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REQUEST: 'Due Date' attribute


thesab

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I see that the "Due Date" field is coming "soon". Which makes me hope that this new date field also can be used as a general way to reflect the date of note content. Including notes with "old" content.

I use Evernote primarily as an archive for all my old scanned documents. I'm also a hobby genealogist and use Evernote to store census images, parish records and other life event documents which usually have a clear date or timestamp connected to them. Evernote has been awesome for these purposes, and I've just passed 5000 mostly "historical" notes. But the more I put in the more I miss a good way to add the date of the content. I tried to change the created date, but quickly realized the flaw in that strategy. I've since prepended the note titles with a yyyymmdd format for sort purposes. But this feels more and more like an ugly hack.

So I see due date is coming and I'm thinking that it is really the same as I am asking for: a way to reflect the content of the note. Whether it's the date of old letters, receipts, tickets, genealogy stuff or future events and tasks. Is this a correct interpretation of this new date field?

And if so, wouldn't it be a good idea to call the new date field "Subject Date" instead of "Due Date"? To better reflect the general purpose of both future and past dates. I don't use Evernote for tasks, I use Remember the Milk for that. But I recognize those who do, and see the need for a way to reflect due dates. So since it is semantically the same as my use of "origin date"/"source date", I would think it's a good thing to combine it into one date field that feels natural for both parties.

Just a thought.

Sab

Norway

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Does Dave or anyone else from Evernote have any comment about this?

I have been thinking more about this and was wondering if a "due date" field could change label whether it's a future or past date. Such that:

"Subject date" < current date <= "Due date"

Since a date in the future is inherently due. And a date in the past is not due anymore. If the label changes from "Due" to "Subject", and maybe also change color, it will also be easier for those who use notes for task management to see when a due date has passed. And of course this would make my archiving needs fulfilled completely :)

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Does Dave or anyone else from Evernote have any comment about this?

They probably do. They read every message on the board but don't always post a reply to each & every thread.

I have been thinking more about this and was wondering if a "due date" field could change label whether it's a future or past date. Such that:

"Subject date" < current date <= "Due date"

Since a date in the future is inherently due. And a date in the past is not due anymore. If the label changes from "Due" to "Subject", and maybe also change color, it will also be easier for those who use notes for task management to see when a due date has passed. And of course this would make my archiving needs fulfilled completely :)

Probably not going to happen. As has been stated many, many, many times on the board, EN's focus is not to be yet another to do/task list manager. They have stated they will be adding a due date & that's it, in this regard.

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I understand that Evernote is very restrictive with adding functionality for a specific use case. And I don't want it any other way. I'm very happy that they are going to add a new date field that I can use for my needs. I just wanted to point out that it might be an idea to name the field in a more general term. The term "Due date" skews heavily towards the to do/task list manager crowd.

I know this might be considered nitpicking and semantics. I'm very happy that the new date field is in the works, whether it will be called "Due date" or "Subject date". Evernote will anyway become perfect for my functional needs :)

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I just wanted to point out that it might be an idea to name the field in a more general term. The term "Due date" skews heavily towards the to do/task list manager crowd.

I agree. In 3.1, there actually was a "subject date" field. It was very nice b/c when "archiving" emails from Outlook to EN, the subject date was set to the date the email was received. I miss that, but have come to terms with it & moved on. :) I'm guessing that's the same field that will be added (eventually) as a due date. They may be changing the name to placate the users who have been able to successfully make EN work as a to do/task manager list. I don't know. (shrug)

But as far as changing the label, based upon whether the date is future or past is probably not on EN's to do list.

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I agree that the changing label idea probably isn't too practical to implement. So let me strike that :)

I wonder however why they removed the "Subject date" field if it was in 3.1?

I see Evernote as an information storage, no matter what use case you have. And date, location and source are the 3 aspects that describes the origin of information. Evernote already has location and source (at least URL, other sources is probably best described in free text anyway). So why they would remove date from this equation baffles me...

With date and location included I see a future with a map and a timeline slider so I can easily visualize where and when my information originated :)

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  • 2 weeks later...
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Subject date would be awesome for us scientists too. I have +1000 science articles and it's to be able to search for let's say articles from 1973 would be greatly appreciated.

A few possible solutions:

  • * If the article is from 1973, you could use the create date to reflect the date when it was created.
    * Put the YYYY/MM/DD in front of the existing title and use the Intitle search for the year.
    * Add some text to the end of the note - printed yyyy - then search for "printed yyyy"

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Priorities at Evernote can change, but hopefully, we won't have to wait too much longer for the Due Date field.

Back in April of last year, the Evernote CEO Phil Libin commented on a public question and answer show and said all notes will get a “due date” field in the next couple of versions. You can then use all sorts of third-party reminder and calendar apps with it.

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Subject date would be awesome for us scientists too. I have +1000 science articles and it's to be able to search for let's say articles from 1973 would be greatly appreciated.

