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(Archived) iOS Evernote 5 - Loves, Lost, Fixed and Broken


Mike Wood

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Some time has passed since EN5 hit our iPads, following some updates a number of kinks have been removed, so I've sat down and reviewed where we are now, comparing EN4 & 5 side by side; without rose tinted specs.

 

Following release of 5.2.1 I'm pleased to report many things have been addressed!   B)

Loves - There's a lot to like about EN5 on the iPad
- Overall polished visuals and transitions.
- The card view is an improvement and works particularly well with photo notes. The new returned & enhanced Snippet view is great too.
- Card scrolling is very smooth (on iPad 3 or better?)
- More notes are visible at once.
- Places is very slick and much improved over EN4.
- Finally we have the ability to search tags!
- Joined notebooks are much better located
- Notebook stacks are a very welcome addition.
- Adding Camera Roll photos is greatly enhanced with latest shown and ability to select multiple images.
- Recent notes is really helpful when switching between notes you're currently working on.

- The inbuilt PDF viewer is much improved.

Lost - There are however a few missing Evernote 4 (EN4) iPad features:
1. Smooth scrolling within individual notes. Despite silky smooth card view scrolling (on iPad 3 or better?), EN5 notes judder. Half fixed in 5.2.1 

    now silky smooth when opened from Snippet view still judders from card view.
2. Full screen view of a note in landscape, it's presently limited to the same width as portrait There is an icon to switch to full screen.
3. Scroll bar on the right, allowing you to scroll to the bottom of a list of notes in one touch. Fixed in 5.2.1 (in Snippet view)
4. Stay editing a note whilst switching to another App. On return to EN5 the edit closes and scrolls to the top of the note Fixed in 5.1.1
5. Reduced amount of text is shown on each card, obviously a trade off to see more notes. Fixed in 5.2.1 (in Snippet view)
6. Note Totals for months or letters of the alphabet shown in the heading/divider.
7. Snippet style view. Most controversial as many users were hoping this would stay and be further enhanced into a list view resulting in one of the most active threads! (11,000+ views) List view thread Fixed in 5.2.1   :)

7a. View/edit a single note and scroll the snippet view on the left simultaneously. Allowing, if the notes are short (30 words), the ability to read/research other notes whilst editing another. You can also change the sort order of the list whilst still editing a single note. Fixed in 5.2.1
8. Sort by notebook, city and country
9. Time or date visible on photo notes in card view.
10. Good font/icon contrast and colour. EN5 is generally good but very bad in places, Tags list, note count is particular poor.
11. Places missing alternative map styles (Map, Satellite, Hybrid)
12. Having selected a saved search the title bar changes to the name of the search. EN5 does this for TAGs but not saved searches. Seehere.Fixed in 5.2.1
13. Having searched, results remain on switching to and from the App. EN 5.1.1 now resets back to All Notes, also resets when you drag the results tab to reveal the other tabs. Fixed in 5.2.1
14. Search box expands to full screen width when entering criteria. EN5 the box remains very small (approx 13 characters). EN5 on the iPhone wins again with 21 characters! Fixed in 5.2.1
15. The tag list supports longer tag names such as 'exeter.transport.railway.paddington' (approx 36 characters are visible). EN5 is limited to about 21 characters, not a huge issue as EN5 tag search displays greater width. EN5 on the iPhone has the advantage of approximately 43 characters, due to the one column style. 

16. Selecting multiple TAGs from the TAGS list - select edit first, then select the tags required and then select the eye icon.

The iPhone has always had the best iOS client, unfortunately EN5 has brought the two almost in line and removed some very useful iPhone specific features:
S1. Ability to filter Places view to a specific search criteria or notebook. This should be put back and added to the iPad too, its brillant to filter whilst house hunting, eating out etc.
S2. Thumbnail view, 16+ images on the small iPhone screen. All images are shown, so if a note contains four images you get four thumbnails; not just one per note. Example of multiple thumbnails here.
S3. Attachment view, showing notes with attachments only. All attachments are shown, so if a note contains three attachments then all three are listed. Example here.
S4. When viewing a single note it was possible to jump backwards and forwards through the list of notes, in the current filter/sort order, using arrows at the bottom of the screen; very quickly in less than half a second. It now takes about 5 seconds (four clicks) to close the current note and select the next note and close that and select the next (in EN4 two clicks and 1 second).

