Behind the Scenes Series: Improving Search in Evernote Web

[Shane D. 1,826]

Hi All,

We’re very excited to announce the next video in our Behind the Scenes series!

Join Ian and Mariano, a senior designer at Evernote, as they discuss how they’re working to make search in web more interactive, more meaningful, and more useful.  

We hope you enjoy, and stay tuned for new videos as they’re released over coming weeks!

 

[DTLow 5,744]

I find "Web" in the title ominous, possibly foreshadowing the future of development at Evernote

I look forward to enhanced search features, with the hope it extends to all platforms.  I also enjoy seeing the employees behind the scenes.

As per @CalS, also not a fan of relevancy sequence.  I just use the current order options.

My fixing the basics priority for search would be

• full boolean and/or
• eliminate the exceptions for notebook arguments

[Jim Rogers 12]

 

Just watched the videos and I'm really glad to see this open approach.

The new management team continues to instill more confidence in me about the future of Evernote.

 

 

[jefito 5,598]

2 minutes ago, DTLow said:

I find "Web" in the title ominous, possibly forshalloding the future of developmen effor

Well, they explicitly talk about the web application in the video, comparing the new dynamic search to the old static search. If it results in a better search experience on the web, well, yes. But if it's a template for the applications on all platforms, I'll be in wait-and-see mode...

[CalS 5,307]

I would vote for relevance ordering of results to be an option, my history being mixed results with such.  The painfully slow web beta is going to need some performance improvements to accommodate search as you type.  Funny we have an option on Windows to preclude searching as you type, mostly to speed things up, and that is in a local environment without any need to communicate to a server.  Always highlighting search terms is a good add.

[Brinkburn1 26]

I like the look of this new search facility I look forward to seeing it implemented 

[Olivier N 2]

These algorithm changes are welcome, bored to type "intitle:".

The search experience is currently very different between Web, iOS and Windows, plateform alignment is important.

[Henning_Andreassen 5]

2 hours ago, Shane D. said:

Hi All,

We’re very excited to announce the next video in our Behind the Scenes series!

Join Ian and Mariano, a senior designer at Evernote, as they discuss how they’re working to make search in web more interactive, more meaningful, and more useful.  

We hope you enjoy, and stay tuned for new videos as they’re released over coming weeks!

 

I love the format Ian is using here. The approach to fix the basics first is spot n and I like the way you guys are communicating now. Looking forward to the next videos. 

[bmat 5]

These are welcome improvements, but are you also including simple boolean / logic based search on the macOS app?  I would take improved search functionality over interface any day.  Currently functionality is comically bad if you want to do routine searches with limited sophistication, e.g.:  to find notes generated in the last 7 days on mobile or desktop, I need to first create a tag that combines mobile and desktop as sources, then search for mobile and desktop notes and apply the tag, then search this tag for notes created in the last 7 days.  and I need to do this every time new content is created...  good luck if you need to add another OR condition to the search, such as searching within several notebooks...  Similarly, I can't be the only one who is mystified by the process of saving and creating a shortcut for a search... 

[DTLow 5,744]

31 minutes ago, GNI Mandy said:

That you wanted comments on this is likely not true, considering what I had to go through to find this place to comment. 

My impression is we're to comment on the video contents.  This discussion isn't the place for general complaints.

 

[DTLow 5,744]

12 minutes ago, GNI Mandy said:

AND part of my comments were what I'd rather see them working on

Again, this is not the appropriate discussion for such comments.

[jefito 5,598]

30 minutes ago, GNI Mandy said:

It's not a wait and see.  This had been the norm, 9 years ago in the Evernote Windows App. 

I have no idea what you're talking about. The video describes an improved design for search on the the web application("Join Ian and Mariano, a senior designer at Evernote, as they discuss how they’re working to make search in web more interactive, more meaningful, and more useful."). Given the state of the current web application, that would be an obvious improvement, provided they can make it perform well. Whether it's what will appear on all platforms eventually -- as their stated aim is to equalize user experience across all Evernote platforms -- then I'll wait to see how it stacks up against the current Windows application, which I use a lot. It would almost certainly be an improvement in the Android application, which I use somewhat less frequently.

[s2sailor 2,439]

5 hours ago, DTLow said:

I find "Web" in the title ominous, possibly foreshadowing the future of development at Evernote

Well, since the Windows preview is essentially a web wrapper application, I also share this concern ... we'll see.  I hope they have the search as you type delay fixed since that is a pain point experienced today by many.

[gazumped 12,062]

Hmmn.  Good that we had this chance to see behind the scenes - good that Evernote is looking at ways to make searching a more intuitive feature.  Eleven out of ten for an interesting video.

I look forward to experiencing the new bells and whistles - but I have a luddite fear of apps 'helping' me to do things,  because although software can react scarily fast,  it still takes time and system resources to come up with (and select between) titles,  content,  author names. 

If I already know exactly which tag or title keyword I'm looking for,  that's just wasted time and (my) resources giving me changing menus of a hundred different note options when I just want to add simple details to a contact.

