Evernote for Windows 6.4 Beta 1

[Chantal Leonard 213]

Hi everyone,

Excited to announce Beta 1 of version 6.4 - you can download it here. In addition to several bug fixes, we've updated the default visuals for the sidebar to a darker background that's more aligned with what we have on other platforms. Please let us know what you think!

Thanks,

Chantal and the rest of the Windows team! 

A screenshot of the new sidebar color:

Evernote for Windows 6.4 Release Notes

New:

• We've updated the default look of the app with a darker sidebar.
• You can now choose between two sidebar themes, dark and light, from Tools>Options>General.

Fixed:

• An intermittent issue where notes are sometimes created in notebooks other than the current selection 
• An issue where adding a link to a local file with certain characters like ä, ö, ü, ß did not work
• Several crash fixes 

[jefito 5,586]

Ok, installed. The new sidebar stuff seems to work fine. But that reminds me that the Style dialog's color picker should allow the user to pick any color, rather than the small set available, as some of those colors don't fare so well on the dark background.

[pepr 12]

Well still when you edit a word with a URL to change the URL for another one, the word is lost and the new URL shows up...

[CalS 5,107]

I don't use the left panel that much, so the color change doesn't do much for me, probably wouldn't use it.  However, in dark and light mode, one of my saved searches ends up with short dark lines, see the pictures.  I checked other saved searches from the shortcuts tool bar and the saved search magnifying glass.

EDIT:

It appears that any note with !1-Now as a tag gets the little bit of line like the above.

 

[Abdul Jabbar Usman 0]

Hi!

Can anyone give an advice how to change note font color into white? Out of curiosity, I accidentally chose other color. Now, I can't return it to default.

Thanks,

[keisoko 56]

Right-click on the notebook, chose Style and then in a color selector click on the Default color button.

[nicobro88 7]

I like the dark sidebar, now please add some contrast to the notes list. Look how beautiful this is :

Against this boring design :

A bug I found is that the style I had set up didn't changed the font color. I have my Inbox notebook with a bold style, and when the dark mode got enabled, the font color was still black. For me it's not a big deal, it was just one notebook, but somebody may have lots of styles defined with the default font color.

New bug:

I found that sometimes I can't Undo changes. It happened 3 o 4 times while working on tables but I can't assure that it only happens with them, Even if that happend only a couple of times, it's a big deal as several times I lost a lot of work because of an accidental delete that I couldn't undo.

Fixed bugs:

• Thumbnail View: Scroll bar show unnecessarily. Link.
• When draggin the scroll bar and reaching top/bottom and continue dragging, moving away the mouse from the scroll bar, it will eventually pop the scroll to the original position. Link.
• The Side List Note View width is defaulted every time the View style is changed (other views width work fine). Link.
• Copy, paste and move of anything in a note is a pretty slow action since the last couple of updates. Link. (REDUCED)

Some bugs still present (bold ones supposedly will be fixed or reviewed for future releases):

• The Start Menu Shortcut of the app still disappears after update (the taskbar pinned shortcut works OK). Link.
• Card View: open and with scroll, if you change the notes panel width so to make the scroll disappear then bar will still be visible; when you reduce again the width so scroll will be needed again the scroll bar now disappear. Link.
• Thumbnail View: Some notes have an unnecessary long title space. Link.
• Thumbnail View: Some Thumbnails are longer thant the "selected mark". Link.
• Thumbnails View: When reaching bottom of the list, some thumbnails won't show completed. Link.
• Adding two checkboxes with [ ] shortcut moves the text caret to a new line. Link.
• I can only left click audio attachments if I click them in the border, but the right click works in the whole body of the attachment. Link.

[gazumped 10,333]

I'm finding the dark shade a bit too dark,  but I guess I'll get used to it.  Be prepared for the accessibility / nighthawk supporters amongst us to wonder why we can't have background color options for all panels besides the sidebar...

[chirmer 567]

LOVE THE DARK SIDEBAR. I almost hyperventilated when I read the update notes.

Bug: Bolded items are kept black. Selecting Default Color in the style menu makes them white, it's just an extra step.

