(Archived) Please change the UI back to pre 5.0

[WimBakkeren 4]

The new Evernote 5.0 UI is bad. Please return to the previous UI which is much better and lets me be more productive.

I couldn't find a way to give feedback or report a bug and therefore posted this topic. I hope it reaches the right people at Evernote.

[aniliop 0]

Not happy about the latest design. Why has the tree structure Apple mail style been removed in favour of a useless skeumorphic tile/broken list view that jumps around in notebooks.

I'm a UI designer myself, and skeumorphic design is important and useful only when it aids in usability - e.g. drop shadows under images to make them look clickable. Skeumorphic images like books etc are a waste of time and only serve to confuse.

Why is the only place I can now see my notebook hierarchy is if i press cmd+J ? It feels like a sort of left over feature someone reluctantly left in to appease others in the company who felt that this design might be the wrong approach.

I am actively searching for an alternative or for versions of the old app that I can download and use.

[Manic Panic 54]

I love the new interface. I can do everything with shortcuts now, don't have to take my hands off the keyboard at all.

[Jackolicious 808]

FilipB, thanks for the feedback. More Drag/drop support is in the works.

[jacquesrenatus 13]

The new UI makes me want to cry. It's bad enough that note hierarchy is only 3 levels deep, (notebook stack, notebook and note, Is there a post anywhere that explains why this must be?) now the designers are obscuring a clear view of my notebooks' tree structure in order to cram in skeuomorphic ornamentation that adds zero visual information.

Is Moleskine paying you for the notebook grid view? It serves NO purpose. And the notebook list view, with notebooks jumping around and switching columns whenever you click on a notebook stack or resize the window? How is that helpful?

Sorry for my tone, I did not have time to be nicer.

[jefito 5,589]

It's bad enough that note hierarchy is only 3 levels deep, (notebook stack, notebook and note, Is there a post anywhere that explains why this must be?)

It's by design. Period. Try searching the forum yourself, there's plenty of discussion about the lack of notebook hierarchy and what facilities you can use instead.

Sorry for my tone, I did not have time to be nicer.

But you had time to 'apologize' for it. Hmmm...

[jacquesrenatus 13]

Sorry for my tone, I did not have time to be nicer.

But you had time to 'apologize' for it. Hmmm...

Seriously, I can spend hours trying to get a post just right.

With respect, jefito, since you know the forums like the back of your hand, how about sharing some links to the posts you alluded to?

[jefito 5,589]

With respect, jefito, since you know the forums like the back of your hand, how about sharing some links to the posts you alluded to?

I would need to search, just like you would (I don't keep track of posts, though some folks do). I'd look for "nested folders", "folder hierarchy", stuff like that. You can use regular Google search, just stick "Evernote" in there somewhere.

[andyloois 0]

I used to love evernote and told lots of people about it. I really dislike the update, I can't believe I'm looking around for alternatives after loving evernote so much.

Problems with mac version (for me):

1. Double click to open notebooks. This should really not be necessary. The whole interface feels clunkier and slower with more steps necessary to do simple things.

2. Visually overdone (uselessly so) - notebook view is awful and the other view (strange list view) wastes a lot of space and is not spatially consistent. With 'list view' why is everything greyed out? This is a long established UI metaphor for 'unavailable.' Surely stacks could use all of the screenspace available - either arrange horizontally or vertically to use the whole screen rather than jamming everything into one corner. Honestly, I wondered if it had been done in this way to show off the cool animation that evernote uses when rearranging stacks.

3. What should be the back button is actually "all notes" - who browses all notes anyway?

4. If you do a search and then delete the search term by tapping delete, the next thing selected after the search term is a note. So I have accidentally deleted quite a few notes. Worse than this, I didn't even realise until later.

Problems with ipod version:

1. Waste of space - surely 90% of uses are accessing notes by either searching all notes or going through the tree. Those 2 options are less than 10% of the screenspace and in fact, 'search all notes' can require clicking on 'all notes' and then pulling down to make the (previously invisible) search bar appear.

2. Fiddly UI - About half of the time that I try to pull down that little side thing to get out of a notebook I pull down ios notifications instead

3. Dodgy UI metaphors. File separators are a particularly bad metaphor for the opening screen of evernote. What are being offered are different ways of searching/browsing the same information. The file separators suggest that information has been separated into discreet sections.

4. Prominence of 'all notes' - Again, who browses all notes? Surely this should be search. Also prominence of "Premium features", "tags" (can't these be accessed through search?), Account user name

I really get the feeling that this update was designed to be beautiful. Sadly most of the changes look to me like useless decoration, clutter and/or cutesy nonsense. Please, please let form follow function. It's obvious a lot of work is going into this app I just think it's moving in the wrong direction - away from speed and simplicity.

[Philip Chan 0]

Yes, I shouldn't have update Evernote. The older version was so much better...it has become bloat-ware.

Also, from my "Open With" drop-down menu, there are now 4 instances of Evernote listed. It seems every update of Evernote added an entry into the "Open With" menu!

Can anyone tell me how to remove the redundant entries?