I hope Evernote will continue the practice of allowing me to switch OFF the search 'helper' in Options or Preferences,  and just go back to a straight keyword match!

[JMichaelTX 4,118]

6 hours ago, Shane D. said:

how they’re working to make search in web more interactive,

Thanks for sharing the early stages of your development ideas.

However, I am deeply disappointed in, and disturbed by,  what you showed:

1. Incremental Search -- I absolutely hate it, and find it a big waste of computing resources and my time.
   • Most often it is NOT appropriate to search on what I am still typing because
     1. I am likely to make typos that will mislead the search engine
     2. Just as in your own example, the first few characters are rarely good indicators of the search target.  As you showed, typing "me" produced results for both "Mexico" and "Melinda" -- totally unrelated.  How was that helpful?  It was NOT helpful!
   • It wastes computing resources searching on irrelevant text.
2. EN Web App -- I almost never use it.  Why are you focusing on it first???
   • Do you have any metrics that show which EN app most users who have a PAID subscription are using?
   • Due to the nature of the web interface, web apps will likely never be a powerful and easy to use as desktop apps
   • And, of course, you have to have an Internet connection to use any web app.
3. What happened to focusing on rebuilding your foundation?
   • Ian has repeatedly stated that Evernote was going to focus on rebuilding the foundation first.
   • Why are you now working on web search enhancements, especially a platform and feature that many don't want or use???
   • If you are going to work on the Search engine, why not work on something that will work on all platforms, and that we have been requesting for many, many years, like full boolean search.

[CalS 5,307]

2 hours ago, GNI Mandy said:

I did, AND part of my comments were what I'd rather see them working on, instead of videos about old features. 

Seems fine to me.  

[CalS 5,307]

3 minutes ago, JMichaelTX said:

1. I am likely to make typos that will mislead the search engine

The one thing I have found that will pause my Windows desktop is backspacing in the search field.  Not always, but with some regularity.  Must be confusing that search engine.  

[ScottU 2]

Thanks for giving us a behind the scenes look at the work you do to improve Evernote. Could you please show us the work you are doing to port the new web app over to Firefox?

[LateToTheGame 31]

In the category of Search and the subcategory of Managing Tags, it would be very helpful to improve the ability to search and find tags that have hyphenated names. To be clear, I'm referring to (a) finding tags in the Tag Management section of Evernote, (b) finding tags when adding tags to notes, and (c) finding tags when web clipping. Searching for hyphenated tags works perfectly in general search.

I often use multi-word tags where the words are separated by dashes and find that -- when the same word is used in multiple tags -- search within the Tag Management section only returns the first instance of that word. And, when adding a multi-word hyphenated tag to a note or web clipping, the system does not "search" within the middle of a tag. You have to know the exact first word of the tag to find the tag.

The use of hyphenated tags is powerful and, in my opinion, should be emphasized by Evernote. 

 

[Michael Goulding 49]

18 hours ago, DTLow said:

I find "Web" in the title ominous, possibly foreshadowing the future of development at Evernote

Exactly what I was thinking. I really wonder if the future is focused on the web interface and then wrapping that on various devices like Notion does. Sure makes development easier and the experience more consistent.

Great to see these videos though, well done Evernote. I look forward to the next one!

[Mike McGowan 36]

13 hours ago, gazumped said:

If I already know exactly which tag or title keyword I'm looking for,  that's just wasted time and (my) resources giving me changing menus of a hundred different note options when I just want to add simple details to a contact.

I hope Evernote will continue the practice of allowing me to switch OFF the search 'helper' in Options or Preferences,  and just go back to a straight keyword match! 

Here, here!

[jefito 5,598]

2 hours ago, Michael Goulding said:

Exactly what I was thinking. I really wonder if the future is focused on the web interface and then wrapping that on various devices like Notion does. Sure makes development easier and the experience more consistent.

I've been thinking along those lines as well -- less with respect to Notion (less well-established, still seems to be in the realm of ooh-shiny, and not as approachable as I'd hoped), but more along the lines of what Gmail does. In fact, I've felt for a long time that Gmail is the secret email inspiration/model for what Evernote does with notes; it's the closest analogue that I can come up with, anyways. It's fairly simple and flexible and organizes using a tag-like scheme. Gmail is everywhere because it's browser based, and yes, it has search-as-you-type filtering, a feature that I really like. By contrast, Evernote has gone down the native application path, with attendant fits and starts, and platform-to-platform inconsistencies. If Evernote could replicate much of what their platform specific applications do (I use Windows primarily) in a browser-based application that has reasonable performance, then I'd be more inclined to use that than I am now.

Some downsides / challenges:

• Local notebooks don't really fit this model: Not a big issue for me, but maybe note/notebook encryption mitigates this for folks who depend on this.
• Don't know how this fits in on Mac with respect to AppleScript users
• Need to offer export to local files
• The offline scenario is obviously a problem that needs to be addressed
• Still need to deal with form-factor differences. Again, draft behind Gmail in approach.

