Back to version 6.25 I go

[hanseric 152]

Too many performance issues and missing features for me. Detailed some of them here in my blog.

There have been others since. All of them reported through Feedback in version 10.

But now I have to get back to working with the modicum of efficiency I had developed for myself using v. 6.25. Finding my way in v 10 is proving to be far too time consuming.

I'll be checking in on the forums etc. to see if things seem to improve.

Also will be taking fresh looks at competitive products like Nimbus, which seems to be catching the eye of enough EN power users that I feel obligated (to myself) to check it out.

Been paid user with EN for 10 years last April, currently storing about 20k notes. Hate that I'm seriously considering moving on after all that time invested in my processes within EN, but maybe this is a wooden door closing and an iron door opening.

[PinkElephant 8,170]

You can get the legacy client here:

https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/360052560314-Install-an-older-version-of-Evernote

EN version count is simply driven by the fact that all clients are now based on the same "framework", which means shared code independently from the OS it is running at. So a common version count is nothing to bother about.

v10 is lacking functions, which are partly coming back through releases, part is abandoned and will not return.Bugs on legacy will not be fixed, and if you ask support, the tell you to install v10.

What I did: I am running my day to day EN account on legacy, and have opened a new Basic account set to v10 to play with. It is not all bad with v10, but one needs to review every workflow to see if it works or can be adapted.

[BroKyle 5]

I too have been with Evernote as a premium paying customer since January 30th, 2010. It has been a huge part of my everyday workflow and I have jokingly said my entire life is in Evernote, personal and business. I began desperately searching this forum for answers to questions/problems and after several days, I am exhausted.

I don't want to jump the gun so quickly after a release and say I am leaving Evernote but (and I never thought I'd say this) I am looking seriously at Notion and getting my ducks in a row just in case. In other words, it's not looking good for Evernote right now.

I just went back to the 6.25 legacy version but that frightens me, as well. How long will they support it?

hanseric, I enjoyed your blog post. I'll be sure to check out Nimbus, as well.

 

[hanseric 152]

On 10/14/2020 at 1:52 PM, BroKyle said:

hanseric, I enjoyed your blog post. I'll be sure to check out Nimbus, as well.

Glad you liked it. Your note reminds me to check out Notion. 👍

[mczin 68]

@hanseric I fully agree with you:

• Saved Searches are buried under Search now: YES
• Speed is laggy: YES
• Tags are at the bottom of the page now. Hopefully I don’t start forgetting to tag since the feature is kind of “out of sight, out of mind”: Oh YES
• My tags are not autocompleting: YES
• Presentation mode appears to be gone: YES

But Darkmode is nice to have....and the new Editor....

I think that in this forum we are just a small handful of users, who complain. I fear that for many users the new Evernote is sufficient, as it is.

 

 

[agsteele 2,952]

I keep pondering which of the missing features that I need.  For me there are just two things that don't work and significantly affect my workflow. Import Folders and the associated stuff connected to scanning.  So far I haven't found any other application I could switch to which would provide me with those features. Other stuff that I'm missing at present is announced as being in the pipeline so I should, eventually, be content with the new EN - at least resigned to having lost the one thing that is truly useful.  But I have easy workarounds. 

In the meantime, because v6.25 is retained to allow parallel working I get the best of both worlds.

I do think that this roll-out could have been better managed and presented.  Perhaps announce v10 as a public Beta rather than a full release. A clearer communication of what is being worked on, what has gone for good, and what might be kept if enough folk make a case.

I also realise that re-launching a product like Evernote which is mature in its market means that there are thousands of users all doing things just a bit differntly and the changes don't work for any of them.  For some things like the position of the TAGS dialogue it isn't a major issue. I've already found the habit of looking to the bottom left corner. I'd have kept it top left but it isn't a big deal.

So I think I'll probably be staying with Evernote only because nobody else offers what I'm missing. I have my life invested inside Evernote and shifting to OneNote/Notion/Nimbus/Joplin etc will all give me more work to learn and develop new workflows.  So I might as well stay where I am and take short-lived pain of transition made easier by having both versions running side-by-side.

Of course, YMMV.

 

[TK0047 422]

On 10/14/2020 at 12:36 PM, hanseric said:

Detailed some of them here in my blog.

• Speed. I’m getting 3-6 second lags when I do something simple like click on a note or using Ctrl+N for a new note. That’s gonna add up for me. I move fast in this app (or used to anyway).