Broken - Evernote 5 Bugs: Many to be fixed shortly!>>> EN response here

B1. Having opened a note from recent notes it doesn't respond to iPad rotation (as it does when opening notes elsewhere).Fixed in 5.2.1
B2. If you double tap the top of a note, to scroll to the top (in landscape mode) it also scrolls the card view (beneath) to the top.Fixed in 5.2.1
B3. Selecting unusually large JPGs to view in the iPad viewer closes the App (has been an issue since August).
B4. Can't search a joined notebook. It thinks about it and then produces 'The operation couldn't be completed (ENSearchManagerErrorDomain error -1001. Screenshot Fixed in 5.2.1
B5. There is a problem syncing multiple photos or larger attachments, it may be server side. 'we have a bug in our load balancer, our load balancer software vendor is aware of this and is making available a patch that will fix the HTTP Request Timeout issues that you are running in to when submitting images/files to your client' details in this thread Link.This is becoming a major annoyance and a recent update has had little effect. Here is a way to see the problem - Link  Fixed in my experience since the beginning of March 2013. Not related to the App version, clearly it was a Server issue :-) 
B6. When creating a new tag within a notes (i) screen you no longer see a tick after pressing the '+'. Not major, just a bit confusing. Fixed in 5.2.1
B6a.When finished adding/creating a tag the button should say 'Done' not 'Cancel'.Fixed in 5.2.1
B7. Searching tags on the iPad only searches from the start of the words in the name, not within the name as it does on the iPhone and when searching tags to add to a note. So searching for 'railway' should find a tag called 'devon.railway'.
B8. The Premium Pin protection can be simply circumvented by removing and reinstalling the App. On reinstall it offers to login as the previous user without prompting for any password and without the Pin. Thread with images of problem & EN support looking into it (Sept 2012).
B9. When taking a photo, from within a note, the field of view is zoomed when the image setting is 'Large'. Example hereFixed in 5.2.1
B10.When adding a photo from the Camera Roll, the list starts at the oldest image requiring much scrolling (previously thought to be by design). However it appears to be affected by 'Location Services' when OFF- lots of scrolling and closing on each image selection, when ON - fantastic, shows newest and multiple images can be added in seconds! screenshot here Only a problem in iOS 5
B11.There is an apparently random issue where the cursor doesn't appear in the correct place when entering note edit on the iPad. Example here.
B11a.The cursor not appearing, occurs virtually every time if you enter edit mode when a note is zoomed. Again once you press a key the screen updates correctly to show the actual position. possibly slight worse after 5.2.1, the screen now doesn't necessarily update to show the cursor after the first key press.
B12.The Saved Search list window shrinks. Example here Fixed in 5.2.1
B13.Back arrow named incorrectly see here. This is very minor but might be linked to item 13 in 'Lost' aboveFixed in 5.2.1
B14.When using a bluetooth keyboard the App fails to keep the cursor visible when editing a zoomed note (works perfectly when not zoomed). This is more noticeable as you tend to use the cursor keys to move around a note. Screenshot here.
B15.Function bar missing from split keyboard. Example here.
B15a.When using split keyboard search bar can't decide where to appear. Example here
B16.Inability to edit creation/update date in note info as documented in the manual. As discussed here. Manual to be updated to reflect current operation.
B17.On the iPad 'Recent Notes' can show notes that have been deleted. Fixed in 5.2.1
B18.When using find within a note with a bluetooth keyboard or split screen keyboard, the find mode doesn't disengage properly when closing the note. Example here.
B19.On the iPad Mini there are reports that the note window doesn't scroll to maintain the cursor in view when typing. See here.
B20.Unwanted line spacing introduced when pasting into a note. Easily repeatable, see here.Fixed in 5.2.1
B21.Whilst editing a note on the iPhone the cursor scrolls off the screen every other key press. see here.
B22.Offline notebooks "Download All Notes" doesn't seem to be working. Selecting all the notebooks individually in "Selected Notebooks" does?http://discussion.ev...re/#entry187371

B23. Lots of improvements and fixes in 5.2.1, unfortunately the App crashes every time you adjust the sort order. An urgent fix is in the pipeline.Fixed in 5.2.2

Here's hoping Evernote’s Chief Designer, Gabe Compodonico, makes good on his desire for simplicity without removing anything.
head.png Skip to 20 mins & 30 seconds.

I'm keeping these lists updated with contributions from other users, Thank you for your help.

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Card scrolling is very smooth and we have more notes visible at once.

(...)

1. Smooth scrolling within individual notes. Despite silky smooth card view scrolling, EN5 notes judder.

Can't disagree more on that. For me card view scrolling on iPad 2 is at least irritating (very jittery) when not connected to network and intolerable when synchronizing occurs in background.

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Can't disagree more on that. For me card view scrolling on iPad 2 is at least irritating (very jittery) when not connected to network and intolerable when synchronizing occurs in background.

I'm using iOS 5 on an iPad 3, I'll give it a go on my iPad 1. I'm generally online, I'll check offline instead.

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I meant when it is not connected it is at least usable. When connected and synchronizing occurs, response to touch sometimes exceeds 1 second.

Basically just opening EN on iPad makes all animations jittery (like double clicking home button when app is rolled up to reveal buttons at the bottom). Any other app scrolls smoothly, EN stutters. Though you would think it is iOS in charge at that moment.

EDIT: v 5.1.2 corrected the latter behavior, app scrolls up and down smoothly and animations are generally much more smooth now.

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I guess there is one thing missing from EN 4 which was related to snippet view. I have a feeling it had a notion of "current note". In snippet view when you selected a note (having its content on the right pane) and you changed sorting order especially for "by date created" you could see the notes created immediately before and after the selected note.

Now that you need to close a note before going back to the (card) view and then you change the sort order, you lose the position you were at.

I am not 100% sure, however, EN 3.3 for Mac allows that flow for sure, but on iOS when "sort by date created" was added again in 5.1, I found it not useful for me at all, so I guess EN 4 must have had this feature.

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I completely agree that your #12 must be returned to iOS and added to all clients. I used this feature daily.

"12. Ability to filter Places view to a specific search criteria or notebook. This should be put back and added to the iPad too, its brillant to filter whilst house hunting, eating out etc."