I'm sorta coming around to the conclusion that the web-based approach is the best direction for Evernote, in terms of reducing development costs and improving consistency. But only so long as performance and responsiveness can be maintained -- that's the crux.

[DTLow 5,744]

3 minutes ago, jefito said:

If Evernote could replicate much of what their platform specific applications do (I use Windows primarily) in a browser-based application that has reasonable performance, then I'd be more inclined to use that than I am now.

Likewise, but that's a very big IF

I think it's a sure thing that we will be losing features (I use Mac primarily)

[CalS 5,307]

43 minutes ago, jefito said:

But only so long as performance and responsiveness can be maintained -- that's the crux.

A ways to go if the current web beta editor and Windows preview are any indication, VERY slow and lacking key functionality/options included at this point.  If it is fixable, great.  I hope they are testing coming into their EN with a VPN connection in London or something, any way to simulate real world.  Also, as you say, Local notebooks and offline would be big misses for me if left out of a future product.  Hoping for the best.  

[Vincent Noel 63]

I too find the focus on the web version scary. Right now what I find most useful in Evernote compared to other notes offering is :

• extremely fast -- I can scroll through *all my notes* with virtually no lag on my mac, there are > 2500 notes. 
• an informative overview layout -- in the Expanded Card View all my notes appear as thumbnails of what's inside, including images/PDFs and file icons for all the rest. In fullscreen I can show a 11 x 6 grid of notes = 66 notes. This is very helpful when trying to understand what is where. The current evernote web shows ~11 notes at a time, with no thumbnail.
• I can put any kind of file in an evernote note, even when evernote does not understand the file format (e.g. netCDF files). Evernote will not complain
• I can open several notes at the same time in their own window from the main evernote window, for instance to access multiple reference notes at the same time. This is hard to do from web-based solutions like Notion or the evernote web version
• Anything that quicklook understands is previewed in an evernote note, including powerpoints, keynotes, excel files. 

Unless I'm mistaken, all of these advantages are lost when switching to the current web-based solution.

[JMichaelTX 4,118]

13 minutes ago, Vincent Noel said:

I too find the focus on the web version scary.

Very scary, and, IMO, ill conceived.

14 minutes ago, Vincent Noel said:

Unless I'm mistaken, all of these advantages are lost when switching to the current web-based solution.

You are not mistaken.  All of those advantages, and more, are lost/missing in a web app.

@Evernote, @Ian Small, @Shane D.:  Please do NOT Make the Evernote Web app as the Primary App for all Evernote Users.

Major Evernote Mac Features I depend on That Would be Lost in a Web App:

1. Very fast performance regardless of my Internet access/speed
2. Local Notebooks
3. Use of AppleScript -- ability to highly customize and automate Evernote and integrate with other Mac apps
4. Fast Inline Viewing of Note Attachments including MS Office documents
5. Independent of Internet Access
   • What will we do when our ISP is down, sometimes for 12-24 hours?
6. Independent of Web Browsers (several times Google Chrome and Safari have broken EN Web Clipper, as an example)

I have used many web apps over the years, including Evernote, and I have never found one that begins to compare with the power and ease of use of a well-designed native Mac app.

Someone mentioned Gmail as a good model for Evernote.  I couldn't  disagree more.  Gmail is terrible -- I hate it.  It is nothing compared to the MS Outlook app on the Mac.

[jefito 5,598]

34 minutes ago, Vincent Noel said:

I too find the focus on the web version scary.

I don't get it. The web version obviously needs work; it's been underwhelming for some time. It's the only option for Chromebook and as far as I can tell, the most viable option for Linux users. Why would anyone be scared about improving it?

37 minutes ago, Vincent Noel said:

Unless I'm mistaken, all of these advantages are lost when switching to the current web-based solution.

Nobody from Evernote has actually said that that's what's happening. Me, I think it's a sensible option for a number of reasons (some listed above), but the caveat is that performance must be reasonable (also stated above).

As things stand today, the native Windows application is the clear winner over the Android application (which I use on my phone) and web application, which I only use very occasionally, usually in the case where I'm at work and want to get to something from my personal account.

[Metrodon 2,188]

This is exactly why companies hate sharing information.

They put together a nice short video about how they are building a new feature. Somehow that then develops into Group Fear that something awful is going to happen. Before you know it, The Verge will have 500 words and a clickbait headline about it.

 

[toao 148]

let's start with the plus side:

• thanks for starting to communicate with us, this is a very welcome change from the past
• I do like where you are going with search on the web interface, would be happy to have it on my native clients (mac, ios), too.
• really good work on the editor, too! again, am looking forward to having that on the native apps.

more a concern than a negative side, but nevertheless:

• I certainly understand the temptation and development logic behind going for a web app type approach. for the many reasons stated in this thread already, it would be a show stopper for me (my top concerns would be local notebooks & offline availability of all content). the very reason not having migrated to notion in the past is the native evernote app. if evernote goes web only I will have to move to joplin or devonthink. but at this stage this is obviously only speculation, so I hope you will prove my concerns wrong.

but again: thanks for starting to share and to listen!

best,

Lorenz

[gazumped 12,062]

Speaking as a part-time Linux user,  I'm very happy that Evernote are looking at improvements to the web client.  Until there's a native Linux alternative,  that's the only way I get access to my account on one laptop.  And the Forum is full of complaints about the web client missing desktop features,  so I can see where the Herd is going with this.

