I’m totally loving the improved Notes app under El Capitan. I’ve been creating checklists (yes, you can do that!) and attaching images like a madwoman.
The best part, though, is that now I can share stuff that I’m looking at to new or existing notes, which means it’s simple to keep a list of everything from pillows I’m thinking of buying to line items I need to follow up on. So here’s what happens. In a ton of places around your Mac, you’ll get the “Notes” option when you click on the familiar sharing arrow in the toolbar. This works, for example, in Safari…
…within Maps…
…and while you’re viewing documents in programs like Preview…
…or Pages.
If you’d like, you can even right- or Control-click and get the “Share” option after you’ve selected some text (which is handy if you want to add just a portion of a document or website to a note).
Here’s the most important part, though (at least to me)—when you share whatever info you’re looking at to a note, you’ve got the option not only to create a new note but to append the stuff to an existing one. This choice comes after you’ve picked “Notes” to share to using the methods I mentioned above. Afterward, you’ll get a box like this:
So as you can see, the bottom drop-down menu will let you pick which note to add the item to (or you can choose “New Note” from there if you prefer).
Neat, right? I’m impressed that Apple upped the ante with Notes so much for El Cap, but I still don’t feel like it’s a competitor to certain third-party apps for a lot of power users. For the casual note taker, however, this version is just much, much better than Yosemite’s. Much. Insert about ten more “muches,” and you’ll get the idea.