[JohnLongney 83]

Me,  I felt so thrilled to bits that a least a screenshot was provided where to change back to the old scheme.

All software I generally work with uses the term settings instead of tools, because tools are ordinarily something completely different, such as move, text, crop etc. tools.

However on top of that, the German translation of tools is given as Funktionen (functions) in Evernote. 

There is no need to reinvent the wheel as far as choice of personal colour scheme is concerned. One thing however is commonly accepted, namely sharp contrast in large areas within a scheme is to be avoided because it is fearfully taxing to the eyes. If you want to want include such GUI features, please go the whole way or leave it alone. 

Sorry, does not make me feel thrilled to bits.

 

[dconnet 529]

14 hours ago, csihilling said:

It appears that any note with !1-Now as a tag gets the little bit of line like the above.

It sounds as though you've set a style on that tag.

[jefito 5,586]

54 minutes ago, dconnet said:

It sounds as though you've set a style on that tag.

Aha -- I couldn't replicate Cal's original problem, but putting a style on the tag does it. So that's a feature, and not a bug?

[dconnet 529]

2 hours ago, jefito said:

So that's a feature, and not a bug?

Yup! It allows a color tagging to appear in the notelist. This does imply that if you change themes, you may want to change personalized tag/folder styles...

[jefito 5,586]

5 minutes ago, dconnet said:

Yup! It allows a color tagging to appear in the notelist. This does imply that if you change themes, you may want to change personalized tag/folder styles...

Cool, thanks.

After a little more experimentation: if my note has more than one tag, any that are associated with a style causes it's own little style bar to display in the note list.It's a little harder to see these bars the list views, but they show up nicely in snippet view, which I use almost exclusively. 

I can see a lot of people liking this: you all should toot your horn about your cool features a little louder!  

[Krunoslav 197]

Welcome addition but looks like its still un-polished and needs more work. Case in point...

 

[Everusuario 0]

I was expecting some color long time ago. So far, I like it very much indeed!

Thanks a lot. Keep working and listening to your customers. 

[jefito 5,586]

1 hour ago, Krunoslav said:

Welcome addition but looks like its still un-polished and needs more work. Case in point...

I don't find it distracting at all: it's always visible in other places in the Evernote UI (like the note list, tags view) and in other programs (e.g. Visual Studio, Chrome, etc., etc.); none of these use an appear-only-when-hovered approach either. And it's the same color (RGB(215,215,2150 in both the light and dark scheme. It's entirely consistent in that respect. Making it darker (i.e., black) does not look all that great; try it in your favorite image editor.

But hey, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as they say, and I'm a software developer, and not a graphical designer, so what do I know?

[dconnet 529]

30 minutes ago, jefito said:

none of these use an appear-only-when-hovered approach either.

<evernote hat="off">

Personally, I HATE that style of scroll bar. When running multiple large monitors, it makes me think that's either all the information or that something is broken. Until I happen to move my mouse across it. And don't even get me started on hover on a touch screen...

[Manya70 13]

Love the darker sidebar. Well done!

Great to be getting consistent releases with enhancements and fixes...

[EdH 1,670]

1. Why is this here and not in the beta forum? 
2. As far as the dark sidebar, glad you did it because a lot of people want it, but it switching to it really needs to also alternate colors you've chosen for notebooks. WHen it came up, a lot of my notebook names were nearly invisible because I had them set to dark colors and when the sidebar went dark, they became unreadable. There should be a default "negative color" for some of the darker - and lighter - colors as you switch the sidebar background color.

[EdH 1,670]

11 hours ago, nicobro88 said:

 

I like the dark sidebar, now please add some contrast to the notes list. Look how beautiful this is :

Against this boring design :

 

100% agree. I really dislike the entire white on white on white with a side of white thrown in and then bathed in white and laid out in the sun to whiten up a bit theme.

[jefito 5,586]

2 hours ago, EdH said:

Why is this here and not in the beta forum? 

What beta forum? 

They've been posting about new releases (including betas) here in the Windows product feedback forum for some time (there's also a Product Releases section on the front page of the main forum). I prefer this to using Hangouts for the Android betas, myself...

[EdH 1,670]

32 minutes ago, jefito said:

What beta forum? 