In other news Evernote have managed,  alongside this web project,  to bring out new Windows,  Mac,  Android and iOS updates.  I don't think they're concentrating exclusively on the web.

Relax people - lets just see where Evernote goes next!

[jefito 5,598]

38 minutes ago, Metrodon said:

This is exactly why companies hate sharing information.

They put together a nice short video about how they are building a new feature. Somehow that then develops into Group Fear that something awful is going to happen. Before you know it, The Verge will have 500 words and a clickbait headline about it.

Seriously, people, unbunch. The sky is not falling...

...yet...

[JMichaelTX 4,118]

Why are there always a few people who feel compelled to tell us what to do?  No one here is driving off a cliff, but some of us do have some valid concerns we want to express.

If Evernote did not want feedback, then they would not have posted the video in this forum.

[DTLow 5,744]

12 hours ago, JMichaelTX said:

Why are there always a few people who feel compelled to tell us what to do? 

Forum Code of Conduct; #8 - Staying on topic is a good idea

For those interested in discussing the Web topic

 

[CalS 5,307]

It's a cumulative thing.  My productivity with EN has been declining for the last few years as some changes were made to Windows desktop (PDF viewer as an example).  Not close to enough for me to switch, just irritating.  IF, and it is a big IF, the new Windows preview is a portent of the future of the desktop client there will be more productivity loss.  Not jumping off any cliffs, not concerned about the sky falling, just not liking what I am seeing and doing.  My interpolation (which we are wont to do in the absence of facts) at this point.  Don't really care for the piecemeal, three card monte deployment process either.

All that being said, EN is an essential part of my daily routine, the hub of my personal information flow.  Not something I care to rework somewhere else.  As long as I can use 6.18 I will be fine.  And hoping for the best.

[jbenson2 2,149]

After seeing the video, it tweaked my interest. I decided to look at the current web version. Same old variety of problems - such as where is the Created Date. Spent 5 minutes searching the help link, but came up with non-related issues.  The video leads me to believe the new web version is going to be more complicated. And too many conflicts with the Android version caused me to drop the smartphone version. So my Evernote status continues to be limited to my desktop computer for record keeping.  (approaching 50,000 notes split over two accounts)

Web use is nowhere on my itinerary. And yes, this comment is on topic.

[jefito 5,598]

1 hour ago, jbenson2 said:

The video leads me to believe the new web version is going to be more complicated.

Not sure what would be more complicated about it: you type, get some partial results while you're typing, maybe find what you're looking for earlier than had you typed out the whole query, in which case you choose it and move on. Otherwise, you finish the query and get the results you asked for (or maybe you've typo-ed and need to start all over again). Providing they get results back quickly enough as you type (think Google search speed, which seems fine usually), then it shouldn't be any bother. If not, then it's probably a deal-breaker.

Like you, the web application is not really a common use case, but it's the only option for some users, and potentially a better option for some scenarios (one's that I'd use), so improving it is certainly something I'd like to see.

[s2sailor 2,439]

2 hours ago, gazumped said:

Speaking as a part-time Linux user,  I'm very happy that Evernote are looking at improvements to the web client.  Until there's a native Linux alternative,  that's the only way I get access to my account on one laptop.  And the Forum is full of complaints about the web client missing desktop features,  so I can see where the Herd is going with this.

In other news Evernote have managed,  alongside this web project,  to bring out new Windows,  Mac,  Android and iOS updates.  I don't think they're concentrating exclusively on the web.

Relax people - lets just see where Evernote goes next!

I'm guessing that some of you have not seen the Windows preview ... that is likely a pretty good indication of where Evernote is thinking of going with their desktop apps and is the source around the concerns expressed in this thread.

I'm glad they have posted the videos.  I appreciate seeing the behind the scenes activity.  If there is going to be some negative feedback, better to hear it now, when there may be a chance to influence the design direction, than later when we can't.

[jbenson2 2,149]

14 minutes ago, jefito said:

Not sure what would be more complicated about it:

Search: Type first letter to run the search. Typing a 2nd letter will run search again. Typing a 3rd letter will run search again. Going to be an issue when I want to search for multiple terms - for example: created:20150101 -created:20150701 tag:receipt -tag:quicken-done

Speed has always been a problem with Evernote. Support finally told me to create a 2nd account to spread out my data to address the issue. 

Evernote has made promises of major web rewrites in the past. I am a bit biased after not seeing the previously promised major improvements to the web version.