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I guess there is one thing missing from EN 4 which was related to snippet view. I have a feeling it had a notion of "current note". In snippet view when you selected a note (having its content on the right pane) and you changed sorting order especially for "by date created" you could see the notes created immediately before and after the selected note.

Now that you need to close a note before going back to the (card) view and then you change the sort order, you lose the position you were at.

I am not 100% sure, however, EN 3.3 for Mac allows that flow for sure, but on iOS when "sort by date created" was added again in 5.1, I found it not useful for me at all, so I guess EN 4 must have had this feature.

You can view/edit a single note and scroll the snippet view on the left simultaneously. The snippet view may also be reordered, it doesn't home back on the note you are editing. As you say this does allow, if the notes are short (30 words), the ability to read/research other notes whilst editing another. I'll add that to the list!(7a) :)

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We couldn't edit saved searches before but we could see the syntax I think.

Now we can't see the syntax.

8284799345_cd40f467d9_b.jpg

Whenever I use saved searches I'd like to see a search bar with the saved search expression entered in it. This would solve both problems, I.e. we'll see saved search syntax and we'll be able to further tweak the search.

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You can view/edit a single note and scroll the snippet view on the left simultaneously. The snippet view may also be reordered, it doesn't home back on the note you are editing. As you say this does allow, if the notes are short (30 words), the ability to read/research other notes whilst editing another. I'll add that to the list!(7a) :)

Thank you very much for checking this out. That's why on Mac I use arrow keys to refocus on that current note. It wouldn't make sense on iPad, but still I am missing something...

How about if we set up a sort order for "date created", then search for a note, highlight a note and then clear the search criteria? Doesn't it show the notes created immediately before and after the found one?

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@techraf I'll check that out. Also I see the update 5.1.1 doesn't appear to address any features or the bugs in my list. Spoke too soon! they have fixed the ability to switch to other Apps and stay editing the current note :)

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How about if we set up a sort order for "date created", then search for a note, highlight a note and then clear the search criteria? Doesn't it show the notes created immediately before and after the found one?

No sorry, it just goes back to all notes nothing highlighted.

I've updated the first post with fixed items and newly identified issues.

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@May I've only just noticed that EN4 on the iPad didn't support tag searching! Obviously this is a major step forward in EN5. :)

I note they have restricted the width of the search window and in the Tag list limited the width to support multiple columns, is this causing you any issues? (iPhone is better)

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I note they have restricted the width of the search window and in the Tag list limited the width to support multiple columns, is this causing you any issues? (iPhone is better)

Yes, the search overall is inconvient to use because it's smaller, harder to access and I don't even fully understand how it works lol, it seems to work differently compared to previous version...

But I have no problems with the tag list, the ability to search for tags is a huge improvement.

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@May yes being able to search tags is a huge improvement! But since playing with it I note it doesn't work consistently/properly.

If you search tags when adding a tag to a note it works as you would expect and finds 'port' in a tag like 'railway.transport'. On the iPad, however, if you search tags from the tags list it only searches from the start of the tag name so 'rail' & 'railway' work but not 'port'. On the iPhone this works as expected. I think I'll call that a bug?

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@May yes being able to search tags is a huge improvement! But since playing with it I note it doesn't work consistently/properly.

If you search tags when adding a tag to a note it works as you would expect and finds 'port' in a tag like 'railway.transport'. On the iPad, however, if you search tags from the tags list it only searches from the start of the tag name so 'rail' & 'railway' work but not 'port'. On the iPhone this works as expected. I think I'll call that a bug?

It's a bug. I don't have it, here's an example:

8296225940_86f1d7271c_b.jpg

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@May Ok agreed its not working quite as I thought, it's searching from the start of each word. But the iPhone and Windows client work the other way. It should also ignore my full stops between words as searching notes does?

Can you try creating a tag like "spiderweb.software" and see what that does when you search tags for 'software'

In my example 'transport' doesn't find it either.

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Can you try creating a tag like "spiderweb.software" and see what that does when you search tags for 'software'

I get no results in such case because it treats "spiderweb.software" as a single word

So we are seeing the same thing. I think the iPhone style search is better, in theory, although it clearly needs some work from your example.

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Yeah, IMHO it needs to match words in the same sequence, not in any random sequence. For example "ideo" should match "video" but it shouldn't match "iPad/iPhone/iPod USB cable" even though it also has words I,d,e,o. Hope this makes sense :)

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Problems with animations of the whole app, as I described before, were corrected today in v 5.1.2.

Scrolling of long posts seems a bit faster, but unfortunately is still jittery and overall irritating.

Scrolling of card view is much worse than before.

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@techraf I've not noticed any change to the judder but I only see this when scrolling a note. jhull suggested 5.1.2 was to address the photo sync issue.

Jhull has acknowledged the bug list for the next release, so I'm hoping they will address some of the missing features too.

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Thanks for a very nice post. The only thing I find wrong with it is the statement in the subject that "There's a lot to like about EN5 on the iPad". I haven't found a single thing I like with it, but I'm glad some people do. I'm mainly a Mac user, so I have very similar problems with my desktop client too (missing features, terribly bad UI). All-in-all, I've stopped using Evernote for now and are moving all my notes to another set of tools. I very much regret just paying a yearly subscription for premium, but I hope the money will help them fix Evernote...

