Kanban View Feature

Feature Requests
1

Hello,

I’ve recently started using SuperNotes and think it’s a fantastic product. However, I would love to see a Kanban view feature added, similar to what is available in Notion, Trello, and Asana, where users can actively set the number and names of columns.

The current BroadSheet view in SuperNotes, and the gallery view in Google Keep, are great for providing an overview at a specific moment, but they seem to lack consistency. In the BroadSheet view (newspaper-style layout), where numerous cards are displayed on a flat surface, I find the ‘location’ of a card becomes significant. I often recall the approximate location of a card, thinking, “Hmm, that card was towards the bottom of the right column,” or “That card was near the top of the middle column,” or “That card was just below the ‘Cleaning Methods’ card.”

Due to the dynamic change in the number of columns based on window size and the device used, the position of cards in the current BroadSheet view is always changing. What I thought was on the right end might shift to the left, making it difficult to rely on ‘spatial memory’ of card locations.

While Kanban views like those in Notion, Trello, and Asana are generally considered convenient for managing task progress, they are also beneficial from a note management perspective. A Kanban view composed of user-defined columns effectively utilizes spatial memory. “I can place the card B I just wrote next to the column of the previously created card A, either temporarily or permanently.”

I think a Kanban view would enhance SuperNotes and hope it’s something we can see in the future.

11 Likes
2

Big +1. Given SN already has cards, this would compliment some use cases very well.

3

Hi @masaki,

Thanks for your feature request! We’ve thought about adding a Kanban view, with having tags as the different columns. You make a good point about spatial memory and the broadsheet view.

This along with Tabletop / Whiteboard View and an Table View (almost like a database – but made in a Supernotes way) are also front of mind. These are all big features and if anyone has further suggestions on how a Kanban view could work do let us know below.

6 Likes
4

In Kanban, a card can be only in one lane at a time. This property is neither reflected in tags nor parents. Is this a problem? Dunno. In the back of my mind I recall that at some point, you considered the ability to add additional meta data to a card - could you define the current lane there? But what if a card is in two Kanban views at the same time, is it a reasonable behaviour that moving a card in one view also moves it in another one? Just some questions that come to my head when trying to imagine such a view.

So, while the card data model seem ideal for Kanban at first, the integration of a corresponding view doesn’t seem trivial to me.

5

Some great questions @freisatz! You’re very right, adding a Kanban may seem trivial but there’s actually a lot more going on. Custom Metadata is an upcoming feature and it may be a solution to some of these issues.

2 Likes
6

Metadata sounds super cool.

Kanban boards feel very productivity oriented to me. A card could only be in a single column. Supernotes feels more about taking flexible notes that can live in multiple places via a parent/child relationship or tag. I love Kanban boards though I just have trouble seeing it make sense and not add a new level of complexity that doesn’t currently exist.

7

I agree on the importance of organizing multiple cards with flexible data relationships such as parent-child relationships and tags.
The Kanban view, I would say, is convenience for visually checking and retrieving information.

Ultimately, we obtain information visually from the display on a flat surface.
I have thought about how displaying multiple cards can provide both an overview and a certain degree of regularity to the user.

In my view, the Kanban view:

  • Offers better overview capabilities than the List View, with more freedom.
  • Provides a similar level of overview as the BroadSheet view, but with more consistency than the BroadSheet View.
  • Has more consistency compared to the Whiteboard View.
    (While placing cards freely on a vast Whiteboard View like miro is attractive, miro can be too unrestricted, which makes scrolling challenging. This is especially noticeable when comparing the ease of reaching a specific card using trello and miro on mobile apps.)

Regarding metadata, I think it would be better to set the data type for custom metadata that serves the role of columns as single select fields, rather than multiple select fields like tags.

1 Like