[dgmiller81 0]

I am very disappointed with the new look... Here to an avid GTDr and the use of this and things was awesome. The new UI isn't helping me. I understand maybe why, just think its a little too much.

Suggestions for IOS (ipad):

* list view back. Big squares makes viewing quickly very difficult. I think some like squares and that's fine but bring the list view back as an option.

* make it simple again. Everything has become about the coolness of what it looks like. Functionality, speed, and usability is what make this product powerful. That needs to be back there.

Those are my biggest two beefs. I can honestly say I am rethinking my Evernote subscription and will be doing a full eval. I also have ended up steering people away from Evernote due to the new changes.

I use Evernote on OS X, win 7, iPhone and ipad.

Thanks

Dallas

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

I am very disappointed with the new look... Here to an avid GTDr and the use of this and things was awesome. The new UI isn't helping me. I understand maybe why, just think its a little too much.

Suggestions for IOS (ipad):

* list view back. Big squares makes viewing quickly very difficult. I think some like squares and that's fine but bring the list view back as an option.

* make it simple again. Everything has become about the coolness of what it looks like. Functionality, speed, and usability is what make this product powerful. That needs to be back there.

Those are my biggest two beefs. I can honestly say I am rethinking my Evernote subscription and will be doing a full eval. I also have ended up steering people away from Evernote due to the new changes.

I use Evernote on OS X, win 7, iPhone and ipad.

Thanks

Dallas

Hi. This is a Mac thread, and you didn't have any specific criticisms of the Mac, just of the iPad, so I am wondering if you meant the new UI on the iPad is not helping you.

[FilipB 0]

Hi. I'm just trying out the new UI now. First reaction, wish I hadn't switched. But haven't figure it all out yet.

Question: How do we quickly tag multiple notes?

In the past, I would select notes (in list view) and then drag and drop them onto a tag in the sidebar. But now it seems we can't drag notes onto tags?

How else can we quickly tag notes, especially multiple notes at a time?

thanks!!

Hi. As in the previous version, select a couple of notes, you'll get a new view on the right, and then you can type in the tag. It is actually pretty nice this way.

As everything in UI 5.0 - fast way is gone and "pretty" slow way is maybe more pretty.

All of these features are slower or much slower in UI 5.0

Multiple tagging

v4 - select notes - drag them to tag

v5 - select notes - move mouse to label tag - click and write down tag

Browsing notebooks

v4 - moving in tree using keyboard arrows - very fast!

v5 - you have to click on each notebook in tree view ( must be switched on in menu view-sidebar-notebooks ) much slower

Adding notebooks in stacked notebooks

v4 - click on staked notebook with right mouse button - select new notebook in ....

v5 - click on notebooks. create new notebook ( can be done before using shortcut or menu etc ) - But you have to move in in the right place. So you have to change to Notebook view. There you have to find two items and drag one into another

Renaming notebooks

v4 - click on notebook in tree view press enter ( or F2 in windows/linux )

v5 - change view to notebook view - you have to find you notebook, then you can rename it same way. Switching views always means that you have to find item. It takes time.

Deleting notebooks

v4 - click on notebook with right mouse button and select delete

v5 - change view to notebook view - you have to find it and rename is same way.

Organizing notebooks

v4 - drag an drop in tree view - you always see what is in the notebook you want to move.

v5 - first you have to swich view to notebooks - then you will not see what is inside so you have to remember what acctually are you moving and where.

Renaming tags

v4 - click on tags with right mouse button and select rename.

v5 - again you have to switch to separte window. Again you can not see what exactly are you renaming. And I forgot to write that when you are changing view, you have to change it back!

This all the time must swich view UI is terrible.

In previsou version - I had one view and I manage to organize everything without switching somewhere else.

Please: At least return back removed features to tree view ( notebook ) and tag view.

In notebook treeview is missing:

- keyboards browsing

- popup menu with rename, delete, adding new subnotebok,

- enter/F2 to rename

- and drag and drop features!

In tag view is missing:

- drag n drop function as in v4,

- popup menu to rename or delete, remove tag from all notebooks and everything what was in V4

In my opinion: New version should be step forward. Not backwards. Removing function and forcing user to change view just because of renaming notebook etc is very big step backwards.

New features for me would be:

Glowing tags which are used in current notebook ( or another visual helper ).

Adding small icon of tags to all notes just to see if I have already tagged or not ( with posibility to switch off the feature )

More levels in notebooks - not just one - stacked notebook. Up to level 10. But 3 would be sufficient.

Add tree structure to tags e.g. Family(and there, John, Peter etc ) When I click on tag family I would see all notes taged family and also tagged with its members. ( John, Peter ) - minor importance ( but still much better then removing features! )

[Metrodon 2,184]

You can add your tree structure - take a deep breath and have a play around before you throw the baby out with the dishwater.

[Don Eireannach 7]

The Skeumorphic design is just horrible.  Evernote used to be so clean on Mac and iOS.  Please at least give us a way to turn it off.  Is it just the Mac edition that has this horrible UI?

[WimBakkeren 4]

Oke, let's be constructive then (the first post in this topic is mine).