[jefito 5,598]

1 minute ago, jbenson2 said:

Evernote has made promises of major web rewrites in the past. I am a bit biased after not seeing the previously promised major improvements to the web version.

I've seen every rewrite that you have, as you know. I am a bit skeptical, sure, but open to improvement, and fortunately, since the web client isn't my daily workhorse, it's been no big deal that it hasn't been up to snuff to date. There are situations where I would use it more if it were better.

5 minutes ago, jbenson2 said:

35 minutes ago, jefito said:

Not sure what would be more complicated about it:

Search: Type first letter to run the search. Typing a 2nd letter will run search again. Typing a 3rd letter will run search again. Going to be an issue when I want to search for multiple terms - for example: created:20150101 -created:20150701 tag:receipt -tag:quicken-done

That's not complicated unless maybe you're easily distracted by shiny (or flashing) objects, I'd guess. Google searches the whole web this way; it doesn't seem to be a major bone of contention. I find the experience of instantaneous feedback to be quite useful in many cases including Evernote (it works fine for me in the Windows, though obviously it doesn't for everyone) , particularly for ad hoc queries. For longer ones, I'd use a shortcut if it was one I used often or had trouble remembering, but I understand that that's not always possible. Again, as I've emphasized in every related post I've made in this topic, responsiveness is the key to making this useful.

[Ian Small 215]

Hey gang -

There is some useful feedback in this thread which I have read with interest.  Thank you!

There are also a lot of concerns raised, whether it be feedback to the specific content we showed, or all sorts of interpolations and extrapolations built off what we showed (and in some cases, what we didn't).  I don't have time to respond to every possible angle raised in this thread, but here are a few quick responses:

1. Roughly 12% of Evernote usage is on web sessions.

2. No one ever said anything about making Evernote a web-only experience.  Just because we demo a set of improvements to search on web (which is the least adequate search experience, btw) doesn't mean this is the only thing we are working on.  In a series of videos that may well have a lot of episodes by the time we're done (depending on the response we get, I guess), we judged it to be a reasonably approachable initial subject for a first video.  Why?  It's relatively easy to understand.  It's visual.

3. Following up on #2 above, we are NOT planning on eliminating Windows and Mac versions of Evernote with local stores, nor Android and iOS versions with local stores, etc.  Being able to use Evernote whether online or offline is a major feature/benefit and in a million years that's not going away.  Of course, having a local store would be even better if sync was fully robust.  Working on that.

4. Having the kind of interactive search capability we outline here doesn't mean we're taking away your power search capabilities.  It means we're trying to find ways to (a) more quickly get to the content you're looking for *without* needing to know quite as much of the search instruction arcana (b) give more people more powerful search tools (c) get there in fewer keystrokes.  I'm sure we'll get some things wrong along the way, but we're trying to have our cake (improved UX, improved relevancy, more interactive search tools) and eat it too (powerful command line syntax) on this front.

5. As I said in the first video in this series, some of what we choose to show in this series won't relate to a problem you in particular are facing.  Hopefully some of it will.  I recognize it's frustrating if the first video we drop doesn't relate to your top pain point, but you can rest assured that there are others amongst our millions of users who do.  Otherwise we wouldn't be working on it.  We can only do one topic at a time.

6. One of the reasons we prototype a lot of new stuff on the web first is because it's absolutely the fastest way for us to design/test/validate/deploy something new to a limited set of customers in order to get a feedback loop going about a particular design direction.  As I said in the very first video, we are trying to test - with users, live in the wild - as much of what we are working on as we can prior to release.  If seeing what we're working on in a web setting disturbs you simply because we are showing a concept in a web build, I'm guessing that for your own peace of mind, you should probably stop watching much of the Behind the Scenes series of videos. 

7. If you *do* get invited to participate in a Preview release of some kind, as part of that we will point out to you that Preview is definitionally pre-Alpha.  Which means more than "it's buggy".  It means it's not even close to feature complete.  It's not performant.  It's so early there isn't a proper name for it.  But if there's enough in there for us to get directional feedback early in the process, we will do our best to put it in front of some users, live and in the wild.  Because the earlier we get feedback, the better chance we have of being ultimately on target.  All we will ask of you is not to pre-judge the eventual release of something by its Preview release, a release that may come months before we lock down direction, functionality or performance.  Previews usually come along with non-disclosure requests, too, because they're so early.  Which is one reason you (appropriately) don't hear a lot about them.

I'll return to lurking now (and get back to my day job, which ultimately is where I have the best chance of generating value for you all).  Thanks for watching, and for caring.  I recognize that the last part - that you care - comes through in every comment.

ian

 

 

[toao 148]

thank you very much for sharing, Ian, and for addressing & ending (at least) my concern! obviously your first point begs the question how the remaining 88% of usage break down by client. generally some stats on my(/our?) favorite tool would be very interesting..:-)

thanks,

Lorenz

[Jim Rogers 12]

Wow!

FIrst the video series and now a thoughtful response on this forum.