This one is HUGE for me. I, too, move very fast in this app (through all the apps actually) and I can live with lack of features (to a certain extent) if I have to (which I wouldn't want to if other apps provide it) but I CANNOT live with an app that is soooooo slow and not responsive.

Right now, I click nothing happens, wait for the delay then I see a response. That is really not going to work. I SINCERELY hope they can find a solution to this as my life is also in Evernote. I know 6.25 is not going to be here forever thus I am worried about V10.

[anthony100 1]

Where can I download the previous version - 6.25? Thanks

[PAHS 0]

I have been an Evernote crusader, a very happy one, for many years... New version stinks! Now I am going over to OneNote.... Bye Evernote!

[cbm967 3]

On 10/14/2020 at 5:36 PM, hanseric said:

Too many performance issues and missing features for me. Detailed some of them here in my blog.

There have been others since. All of them reported through Feedback in version 10.

But now I have to get back to working with the modicum of efficiency I had developed for myself using v. 6.25. Finding my way in v 10 is proving to be far too time consuming.

I'll be checking in on the forums etc. to see if things seem to improve.

Also will be taking fresh looks at competitive products like Nimbus, which seems to be catching the eye of enough EN power users that I feel obligated (to myself) to check it out.

Been paid user with EN for 10 years last April, currently storing about 20k notes. Hate that I'm seriously considering moving on after all that time invested in my processes within EN, but maybe this is a wooden door closing and an iron door opening.

100% agree.  I am so so disappointed in this release.  Too many changes.  Some of us use this tool for work, at home and everything.  I cannot use this new release efficiently at all and Nimbus is looking like a better option.

[hanseric 152]

On 10/16/2020 at 8:19 AM, TK0047 said:

This one is HUGE for me. I, too, move very fast in this app (through all the apps actually) and I can live with lack of features (to a certain extent)

Totally agree with you here. Speed is 90% of the issue for me. I was willing to keep it loaded on one of my two machines in order to give v10 a chance and learn it better. But the lack of speed keeps me from doing so. I can be patient with a lot of things in my apps, but not massive lags between when I tell it to do something and it finally gets back to me. When that is resolved, I'll give a new test, but at arm's length until it's confirmed speed is up to par.

"Par" for me is sub 2 secs. Anything over that is a hard pass.

v 6.25 is basically instant most of the time--not including searches. I can click any note in my present view at any time pretty much and I'll get instant data in showing in the note. If I change the view, I'm willing to allow a few moments for things to re-settle, so to speak. But after that, responsiveness needs to be pretty much instant.

[hanseric 152]

On 10/16/2020 at 3:36 AM, mczin said:

I think that in this forum we are just a small handful of users, who complain. I fear that for many users the new Evernote is sufficient, as it is.

Yes, we are Task/Process Nerds. But I think this may be a larger cohort than EN may realize. the Get Things Done type folks, I mean. I think that would be the "parent cohort" if you will. And there's a subset of those type people who are outgoing enough to get in here and nav the forums to post their complaints. But how many of the larger group are just saying "well, that's it. I'll go find another app...", especially given that the app has slowed by a factor of 3-5x (in my estimation)?

[TK0047 422]

19 minutes ago, hanseric said:

When that is resolved

Do you think it will be resolved? I mean this is probably a fundamental issue with the app right? It is not like they released it on purpose to be slow and then they can "open it up" to be faster? I am not a software developer so I don't know but it does worry me.

I think people (including developers I assume) are focused on the lack of features so it makes me more worried about the future of Evernote for me.

And if this windows app is the "mirror" of the web app of Evernote, I am not sure if they are going to try to address it as I have always found the web app to be too slow for me. 

[hanseric 152]

3 hours ago, TK0047 said:

Do you think it will be resolved? I mean this is probably a fundamental issue with the app right? It is not like they released it on purpose to be slow and then they can "open it up" to be faster? I am not a software developer so I don't know but it does worry me.

I think people (including developers I assume) are focused on the lack of features so it makes me more worried about the future of Evernote for me.

And if this windows app is the "mirror" of the web app of Evernote, I am not sure if they are going to try to address it as I have always found the web app to be too slow for me. 

Speed issue can be caused by a number of factors. I guarantee you they didn't release a slow app knowingly. No developer ever would, especially one like Evernote where speed would be a driving factor for customer satisfaction. E.g., you might have some other app where the app is expected to take x seconds/minutes to do whatever it is doing.  So speed is of course relative to expectation within any given context.

So this could be some fundamental architecture issue, could be they just miscalculated some factor which, now that it is "in the wild" has become an obvious constraint, etc.