Why I don't like the new interface at all:

• If it ain't broke don't fix it.
• It looked and worked like Apple Mail which is a good thing (sidebar, folder tree, favorites bar). Now it looks a bit like Apple Mail but works differently.
• It looked and worked like many other Mac Apps such as the Finder, Reeder, iTunes, Notes, Reminders, iPhoto, 1Password, you name it. All these appsthat let you manage many items. They all work more or less the same. Evernote 5 resembles these Apps but there are too many subtle differences.
• The cards in the cards view are bigger than they used to be. There is no option for small cards anymore.
• I don't want the Notes icon in the side bar but it cannot be disabled
• I don't want the Notebooks icon in the side bar but I do want the notebook tree in the sidebar (like in any other Mac App). If I disable the Notebooks icon I cannot have the Notebooks tree in the sidebar.
• The Notebooks view is completely unusable, both the list view and the icon view. What is the purpose of it? What does it add compared to the sidebar? I simply don't get it.
• I can't change the toolbar anymore.
• There are no buttons in the toolbar for changing views.
• There is no separate button for changing sorting in cards and snippet view.
• There is no separate button for switching between small and large cards in cards view.
• The Notebooks tree in the side bar doesn't have icons anymore.
• I prefer the shortcuts in the favorite bar like in Apple Mail.
• I prefer the 'All Notes' at the top of the Notebook tree instead of as a separate icon
• I don't like the mix of icons and notebook tree in the sidebar.
• I cannot see which notebook is selected in the notebook tree.

In short, the old interface was fine. I cannot get used to the new interface and cannot find the right combination of view settings to make it work in a way that I like. My biggest problem is the sidebar. I want a 'normal' sidebar like the old Evernote, Apple Mail, the Finder and iTunes.

And I agree with Cesco about the combination of colorful icons and light gray text in de sidebar. It doesn't look good.

There are of course improvements, e.g. the lack of ads and the frame around a note in the note editor.

 

 

Six months later I still don't like the new Evernote. I've been looking for an alternative but unfortunately haven't found one yet.

 

Three more gripes:

1. When I drag a note to the notebook tree in the sidebar the 'shortcuts pane' appears when its hidden. This makes the notebook tree move downwards which makes the notebook I'm dragging to a moving target. Bad UI design. I don't use the new shortcuts (because they take too much space) and therefore have the shortcuts pane hidden.
2. I've recently been rearranging my stacks, notebooks and notes. It was really frustrating. I had to switch between the notes view and notebook view constantly. It's not possible to rearrange stacks and notebooks in the notebook tree. I can only be done in the notebook view which is unusable due to the moving stacks and notebooks when collapsing and uncollapsing stacks. It's also not possible to rename stacks and notebooks in the notebook tree directly.
3. It's not possible to define a search for a stack, only for one or more notebooks or all notes .

In addition, the Dutch translation of Evernote is very un-Mac-like. 

 

Evernote is a fine app for taking notes but for managing notes, notebooks and stacks is not so good. I still think the new UI is ugly and not a pleasure to use. It has too many annoyances and UI-flaws like moving drag-and-drop targets.  I really hope it will improve over time. In the meantime I keep looking for an alternative. Does anybody have any suggestions?

[sgfx 0]

I'm sorry.. I spent a lot of money on a computer and screen that can reproduce 16 million colors. If I wanted B/W I would go back to the 80's and by a Mac.

This is horrific . it is WAY to much white. it is hard  for my eyes to track what is what. 

 

This is bad even for flat designe. Heck, my 10 year old nephew with  a copy of twitter bootstrap could come up with something better than this. 

 

Your 'designer' and I use that term sparingly, needs to get a refund from their university...  

 

I thought it was an error when I first turned it on after upgrading.  I deleted it and installed again, thinking some files were missing...

 

at the very least ... give us some options.. 

 

you even took away thumbnail views.

what possable use is a card preview of forms and charts. I depend on being able to look at a glance to see what I want ,.. and not have to read past  a un-formated text version of what your program in all it's glory has decided I might want to read. 

 

I will have to look for another program, if this is what I have to look at each day. 

 

Man, no one ever has their own mind when it comes to user interface desighn.. just jump on the newest bandwagon and then implement it with disregards to usage.

 

You know what really makes me mad.. I just upgraded from free, ... boy am I a sucker. 

[dlu 628]

 

I'm sorry.. I spent a lot of money on a computer and screen that can reproduce 16 million colors. If I wanted B/W I would go back to the 80's and by a Mac.

This is horrific . it is WAY to much white. it is hard  for my eyes to track what is what. 

 

This is bad even for flat designe. Heck, my 10 year old nephew with  a copy of twitter bootstrap could come up with something better than this. 

 

Your 'designer' and I use that term sparingly, needs to get a refund from their university...  

 

I thought it was an error when I first turned it on after upgrading.  I deleted it and installed again, thinking some files were missing...

 

at the very least ... give us some options.. 

 

you even took away thumbnail views.

what possable use is a card preview of forms and charts. I depend on being able to look at a glance to see what I want ,.. and not have to read past  a un-formated text version of what your program in all it's glory has decided I might want to read. 