A few possible solutions:

  • * If the article is from 1973, you could use the create date to reflect the date when it was created.
    * Put the YYYY/MM/DD in front of the existing title and use the Intitle search for the year.
    * Add some text to the end of the note - printed yyyy - then search for "printed yyyy"

Workarounds exists yes. However, in other programs, such as the wonderful program Papers [http], I always sort papers by their date. This is not possible with the workarounds (except if I add the date in the beginning of the note names, but then I can't sort alphabetically).

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Workarounds exists yes. However, in other programs, such as the wonderful program Papers [http], I always sort papers by their date. This is not possible with the workarounds (except if I add the date in the beginning of the note names, but then I can't sort alphabetically).

You need to sort papers by their date.

What is the problem with my first suggestion. Use the the create date to reflect the paper's create date and sort alphabetically by title?

Mekentosj Papers certainly looks like an impressive program for Universities and Scientists who have many research papers and dissertations to manage.

But I could not find any mention of Windows?

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Subject date would be awesome for us scientists too. I have +1000 science articles and it's to be able to search for let's say articles from 1973 would be greatly appreciated.

A few possible solutions:

  • * If the article is from 1973, you could use the create date to reflect the date when it was created.
    * Put the YYYY/MM/DD in front of the existing title and use the Intitle search for the year.
    * Add some text to the end of the note - printed yyyy - then search for "printed yyyy"

Workarounds exists yes. However, in other programs, such as the wonderful program Papers [http], I always sort papers by their date. This is not possible with the workarounds (except if I add the date in the beginning of the note names, but then I can't sort alphabetically).

Exactly.

Subject date is such a fundamental property of information that it shouldn't be subject to workarounds and interpretations. This will become more evident when notebook sharing in Evenote takes off. If a group of scientists share a notebook with old articles and scientist 1 uses "created date" and scientist 2 prepends the title, it gets real messy and effective searching is futile. Such hacks are frustratingly flawed. I use the "prepended title" hack myself, but I have an increasingly bad feeling about it as time goes by.

Fortunately the "due date" field is coming, so there shouldn't be any reason to use "subject date" hack anymore. My point originally was that the new "due date" field is semantically the same as the "subject date" many of us miss. I just wish that the field will be labelled something more generally suitable than "Due date".

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You need to sort papers by their date.

What is the problem with my first suggestion. Use the the create date to reflect the paper's create date and sort alphabetically by title?

Workaround, but thesab did a good answer about it.

Mekentosj Papers certainly looks like an impressive program for Universities and Scientists who have many research papers and dissertations to manage.

But I could not find any mention of Windows?

Yes it's a wonderful and popular program for academic people.

As you noticed, there is no Windows version. This is a Mac program that lately also has got a iPhone and a iPad version.

I just wish that the field will be labelled something more generally suitable than "Due date".

Ye I certainly don't hope I will start to get reminders "your task was supposed to done 38 years ago!" from my 1973 article :shock:

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Evernote is a big supporter of the academic community as you can see on their blog.

They have many recent entries devoted to their "Education Series".

http://blog.evernote.com/

Evernote is listening to your requests.

I tried offering some solutions that could be implemented immediately.

I apologize for offering semantically incorrect workarounds and frustratingly flawed hacks.

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Evernote is a big supporter of the academic community as you can see on their blog.

They have many recent entries devoted to their "Education Series".

http://blog.evernote.com/

Evernote is listening to your requests.

I tried offering some solutions that could be implemented immediately.

I apologize for offering semantically incorrect workarounds and frustratingly flawed hacks.

Unfortunately I haven't seen them talk about academic people, just young students. But one can hope they listen ...

I appreciate all your solutions, I really do. This time they just were not good enough for me, and as a recent switcher from Papers I get frustrated from all lacking academic features.

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We're planning to replace the name of the "subject date" field (which was confusing for most new users) with "due date" instead. In all other ways, it would still be usable to store an arbitrary date of your choosing, so if you wanted to store a particular historic date in that (and not use "due dates"), then you could continue to do so.

We would add a few more features in the UI that are more convenient for people who want to use this field for an actual "due date" (e.g. sorting with values in the future), but if you want to use it to represent some other date, that's fine.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that in Version 2.2 you could add "content date" as an attribute to notes? That is, in addition to "date created" and "date modified" you have a date which allows you to sort notes chronologically according to their content.

Example:

I use Evernote to write field notes for my research. The way things are now, if I don't write the field notes chronologically I won't be able to sort them chonologically unless I "cheat" by modifying the "date created".

Please give us (back?) this feature,

Thanks,

Haakon

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Dave Engberg said on Jan 27, 2011:

  • We're planning to replace the name of the "subject date" field (which was confusing for most new users) with "due date" instead. In all other ways, it would still be usable to store an arbitrary date of your choosing, so if you wanted to store a particular historic date in that (and not use "due dates"), then you could continue to do so.

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Thanks for bringing my attention to that thread, jbenson2!

I'm delighted that this feature will be brought back, although I have to say that confusion of terminology was a somewhat odd reason to remove it in the first place.

Haakon

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Back in April of last year Phil Libin, the Evernote CEO, said: All notes will get a “due date” field in the next couple of versions. You can then use all sorts of third-party reminder and calendar apps with it.