After a rock-bottom low last year, my faith and confidence in Evernote is now at an all-time high.

Ian-- so far, you are truly doing a great job as the leader of this company. 

Thank you.

[PinkElephant 8,800]

Dear Ian, dear team,

first, the new openness and integration of users is very positive. No company can tell everything, but involving users to get feedback - like in this thread - is always leading to a better product.

Second, I like the incremental approach. Much better to improve things in steps, we all can feel, try and comment on, than being promised a big leap whenever (and often never).

Third, any focus on the engine that drives EN is very valuable. For me what counts is the reliable, performant structure deep inside, not wet, shiny paint on the surface.

Keep up the focus, keep up the drive !

[Metrodon 2,188]

Very disappointed that the sky isn't falling in.

What am I going to complain about?

[jefito 5,598]

34 minutes ago, Metrodon said:

Very disappointed that the sky isn't falling in.

What am I going to complain about?

Do I have to say it?

Seriously, though : @Ian Small thanks for contributing your peek into the Evernote mindset, goals and development process. The 12% web usage was a little surprising (would have guessed lower), and using web for rapid prototyping makes a lot of sense, though the age-old problem of rolling out new features to the native applications seems to still remain. In any case, as an Evernote fan, and also a developer, I always appreciate that kind of clear and informative information out here in the wild, wild forums. Carry on.

[Ian Small 215]

7 hours ago, toao said:

thank you very much for sharing, Ian, and for addressing & ending (at least) my concern! obviously your first point begs the question how the remaining 88% of usage break down by client. generally some stats on my(/our?) favorite tool would be very interesting..:-)

thanks,

Lorenz

At a high level:  web, mac, windows all roughly the same.  Android, iOS roughly the same.  Math left as an exercise to the reader...  -- ian

[CalS 5,307]

3 hours ago, Metrodon said:

Very disappointed that the sky isn't falling in.

What am I going to complain about?

Be patient, I'm sure something will come along...

[JMichaelTX 4,118]

7 hours ago, Ian Small said:

There is some useful feedback in this thread which I have read with interest.  Thank you!

There are also a lot of concerns raised, whether it be feedback to the specific content we showed, or all sorts of interpolations and extrapolations built off what we showed (and in some cases, what we didn't).  I don't have time to respond to every possible angle raised in this thread, but here are a few quick responses:

Ian, thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts with us.  This was very helpful.

7 hours ago, Ian Small said:

we are NOT planning on eliminating Windows and Mac versions of Evernote with local stores, nor Android and iOS versions with local stores, etc.  Being able to use Evernote whether online or offline is a major feature/benefit and in a million years that's not going away.

Thanks for stating this so clearly.  I think it will alleviate a lot of our concerns.

7 hours ago, Ian Small said:

4. Having the kind of interactive search capability we outline here doesn't mean we're taking away your power search capabilities.  It means we're trying to find ways to (a) more quickly get to the content you're looking for *without* needing to know quite as much of the search instruction arcana (b) give more people more powerful search tools (c) get there in fewer keystrokes.

I am definitely all for that, as long as the incremental search can be turned off in Evernote Preferences.

Since you are highlighting Search here, let me make two suggestions:

1. Auto-Complete Search Qualifiers and Corresponding Data
   • I think this directly speaks to your goal stated in (a)
   • While I'm not a fan of incremental search, I am a huge fan of auto-complete, if done well
   • As I type, perhaps there can be a keystroke (like TAB or SHIFT-SPACE) that would give us a drop-down list of Search qualifiers, like "tag:, notebook, title, date, etc)
   • Then if the user chooses one of these, like "tag", you would shown a dropdown list of Tags like you do in the Tag Filter.
   • As I type, it filters/selects from the Tag list
   • Same for "notebook" and "date"
2. Full Boolean Search
   • We have been asking for this for many years.  Since the underlying database is a SQLite database, I would hope this would be a relatively minor task to implement
   • IAC, this would be huge!  It would allow us to greatly and easily narrow down the result list of Notes.
   • With a smart auto-complete, almost any user could easily use this.

Thanks again for all that you have shared, and plan to share, and thanks for considering my request.

[Bill Myers 469]

@Ian Small: Holy cow. I don't recall seeing your predecessors addressing customer concerns directly in this forum. And you responded to them with substance, to boot. As a customer, I'm impressed. You've further boosted my confidence in this company. 

As for the interactive search? This is very cool. 

I'm no longer just cautiously optimistic. I'm outright excited about the future of Evernote. 

[jefito 5,598]

5 hours ago, Bill Myers said:

@Ian Small: Holy cow. I don't recall seeing your predecessors addressing customer concerns directly in this forum. And you responded to them with substance, to boot. As a customer, I'm impressed. You've further boosted my confidence in this company. 

The old (original?) CTO used to have a pretty good presence here. It was welcome, though he didn't always have good news for feature requesters.

[Ian Small 215]

3 hours ago, JMichaelTX said:

Ian, thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts with us.  This was very helpful.