 

I will have to look for another program, if this is what I have to look at each day. 

 

Man, no one ever has their own mind when it comes to user interface desighn.. just jump on the newest bandwagon and then implement it with disregards to usage.

 

You know what really makes me mad.. I just upgraded from free, ... boy am I a sucker. 

 

 

Are you possibly talking about the Windows client? Just FYI this is a Mac thread.

[harveydarvey 1]

The notes panel is taking up too much space at the top to have the giant Toolbars, Tags, and formatting toolbar. I need a way to hide those!

 

 

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

The notes panel is taking up too much space at the top to have the giant Toolbars, Tags, and formatting toolbar. I need a way to hide those!

This is a mac thread. That was a Windows screenshot, as far as I can tell.

[harveydarvey 1]

 

The notes panel is taking up too much space at the top to have the giant Toolbars, Tags, and formatting toolbar. I need a way to hide those!

This is a mac thread. That was a Windows screenshot, as far as I can tell.

 

Thank you for pointing out my error. This is so embarrassing

 

The fact that both windows user and mac users thinks that the old UI in 4.0 is just better does proves some point rite?

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

 

 

The notes panel is taking up too much space at the top to have the giant Toolbars, Tags, and formatting toolbar. I need a way to hide those!

This is a mac thread. That was a Windows screenshot, as far as I can tell.

 

Thank you for pointing out my error. This is so embarrassing

 

The fact that both windows user and mac users thinks that the old UI in 4.0 is just better does proves some point rite?

 

 

No worries! It's an honest mistake. And you have a good point.

 

My take on it is that users are resistant to changes, and they are growing more resistant over time. Why? They have incorporated Evernote into their lives and have tweaked the app to work "just right" for them. When developers go and make "minor" changes to the app, it wreaks havoc on workflows and naturally angers people. If you look through these forums, you'll see plenty of instances after an update when I am in dire straits even though (unlike many users) I barely use any of the available features!

 

It's just a theory with no evidence to support it, but the anger is a good thing! It shows that people care. Of course, the problem is that if you anger your users enough, you'll drive them away. My suggestion for Evernote developers would be to adopt more conservative approaches to updates. I doubt that is what anyone wants to hear, but there are plenty of precedents for making evolutionary rather than revolutionary changes to existing product lines. 

 

The designs (in my opinion) are fine. They just don't always do what I want them to do or they stop functioning as they used to. The resistance isn't really a negative evaluation of the design team, but a positive evaluation of the app's importance to users. I hope Evernote takes this into consideration. In general, my recommendation is for there to be more customizability built into the app, because that would solve a lot of these issues for me and other users. You may not need such customizability early in a product's life cycle, but over time, as your user base expands and becomes more dedicated to the product, you do. It's not "feature creep" or "feature bloat" if people actually make use of the features and value the app precisely because it is customizable for their unique use cases.

[Lenny_Leonard 1]

I think the same. The new interface is terrible, I feel so frustrated!

I have many sub-notebooks so I usually show them on the side panel to have a reference point on where I am.

The most funny things (never seen in any modern application) is that when you click on a notebook on the sidebar, it is NOT being highlighted so I'm lost, I don't know in which notebook or sub-notebook I am. I opened a request and they told they will introduce this feature soon but it's been a while and IMO this is not a feature it's basic UI/UX design... 

 

I'm looking for an alternative to evernote or to downgrade to the version 4. 

Every time I open it I get nervous, seriously.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Has anyone been able to put the interface back to something that resembles version 4? I'm on the edge of a panic attack. I moved ALL my documents to Evernote, I have over 100 folders and close to 1000 notes and I cannot find anything quickly at all. I used to be able to find any document I needed in less than 5 seconds and now I'mn really struggling to get my notes for class together. I have a paper due in a couple of hours and I had no idea updating my Mac would mean that suddenly Evernote would get so completely fouled up by a software update.

EDIT: Thank God! Right click Notebooks on the left and choose "Show Notebook List." Ther are all my Notebooks in a alphabetized tree. That combined with Snippit View got me to where I could use it again.

Glad you got it all worked out! Good luck on the paper

[FilipB 0]

The new Evernote 5.0 UI is bad. Please return to the previous UI which is much better and lets me be more productive.

I couldn't find a way to give feedback or report a bug and therefore posted this topic. I hope it reaches the right people at Evernote.

Agree, 5.0 UI is very very BAD!

Not possible to use keyboard in tree ( tree must be first switched on from menu )

Only way to browse notes is to click click click. Or display all notes or sub notes.

I was using Evernote because I could store and find notes relatively easily.

Now it is not possible.

When somebody is playing with it and spent a lot of time just to organize notes he can maybe be happy. He can play with 5.0 even longer.

Sometimes I only remembered that I store some note in there. Now it takes years just to find it.

When I know what I am looking for I can press COMMAND+SPACE on mac and I find it.

But when I do not know what I am looking for exactly, I am only convinced that it is there, I am lost with 5.0 UI!!!