We've had a couple versions released since then, so I am hoping the due date field will be just around the corner. Perhaps this is more difficult than they expected, or they decided to proceed on other priorities.

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  • 2 months later...

I would like to see the addition of a third date field, "Due Date". This would be a user determined date applied to any note the user chooses. The note essentially becomes a Task or To Do item.

This could be further enhanced by including a TASK attributes area (left column) allowing the user to select "All" or "Due today", etc. It might also provide another means for third party "TODO App" developers to see (access/create) those particular notes.

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This has been previously requested, and is on "the list", meaning the Evernote staff have posted that it's something that they will implement, but per usual, have not posted any kind of schedule (though it's worth noting that the Windows client, for one, has a "Subject Date" field available, but unused, which appears to be the one that will be used for "Due Date", "Subject Date" being more general). You can search the forums for "Due Date" if you want more.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hello,

First of all, currently I feel like the happiest man alive about discovering evernote. It is just awesome. Thank you for this software.

But there is one thing I'm missing.

An option to set a "Notebook" as a "To Do Type", so when Adding entries I could add until when do I have to complete this Todo, and when the time comes (for example within 24 hours before the date & hour) evernote would Remind me (growl would be awesome there as well) that I have to complete this task soon.

This functionality would make evernote the ultimate tool for me.

I am a new user, still exploring Evernote, so forgive me if this already exists. ( I know the checkbox thingy exists in notes, but that's not quite what I'm looking for in this case, I need something with what to manage time and set reminders for myself ).

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Search for To Do on the forum and you will see shedloads of discussion about this. What is clear is that at the moment Evernote do not see themselves as a To Do app and so will not be building functionality to meet this requirement. There is to be one exception at some point which is the introduction of a due date. I'm guessing that due date will then be made available via the API and 3rd party developers will be able to make use of it. As usual, there is no timeline available for this functionality to be released.

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The addition of the "Due Date" column is needed before any To-Do or GTD actions can be implemented by 3rd party developers.

The search grammar doesn't currently support '+' on dates, so you can't specify a relative date in the future - appointments for this afternoon, for example. "Absolute" dates in the future work (e.g. as 20120603), but this is tedious at best.

To get around these problems, I treat the Created date as my to-do date.

I use Checkboxes religiously for anything in the future and then rely on a saved To-Do search (todo:false) to quickly see future appointments.

Here are some "Due Date" comments from the Evernote CEO Phil Lipin and the Evertnote CTO, Dave Engberg:

http://forum.evernote.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=20798&p=110899&hilit=CEO#p110899

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Well. The Todo feautre wouldn't hurt anyways :).

Besides, the slogan: "Remember Everything" would get an addition "Remember everything, on time". I never used Todo apps, and probably never will, but I really need something like the "due date" feature, where app would remind me, that I've set the date for this until [...]. This would be very very handy.

I don't want to use 2 different apps for this, I think it would be very very very handy for lots of users. I'd be ready to get Premium Membership++ for this feature. I need it, and think many others do as well and feel the same way as I do.

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  • 1 month later...

I was wondering if it's possible to add a feature where I could mark a date/time on a note and have that note get highlighted past that date.

A mechanism for me to know which notes need to be looked at again after a certain date and time. A revisit symbol. Maybe not even highlight, but rather just put an exclamation mark next to that note in the stack list.

Thanks!

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Due Date functionality is coming soon - what this actually means isn't all that clear.

At a guess, it will be another date field that you will be able to search on - not sure that it will extend as far as what you are asking for though.

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I'd suggest a saved search. Add a special tag for this purpose, and mix it in with a date search. For example, the following search would return all notes that have your special tag, and were updated more than two weeks ago: -tag:MySpecialTag -updated:week-2

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  • 2 months later...

Missed that when I listened. Probably was doing something else at same time as it played. Really wish there was a searchable transcript / better show notes available for each episode.

Going to try journalling the next/recent episodes.

Hmmm. Wonder what this will mean to the Zendone beta? They previously said that they were ready to take advantage of due dates when available.

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Hmmm. Going to try journalling the next/recent episodes.

Create keyboard shortcuts for "super", "amazing" and "awesome" - will save you a lot of time.

Nah. I have a noise filter for that. Thinking of time mark and topic index.

Edit. Should also do that for Dave Engberg's ETC video. I need to re-watch it anyway to find if I did accurately remember him saying some things.

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As Evernote Evangelist BurgersNFries would say: "Yawn"

The Due Date comment occurs at 54 minutes 27 seconds.

  • Question: At Evernote, any plans to have Due Dates on notes and to be able to view notes sorted by Due Date?
    Answer: Yes, definitely. Yes. More than just plans. Work in progress. Work in progress. There you go.
    and it was mentioned again 55 20
    Answer: ...It is partially tied to the previous question - because obviously check boxes and Due Dates are kind of related so both are coming in a pretty awesome way, not necessarily at the same time, but both relatively soon.