I find it rather sad that Evernote cannot just see that version 5 is terrible and move back to previous version. That would solve most of the issues described in this thread.

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@mogf01 Agreed about the Mac desktop client. Someone should do a similar list for the Mac client. I don't use it enough to notice all the differences, and it would be a big job!

To be fair on the Mac, EN have been adding back features and responding to many issues. :)

I would give EN another couple of months, it is really difficult to find anything which is as capable. There are a number of threads explaining how to install a previous Mac client in the meantime.

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Following Tom's post in another thread I have taken another look at the iPhone EN4 thumbnail view. It's far more useful than I realised, it displays a thumbnail for every image within a note. Here is an example of a filter to one note. I'm not aware of any other EN client that has this feature.

thumbnailview.jpg

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I was only partly correct about the app anmations (reflecting overall bad performance). It seems there is an improvement in 5.1.2 compared to previous versions, but only on general screens. Any operation when a note is opened are enormously slow. Best seen when turning iPad upside down and the app rotates.

Other small annoyances in 5.1.2 would be: hiding the search field when synchronization occurs (usually occurs immediately atter starting typing). While I think they changed the behavior not to clear the text after synchronization finishes, it is still a disaster when you enter for example Japanese text (which means have delete all you typed before synchronization and start over for iOS to correctly interpret what you type).

And when adding tags to a note, you have to return to previous screen by tapping on a button named "cancel". Though it does not cancel anything and seamply means "Done". Additionally the fact that newly added tags usually appear off-screen on the previous window (need to roll them down), it still makes me check if everything went ok each time.

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Do you have a lot of updates coming in via email or other EN clients?

Almost none, why?

I was wondering why you get a lot of synchronisation going on. When you talk about search, is this at the top of the screen or the search within a note above the keyboard?

I've updated my Bug list with B6a regarding the 'Cancel'. I've also noted the inability on the iPhone to quickly jump backwards and forwards between notes! (S4)

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@Mike Wood - amazing job cataloging these v5 (vs v4) issues! Thanks so much - and for maintaining rather than letting it go stale. (Thinly vailed request to continue doing so.)

Rather than repeat my comments from a similar string, here's the link:

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Recently with webclips and I think longer notes, I've noticed that when I click/press to enter edit mode the screen doesn't update properly when the keyboard opens (added as bug B11 in the first post).

The left screenshot shows what I initially saw, as I typed the screen updated to show where I actually expected to be. Its random I haven't worked out exactly what causes it. Just try this note - https://www.evernote...c4-fe2e51983d8e

If you rotate the screen and jump in and out of the note and in and out of the edit mode within 10-20 edits it occurs. It seems to happen more often in landscape mode. Here is another example - http://dl.dropbox.co.../wrongpart2.jpg

wrongpart.jpg

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  • Level 5*

Searching shared/joined notebook works fine in EN 4.4.0 but in EN 5.1.2 I get an error message -

joinedsearch.png

Really? In my memory, we could not search joined notebooks in the previous version. Or, was it that we could only search them one by one. I forget the limitations, and get it mixed up with OSX. At any rate, I can search fine in EN now. The fact that they are not downloadable as offline notebooks makes them a little less useful, but it is a step in the right direction!

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  • Level 5*

In 4.4.0 you can search "All notes" or "This notebook". The joined notebook is this one https://www.evernote.com/pub/spgscott/evernote-help

Please let me know whether you can search this notebook in 5.1.2...

I have the same EN account on an iPad3 producing this error in 5.1.2 and an iPad1 with 4.4.0 working fine. :unsure:

All notes should not search joined notebooks in 4.4, as I recall. This notebook searches should only be for your own, as I recall. See this thread for posts by me mentioning this limitation back in August.

As you'll see in the link above, I asked for basically the same features Evernote rolled out later that month at ETC. This wasn't the first time the issue had come up (I am not unique for suggesting it), and it's worth noting that, despite posts on these forums to the contrary, the developers do listen to the comments of users and do make changes that meet the needs / requests of users. We don't quite have the integration I would like on iOS, but it's a start!

Joined notebooks, if I understand correctly, only became searchable in October. I suppose it is possible this ability is retroactive,so current 4.4 users gained it. I don't know.

As for the error with Scott's notebook, I can confirm that I get it as well. No other notebook has this problem. Scott is a Windows user, so I can only assume that his Windowness does not interact well with the Appleverse, kind of like our visitors in Anathem :)

I'll raise a flag and get some people looking into it ASAP.

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@Grumpy 4.4 can search shared notebooks, not sure how, as you say may be a server side update.

I haven't got any shared notebooks that don't error, on search, in my test account. Here is another that's featured in the EN Dummies book - https://www.evernote.com/pub/colleenyoung/qrcodes

Re listening I hope many of the items in my Bug list B1-B11, in the IP, get fixed in the next release. :)

Thanks for flagging it up!

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  • Level 5*

@Grumpy 4.4 can search shared notebooks, not sure how, as you say may be a server side update.

I haven't got any shared notebooks that don't error, on search, in my test account. Here is another that's featured in the EN Dummies book - https://www.evernote.com/pub/colleenyoung/qrcodes

Re listening I hope many of the items in my Bug list B1-B11, in the IP, get fixed in the next release. :)

Thanks for flagging it up!

Yep. It's bad too. What about my notebook (in my signature)?