This one. It is in the Windows area. 3 forums. This one, feedback, and beta. Just navigate the tree at the top.

 

I don't care where the stuff is, but if there is a beta forum, that is where I look for beta info. If we aren't going to use it, that is fine. Move all that beta stuff in here and whack that forum.

[DTLow 5,721]

15 hours ago, EdH said:

This one. It is in the Windows area. 3 forums. This one, feedback, and beta. Just navigate the tree at the top.

 

I don't care where the stuff is, but if there is a beta forum, that is where I look for beta info. If we aren't going to use it, that is fine. Move all that beta stuff in here and whack that forum.

This is a public beta, with feedback posted in this public forum; the private beta (pre beta?) is what you linked to (just guessing - I don't have access)

We have the same on the Mac side

edited: And the beta forums are gone - awesome powers there  @EdH 

             I was thinking the opposite - get the beta stuff out of the public forum

[CalS 5,107]

14 hours ago, dconnet said:

It sounds as though you've set a style on that tag.

I don't remember doing such a thing.  Anyway I went to the tag and right clicked and selected Style.  Below is what I see.  Is there anyplace else to set a style?

EDIT:  Okay, I went in and changed the color to blue and then back to default and the line went away.  The tag appeared as black in the note list, FWIW.  Anyway, it looks normal again.  Chalk it up to an unknown style change I suppose.  Thanks.

[CalS 5,107]

16 hours ago, gazumped said:

I'm finding the dark shade a bit too dark,  but I guess I'll get used to it.  Be prepared for the accessibility / nighthawk supporters amongst us to wonder why we can't have background color options for all panels besides the sidebar...

You can always just stay with the light theme, don't have to go to the dark side. 

[Historynerd 34]

Dark sidebar for Windows! This is a step to consistency across platforms, since the Mac-version has a dark sidebar as well. Happy with this!

[jefito 5,586]

7 hours ago, EdH said:

This one. It is in the Windows area. 3 forums. This one, feedback, and beta. Just navigate the tree at the top.

 

I don't care where the stuff is, but if there is a beta forum, that is where I look for beta info. If we aren't going to use it, that is fine. Move all that beta stuff in here and whack that forum.

When I click that link, I get:

 

Sorry, there is a problem

We could not locate the item you are trying to view.

Error code: 2F176/1

Contact Us

*shrug*

That's also not linked to from the main forum page. This seems to be the place, at least for now.

[GiacomoLaw 134]

I love the new sidebar! It makes EN look a lot better, thanks for the great work!

[EdH 1,670]

13 hours ago, EdH said:

As far as the dark sidebar, glad you did it because a lot of people want it, but it switching to it really needs to also alternate colors you've chosen for notebooks. WHen it came up, a lot of my notebook names were nearly invisible because I had them set to dark colors and when the sidebar went dark, they became unreadable. There should be a default "negative color" for some of the darker - and lighter - colors as you switch the sidebar background color.

Ok, shared notebooks are a problem. Their default color is apparently black, so very difficult to see in the dark sidebar.

Also, could more lighter colors be added to the STYLE settings, like light blue, light red, light gray, light green? Only a very few now work with the darker theme.

And, a crash. I switched from light to dark and pressed OK. EN closed, but would not reopen. I had to kill it in the Task Manager (Win10) and reopen it.

[EdH 1,670]

19 minutes ago, EdH said:

Ok, shared notebooks are a problem. Their default color is apparently black, so very difficult to see in the dark sidebar.

Also, could more lighter colors be added to the STYLE settings, like light blue, light red, light gray, light green? Only a very few now work with the darker theme.

And, a crash. I switched from light to dark and pressed OK. EN closed, but would not reopen. I had to kill it in the Task Manager (Win10) and reopen it.

Oh, here is an issue. So I made my "Shared folders" an orange color which goes up OK against the dark theme. But the orange looks pretty bad against the folder dropdown. See this.

So it seems a bit of work needs to be done when using theme colors to make sure everything looks ok against white and dark themes, and menus. Maybe the menus should be dark if the theme is dark? 