With previous version i just clicked on TREE and using ARROW keys I was able to quickly iterate through notebooks.

[Cesco 0]

+1. This new UI IMHO looks horrible. One of the things I really cannot stand is the choice of keeping inside the same vertical gray bar both minimal black and white icons and detailed, colored ones; IMHO that's a very bad idea... If you decide to go with minimal B/W icons you should stick with that choice for every icon displayed on the bar.

[Metrodon 2,184]

This is the right place, Evernote staff read pretty much every post.

I guess you know that going back isn't going to happen.

Your best bet is to add constructive criticism detailing what you'd like to see.

[PR. 1]

Seems ok to me, a few tweaks here and there would be useful though.

• Note/Tag count in the left hand column
  
• Clarification on how saved searches are created
  
• Tag filtering was awkward in the old version now it's simpler, perhaps too simple
  
• Search box should be a bit better e.g. "Tag:2012" should automatically pick up that I want to search for the 2012 tag. At the moment it seems it can only be done through the mouse selecting "Add Search Option"
  
• Option to clear recent searches (I've now got a list of dodgy searches that I've been testing out)
  

Must say I like the shortcuts section and that it can hold anything

[FilipB 0]

This is the right place, Evernote staff read pretty much every post.

I guess you know that going back isn't going to happen.

Your best bet is to add constructive criticism detailing what you'd like to see.

Old version:

Arrow UP+DOWN+LEFT+RIGHT to browse ALL notebooks in tree view.

In any notebook I could use WHEEL or TRACKPAD to scroll up and down. I did not need to move mouse or to click on it. I just use wheel or scroll using two fingers on trackpad.

4 KEYS and SCROLLING to browse ALL notes with knowing where I am looking ( in which notebook ) Very fast!

No mouse move, no mouse click! And everything browsed.

5.0 Version.

You have to use MOUSE and click on each notebook just to look what is inside. When there is a lot of notes you have to move mouse to next window and scroll there. ( or use keyboard to scroll down )

Then you have to click on next notebook. You have to point with a mouse on tiny treeview. Or select it harder way with more click in the middle of right screen.

Try it yourself.

Look what is in each notebook in UI 5.0. Very very slow. Evernote becoming useless!

[PR. 1]

FilipB

This is the right place, Evernote staff read pretty much every post.

I guess you know that going back isn't going to happen.

Your best bet is to add constructive criticism detailing what you'd like to see.

Old version:

Arrow UP+DOWN+LEFT+RIGHT to browse ALL notebooks in tree view.

In any notebook I could use WHEEL or TRACKPAD to scroll up and down. I did not need to move mouse or to click on it. I just use wheel or scroll using two fingers on trackpad.

4 KEYS and SCROLLING to browse ALL notes with knowing where I am looking ( in which notebook ) Very fast!

No mouse move, no mouse click! And everything browsed.

5.0 Version.

You have to use MOUSE and click on each notebook just to look what is inside. When there is a lot of notes you have to move mouse to next window and scroll there. ( or use keyboard to scroll down )

Then you have to click on next notebook. You have to point with a mouse on tiny treeview. Or select it harder way with more click in the middle of right screen.

Try it yourself.

Look what is in each notebook in UI 5.0. Very very slow. Evernote becoming useless!

You can just use Cmd+J to open the notebook selector and use up down arrow keys to select a notebook press enter to open it and again use arrow keys to browse the notes.

[FilipB 0]

FilipB

This is the right place, Evernote staff read pretty much every post.

I guess you know that going back isn't going to happen.

Your best bet is to add constructive criticism detailing what you'd like to see.

Old version:

Arrow UP+DOWN+LEFT+RIGHT to browse ALL notebooks in tree view.

In any notebook I could use WHEEL or TRACKPAD to scroll up and down. I did not need to move mouse or to click on it. I just use wheel or scroll using two fingers on trackpad.

4 KEYS and SCROLLING to browse ALL notes with knowing where I am looking ( in which notebook ) Very fast!

No mouse move, no mouse click! And everything browsed.

5.0 Version.

You have to use MOUSE and click on each notebook just to look what is inside. When there is a lot of notes you have to move mouse to next window and scroll there. ( or use keyboard to scroll down )

Then you have to click on next notebook. You have to point with a mouse on tiny treeview. Or select it harder way with more click in the middle of right screen.

Try it yourself.

Look what is in each notebook in UI 5.0. Very very slow. Evernote becoming useless!

You can just use Cmd+J to open the notebook selector and use up down arrow keys to select a notebook press enter to open it and again use arrow keys to browse the notes.

Old Version:

First notebook: clik on treeview of first notebook

Next notebook: press down arrow

Next notebook: press down arrow

Next notebook: press down arrow

Together: One click + 3 keys.

UI 5.0

First notebook: cmd+j = 2 + down arrow to get first notebook = 3 + enter = 4 keys just to enter first notebook.

Next notebook: 4 keys ( previous steps ) + one arrow key more ( next notebook is under first one ) = 5

Next notebook: 5 + one arrow key more = 6

Next notebook: 6 + one arrow key more = 7

It is together: 4+5+6+7 = 22 keys.