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Wow. OK, then it looks like a major bug. I bet the Evernote team already knows about it if it is this big, so I expect we'll see a fix soon.

Jhull thought it had been fixed with a web update, I let him know I still had the problem, I haven't heard anything since.

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Just fixed all the links from my IP to other posts in this thread. Note to self - don't rename a topic unless you want to edit all the links to posts within that thread!?#

Actually it still links to the right page, but not the post...

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Another minor bug see below. The saved search and recent search list shrinks to a smaller and smaller window. It seems to be related to keyboard pop-up and screen rotation but I've not tied down what exactly causes it. Only closing the App fully, fixes it. Closing the tab makes no difference it remembers this reduced size.

saved.png

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When using a bluetooth keyboard with a note zoomed (to make it easier on the eyes) the cursor often moves off the screen requiring manual screen scrolling. The App works perfectly when not zoomed and scrolls the window appropriately to keep the cursor visible.

cursor_missing.png

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When using a bluetooth keyboard with a note zoomed (to make it easier on the eyes) the cursor often moves off the screen requiring manual screen scrolling. The App works perfectly when not zoomed and scrolls the window appropriately to keep the cursor visible.

...

Oh no - the fidgety cursor issue. This was a frustrating similar behavior several releases ago when attempting to reach a specific edit point with your finger the cursor squirted out to anywhere but where you wanted it. Hopefully that behavior has not returned. (I continue resist moving to v5 and therefore cannot test myself.)

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@BlueOak To be honest I'm not sure it went away? I'm not saying all these bugs were introduced in EN5, but they are present in the latest version. If you have any other issues not on my list let me know.

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@BlueOak To be honest I'm not sure it went away? I'm not saying all these bugs were introduced in EN5, but they are present in the latest version. If you have any other issues not on my list let me know.

The fidgety cursor placement (to set the edit point with your finger) behavior definitely was improved somewhere before/at v4 - since I'm currently using v4 and don't find it excessively frustrating anymore. Can't speak for v5.

Thanks.

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The split keyboard works inconsistently see below. Most of the time it appears without the function bar?! It might make more sense to put the function bar at the bottom of the screen (as when using a bluetooth keyboard).

splitkeyboard.jpg

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Looks like having location services on/off uses different application code. Not necessarily surprising, although the sort order should be consistent (off - oldest shown / on - newest shown). Skitch manages this when location services are off or on.

location.jpg

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Looks like having location services on/off uses different application code. Not necessarily surprising, although the sort order should be consistent (off - oldest shown / on - newest shown). Skitch manages this when location services are off or on.

...

@Mike Wood, I don't turn location services off and on, but could it be that the sort attempts to show you notes in context with your current location - such as notes about a specific property you have been evaluating?

Of course if that was not the design intent, it is a bug!

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The sync issue is a real pain once it occurs (sync doesn't complete and errors repeatedly) and it seems a bit random as to how and when it resolves!

But it seems to be resolved every time, when I power off the iPad (fully) & on again (hold the power button top right) :)

Update - powering off didn't fix it this morning... switched to my 2nd broadband and that sorted it. It's just random?#! :(

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@Mike Wood - Thanks again for all your effort in maintaining this thread. I want you folks to know that we are actively looking in here, even though I can't get back to you on every issue. That said, I have a few comments (especially for your bugs list) included below!

Lost List:

(#1, 7, 7a) We're testing a snippet view in our private beta now and expect to release it in our next version. This will include a scrollbar to allow you to quickly jump to different points in the list.

(#6) I can see how note totals in headers would be useful for some folks. We'll get this slated for an upcoming release.

(#12) Displaying title in the bar for saved searches will be fixed in the next release.

Bugs

B1, 2, 6, 12, 15, 17 - Confirmed as bugs. Have been fixed for next release (currently in beta)

B6a, 9, 13 - Confirmed bugs, will be fixed soon

B3. Investigating on provided sample.

B4. This turns out to be an issue with public notebooks as of a web release in Dec. These will be fixed in next release

B5. Fix deployed to load balancer helped many with issue, however our Ops team is still working to investigate other sources.

B7. Under investigation

B10. Unable to repro in our latest beta on iPhone or iPad. With locations services on/off, I see the most recent images first. Is this still happening for you? If so, on what device / OS combination are you encountering the problem?

B11/11a. Under investigation. Several instances fixed in current beta, but still looking for consistently reproducible cases (PM if you have an ENEX or video you can share)

B14. Investigating

B16. This is an incorrect piece of documentation, this was never possible. Will work with the appropriate teams to get that updated.

B17. Fixed in next release

B18. Under investigation

B19. Unable to reproduce this yet. If anyone has a note they can share or exact steps that cause the issue, they'd be much appreciated!

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I've been loving the updated Evernote, I've started using it again for work. However, the one thing that would make it perfect is to be able to highlight text. Please please please add this feature soon. Thanks, Karen

You can highlight text in the iOS app now by tapping in to edit, selecting the text you want highlighted, and then tapping the ! icon on the formatting bar.

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We're testing a snippet view in our private beta now and expect to release it in our next version. This will include a scrollbar to allow you to quickly jump to different points in the list.