[jefito 5,586]

28 minutes ago, EdH said:

Ok, shared notebooks are a problem. Their default color is apparently black, so very difficult to see in the dark sidebar.

I reset my shared notebook default color to black (not sure what it was before, but I had already styled them to green). So now it's black in the light sidebar, but when I switch to the dark sidebar, the notebook names are white. That seems OK.

[EdH 1,670]

Other misc issues:

• The font dialog box on a High DPI screen in Tools|Options|Note is unreadable. The font size box is ok, but not the font name box.
• I love the "search when note is updated" option - specifically when it is unchecked, but there are side effects not resolved. In a normal view, changing the notebook of a note doesn't remove the note from the view as it should. This isn't a search so this option shouldn't affect it, but it does.
• When a note window is open and it is deleted, no matter how (in the note window, in Evernote's main window, or on another client that syncs the change), the note window should both close and immediately become uneditable. As it is, there is only a subtle indication in the note window it has been deleted and you can edit it all day long but it won't save changes. And a deleted note should vanish from the note list. See bullet above. The "Search when note is updated" is affecting this as well.

 

In Options, what does "Save note every xx seconds" mean? Isn't it always "saved" and just not sync'd, or do you mean that if the note is saved, then I type for 29 seconds and the app crashes, none of my typing is saved?

en20161020bug1

[jefito 5,586]

1 hour ago, EdH said:

When a note window is open and it is deleted, no matter how (in the note window, in Evernote's main window, or on another client that syncs the change), the note window should both close and immediately become uneditable. As it is, there is only a subtle indication in the note window it has been deleted and you can edit it all day long but it won't save changes. And a deleted note should vanish from the note list. See bullet above. The "Search when note is updated" is affecting this as well.

Hmmm. Can't seem to reproduce this: I edited a note in a separate window. Then deleted it from the note list. The separate window doesn't close, but it becomes read-only, just like any other note in the trash.I can't edit it at all; the editing toolbar disappears, and is replaced by buttons that let you Erase or Restore the note. Erase Note closes the separate window.

Tried editing the note in the main UI. Deleted it: it disappears from the main UI immediately.

 

[gazumped 10,333]

21 minutes ago, jefito said:

Hmmm. Can't seem to reproduce this: I edited a note in a separate window. Then deleted it from the note list. The separate window doesn't close, but it becomes read-only, just like any other note in the trash.I can't edit it at all; the editing toolbar disappears, and is replaced by buttons that let you Erase or Restore the note. Erase Note closes the separate window.

Tried editing the note in the main UI. Deleted it: it disappears from the main UI immediately.

Seem to recall this cropping up in previous versions.  If you work in a separate window and delete the note in the main app window,  then add to the text in the desktop window and close the note,  you'll find the version of the note in the Trash notebook only includes the input up to the point you deleted from the main window.

My separate window doesn't go to read only,  or show any sign that it's 'parent' note has been deleted.

Seems to me that's a pretty remote error to encounter,  but it would be good if the child note showed some sign the parent had been deleted to prevent further unsyncable entries.

The (maybe) simpler version...

• Create this note in Evernote:  "I'm a test note"
• Open in separate window
• Delete parent note in main app
• Go back to separate window and add "and this is extra text"
• Sync Evernote.  Close Window
• Check for test note in Trash notebook.

[GiacomoLaw 134]

Notebooks on dark sidebar don't go white:

https://gyazo.com/93da6c83b8914eae49ca6ba51a505175

Doesn't look great. 

[EdH 1,670]

1 hour ago, jefito said:

Deleted it: it disappears from the main UI immediately.

You don't have the "Search when note is updated" unchecked.

[gazumped 10,333]

1 minute ago, GiacomoLaw said:

Notebooks on dark sidebar don't go white:

(pic deleted here)
https://gyazo.com/93da6c83b8914eae49ca6ba51a505175

Doesn't look great. 

Have you applied styles to those notebooks?  All mine are fine...

[EdH 1,670]

9 minutes ago, GiacomoLaw said:

Notebooks on dark sidebar don't go white:

https://gyazo.com/93da6c83b8914eae49ca6ba51a505175

Doesn't look great. 