Thanks for stating this so clearly.  I think it will alleviate a lot of our concerns.

I am definitely all for that, as long as the incremental search can be turned off in Evernote Preferences.

Since you are highlighting Search here, let me make two suggestions:

1. Auto-Complete Search Qualifiers and Corresponding Data
   • I think this directly speaks to your goal stated in (a)
   • While I'm not a fan of incremental search, I am a huge fan of auto-complete, if done well
   • As I type, perhaps there can be a keystroke (like TAB or SHIFT-SPACE) that would give us a drop-down list of Search qualifiers, like "tag:, notebook, title, date, etc)
   • Then if the user chooses one of these, like "tag", you would shown a dropdown list of Tags like you do in the Tag Filter.
   • As I type, it filters/selects from the Tag list
   • Same for "notebook" and "date"
2. Full Boolean Search
   • We have been asking for this for many years.  Since the underlying database is a SQLite database, I would hope this would be a relatively minor task to implement
   • IAC, this would be huge!  It would allow us to greatly and easily narrow down the result list of Notes.
   • With a smart auto-complete, almost any user could easily use this.

Thanks again for all that you have shared, and plan to share, and thanks for considering my request.

I really will go back to lurking soon, but while we're at it...

To your (1), I will observe that one of the things we showed in the video was the ability for to type the first few letters of a tag or a notebook, have that tag or notebook be automatically suggested, and add it as a filter (eg. "Mexico" was a tag).  I understand that incremental search may not be up your alley, but I suspect that for most users, auto-matching what you are typing to possible tag names, notebook names, space names, recent searches, etc. is faster, more interactive, and likely more effective than needing to type or pick "tag:" or "notebook:" first, followed by auto-matching and picking.  Our goal is to design for the breadth of the constituency (both paying and non-paying, although we pay the most attention to paying users and those who are likely to become paying users).  I completely understand your mileage on a given design approach may vary.

To your (2), obviously this is a super power user capability.  We have been looking at various options around what the default search logic is, and we have contemplated what full boolean logic would take.  One of the things you'll find about me is that I don't make promises that I don't know that I'm going to deliver on.  In this area, while we have been and are looking at it, no promises at this point.

Thanks for investing the time to respond. -- ian

[JMichaelTX 4,118]

11 minutes ago, Ian Small said:

To your (1), I will observe that one of the things we showed in the video was the ability for to type the first few letters of a tag or a notebook, have that tag or notebook be automatically suggested, and add it as a filter (eg. "Mexico" was a tag).

Ian, thanks for pointing that out.  I just went back an viewed the video again, and of course you're right.  So what I originally thought that you were showing was incremental search, but you were also (instead of?) showing a form of auto-complete, where you are showing in the panel below the Search box tags, notebooks, and people that matched your typing.  If I am able to select the one I want quickly via keyboard, then that would be great!  But please don't make us use the mouse when typing in the search box.

It will be interesting to see how you detect and show auto-completion filter choices from the same typed text for tags, note title, and notebook.  Looks like you are considering making it a very smart search, so maybe it could support the "easy" method (for some users) of just typing keywords, and also make it easy to specify the Search Qualifier (filter), like "ta:" for tags, "ti:" for title, and "nb:" for notebook.

My most common search is for Tag and Note Title, and I really hate having to type "intitle:".   My organization method is to use tags for broad categories and then keywords in the Title to narrow it down.

Thanks again for the great direct interaction you are providing us with.

[dixonbruce 16]

4 hours ago, Ian Small said:

At a high level:  web, mac, windows all roughly the same.  Android, iOS roughly the same.  Math left as an exercise to the reader...  -- ian

Web   ~12%

Windows ~12%

Mac ~12%

IOS ~32%

Android ~32%

What do I win? I must say I am very surprised such a majority is on mobile. How I used to use Evernote was completely different. 

Please could you clarify that editable file attachments on desktop will still be a feature? It is the #1 feature I miss about Evernote. I suppose so with having a local store. I know you don't want to give to much away but I would be very encouraged by this news.

[DTLow 5,744]

36 minutes ago, dixonbruce said:

Web   ~12%   Windows ~12%   Mac ~12%   IOS ~32%   Android ~32%

Good job.  I suspect the breakdown is different for paid accounts; and more skewed to the Window/Mac platforms

[dixonbruce 16]

@DTLow

Yeah I was thinking that, that there must be a much higher proportion of paid users on desktop.

[PinkElephant 8,800]

I think that nowadays most users are multi-device, multi-platform.

In my case it is Windows, Mac and iOS. If I had to estimate, I would rank my iOS use way above 50%, the rest split among Win and Mac.

But most of my serious editing is done on one of the desktop clients, as the note-by-note approach of the mobile client does not allow for multiple notes transactions like joining, batch moving to target notebooks and multi-tagging.

[CalS 5,307]

For me something like 85% Windows, 15% IOS, <1% Mac and Web.  All the heavy lifting on the desktop, lookup mostly on IOS, other than entering workouts at the gym. 