HALL-E-LU-JAH...!!! yeay!!! Good one :) And a whole host of other "at last" superlatives. Thanks JHull

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One other thing that bugs me about with the iOS version - trying to select amounts of text that are more than fits onto the one initial edit screen. The usual behaviour in iOS is that if you drag, say, the top selection handle upwards, and move it further than the boundary of the edit window, the underlying note should scroll. Same going downwards. Just holding the finger on that selection handle and off the top or bottom of the edit screen DOESN'T scroll on most of my notes. I have a dim recollection of it doing so once or twice, but I can't remember which notes they were. Most of the time, that doesn't work, and I have to select text in bits.

A classic example is when I've sent a note to Evernote from Zite via the direct link from an article, but when I look in EN, it has all the guff at the top and bottom that I don't want, like all the comments, the ads, the links to various other social media, etc etc. To trim them off is easy on the computer versions (Mac or Windows) but not on the iOS versions, due to the above-mentioned selection limitations.

Don't know if it's just me, and my notes, or something to do with the way those notes are sent from Zite or the web clipper. Anyone else have a problem selecting more than you can see on the screen, by dragging the selection handle up or down and off the editing boundaries? Does it scroll for you? Or not?

This has been the case since v4 also, which I'm using on my main iPad. But my secretary has v5 (fully updated) on her iPad and that has the same problem. Seems to be a problem with the editor and selection....

As a generalization, selection of objects, and particularly text, has always been a pain on iOS devices anyway, which makes them awkward to use for any major text editing projects, even using Pages or other text editing apps. There needs to be a much better way to position the cursor, and to select text. Maybe a mouse app via Bluetooth? Wouldn't THAT be good... ;)

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Unwanted line spacing introduced when pasting into a note (B20).

@jhull Thank you very much for the update, looks like you are making good progress :) . I'm a little busy at present but I will try to come back to you on your queries in the next couple of days.

B10 I'm seeing this solidly on the iPad and iTouch running EN 5.1.2 & iOS 5.1.1 (9B206)

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@NightStalker I'm not seeing this problem except when the keyboard is visible. So it seems to work well before you enter edit mode. Also in either mode you can scroll the window without clearing the selection by two finger scrolling.... you can then enlarge your selection again after scrolling.

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...

As a generalization, selection of objects, and particularly text, has always been a pain on iOS devices anyway, which makes them awkward to use for any major text editing projects, even using Pages or other text editing apps. There needs to be a much better way to position the cursor, and to select text. Maybe a mouse app via Bluetooth? Wouldn't THAT be good... ;)

@NightStalker, touch text selection can be tricky on any touch device because the tip of your finger is a blunt object, but I've found sensitivity improves in the dry winter if I dampen the tips of my fingers slightly (I'll leave it up to you how to accomplish dampening!)

I actually perfer the way iOS handles selecting (although the EN implementation has been a bit fidgety in the past) - we also own an Android Samsung G Tab2 and do not like that method - at least on a 7 inch screen. (Way too much finger hunting.)

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Editing text on the iPhone can cause very unhelpful scrolling. Example -

With a note like this....

p5.jpg

Seems to be worse in landscape view. Basically as I type into the middle paragraph every other key causes the paragraph to disappear and then reappear .

p1.jpg

p2.jpg

p3.jpg

p4.jpg

etc....

Added as B21 to the bug list.

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@Mike Wood - Thanks again for all your effort in maintaining this thread. I want you folks to know that we are actively looking in here, even though I can't get back to you on every issue. That said, I have a few comments (especially for your bugs list) included below!

...

@jhull, thanks much for confirming these issues are being closely followed and hopefully corrected. I'll move to EN v5 yet! I continue to tell freinds and colleagues EN is one of my can't live without apps. @Mike Wood, thanks again for documenting and maintaining the list.

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Is there anyways to disable showing thumbnails in the the document title when using list view? It causes sluggish performance...

I think jhull is talking about the return of 'Snippet' view... I don't think a text only list view will be part of the same release.... but you never know! (although many many many would say it should be)

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@NightStalker I'm not seeing this problem except when the keyboard is visible. So it seems to work well before you enter edit mode. Also in either mode you can scroll the window without clearing the selection by two finger scrolling.... you can then enlarge your selection again after scrolling.

@Mike - yes, it is that editing mode I was referring to, with the keyboard visible. Sorry if I didn't make that clear. I have no problem scrolling etc in normal viewing mode. It is in the editing mode where I have the problem. If I want to select a whole bunch of stuff - in edit mode - that extends off the top or bottom of the visible bit of screen, then just holding onto that selection bar/dot and moving off the top or bottom of the screen is what doesn't seem to work.

@BlueOak: thanks for the suggestion. However, I've become as adept as it's possible to be at finger accuracy by using the "corner" of my finger tip. The problem is - which is the same with most styli - I can't actually SEE the bit that is touching the screen. I happen to have big fingers - one finger tip covers about 4 or 5 keys on the keyboard in portrait mode, for example. And my thumbs cover many more. There is NO way I can type on the screen keyboard on my iPhone - one thumb covers the entire keyboard! And yes - I know I'm a surgeon, but we use instruments! ;)

The problem is that on the iPad, in EDIT mode, the only visible part of the note is a strip about one third of the screen in height, across the middle, between the keyboard below, and the side-scrolling note icons above. So if I need to select any more than that 1/3 screen height's worth of note content - it just doesn't seem to work.

