"Section Groups" and "Notebooks" versus Folders

[srd]

I installed OneNote 2007, and uninstalled it about an hour later. Too many
hassles portended with windows desktop search beta 3. But I went through
one of the new feature demos, so I think I know what ON 2007 is about.

Everything seems fine and although not earthshaking, worth the price of an
upgrade when it goes to market. Except one change. While multiple
notebooks are great, I don't see how "section groups" improve on folders.
If I understood correctly, section groups do not admit of hierarchy. Why
put something rigid like section groups in place of the unlimited ability
of folders to embed hierarchically. (Please don't tell me it was because
some users couldn't get their minds around folders folders containing
sections without sections ever containing folders.)

The fit between notebooks and folders is not so tight that notebooks
should be created as freely as top-level folders might in ON 2003. A
handful of notebooks, so they can line up on the left side of the screen,
seems to work best, while folders could proliferate, not just vertically
but horizontally too.

Stephen R. Diamond

 

[Ilya Koulchin]

I don't see how "section groups" improve on
folders. If I understood correctly, section groups do not admit of
hierarchy. Why put something rigid like section groups in place of the
unlimited ability of folders to embed hierarchically. (Please don't tell
me it was because some users couldn't get their minds around folders
folders containing sections without sections ever containing folders.)

Section groups are exactly the same as folders - you can have section
groups/folders inside other section groups/folders. You can close your
notebook and reopen the section groups/folders as new notebooks. If you
open your notebook in explorer the section groups are nothing but
folders. The only thing that changed is the name. Really.
The name change was because we found that it sometimes was not clear
exactly how our hierarchy worked - with folders, notebooks, sections,
and pages sometimes it just wasn't clear what contained what. Hopefully
that's cleared up with section groups.

Ilya

 

[Erik Sojka (MVP)]

The terminology change (folders --> section groups) is pretty much the
only difference. You can have multiple nested section groups inside of
each other in 2007.

 

[srd]

Section groups are exactly the same as folders -

Good. But top level folders go to notebooks when the ON 2003 data is
converted. I would prefer that all section groups be converted to folders,
and then I can chose which few section groups I can promote. It seems
likes proliferating notebooks is a bad idea. But this may be a very minor
complaint, since the user can simply demote some of his notebooks.