(Feature request) Delete notes?

[JKT]

Hi,

sorry if this has been asked before, but I couldn't find anything in a search:

is there a way to delete notes from (multiple) entries without having to display them and delete the text? I've tried right-clicking the note icon, but it doesn't do anything and thus far the only way I can find to do it is by displaying, selecting and then deleting the text for each individual entry.

The reason I ask is because my work appends a boilerplate "This email is from XXXX, a company registered in England and Wales with company number XXXXX, whose registered office is XXXXX" text to all the e-mails I send. As I use the OmniFocus/Mail integration method to add items to my OmniFocus inbox on my home Mac from my work PC, this means I end up with lots of tasks in my inbox with notes that have nothing but this text in them. I'm currently removing them all one-by-one, by hand... which, as you can probably imagine, is something of a pita.

[Toadling]

I don't think there's a way to delete a bunch of note fields other than doing it manually. However, you could try doing it with the Search and Replace window. I've never tried it across multiple records, but it might work.

If I remember correctly, it even supports regular expressions, which would allow you to do some very sophisticated search patterns. But in your case, where the text is the same in all the notes, you could probably do an ordinary search and replace.

[Lucas]

I would put in a request on the other forum for an applescript to do it.

[Toadling]

That's a good suggestion: AppleScript is probably another approach to accomplish what you're looking for.

[librarymonkey27]

It's probably the best solution, since it isn't a function most people would care one way or another about

[Toadling]

I just did a little playing around with the Edit->Find-Find... dialog. Depending on the complexity of the text you want to remove (how much text and how much it varies between notes) and your familiarity with regular expressions, it looks like it should work quite well. If the text is the same in all the notes, then you won't need regular expressions at all.

The find seems to work only on selected records, so it should also be easy to test your search & replace on a test record before running it on a large selection of records.

But I agree with librarymonkey27. This is probably something that doesn't warrant a dedicated feature.

[JKT]

But I agree with librarymonkey27. This is probably something that doesn't warrant a dedicated feature.
Unsurprisingly, I disagree - the value of the notes feature is diminished to worthlessness when all your entries have notes attached to them and you have no idea if they are actual notes or just boilerplate. Here in the UK at least, it is extremely common (if not legally required in terms of covering a company's arse) for boilerplate text to be added to e-mails sent out from the workplace and Yahoo, MSN etc all do it as well.

Or am I the only one who is suffering from this issue?

[JKT]

Also, I would argue that it is not good interface design to offer the ability to easily add something without also offering the ability to easily delete/remove it too.