I'll try the two-finger scrolling trick Mike suggested - maybe that's one solution?

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...

...

@BlueOak: thanks for the suggestion. However, I've become as adept as it's possible to be at finger accuracy by using the "corner" of my finger tip. The problem is - which is the same with most styli - I can't actually SEE the bit that is touching the screen. I happen to have big fingers - one finger tip covers about 4 or 5 keys on the keyboard in portrait mode, for example. And my thumbs cover many more. There is NO way I can type on the screen keyboard on my iPhone - one thumb covers the entire keyboard! And yes - I know I'm a surgeon, but we use instruments! ;)

The problem is that on the iPad, in EDIT mode, the only visible part of the note is a strip about one third of the screen in height, across the middle, between the keyboard below, and the side-scrolling note icons above. So if I need to select any more than that 1/3 screen height's worth of note content - it just doesn't seem to work.

@NightStalker, huge fingers is a conundrum. Especially on a phone. I rarely do more than a few words of typing on the phone. But I find the popup bubble for either edit insert or text select works well enough on the iPad (EN v4 at least). Scroll-selecting does require a dose of patience. (or should I say 'patients' in your case?) ;-)

RE typing on the phone, have you tried the Siri button on the keyboard? It works surprisingly well for me.... but it could be Siri has a northern hemisphere, left coast, and/or Yankee accent bias.

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Wow, after upgrading from iOS version 4.x to 5.0 when V5 came out - without thinking - I immediately felt the need to look on a forum, the experience was so bad that I instantly thought about switching the client (difficult, almost none of them supports editing notes) or the note system alltogether. Very fortunately, I was able - with the help of some nice guys here - to switch back to EN 4.xxxx on my iPAD 2, and once done, I never felt the need to look on the forum again.

Evernote 4 is simple and does exactly what I need it to do. Photo notes, text notes, keywords, that's it.

EN is currently my no. 1 tool for all my work related stuff (and a good part of the private stuff as well). Never change a running system. As I do not miss anything in EN-4.xx, I won't upgrade as long as this remains possible and is supported.

The mere idea of having to change to a newer iPAD because of performance issues sounds ridiculous to me.

So, I am glad that EN 4 still is on my iPAD and PC, a perfect working tool. Meanwhile, I try to change the way I write my notes and give them titles (with all the key words in the title) in a way that would allow me to switch platform alltogether if necessary one day.

Why make a good product worse and create problems that didn't exist with the old version? Sorry if I sound negative, but I loke functionality and simplicity.

Bernie

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

I know the last 24 hours hasn't been the best with the latest iOS update containing a looping crash trap (when changing sort order) and the entire user list potentially being hacked.

 

But credit where credit is due, 15+ items have been addressed in our issues list. I suspect, after further checks, others will have been fixed too.

 

Snippet view is clearly a well crafted solution with customisable settings. Please keep developing more like this!

The PDF viewer is also outstanding! :)

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I know the last 24 hours hasn't been the best with the latest iOS update containing a looping crash trap (when changing sort order) and the entire user list potentially being hacked.

 

But credit where credit is due, 15+ items have been addressed in our issues list. I suspect, after further checks, others will have been fixed too.

 

Snippet view is clearly a well crafted solution with customisable settings. Please keep developing more like this!

The PDF viewer is also outstanding! :)

 

Thanks for your incredibly detailed tracking of issues @Mike Wood.  Got used to the 'new' cascaded tab interface on the pre-v5.2.1 beta and now like it enough to have finally upped from v4.x to v5.2.1 on my iPad.  iPhone, not yet...

 

BTW, since I use Checkboxes fairly regularly, their creation/editing functionality continues to be wonky.  Specifically, the initial spacing between the box and text until you type... and as well the cursor placement when you edit at the front of an existing Checkbox entry.  Not very polished behavior.

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  • 3 months later...

I just tried Evernote again, to see if I would get back to using this application which was once so nice. But, I can see that while a few improvements have been made to Evernote 5 (on iPad and OSX), I still find the changes introduced with version 5 a clear step backwards from the much better version 4. The main problem is the lack of overview when working with different notebooks. For example: the OSX version has a Sidebar that can be used to display notebooks, and now I can see the number of notes in each notebook there (improvement), but why on earth can't I navigate the sidebar using the keyboard ? The iPad version still doesn't even have a sidebar where one can view and move between notebooks quickly. Also, the iPad version doesn't handle tag hierarchies, nor is it possible to search for tags in the context of one or several notebooks. This limits using tags very much, and it feels like such a strange limitation.

 

Even with my very negative view on the usability problems, I've decided to try to use Evernote again. I really need an application where I can take notes on iPad, iPhone, Mac and Windows, and Evernote has many good qualities. Like Mike wrote in a previous post: it is really difficult to find something as capable...

 

Thanks again for this thread, I believe it helps! :-)

 

/MartinF

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  • Level 5*

I just tried Evernote again, to see if I would get back to using this application which was once so nice. But, I can see that while a few improvements have been made to Evernote 5 (on iPad and OSX), I still find the changes introduced with version 5 a clear step backwards from the much better version 4. The main problem is the lack of overview when working with different notebooks. For example: the OSX version has a Sidebar that can be used to display notebooks, and now I can see the number of notes in each notebook there (improvement), but why on earth can't I navigate the sidebar using the keyboard ? The iPad version still doesn't even have a sidebar where one can view and move between notebooks quickly. Also, the iPad version doesn't handle tag hierarchies, nor is it possible to search for tags in the context of one or several notebooks. This limits using tags very much, and it feels like such a strange limitation.

