. Clearly it's a matter of not prohibiting people from changing
pages during recordings, but I think we wouldn't recommend it since you lose
those nice playback features for those notes. That may be something that
can be addressed in the next version.

While this may sound like the more flexible
option, I strongly recommend against it. You should practically insist
that people use a separate page (or page group) for each recording and
a separate recording for each page (or page group). Then, if someone
decides to drag and drop a page with a recording associated with it
then OneNote can easily find the correct recording to move with it and
can easily modify the links in the page pointing to the sound file to
reflect the new folder name that the sound file has been moved to. The
actual file name of the sound file can remain the same but the path to
that file will have changed. The page groups would have to be tied
more intrinsically together to keep from splitting up recordings or
breaking the links to major portions of notes all the time.

If a note page gets moved to a new section the sound file goes with it (at
least the links do) but don't get renamed -- and actually they shouldn't
get renamed with a simple move because the page still has the same name.
I'd hate to lose the ability to have multiple recordings on a single page
though -- especially if only to accomodate those scenarios where somebody
moves/renames the page and wants the sound file renamed too. I suspect that
scenario may not be rare but also not terribly common either. I can't recall
the last time I moved a page with a recording on it and had a problem with
the sound file recording. In fact, most of the times I've moved a page with
a sound recording it's been to test something for support -- rather than
part of my actual work.

Without these kinds of restrictions (or at least warnings to the user)
then ON would have a rat's nest of links to keep track of and
continuously modify when people moved things around.

I think the way it is now is fairly clean from a links standpoint, but I
agree that it causes issues for people who need the sound file actually moved
to a different directory (if you change sections) or who want it renamed.

If they cut and
pasted text that had a sound file associated with it most people will
expect that link to the sound file to stay intact. You must either
warn them to prevent them from ruining the integrity of their data or
truly be able to keep that link functioning no matter what the user
did. I don't think I would want the overhead that would be necessary
to accomplish this.

You don't want the overhead to maintain the link or the overhead for the
warning? I agree that I can see this causing problems for folks who don't
realize they're going to lose their connection to the sound file if they
cut/paste the associated text. It won't harm the recording - but they will
lose the "bouncing ball" capability for that text.

Now, if you kept all the sound files in a completely separate folder
structure then you could move the pages around and even allow cutting
and pasting of snippets of notes and the links would remain intact.

I think there would have to be some additional link overhead done to maintain
separate links for each text snippet.

However, this would then require that the sound files always remain in
exactly the same place once they were created. It would also be very
difficult to keep track of when the last link to that sound file was
deleted and ask the user if they wanted to delete that sound file.

Right - though we don't do that now. That's a minor weakness IMHO and it
can result in a lot of orphaned sound files taking up disk space. I would
like to see us prompt to delete sound files when all of the notes linked
are deleted.

This is why I can't wait for the new file system. With files actually
records in a database it wouldn't matter where in the "directory
structure" a file was stored or moved to. The "directory structure"
would be just one more field in the record.

That will lead to all kinds of interesting new capabilities, yes.



-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr - MVP
http://www.rolandschorr.com
Microsoft OneNote FAQ: http://www.factplace.com/onenotefaq.htm

 

[Howard]

I understand how some people want it one way and other people want it
another way.
How about a section properties dialog that presents the user with a list of
option and allows user to modify the default behavior.
Also give users the ability the change recording path through smart tags. I
sure this can be done very easily.

 

[Grant Robertson]

I guess it would be incumbent upon the note-taker to make a note on the
primary page that they took related notes on another page (and create a hyperlink
if they want to I suppose) otherwise those notes will not be exposed during
playback. Clearly it's a matter of not prohibiting people from changing
pages during recordings, but I think we wouldn't recommend it since you lose
those nice playback features for those notes. That may be something that
can be addressed in the next version.

I'm not especially asking for that feature. I'm just saying if you don't
restrict users taking that action and the software won't do what they
might expect then you need to do a good job of warning them ahead of time
so they don't loose functionality unexpectedly. That is what really ticks
people off.

If a note page gets moved to a new section the sound file goes with it (at
least the links do) but don't get renamed -- and actually they shouldn't
get renamed with a simple move because the page still has the same name.
I'd hate to lose the ability to have multiple recordings on a single page
though -- especially if only to accomodate those scenarios where somebody
moves/renames the page and wants the sound file renamed too. I suspect that
scenario may not be rare but also not terribly common either. I can't recall
the last time I moved a page with a recording on it and had a problem with
the sound file recording. In fact, most of the times I've moved a page with
a sound recording it's been to test something for support -- rather than
part of my actual work.

Again, just make sure you warn the user. If a page has recordings then
you could pop up a dialog when a user tried to rename the page.

You don't want the overhead to maintain the link or the overhead for the
warning? I agree that I can see this causing problems for folks who don't
realize they're going to lose their connection to the sound file if they
cut/paste the associated text. It won't harm the recording - but they will
lose the "bouncing ball" capability for that text.

I wouldn't want the overhead of maintaining all links no matter what the
user did. At least not till I've got a 10 GHz Tablet PC. I understand the
massive amount of overhead it would take to check for and update all
possible links to any possible sound file no matter how much or little of
a page got cut and pasted no matter how many times all over the place. So
to me, at this stage of Moore's Law, I can live with the restriction of
keeping to one page per sound file.

I think there would have to be some additional link overhead done to maintain
separate links for each text snippet.


Right - though we don't do that now. That's a minor weakness IMHO and it
can result in a lot of orphaned sound files taking up disk space. I would
like to see us prompt to delete sound files when all of the notes linked
are deleted.

Which would be even more overhead. You would have to keep an index of the
location of every darn link to the sound file. then you would have to
update that index every time the user moved anything. Then you would have
to check and modify the index every time the user deleted a paragraph.
Heck, you would have to check the index every time the user deleted
anything at all since they could have pasted a paragraph from a page with
a sound file to the middle of a paragraph on some othe page. While you
could maintain a separate piece of data for each and every word to
indicate whether it was in it's original location or had been pasted
there and only check the index if that word had been pasted... But that
would be a lot of overhead in and of itself, perhaps more than checking
the index.

Basically, I'm saying I fully understand the implications of trying to
track everything so that people can just move anything anywhere they want
and still maintain the links to audio or video files. It just isn't
practical at this time.