I still have hopes that Due Dates will be released this year, but Evernote is remarkably consistent on avoiding any specifics as you can see from some similar comments over the past 18 months.

Search Reference Code 47ER92

  • Apr 5, 2010 - Phil Libin: "All notes will get a "due date" field in the next couple of versions."
    Apr 9, 2010 - Dave Engberg: "We plan to add the ability to specify a due date for a note, to sort the note list by due dates, and to be able to search for notes within a range of due dates."
    Sep 7, 2010 - Dave Engberg: "We are adding support for a 'Due Date' field on each note, which you could set to an appropriate date."
    Jan 27, 2011 - Dave Engberg: "We're planning to replace the name of the "subject date" field (which was confusing for most new users) with "due date" instead."
    Feb 15, 2011 - Phil Libin: Due Dates are "Definitely coming soon"
    Sep 29, 2011 - Phil Dean: Thanks for the reminder [Due Dates]. I have made a note to bring this up as a gentle reminder to the team on Monday. No promises mind you

I hope this issue can be resolved before we move into next year.

.

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I still have hopes that Due Dates will be released this year, but Evernote is remarkably consistent on avoiding any specifics as you can see from some similar comments over the past 18 months.

I'm with you.

We'll hold off popping the cork on the champagne bottle until we actually have the release in hand.

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I still have hopes that Due Dates will be released this year, but Evernote is remarkably consistent on avoiding any specifics as you can see from some similar comments over the past 18 months.

I'm with you.

We'll hold off popping the cork on the champagne bottle until we actually have the release in hand.

---------------------

I'm late to this party, but due date would certainly help in the 'turn into an Evernote power user' category. While a due date per note would be a great start.. Don't stop there, think about an option at the per checkbox level. Here is the use case - I have a lot of folders for planning, say Family, Self, Career, Finance, etc. Under each folder I have given notes for projects/ideas. Within each note I may have 15 to-do's... Would it work with one due date per note, I guess - I could use the closest upcoming date to plug in and note the due date targets in text by the other to-do boxes and replace it when I complete each task at the note level. However, if you provide the capability to plug in a due date per to-do check box...One could create a true task list and drive it completely from Evernote (I so want to ditch Outlook with the exception of Email...). Thanks for listening.

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think about an option at the per checkbox level. Here is the use case - I have a lot of folders for planning, say Family, Self, Career, Finance, etc. Under each folder I have given notes for projects/ideas. Within each note I may have 15 to-do's... Would it work with one due date per note, I guess - I could use the closest upcoming date to plug in and note the due date targets in text by the other to-do boxes and replace it when I complete each task at the note level. However, if you provide the capability to plug in a due date per to-do check box...One could create a true task list and drive it completely from Evernote (I so want to ditch Outlook with the exception of Email...). Thanks for listening.

As has already been mentioned in the forum many times, Evernote is not striving to be a task/project manager & encourage third party developers to go this route, should they want to. The impending due date is the only thing Evernote will be adding in this vein.

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Within each note I may have 15 to-do's... Would it work with one due date per note, I guess - I could use the closest upcoming date to plug in and note the due date targets in text by the other to-do boxes and replace it when I complete each task at the note level. However, if you provide the capability to plug in a due date per to-do check box...One could create a true task list and drive it completely from Evernote (I so want to ditch Outlook with the exception of Email...). Thanks for listening.

Interesting concept. I find it more convenient to assign a specific task to an individual note. It requires more notes, but it avoids partially completed notes. Either the task is open or it is completed. I get around the Due Date roadblock by over-riding the Created Date and use that field for my tasks.

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As has already been mentioned in the forum many times, Evernote is not striving to be a task/project manager & encourage third party developers to go this route, should they want to. The impending due date is the only thing Evernote will be adding in this vein.

Based on Phil's keynote address at the ETC, it would appear that the scope of Evernote is changing. Phil stated that while in the past Evernote has been there to help you remember everything, going forward it will be there to make you "smarter". Skitch is an example he cited.

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As has already been mentioned in the forum many times, Evernote is not striving to be a task/project manager & encourage third party developers to go this route, should they want to. The impending due date is the only thing Evernote will be adding in this vein.

Based on Phil's keynote address at the ETC, it would appear that the scope of Evernote is changing. Phil stated that while in the past Evernote has been there to help you remember everything, going forward it will be there to make you "smarter". Skitch is an example he cited.

The scope of Evernote may be changing. I've seen nothing to indicate at this time that they plan on venturing further into task/project management. Have you?

Unless & until...other apps or third party integrations are the solution.

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  • 4 weeks later...

All my notes are basically to-dos. If I have a few to-dos that I don't need to deal with (or see) until the week of March 10th, what is the best way you all have found for deal with future notification? I could put them in my Soon, Later, or Someday tags, or perhaps the best would simply be 12 Month tabs, one for each month, but I'd like to hear how you all are dealing with future-dated to-dos.

Thanks for any ideas.

(I wonder if the EN team have any plans for a Growl-type notification system...)