Old: Click + 3 keys.

UI 5.0: 22 keys.

Thank you for advice. Mouse is maybe slow solution, but faster then this.

[WimBakkeren 4]

Oke, let's be constructive then (the first post in this topic is mine).

Why I don't like the new interface at all:

1. If it ain't broke don't fix it.
   
2. It looked and worked like Apple Mail which is a good thing (sidebar, folder tree, favorites bar). Now it looks a bit like Apple Mail but works differently.
   
3. It looked and worked like many other Mac Apps such as the Finder, Reeder, iTunes, Notes, Reminders, iPhoto, 1Password, you name it. All these appsthat let you manage many items. They all work more or less the same. Evernote 5 resembles these Apps but there are too many subtle differences.
   
4. The cards in the cards view are bigger than they used to be. There is no option for small cards anymore.
   
5. I don't want the Notes icon in the side bar but it cannot be disabled
   
6. I don't want the Notebooks icon in the side bar but I do want the notebook tree in the sidebar (like in any other Mac App). If I disable the Notebooks icon I cannot have the Notebooks tree in the sidebar.
   
7. The Notebooks view is completely unusable, both the list view and the icon view. What is the purpose of it? What does it add compared to the sidebar? I simply don't get it.
   
8. I can't change the toolbar anymore.
   
9. There are no buttons in the toolbar for changing views.
   
10. There is no separate button for changing sorting in cards and snippet view.
    
11. There is no separate button for switching between small and large cards in cards view.
    
12. The Notebooks tree in the side bar doesn't have icons anymore.
    
13. I prefer the shortcuts in the favorite bar like in Apple Mail.
    
14. I prefer the 'All Notes' at the top of the Notebook tree instead of as a separate icon
    
15. I don't like the mix of icons and notebook tree in the sidebar.
    
16. I cannot see which notebook is selected in the notebook tree.
    

In short, the old interface was fine. I cannot get used to the new interface and cannot find the right combination of view settings to make it work in a way that I like. My biggest problem is the sidebar. I want a 'normal' sidebar like the old Evernote, Apple Mail, the Finder and iTunes.

And I agree with Cesco about the combination of colorful icons and light gray text in de sidebar. It doesn't look good.

There are of course improvements, e.g. the lack of ads and the frame around a note in the note editor.

[starkos 16]

Mostly like the redesign, but agree that the sidebar icons are bit much, and—unless there are future plans of which I am unaware—not terribly useful.

[Dave544 7]

Has anyone been able to put the interface back to something that resembles version 4? I'm on the edge of a panic attack. I moved ALL my documents to Evernote, I have over 100 folders and close to 1000 notes and I cannot find anything quickly at all. I used to be able to find any document I needed in less than 5 seconds and now I'mn really struggling to get my notes for class together. I have a paper due in a couple of hours and I had no idea updating my Mac would mean that suddenly Evernote would get so completely fouled up by a software update.

EDIT: Thank God! Right click Notebooks on the left and choose "Show Notebook List." Ther are all my Notebooks in a alphabetized tree. That combined with Snippit View got me to where I could use it again.

[WimBakkeren 4]

WimBakkeren - We're here!

PR.

Note count - working on it!

Saved searches - Edit->Find->Save Search

Tag: searches - these are broken and it's a bug. Thanks for reporting!

hgray

Dragging to tags - Not implemented in this version but working on it. Until then, you can still select multiple notes and add tags by typing them into our multi-select helper view.

Great you are here. Please read my second post too where I list my dislikes.

I've postponed updating Evernote on my other Macs because I really don't like this update.

[NightStalker 407]

After a couple of weeks, since upgrading from v4 to the v5 beta and now the "final" version, all I can say is that it seems to be the classical case of "fixing" something that wasn't broken.

There is a long list of problems, many of which are outlined in the numerous threads on this forum. I don't need to repeat them here.

Yet version 4 WORKED! So just WHY, exactly, did you guys feel the need to change things? I'm not just talking about the need to change the UI either (love it or hate it) - I'm talking about either removing stuff (like the customizable toolbar, or the list view on the iPad) or changing the way things work (like not being able to drag tags onto note snippets).

What mental processes did you actually go through that resulted in the decision to DO those things? What did you think would be gained? Apart from a load of grumpy old farts like us filling up the forum with whinges? I just don't understand the thinking (if there was any) behind so many of the decisions on this new version. It is truly awful in so many ways.

Upgrades to software generally ADD features (often to the point of bloat), but rarely do they remove or alter features. And rarely in such a spectacularly bad way as you guys have done with v5, both on the Mac and on the iPad. I wouldn't have minded a couple of new features, but NOT the removal of so many of the most basic, previously trusted features and modes of working.

It would seem that you have right-royally screwed up the workflow and habits of thousands of your customers - not generally considered to be a good thing for a software company. And it is not usually a good sign when you have people recommending 3rd party apps, like Clever HD, for use on the iPad to make up for the shortcomings of your iPad app which are too numerous to mention.

Two questions:

1. Where can I download v4 for the Mac and install over the top of v5, and will the notes be compatible at the local level, or have they all been "upgraded" for v5?