[CalS 5,307]

9 hours ago, Ian Small said:

To your (1), I will observe that one of the things we showed in the video was the ability for to type the first few letters of a tag or a notebook, have that tag or notebook be automatically suggested, and add it as a filter (eg. "Mexico" was a tag).

Kind of like Ctrl+Q on Windows desktop.  Desktop also displays recent searches with Ctrl+Q, which is handy. 

[Score 0]

Love this series and the way it is created!  Great to see Evernote improving.

[Petsolb 55]

@Ian Small Thank you for getting back to us. It's reassuring. I'm happy as long as I get a few more tools that lets me navigate/think more visually in Evernote. However, I bet a lot of the suggestions here have been considered already, so going to wait and see how the video series progress before making another list

[ali ahmed 0]

Are our notes get index in google if we make a shareable link of them.

[gazumped 12,062]

7 hours ago, ali ahmed said:

Are our notes get index in google if we make a shareable link of them.

Hi.  As far as I'm aware - no.  The only way to see the note is to have been given the URL.

[Alexander Schatten 6]

Hi

I like the improvements on the search front. However, as a Evernote user of about 10 years, I have several thousand notes, partly from old projects not longer active. 
 

A major flaw imho of Evernote is that there is no way to archive notes and notebooks. In the sense that you can still access it if required but they go outing the way in „normal“ browsing and searching. 
 

i would hope some thoughts go into that as many users will have used Evernote for longer and longer periods of time and will run into this problem. 

cheers

[DTLow 5,744]

5 hours ago, Alexander Schatten said:

A major flaw imho of Evernote is that there is no way to archive notes and notebooks. In the sense that you can still access it if required but they go outing the way in „normal“ browsing and searching. 

Evernote provides a Tag feature - it can be used to flag archived notes

I flag archived notes with tag:!Archived

To exclude from a search, I include the parameter   -tag:!Archived

[Alexander Schatten 6]

Thanks. I am aware of such workarounds. But they are unfortunately not even remotely what would be needed. 

These notes always appear in regular searches, in the notebook view. And then all the tags of archived projects that clutter the interface. 
 

Sure you can delete or export these notes, which would probably be the closest version to archiving. And maybe re import them into a different account...? All that is messy and annoying. 
 

a Service like Evernote that is not targeting kids but professional users should — in my opinion — have an answer to that issue. 

[jefito 5,598]

1 hour ago, Alexander Schatten said:

A major flaw imho of Evernote is that there is no way to archive notes and notebooks. In the sense that you can still access it if required but they go outing the way in „normal“ browsing and searching. 

The main feature request for archiving notes is here: https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/57743-request-evernote-archive/

 

Please feel free to add your vote / engage in further discussion there. Thanks

[JMichaelTX 4,118]

@Alexander Schatten, see my post at Search with "stack:Active"

[GordR 11]

I was really starting to hate the "Quick" or "Real Time" search feature but just before I posted a complaint, I had one more look at the options.  No option to turn it off, BUT THEN - I noticed something I skipped over and that is the "Search as you type delay". Set that to 10,000 ms, (10 secs), and that is as good as disabling.  Yeah, now I don't have to wait every time I type three characters while Evernote searches through the thousands of notes and GB of data looking for, compiling and displaying a long list of notes that have the 3 characters I typed.  Wish I had realized this months ago.

If the folks at Evernote have not mentioned this, increasing the delay would be a good 'tip' to add to "Finding things faster" for people with a lot of notes.

[s2sailor 2,439]

16 minutes ago, GordR said:

I was really starting to hate the "Quick" or "Real Time" search feature but just before I posted a complaint, I had one more look at the options.  No option to turn it off, BUT THEN - I noticed something I skipped over and that is the "Search as you type delay". Set that to 10,000 ms, (10 secs), and that is as good as disabling.  Yeah, now I don't have to wait every time I type three characters while Evernote searches through the thousands of notes and GB of data looking for, compiling and displaying a long list of notes that have the 3 characters I typed.  Wish I had realized this months ago.

If the folks at Evernote have not mentioned this, increasing the delay would be a good 'tip' to add to "Finding things faster" for people with a lot of notes.

I believe if you change this value to 0, search-as-you-type feature will be completely disabled.  It has been there for about 8 years (according to the note I saved), but agree that it is not easily discoverable.

[GordR 11]

I also tried the Evernote shortcut "Ctrl+Q" only to find that it closed a 4GB file transfer window when it was 80% done.  I mistakenly thought I had 'focus' on the Evernote window and it 'Quit' the file tranfer which did have focus.  Maddening.

Turns out "Ctrl+Q" is a common keyboard shortcut for many applications and most of them quit, close or exit their program.  (Yes, I should have known that might happen because I knew it was a shortcut to 'Quit' in most programs, but had a lapse in judgement in not making sure Evernote had focus.)  Don't you just love standards?  There are so many of them! (Oxymoron).

See: https://defkey.com/what-means/ctrl-q