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All my notes are basically to-dos. If I have a few to-dos that I don't need to deal with (or see) until the week of March 10th, what is the best way you all have found for deal with future notification? I could put them in my Soon, Later, or Someday tags, or perhaps the best would simply be 12 Month tabs, one for each month, but I'd like to hear how you all are dealing with future-dated to-dos.

Thanks for any ideas.

(I wonder if the EN team have any plans for a Growl-type notification system...)

I use the correct future date (and time) in the Created Date for all of my future tasks, appointments, meetings, reminders, tasks, etc.

In Evernote, the drawback is that it is difficult to zoom in on today's date. There are a few work arounds.

For the past three years, Evernote has mentioned (frequently) they intend to release a Due Date column, but...

I wouldn't hold my breath.

Another method is to use Tusk Tools Calendar in conjunction with Evernote, I have not seen any recent developments on Tusk Tools Calendar, but it does work if you make a minor addition to the note to reflect the actual future date.

http://www.moreprodu...m/evernote.html

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111106

111107

111231

just name them like this. i put a "todo" tag on them, but you could put them in a todo folder. evernote is the first and last thing i see every day, so tomorrow i just type in "tag:todo 111106" and i know what i need to do.

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I have version 4.5.2.5719 (203756) Prerelease. Today I wanted to change the date updated on a couple of notes, but can't find any way of doing this. I can display the date in the list view, but this is not editable. Not visible on the note itself in any view. Can we have this feature back - even better to would be to also have the due date field that many users have asked for. Or am I missing something?

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IME, it's only missing on new notes created in or by the Windows client. This includes notes generated by IFTTT. Existing notes & notes created with Fastever have the updated date. IDK about notes created from the EN iPhone app - havent tried that yet.

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Open the note, and press F8.

This will expand the "Note Info" panel. Depending on your current display, you may need to press it twice.

Once fully expanded, you will see the updated field that can be changed.

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Open the note, and press F8.

This will expand the "Note Info" panel. Depending on your current display, you may need to press it twice.

Once fully expanded, you will see the updated field that can be changed.

This is not the issue. The issue is the date created is not displayed on some notes. (See attached screen cap.)

post-48228-0-55236700-1321192576_thumb.j

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Actually, if you update the note (add a space or something), then switch to another note, the updated date is then displayed & is editable. (After you switch back to the note.) I probably had edited the note from Fastever & that's why it had an updated date.

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Oh, I had never noticed this before, sorry.

I see now, that field doesn't exist when you initially create a note. It only appears when you actually update the note (i.e. the process that you described above)

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  • Level 5*

Thank you all - I knew I had seen something about this in the past, but I had forgotten exactly what. I had changed tags on the notes, but obviously things in the header don't count as updating ...

Thanks again!

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  • 1 month later...

Other than storing stuff, my most productive use of EN is probably writing myself notes that I will read in the future, such as this:

I use OpenOffice database exactly once a year to store and print Christmas card labels. It's unfortunately not a process I remember cold every year. I have written down the instructions plus all the little things to remember when doing this task.

EN is great for keeping track of where you store household items you rarely use. The key is to make a note with the mobile app as you stash stuff. (Siri on iPhone 4S really helps here.)

If you have to look something up more than once, it should have been in Evernote.

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Other than storing stuff, my most productive use of EN is probably writing myself notes that I will read in the future, such as this:

I use OpenOffice database exactly once a year to store and print Christmas card labels. It's unfortunately not a process I remember cold every year. I have written down the instructions plus all the little things to remember when doing this task.

IMO, this isn't really a note that would utilize future dating. In theory, most all notes we make will be read sometime in the future - otherwise why keep them? I do similar things with a lot of other software. It's very easy, say in this case, to make the title "using Openoffice for Christmas cards". Then searching on the word openoffice and the phrase "Christmas cards" should quickly bring it up. If you need to further refine the search, you could do an intitle search.

intitle:"openoffice intitle:"Christmas cards"

If you have to look something up more than once, it should have been in Evernote.

IMO, if you have to look something up even once, it should go into Evernote. ;)

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Thanks Peterfmartin

I'm guessing Metrodon and Owyn are correct. After Evernote realized the difficulty in adding Due Dates, other items become more important (table options, bullet points, bug fixes, Thai language).

I transcribed the actual comments during the September podcast #30. The first "Due Date" comment occurs at 54 minutes 27 seconds.

Question: At Evernote, any plans to have Due Dates on notes and to be able to view notes sorted by Due Date?

Answer: Yes, definitely. Yes. More than just plans. Work in progress. Work in progress.

Andrew Sinkov: There you go.

That is striking similar to:

Phil Libin's comment back in
April 2010
: "All notes will get a "due date" field
in the next couple of versions
."

And his Feb 2011 tweet reply to me: "Due Dates are Definitely coming soon"

Due Dates were mentioned again at 55 minutes 20 seconds in the podcast by Phil Libin

Answer: ...It is partially tied to the previous question - because obviously check boxes and Due Dates are kind of related so both are coming in a pretty awesome way, not necessarily at the same time, but both relatively soon.

I can't argue with Libin's "relatively soon" comment.