2. When will v6 come out - the one where you realise all the disasters from v5 and go back to version 4 but with a few extra features and that works really fast and efficiently?

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

After a couple of weeks, since upgrading from v4 to the v5 beta and now the "final" version, all I can say is that it seems to be the classical case of "fixing" something that wasn't broken.

There is a long list of problems, many of which are outlined in the numerous threads on this forum. I don't need to repeat them here.

Yet version 4 WORKED! So just WHY, exactly, did you guys feel the need to change things? I'm not just talking about the need to change the UI either (love it or hate it) - I'm talking about either removing stuff (like the customizable toolbar, or the list view on the iPad) or changing the way things work (like not being able to drag tags onto note snippets).

What mental processes did you actually go through that resulted in the decision to DO those things? What did you think would be gained? Apart from a load of grumpy old farts like us filling up the forum with whinges? I just don't understand the thinking (if there was any) behind so many of the decisions on this new version. It is truly awful in so many ways.

Upgrades to software generally ADD features (often to the point of bloat), but rarely do they remove or alter features. And rarely in such a spectacularly bad way as you guys have done with v5, both on the Mac and on the iPad. I wouldn't have minded a couple of new features, but NOT the removal of so many of the most basic, previously trusted features and modes of working.

It would seem that you have right-royally screwed up the workflow and habits of thousands of your customers - not generally considered to be a good thing for a software company. And it is not usually a good sign when you have people recommending 3rd party apps, like Clever HD, for use on the iPad to make up for the shortcomings of your iPad app which are too numerous to mention.

Two questions:

1. Where can I download v4 for the Mac and install over the top of v5, and will the notes be compatible at the local level, or have they all been "upgraded" for v5?

2. When will v6 come out - the one where you realise all the disasters from v5 and go back to version 4 but with a few extra features and that works really fast and efficiently?

Well, you know I have had my share of prickly criticisms over some of the features that went missing or didn't show up as I had hoped they would. But, to be honest, my list (get it? List View -- "list"? Hahaha) of requests is actually pretty short. Leaving aside iOS, which is a totally different development team altogether, could you tell us exactly what you think ought to have been in this app?

As for a download of version 4, I don't know of anyplace on the Internet with it, but I imagine you could go back through the forums and find a link to a beta version until you can track down someone who kept a copy of the .dmg file in their downloads folder.

[NightStalker 407]

Leaving aside iOS, which is a totally different development team altogether, could you tell us exactly what you think ought to have been in this app?

Morning Grumpy As I said, the list is so long, and has been mentioned on these forums so many times, that I don't need to relist them here. My own pet peeves are the lack of the customizable toolbar, and the inability to drag tags from the sidebar onto the snippets. But also the whole thing seems sluggish, slow - like swimming through molasses. Why do the snippets have to get rebuilt every time? And why wait for them to "appear' on the screen before rebuilding them, instead of doing it in the background? Scrolling the snippet list is a frustrating exercise in stop/start sluggishness. Especially in my "All notes" notebook with thousands of notes in it.

But the mere fact that there are SO many posts on this forum, all complaining about stuff in v5, means that it is NOT a success. Teething trouble I can understand - but why break v4 that actually worked and worked well? Where is something in v5 that is actually BETTER as opposed to just different - or worse - missing?

[PR. 1]

I don't think there is that many complaints.

I would argue the biggest problem Evernote keep making for themselves is they make a big change to a feature that people use a lot but don't document it, lots of complaints here are simple ones like the missing notebook hierarchy in the left hand panel (I only found out about this as it's briefly shown in the YouTube video and it's mentioned in the Beta thread here) another Saved Searches it's almost completely hidden in the Edit > Find sub menu. New notebooks default to synchronised another 'feature'.

If you don't pay attention to the Evernote blog and simply download the app from the App store and use it you'd have been thrown in the deep end with this update and people who just want to get work done their workflow is thrown up in the air by having to learn everything all over again.

They would do well to dump a new note in the default notebook during first run listing additions, changes and where they went "Moved saved searches to Edit > Find > Save Search menu" that's all that was needed instead I spent 10mins googling trying to find out.

[rcherny 7]

Ok, well, I don't think it's worth it much to question what's been done, since it has been done. Clearly, the EN staff reads these posts, so they'll hear the complaints — but honestly I'm not going to say that the changes are all bad (IMHO). It's just different. For whatever reason ... Granted there are things I miss and that need getting used to. And things that leave me scratching my head wondering what the motivation was. And ... things I'd really like to see addressed (no back buttons? and your previous note doesn't even appear under Recent Notes, unless you made an edit?)

It just strikes me that they were after a new type of workflow or something. I'll be curious to see what the next Windows client looks like, since I know they've been hoping for more feature parity between platforms (that said, I still don't see that between the Mac and iOS v5, but ... time will tell I'd guess).

That said, there are some better options than what is listed here:

UI 5.0

First notebook: cmd+j = 2 + down arrow to get first notebook = 3 + enter = 4 keys just to enter first notebook.