You can change those by right-clicking on a notebook and changing the style, but yeah, it should switch from dark to light and back as you change themes from dark to light. Hopefully this issue is on their radar now.

[jefito 5,586]

2 minutes ago, EdH said:

You can change those by right-clicking on a notebook and changing the style, but yeah, it should switch from dark to light and back as you change themes from dark to light. Hopefully this issue is on their radar now.

What's weird is that I'm seeing the switch happening when I switch themes. Maybe because I explicitly set the style to default?

13 minutes ago, EdH said:

You don't have the "Search when note is updated" unchecked.

You're right about that. Looks like they need to cover that case as well. By the way, that's a very poorly phrased option label; they should use something like:  "Update search results when a note is changed". The tooltip is clearer, but still a bit awkward.

[HerbyDE 101]

Like the dark sidebar (only the gray scroll bar is disturbing). White fonts on dark background = good to read at my 1.920px screen but at my 2.860px screen characters to "fine/thinly" - need more contrast  ...

[s2sailor 1,394]

14 hours ago, csihilling said:

I don't remember doing such a thing.  Anyway I went to the tag and right clicked and selected Style.  Below is what I see.  Is there anyplace else to set a style?

EDIT:  Okay, I went in and changed the color to blue and then back to default and the line went away.  The tag appeared as black in the note list, FWIW.  Anyway, it looks normal again.  Chalk it up to an unknown style change I suppose.  Thanks.

I had something similar happen when I loaded the beta.  A few notebook names showed up in a different shade of grey from all the others indicating that I had a style applied.  Looking at the style showed none but if I went in and selected default color anyway, the color changed back to match the others.

[CalS 5,107]

11 minutes ago, s2sailor said:

I had something similar happen when I loaded the beta.  A few notebook names showed up in a different shade of grey from all the others indicating that I had a style applied.  Looking at the style showed none but if I went in and selected default color anyway, the color changed back to match the others.

Did you have a style set on those notebooks?

[s2sailor 1,394]

1 minute ago, csihilling said:

Did you have a style set on those notebooks?

No

[CalS 5,107]

Just now, s2sailor said:

No

Thanks, I didn't think I had either.  Good to know I'm not getting totally forgetful. 

IAC, I have EN on another PC.  I will do the same search there to see if I get the same highlighting as above, update to the Beta and see what happens.

[s2sailor 1,394]

5 minutes ago, csihilling said:

Thanks, I didn't think I had either.  Good to know I'm not getting totally forgetful.

Something strange definitely going on.  Something else I noticed: the default text color for my notebook names is light gray yet the tag text color is white.  If I create a new notebook the defect text color is white but for my previously existing notebooks, I am unable to change the text color from light gray to white.  I can change them to other colors, but for the existing notebooks, it appears that the default color is light grey.

[pepr 12]

Tags as Shortcuts are lost when syncing different devices...

[jefito 5,586]

3 hours ago, pepr said:

Tags as Shortcuts are lost when syncing different devices...

Can you explain that a little more, please?

[EdH 1,670]

The cursor is not retaining its position in the title when you switch apps.

1. Create new note
2. type a few characters or words in the note title
3. ALT-Tab to switch to another app
4. Alt-Tab to switch back to Evernote.
5. The cursor is at he beginning of the title, not the end.

It works fine in the note body.

en20161021bug1

[EdH 1,670]

When you tap anywhere below the last character of the note, it should take you to the last position in the note instead of doing nothing. This is routine behavior in apps like Notepad, Word, and even this very forum in a posting box.

en20161021bug2

Fixed in 6.4 GA

[pepr 12]

3 hours ago, jefito said:

Can you explain that a little more, please?

You drag some tags to Shortcuts area (top-left), you sync. Syncing then from ios or/and another pc deletes these tags from shortcuts.

[CalS 5,107]

20 hours ago, csihilling said:

Thanks, I didn't think I had either.  Good to know I'm not getting totally forgetful. 

IAC, I have EN on another PC.  I will do the same search there to see if I get the same highlighting as above, update to the Beta and see what happens.

Updated the other laptop and the lines were not there, so a style was on the tag.  Don't remember putting it there though.  Anyway, sorted on my end.