I'm confident the Due Date column will be available before the iPhone10 is released. :)

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From the Evernote website: "Evernote makes it easy to remember things big and small from your everyday life"

Back in May 2010, when I was on version 3.5.4.224 (83106), I started recording each of my Evernote upgrades.

At the top of each upgrade is the statement: "A new version of Evernote is available!"

That means I've gone through 46 new versions since then.

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • Level 5

My comments pertain to Windows Evernote

What you are looking for is a Due Date column.

Since that is not available in Evernote (but coming soon), what I do is use the Created Date colum.

I modify the date and time for the scheduled meeting or appointment.

If you add a To-Do checkbox (Ctrl + Shift + C) in the note, you can search for unfinished items or finished items (Left Panel >Attributes >Contains)

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thankyou, you say "but coming soon" do you know when?

Actually for todo list i use another app for Android (wunderlist), it has a usefully function: you can set an expire date and you can tell to alert you by sending an email and by alarm sound on the system.

What do you think about?

Thenk you very much.

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  • Level 5*

Evernote generally doesn't release future plans, including release dates. "Coming soon" -- when heard from an Evernote staffer -- is usually short for "it's not here now and we are planning on doing it but we're not saying when".

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  • 2 weeks later...

I bought the premium EverNote and am finding EN extremely well thought out, but there's one item that causes me to continue looking for another solution:

A Date Field That I Can Sort On.

I don't care if it's called a flibitty-jibbet. I just need a date field attribute for my notes.

I'll use it to create ticklers and todo's. I DO NOT need the level of support for todo's, ticklers, or calendars offered by various add-ons like Tusk Tools. All they do is complicate my life. I don't need the advanced features of Don't Forget The Milk, the email reminder service, or Tusk Tools -- all they do is increase the amount of work to put the information into EverNotes and give me something else to worry about. (They are all fine services, but they're overkill, time-wasters, and distractions from my goal of being better organized with less effort.

At the moment, I'm living with the work around of using the created date as a due date / tickler date, and using the note history to determine when a note was actually created.

I showed a friend who is interested in getting control of her information what I was doingwith EverNote. She was impressed until she noticed I was using the created date for a tickler / due date and her response was, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever seen." At that point, she lost all interest in using EverNote.

A simple date field would be extremely useful for all kinds of things.

I've seen the comments around here about EN's resistence to adding a date field and I the only words that come to mind are "arrogant", "stubborn", and "idiotic". I'm sorry if that's offensive to the EN staff, but I have been a software developer since 1973. Since the advent of OS/2 around 1990, I've been involved with data modeling, OO, Useability, and programming applications for both desktop computers and the Internet. Now, I own a web hosting company. So, my considered and professional opinion is that "arrogant", "stubborn", and "idiotic" are, in fact the correct adjectives to describe this situation.

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  • Level 5*

i think your request for a date field has already been discussed in numerous threads, and evernote has responded by saying that they will include a "due date" field. that was a long time ago, of course, but it is apparently in the works. not that you can't bring it up again in a new thread or anything, but this is an issue with lots of history.

arrogant, stubborn, and idiotic are pretty rude in my opinion. it's name-calling, pure and simple. your professional credentials don't entitle you to disrespect others. i think / hope you were just frustrated and trying to convey your thoughts and emotions frankly to the staff.

may i suggest another strategy? "there is a clear and widespread desire for this feature among current and potential customers, and this is probably costing evernote business, so they ought to move more quickly." perhaps you could also ask, "why the delay?" they won't provide road maps, but they might be interested in sharing some of the technical considerations that are delaying implementation. i don't remember seeing any of the previous threads take this tack, and it might contribute something new to the growing database of threads on the topic.

in my experience, rather than ridiculing someone, it's better to point out why something is an issue. ideally, frame it in a way that explains the benefits they might gain from a change.

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but I have been a software developer since 1973. Since the advent of OS/2 around 1990, I've been involved with data modeling, OO, Useability, and programming applications for both desktop computers and the Internet. Now, I own a web hosting company. So, my considered and professional opinion is that "arrogant", "stubborn", and "idiotic" are, in fact the correct adjectives to describe this situation.

Yeah, well, join the crowd. I find it odd/interesting that so many people love to play the "I'm a developer" card when something isn't functioning the way they think it should. Like that makes us (I'm a long time developer, too) all knowing. As all developers know (at least those that have been doing it for more than a day), there are very often valid reasons something isn't implemented or implemented when a user thinks it should. Devs don't just randomly choose to not do something to piss off their customers.

I've seen the comments around here about EN's resistence to adding a date field and I the only words that come to mind are "arrogant", "stubborn", and "idiotic".

If you've "seen the comments around here", then I'm sure you've seen that Due Dates are in the pipeline & that EN does not publish ETAs. If you can't live with that, then you may need to find another app for your purpose.

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Whatever.

If adding a field to the EN database is problematic, that likely means the data model isn't correct and that eventually the application will collapse due to the coding required to get around that incorrect data model, requiring a major rewrite and data conversions to fix it.

