Collections are a unique type of notes that don't have a content, but instead display its child notes in various presentation methods.

Classic collections are read-only mode and compiles the contents of all child notes into one continuous view. This makes it ideal for reading extensive information broken into smaller, manageable segments.

More specialized collections were introduced, such as the:

For a quick presentation of all the supported view types, see the child notes of this help page, including screenshots.

Configuration

To adjust the view type, see the dedicated Collections tab in the  Ribbon.

Use cases

Creating a new collection

To create a new collections, right click in the Note Tree and look for the Collections entry and select the desired type.

Adding a description to a collection

To add a text before the collection, for example to describe it:

  1. Create a new collection.
  2. In the Ribbon, go to Basic Properties and change the note type from Collection to Text.

Now the text will be displayed above while still maintaining the collection view.

Using saved search

Since collections are based on the Note List mechanism, it's possible to apply the same configuration to Saved Search to do advanced querying and presenting the result in an adequate matter such as a calendar, a table or even a map.

Creating a collection from scratch

By default, collections come with a default configuration and sometimes even sample notes. To create a collection completely from scratch:

  1. Create a new note of type Text (or any type).
  2. In the Ribbon, go to Basic Properties and select Collection as the note type.
  3. Still in the ribbon, go to Collection Properties and select the desired view type.
  4. Consult the help page of the corresponding view type in order to understand how to configure them.

Under the hood

Collections by themselves are simply notes with no content that rely on the Note List mechanism (the one that lists the children notes at the bottom of a note) to display information.

By default, new collections use predefined Templates that are stored safely in the Hidden Notes to define some basic configuration such as the type of view, but also some  Promoted Attributes to make editing easier.

Collections don't store their configuration (e.g. the position on the map, the hidden columns in a table) in the content of the note itself, but as attachments.