[jefito 5,586]

3 minutes ago, pepr said:

You drag some tags to Shortcuts area (top-left), you sync. Syncing then from ios or/and another pc deletes these tags from shortcuts.

Ok, right, I have some of these, but I don't use them that often. Anyways, if you right click on the shortcuts area, is the setting "Synchronize shortcuts" checked?

[EdH 1,670]

More screenshot goodness of how a light color for a notebook in the Dark Theme is close to unreadable in the notebook dropdown for a note.

en20161021bug3

 

[GiacomoLaw 134]

Can you put white as a notebook style? I have to put it as light grey, but its still tricky to see on the dark sidebar.

Thanks!  

[EdH 1,670]

28 minutes ago, GiacomoLaw said:

Can you put white as a notebook style? I have to put it as light grey, but its still tricky to see on the dark sidebar.

Thanks!  

I agree there should be white and other light colors, but they need to fix it so it shows up on notebook dropdowns in notes. Otherwise it would be white on white and unreadable. Even the light orange is hard to see on the white menu dropdown.

[GiacomoLaw 134]

43 minutes ago, EdH said:

I agree there should be white and other light colors, but they need to fix it so it shows up on notebook dropdowns in notes. Otherwise it would be white on white and unreadable. Even the light orange is hard to see on the white menu dropdown.

Just realized that, good point.

[GiacomoLaw 134]

I'm guessing this will be fixed by the time the ga release comes out.

[gazumped 10,333]

2 hours ago, GiacomoLaw said:

I'm guessing this will be fixed by the time the ga release comes out.

Wouldn't guarantee it - seems like we're suffering from design,  like this guy - https://backchannel.com/how-the-web-became-unreadable-a781ddc711b6#.towf7g4f3

[EdH 1,670]

43 minutes ago, gazumped said:

Wouldn't guarantee it - seems like we're suffering from design,  like this guy - https://backchannel.com/how-the-web-became-unreadable-a781ddc711b6#.towf7g4f3

Uhg. Waze is the worst at this, but I find it funny. Their polls and ads that pop up are often in a light blue box with white text, which is impossible to read, so, I never respond to them. 

Hoping EN just didn't think through all of the ramifications with the dark gray theme and needs to add both lighter color fonts and then be able to handle how those notebooks how up on a white menu, and ideally, switch to the "negative" color if you change themes.

[pepr 12]

On 21/10/2016 at 1:48 PM, jefito said:

Ok, right, I have some of these, but I don't use them that often. Anyways, if you right click on the shortcuts area, is the setting "Synchronize shortcuts" checked?

Yes, they are on both pc, don`t know if the problem comes from ios app (and dont know if there is a option in ios for that...)

[IncrediMetaBeta 22]

Why was this rev released now?  No, I'm not asking why it was not released instead on Halloween.

What I'm asking is, what amount of changes (bug fixes, interface "improvements", or feature additions) leads to the release of a new rev?

In this instance, it seems as though not much has changed.  (I do not know whether there's a page listing previous revs with release notes.)

[gustavgi 304]

3 hours ago, IncrediMetaBeta said:

Why was this rev released now?  No, I'm not asking why it was not released instead on Halloween.

What I'm asking is, what amount of changes (bug fixes, interface "improvements", or feature additions) leads to the release of a new rev?

In this instance, it seems as though not much has changed.  (I do not know whether there's a page listing previous revs with release notes.)

It's a beta, and it includes the addition of a dark theme. Like all betas it wasn't released for bug fixes, but to find bugs with new additions. In this case users seem to have identified "problems" when previously having added certain styles to tags/notebooks.

[IncrediMetaBeta 22]

Thanks, gutavgi.  I wasn't being clear enough.  What I should have asked is, about how frequently are new revs released? e.g. per year.

[jefito 5,586]

2 hours ago, IncrediMetaBeta said:

Thanks, gutavgi.  I wasn't being clear enough.  What I should have asked is, about how frequently are new revs released? e.g. per year.

No fixed schedule, as far as I know, but seems to be every few weeks with respect to the Windows team. Probably depends on a preponderance of new features/bug fixes being available.