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For the record, "arrogant", "stubborn", and "idiotic" are kinda offensive... anyways, due dates are still in the pipeline. Though long overdue, apologies for that.

I appreciate your search for a simple system that is organized just enough to be useful.

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  • Level 5*

When discussing a new requirement the worst person to start with is a developer (no offence BnF).

I'm not sure why people think that Evernote should or would publish any sort of roadmap or release schedule. They are not an open source project, they are a commercial enterprise with commercial customers and commercial customers.

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Due dates have been so long in the pipeline, were promised many, many times by the highest bosses at EN, and they are still not here. By all means, it is arrogant on the side of EN towards the users. And, the slogan by now "EN doesn't provide ETA" is old and doesn't work anymore in this case, although it is convenient for EN.

Come on EN, EN started with a nice timeline feature, and now you cannot give us even a due date. Even facebook introduced a timeline recently, if I'm not mistaken.

could someone please explain why this behavior is arrogant? they promised that it would come. you just heard an employee say that they were working on it, and even apologized for the delay. i don't think you two are using the word the same way that i understand it.

"en doesn't provide an eta" is a policy. i don't think it is old. it just is. i have found the evernote staff on this forum and off of it to be quite attentive to users and their requests. they are listening. and, in some cases they even implement changes based on our feedback. but, i don't think we should expect them (or any other company) to jump whenever we tell them to. i encourage you to contact them privately and discuss it if you feel like this forum and their attitudes are insufficient.

anyhow, there are people at the other end here, and i think we ought to show them respect and common courtesy, even if we don't always agree with them.

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This reminds me of a Customer Service Complaint we received recently. It was full of the nastiest, foulest language you'll ever see. And it was actually about a really minor issue that could have been resolved by a 5 second search within our Knowledgebase.

When we responded, we got an apology from the user saying "Oh, I didn't realize there was an actual *person* reading these emails."

Um, ok. I guess some people just need to vent.

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Whatever.

If adding a field to the EN database is problematic, that likely means the data model isn't correct and that eventually the application will collapse due to the coding required to get around that incorrect data model, requiring a major rewrite and data conversions to fix it.

No one knows the reason except for the EN folks. The rest of us (including you) are just guessing. The bottom line is it's not there. It's in the pipeline. None of us users know when it will be rolled out. Users behaving "arrogant" & "stubborn" won't make it appear any faster.

When discussing a new requirement the worst person to start with is a developer

Especially those who are not familiar with the code and/or any known issues that have cropped up in the past and may in the future. And especially when that feature would need to be implemented across a lot of other OSs.

(no offence BnF).

:lol: None taken.

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I'm curious as to whether any feature has been more requested than the additional date field.

As far a I can tell, it's the most requested feature request for EN.

Please note that I am not suggesting that EN be turned into a project management tool or task manager. I'm simply pointing out that with the combination of tags, an additional date field would be extremely useful.

I won't defend my previous comment since that would simply generate another round of comments about my comment being rude, etc. Point taken, but I do stand by what I said.

I'll go a step further: Many systems similar to EN have the facility for adding additional fields of various types, whch then work within the system framework. For a note, someone might define attributes like phone number, name, address, etc.(I'm NOT asking for this feature, although it might be a similar amount of work compared to hard-coding an additional date field.)

The reason I am using EN until I find something better is because of the synchronization and overall ease of use. I haven't found another system that is really simple to use, isn't cluttered up with a bunch of heavy duty task or project management, and which synchronizes across platforms.

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I understand the frustration. At this point the additional date field might be the thing we've said we were going to do, but haven't actually shipped for the longest time. Which means it's most likely to be the one talked about the most. This may or may not contribute to us not giving roadmaps.

I don't think we're interested in having customizable attributes that sync, it seems to be a can of worms and the UI for it would probably be a nightmare. It also seems to be something power users might take advantage of, but be completely impenetrable for the average user.

Anyways, sorry to keep you waiting.

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  • Level 5*

You are pretty new here - there have been a lot (really I mean it, a lot) of most requested features - most of them get delivered eventually.

Evernote (as a commercial concern) evaluate their roadmap/desired functionality and implement the things that they think are going to be useful and that give them some ROI. It shouldn't be forgotten that the people who post on here are a very small subset of the user base and a vociferous one at that - it doesn't necessarily mean that they (we) are representative though.

Evernote have actually stepped outside of their normal modus operandi and announced a feature before it is released, so you know it's coming - when is another question and not one they want to answer at the moment. You either have to live with that or find another tool that better meets your requirements.

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  • Level 5

due dates are still in the pipeline.

Thanks and Evernoted.

I hope you don't reach the point where you have to toss in the towel on the Due Date field.

Just keep trying; eventually you will figure it out.

.

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I understand the frustration. At this point the additional date field might be the thing we've said we were going to do, but haven't actually shipped for the longest time. Which means it's most likely to be the one talked about the most. This may or may not contribute to us not giving roadmaps.

I don't think we're interested in having customizable attributes that sync, it seems to be a can of worms and the UI for it would probably be a nightmare. It also seems to be something power users might take advantage of, but be completely impenetrable for the average user.