Next notebook: 4 keys ( previous steps ) + one arrow key more ( next notebook is under first one ) = 5

Next notebook: 5 + one arrow key more = 6

Next notebook: 6 + one arrow key more = 7

It is together: 4+5+6+7 = 22 keys.

Old: Click + 3 keys.

UI 5.0: 22 keys.

One: Any of the shortcuts you drag to the shortcut bar on the top left immediately gets a command+[1-9] keystroke assigned to it. Really nice, actually.

Two: From just about any view you can type command+option+2 and get the full Notebooks List. From there you can immediately start typing to filter the list. So even if you didn't have a lot of long winded names for your notebooks, you can get to them fairly quickly.

Three: Or, you can do the command+J from any view and start typing.

Example:

• command+J, "in", enter = Inbox (4 keystrokes)
  
• command+J, "pr", enter = Projects (if you had a "Projects"; again, 4 keystrokes).
  

It's a different workflow, that's all. Not that dramatically worse, as described above ...

HOWEVER ... there's some things about the filtering process that frustrates me. It's totally inconsistent from the different views. I still can't figure out what kind of "substring" search is going on, both for the command+J, start typing for notebook, and command+shift+J, to start typing on the tags.

Weird Behavior Example 01 (Notebook Filters):

I can do something like "command+j", type "in" and get two notebooks from the all notes view that start with "in" ...

But, if I type "command+option+2", and type "in", I get NINE, yes NINE notebooks that happen to contain "in" somewhere in their name.

And, NEITHER search includes STACKS names, which I REALLY, REALLY wish they did. .... Oh, but wait, if I right (or control) click on the sidebar for notebooks, and then select "Show Notebook List", I can then get a full list. Nice, but ... I can click on a STACK!!! Oh how nice. But that's the only place in the UI that I can "enter" a STACK? If I click on a STACK in the Notebook list, it just expands and collapses it ... sigh ...

• EDIT: Ok, so from the full Notebook view list, when Stacks are expanded, there's a subtle little link you can click on with the mouse (only) to get "into" a stack. But it's not in the tab index. Ok.
  

Weird Behavior Example 02 (Tag Filters):

Type command+shift+J from the "All Notes" view ... (this is important) ... Tag filter shows, you can type. Nice. Once your list is filtered, EN shows the notes that have that tag. Ok. I want to narrow it down more ... so I see the tag filter is selected (highlighted blue), I can mouseover it and get a tooltip that tells me my current filter. Ok. Great. If they ditched the search explanation bar, why doesn't the search box get filled in with the current filter? I still want more, from the keyboard. Type command+shift+J and .... nothing ... I'm stuck. On a whim, click command+option+2 to get to the Notebook view .... ok ... but, I'm still wanting more tag filtering ... so I type command+shift+J .... oh wow now I'm back at my tag view, and I CAN SUDDENLY TYPE MORE TAG FILTERS ...

Nice features, nice ideas, just incomplete, not thoroughly fleshed out. I'm a consultant and I've been doing it for a few years. This just seems like something that was rushed out based on deadlines and not "when it was ready" or ... "feature complete" or whatever ... like someone made a choice to go to market with something, anything ... and some things didn't make the cut. I wouldn't be surprised if half these things are in a bug tracker somewhere and several programmers or designers are rubbing their foreheads in frustration saying to themselves ... "when's the 5.0.1 release again?"

I'm looking forward to it myself ...

[hgray1 0]

Hi. I'm just trying out the new UI now. First reaction, wish I hadn't switched. But haven't figure it all out yet.

Question: How do we quickly tag multiple notes?

In the past, I would select notes (in list view) and then drag and drop them onto a tag in the sidebar. But now it seems we can't drag notes onto tags?

How else can we quickly tag notes, especially multiple notes at a time?

thanks!!

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Hi. I'm just trying out the new UI now. First reaction, wish I hadn't switched. But haven't figure it all out yet.

Question: How do we quickly tag multiple notes?

In the past, I would select notes (in list view) and then drag and drop them onto a tag in the sidebar. But now it seems we can't drag notes onto tags?

How else can we quickly tag notes, especially multiple notes at a time?

thanks!!

Hi. As in the previous version, select a couple of notes, you'll get a new view on the right, and then you can type in the tag. It is actually pretty nice this way.

[Favo Yang 0]

My major complaint is about the spacing wasted around the main editor window. Especially when you edit a shared notes, it show one more line "You're viewing a note that is ..." can't this line merged into the status info (created: xxx, Updated...).

Also I'm missing the back button.

[Jackolicious 808]

WimBakkeren - We're here!

PR.

Note count - working on it!

Saved searches - Edit->Find->Save Search

Tag: searches - these are broken and it's a bug. Thanks for reporting!

hgray

Dragging to tags - Not implemented in this version but working on it. Until then, you can still select multiple notes and add tags by typing them into our multi-select helper view.

[luk911 0]

and one more

And i find solution - Sync all note if you add/edit them from 5 version, close Evernote, use AppCleaner delete 5 version, empty trash, restart mac, go to Time mashine and restore evernote from 2 day ago,

I happy now :-)