Hard to say what that might be (could be a line of code or it could be a deep architectural issue, or even some hardware, although that's much less likely...point is: lots of factors make an app "fast" or "slow"...]

Three decades of software experience tells me: these things happen. We can make judgments at this stage as to how it shouldn't have and so on (not you, just speaking generally here) or we acknowledge that it has and now see what EN does or doesn't do.

All speed issues are "resolvable". Let me put it another way: anything can be fixed given enough time and/or money. 😄 

So the question, now that we all KNOW it is slow, is:  what's the actual cause and how long will it take them to find that cause and resolve it.

Not sure we the users will ever know what the problem is (they probably won't give us whole story, especially if it would reduce goodwill or public relations somehow). So don't expect to "read all about it..." necessarily. Just look to see what happens to this specific problem.

In other words, we'll just have to see how this goes over the coming weeks. They have everything to lose on this so they are either going to get this speed thing fixed or they aren't. Slow apps won't be tolerated, typically. A slow EN app, due to its very nature in terms of function for the user, would be even less tolerated.

So I say hang tight, use 6.25 and let's see how EN pivots and navigates this key performance issue. That will likely tell us a lot about what to expect in the coming months.

[CalS 5,281]

5 hours ago, hanseric said:

Speed issue can be caused by a number of factors. I guarantee you they didn't release a slow app knowingly.

EN has had significant speed issues with IOS releases in the past, not so much the desktop.  They got them fixed as time went by.

[hanseric 152]

In many ways, EN is starting over. It's really less version 10.0.10.xxxx and more like "the new version 0.xxxx".

That's not to say they should have released it at this stage. They shouldn't have.

But I won't pretend that other factors don't exist, too, such as pressure from the Board or the need to commit everyone fully to a path by "burning the boats", perhaps. Probably some of that going on in one flavor or another as well.

Again, not justifying for them. Just thinking out loud while hoping they sort the speed thing out sooner than later. I think that would bring about the first bit of calm in this particular storm.

[CalS 5,281]

11 minutes ago, hanseric said:

In many ways, EN is starting over. It's really less version 10.0.10.xxxx and more like "the new version 0.xxxx".

For sure. a new world.  Just saying even as senior management has changed across the last ten years EN has not improved in testing, roll outs, or communications at all.  Not learning from past mistakes is what gets you where we are today (even without considering the gutting of function).  I wonder if root cause is in their vocabulary?  

[hanseric 152]

8 minutes ago, CalS said:

For sure. a new world.  Just saying even as senior management has changed across the last ten years EN has not improved in testing, roll outs, or communications at all.  Not learning from past mistakes is what gets you where we are today (even without considering the gutting of function).  I wonder if root cause is in their vocabulary?  

Maybe they need to fix the note sharing features first so they can learn from each other's mistakes! 🤣

[richtpt 12]

How do you go back to 6.25?  I can't find a download link anywhere.

I have used the Send Feedback option to send them many comments.  I've also tried hard to have it be constructive feedback, not "you're a bunch of idiots", that doesn't help at all.  Count me as someone who's not happy with this new version, it's a giant step backwards in my opinion.  I'm hoping they are listening to everything we are saying and will either update this version to have all the missing things or realize they made a mistake with this version and roll back to the previous version.  

[CalS 5,281]

9 minutes ago, richtpt said:

How do you go back to 6.25?  I can't find a download link anywhere.

You can find it on filehippo here.

[richtpt 12]

5 minutes ago, CalS said:

You can find it on filehippo here.

Thanks!

[CalS 5,281]

4 minutes ago, richtpt said:

Thanks!

You are welcome.

[rsoares 1]

Another one joining the club.

I'm back to 6.25 and happy after a lot of struggle with these two last versions 10.3.6 and 10.3.7.

It's amazing how can Evernote make something so bad from something so good. Heavy, irresponsive, problems in syncing between with different versions, ... the list of problems is endless.

It looks like they are trying to put a desktop software to look and feel like the web version so they can eliminate the desktop platform handling costs for good.

It's a pitty because I have been a paying and happy customer of Evernote for a lot of years and I don't understand the approach. 

I think I must start to look for another notes tool elsewhere.

[bill77 10]

I was sitting there wondering why I didn't get any more 6.25*.* updates. It didn't seem that long ago that I got the last one.  And we already have to resort to Filehippo to get a past copy?  

Looking at this thread feels like history repeating itself. I remember suffering through Evernote bloat during certain release stages before (either 4.x or 5.x) among a lot of ongoing annoyances that I traded for a lot of ongoing new perks and improvements over the years.  Leaping from 6 to 10 sounds like a very Microsofty thing to do when forcing users to part with the versions they perfected.  I can't even imagine how many issues I'll have with it beyond the obvious and already mentioned. 

