A few months ago, I’m currently contemplating merging the Note and Periodic Note actions. Apart from specifying the note (general note vs. Daily/ Weekly/ Monthly/ Quarterly/ Yearly note) they’re basically doing the same thing – looking up a particular note and returning it.
So I’ve whipped up a WIP UI based on the Get Note action to see what this could look like. What do you think, both of the general idea and this WIP?
I definitely agree with the overall idea to merge Note and Periodic Note actions. I have always thought it seemed redundant to have nearly identical actions for Note and Periodic Note, and this would simplify choices when developing AFO shortcuts (and less action scrolling).
Thanks for your input once again, @doug78645! You raise good points, let me go through them one by one in my current COVID-addled state 
- You shouldn’t need a parameter “Note file path or title” since it appears right after you choose either “Note at file path” or “Note with title”, so it should be either “File path” or “Title” depending on the selection.
My first instinct was to say “But it’s the same variable right now!” but you’re right, and it makes sense to split it up. (More on that in a new thread, Changing action parameters & deprecating actions in Shortcuts-first apps, as it turned out longer than anticipated, so I put it in its own post.)
- It seems redundant to include the “current” prefix on all the periodic note options; the description indicates it’s either the current or most recent periodic note.
Good point!
- It might be better to use an action like “Get general note”, with options being general, daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly.
- When it’s general note, can you accept “File path or title”? Or is it better to add “at file path” or “with title” and the appropriate parameter “path” or “title”?
I think the adjective “general” when used in a list next to “Daily Note” etc. makes both sound mutually exclusive even though they really aren’t (as every DN/WN/etc. is also a “general” note), plus that term isn’t used anywhere in the app, AFO just talks about “notes”. (As always, I might be overthinking it.)
And a combined lookup by path or by title would require API calls to two endpoints, i.e. 2× the AFO/Obsidian app dance which might be even more annoying on iOS. 
On top of that it represents a fuzziness which I don’t like in this context, as it may clash with the built-in convenience features of lookups by file path (when using file paths, you can always omit the file extension) and interfere with Get Note’s options when looking up notes by title.
Long story short: Or is it better to add “at file path” or “with title” and the appropriate parameter “path” or “title”? – YES.
- You still might still need a Check for Periodic Note action, unless this would be handle with Get Note.
Are you’re proposing an optional “Didn’t work, here’s an empty string” result in case the note can’t be found?
On that last point, I wasn’t proposing anything. I just noticed that was one action that was unique for Periodic Notes and wondered how that would be done after the merger with Notes. Perhaps Get Note would would since I assume that it would apply to periodic and other notes. I guess the options and/or result might determine how this would be achieved for the equivalent function.