 

Even with my very negative view on the usability problems, I've decided to try to use Evernote again. I really need an application where I can take notes on iPad, iPhone, Mac and Windows, and Evernote has many good qualities. Like Mike wrote in a previous post: it is really difficult to find something as capable...

 

Thanks again for this thread, I believe it helps! :-)

 

/MartinF

Thanks for the input. I do think that notebooks and tags need more work as well. One point, though: advanced searches will enable you to make good use of tags. Experiment a bit with notebook:<notebook name> and tag:<tag name> and see what you think. Good luck with returning to Evernote. I hope it works out for you, and if you have any questions, let us know!

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Thanks for the tip about tag:xx and notebook:xxx. Searching like that does work on the iPad. However, it is a bit more cumbersome compared to the "Filter by Tag" option in the OSX client. Especially using the iPad keyboard, where one wants to minimize typing as much as possible. It would be nice if searching on the iPad also supported the "filter" concept to more easily combine notebook + tag searches.

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  • Level 5*

Thanks for the tip about tag:xx and notebook:xxx. Searching like that does work on the iPad. However, it is a bit more cumbersome compared to the "Filter by Tag" option in the OSX client. Especially using the iPad keyboard, where one wants to minimize typing as much as possible. It would be nice if searching on the iPad also supported the "filter" concept to more easily combine notebook + tag searches.

Glad I could help. I can see what you're saying, but a few saved searches (the magnifying glass) and you can pretty quickly navigate through your account. The saved searches sync across devices, so in the long run, you are saving a lot of time.

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I just tried Evernote again, to see if I would get back to using this application which was once so nice. But, I can see that while a few improvements have been made to Evernote 5 (on iPad and OSX), I still find the changes introduced with version 5 a clear step backwards from the much better version 4. The main problem is the lack of overview when working with different notebooks. /MartinF

I was reminded of this discussion by the notification system of the forum, otherwise I completely forgot about the issues discussed here. Can't you go back to Evernote V.4?

As I wrote further up, I managed to reinstall V.4 a few days after V.5 came out, and it just does all the things I need. I am also still on iOS 5.1, The appstore notifies me daily that I should update more than 50 apps (most of which I never use anyway) :-) Updating/ upgrading can become a true lifestyle, to wait for the next big thing/ upgrade. I prefer to use what works for me without efofort. EN 4 never needed much effort to use, EN 5 did, therefore I do not use it. While I understand that a company like EN has to offer updates and develop their product, I have no understanding/ acceptance for new versions that make things less fluid and easy. The V5 of the client has been heavily critisized from day one, and yet this apparently hasn't made them bring back some of the things most missed. But maybe one day the old users will have dissappeared and noone will remember how the app used to be before V5...

Evernote is my number 1 app for work and also lots of privat information. I like the idea, the multi platform clients, the ability to upload small images (I avoid big ones) made with my iPAD 2 (still my workhorse) etc. What I notice is that all those devices and apps generally tend to make people spend hundreds of hours with the system, not with their actual stuff. What works, works. Doesn' need to look shiny, or have fancy features, useful yes, fancy no.

The only way I may consider upgrading to a newer version of EN is when the old version will - one day - no longer work with the server/ database or whatever. Then I will decide whether I upgrade or migrate to a differrent platform.

Following the good advice of someone in a forum (I guess here), I stopped making use of the Evernote's tagging system. Why? Because if some day I may want to move/ migrate my notes to some different system, the internal tags will most likely not be understood by the new platform. Instead, I just write all the "tags" into the title of the note. The disadvantage is, that I cannot use a list of tags and search by choosing one, I would have to to simply type my search words into the search function, but I do not see it as a big deal. Anyway I always felt I was spending way too much time with organizing my tags. Hours and hours for something that generally can be easily done by a simple search with the appropriate search words. The important thing is to choose well thought out titles for your notes, and write a few distinctive terms into the title.

That said, I hope to be able to go on using EN as long as possible. It is a very useful base for my daily activities, work included and I have copied a considerable part of documents up there. No sensitive information of course, must useful stuff I use often. Roughly 700 or 800 documents so far.

Cheers

Bernie

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Ah, I've done almost the same regarding tags: I only use very few tags in Evernote, and put "tag info" in the titles instead. Great minds think alike? :-)

 

I have been considering going back to Evernote 4 as you mention, since it clearly is much better (for me) than version 5. However, if I do that I lose all means of checking whether or not version 5 ever will become good and to post my opinions about version 5.

 

In any case, I'm back trying to use Evernote again, and while I truly dislike almost everything with version 5 (please, please, please: let me navigate notebooks using the keyboard!) it still is a very useful tool.

 

Cheers,

MartinF

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@alba63 To be honest most of the missing features have returned plus we have several very impressive features we didn't have before.

Personally I now only really miss two features:

1. Filtered places view. Rather than seeing all your notes on the map you could filter for a specific tag like house hunting or restaurants.

2. Thumbnail image view which would give you a thumbnail for every image in a note not just one.

:)

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  • 2 weeks later...

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