Anyways, sorry to keep you waiting.

I don't see customizable attributes that sync as especially important and if they didn't sync, customizable attributes wouldn't be worth much.

Out of curiosity, are there any other additional fields that are requested often?

If I had a date field and could right-click on search terms to modify them, I'd really be happy.

Slightly less important would be to have an option which added the parent tags in a tag hierarchy to a note automatically when you add a child-tag to a note. I don't think that would require any additonal information to be stored about the tags then what you already store to display them hierarchically in the left panel.

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  • Level 5*
Out of curiosity, are there any other additional fields that are requested often?

Off the top of my head, a 'Star' field (a la Favorite in the iPhone product), a field indicating a number of stars (1-5, with a suitable change in the search grammar for finding a specific number of stars, or number of stars >= to a number of stars, etc.), and a Comment field (probable with a special comment: search item and also included in the normal text search, as tags and titles are)..

Slightly less important would be to have an option which added the parent tags in a tag hierarchy to a note automatically when you add a child-tag to a note.

I have myself suggested that such a feature would be helpful to those who want the tag hierarchy to be reflected in searches.It's buried somewhere in the forums, back a ways...

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I hope you don't reach the point where you have to toss in the towel on the Due Date field.

Just keep trying; eventually you will figure it out.

I have some programming experience but certainly wouldn't consider myself a developer. When they finally do roll this out, I would be interested to know why it is so difficult as, on the surface, it doesn't seem like a difficult problem to add another date field to the database. Would be a great blog post for the Evernote Technical blog to explain some of the inherent difficulties to overcome with implenting changes in a database that spans many OSes and devices.

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I hope you don't reach the point where you have to toss in the towel on the Due Date field.

Just keep trying; eventually you will figure it out.

I have some programming experience but certainly wouldn't consider myself a developer. When they finally do roll this out, I would be interested to know why it is so difficult as, on the surface, it doesn't seem like a difficult problem to add another date field to the database. Would be a great blog post for the Evernote Technical blog to explain some of the inherent difficulties to overcome with implenting changes in a database that spans many OSes and devices.

There are no technical hurdles unles the data model and coding of EverNote are ***** - which I don't believe because it seems to be reliable, speedy, and an elegantly simple design on the front-end. Normally, you will see usability and reliability problems if the coding isn't pretty good under the hood.

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Why would you need a due date field at all? Evernote does not have an alarm or notification system that could actually use it.

Have you not thought about using the Tags?

GTD Today, Tomorrow, Someday.

Work Week Week1, Week2, Week3

Date/Month Jan, Feb, Mar or Jan 13, Feb 14, Mar 16 (see all the tasks for a certain date)

My preference:

Month, Day AND Date Jan, Feb, Mar AND Mon, Tue, Wed AND 1, 14, 31

I prefer this because it is good for recurring tasks and most usable for seeing multiple tasks at one time while doing regular status review:

See all the tasks that land on a specific day

See all tasks for a particular month,

See all the tasks that land on any given date or recurs on day X of a month.

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  • Level 5

Why would you need a due date field at all?

Because it would make Evernote easier to use.

All those cryptic GTD codes could be eliminated or reduced.

And thrid party developers could step in and shine.

.

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  • Level 5*

i make a journal entry every day (to do list, research notes, etc.). today's is titled 120125 journal wednesday. this is all i need for gtd.

search for "intitle:journal" and i get a list of journal entries in order by date. obviously, future tasks have titles with dates that haven't happened yet. add "wednesday to the search and i get all of my wednesday tasks.

no need for tags or "due date" features, in my opinion. i know the due date thing is in the pipeline, and i know there is demand for it, but i think it is gilding the lily.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I bought the premium EverNote and am finding EN extremely well thought out, but there's one item that causes me to continue looking for another solution:

A Date Field That I Can Sort On.

Not to point out the obvious or anything, but as you have noted, EN has exactly what you are asking for already. It has "a date field that I can sort on": I can sort on the created date.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Evernote is great, and at first I was thinking about the need to integrate with a GTD system like Things, but the more I use Evernote the less I think this integration is needed.

Instead, I am hoping there is an easy way to add a due date to a note (preferably with an Alarm)...that plus a new view with see notes by due date and you'd have a lot of added functionality.

Thanks.

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  • Level 5

Evernote is great, and at first I was thinking about the need to integrate with a GTD system like Things, but the more I use Evernote the less I think this integration is needed.

Instead, I am hoping there is an easy way to add a due date to a note (preferably with an Alarm)...that plus a new view with see notes by due date and you'd have a lot of added functionality.

.

Evernote has been working on a Due Date for the last couple years.

It has proved more difficult than they expected.

Here is how I handle tasks, appointments, reminders and other stuff for the future.

The note title begins with the future date yyyy mm dd subject

I also change the created date to the future date (and time for meetings).

This works with the Client versions of Evernote. The web version is not capable of changing the Created Date,

There are some additional tweaks that can implement the GTD system into Evernote.

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