Last I checked, the alternatives did not suit me at all. Every time I toy with importing into Onenote I come running back before 50 notes even sync. If they kill support for this it'll be a disaster for me.  The way their ship is running these days, it looks more like a "when". 

I got a beta invite. I thought I signed up, but didn't do anything with it since I only heard about it maybe once then thought I've got enough bugs to wrestle with official stuff. Not that it would've made much of a difference. They have a history of overlooking some of the most basic yet chronic complaints over the years.  Still plenty of bugs in the "legacy" family. Still have lots of random hangs there too despite a speedy setup. On my laptop shared notebooks just stopped syncing out of the blue. I could've reinstalled, but it probably would've required a fresh sync and at this point those are pretty painful for oldtimers, especially on a laptop.

 Very frightening to hear that they're pulling an Evernote again -- and one that might be inescapable.

The whole reason I checked the forum to begin with was after the webclipper started trying to capture the entire screen before i have a chance to use the selector. After 3-5 tries I can manage to drag the selection without that happening. Another issue I pretty much have to wait out and hope it disappears, that started out of nowhere. 

Evernote 10 is sounding more and more like Evernote 2020

 

Update: As predicted, the screenshot issue disappeared after X amount of weeks, no updates.

[tim-tam 0]

too sad. the new evernote blew me away ... for a few seconds, but at the end nothing way better than the beta version.

 

imo Evernote has never been sexy, but functional ... like tagging notes, cross-platform availability and offline (killer feature comparing to all other software in this area). basic things were always missing (like different highlighting colour, choosing which picture should be the thumbnail, adding table rows on iOS, multi-level folder etc.).

but now, jumping from note to note has become slow. i even wonder if the offline availability disappeared.

 

Dear Evernote-Team, please never force the user to go to the new version and keep this version above supported as long as possible. I am pretty sure you don't need my few dollars, but please try to remain good and better.

[abg 3]

Installing it is a instant regret. Interface is too cluttered, tags are hidden and don't have a page anymore, keyboard shortcuts are a mess etc. It doesn't look like a beta, even, but an alpha at best.

I'm coming back to 6.25.

 

[Travelgenie 0]

Premium user for 6+ years. Got a new laptop and installed Evernote. I was surprised by the changes. In version 10 one cannot easily restrict your search to occur within specific notebook stacks. Instead you get results from all your notes, personal and work notebook stacks. This is a deal breaker for me. 

 

I immediately downloaded and installed version 6.25 from here https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/360052560314-Install-an-older-version-of-Evernote

Is there any place where one can submit feedback\request for features that should be in version 10?

 

[PinkElephant 8,170]

You can easily apply a filter for a specific notebook in v10.

You can as well limit the area of search by using the „stack:StackToBeSearched“ phrase. Observe there is no space behind the colon. Replace StackToBeSearched by the name of the stack you want to search in. Or exclude a stack by the phrase „-stack:StackNotToBeSearched“.

Maybe you give v10 a more extended second try. It does not work as we are used from legacy, but it offers a lot. Legacy is a strong branch on the EN tree, but it is a dead branch. You will be able to sit on it for a while, but the fruits grow somewhere else.

[David303 0]

My biggest "losses" in v10.

* Saved searches are now buried under the search menu, with no way of bringing it up to the home screen in the interface (used to be available on the menu bar). I relied on this a lot.

* Tags are not auto-completing as well as before, and (this is the biggest problem), you simply can't select multiple tags anymore. You can only click on one tag at a time, and only bring up notes with that one tag.

Tags (i.e. contexts) are hugely important when using EN as a tool for GTD (David Allen's 'Getting Things Done').

It's basically what The Secret Weapon (https://thesecretweapon.org/the-secret-weapon-manifesto/the-secret-weapon/) method relies on, and without tags working as before, this productivity tool is broken. I will give 6.25 another shot, and will try to stay on that forever, but at some point I may have to find another solution (paying premium EN user for 10+ years now).

 

[PinkElephant 8,170]

Saved searches can be placed in Shortcuts.

You can select notes based on several tags by using the filters symbol.

If on Professional (or Teams), you can search even better, because the normal method when selecting tags is a logical AND. On Professional you can now use the logical OR, and brackets for complex searches.

This offers much better search terms than what was possible in legacy.

[rokki 0]

As a loyal customer for over six years, I recently acquired a new laptop and decided to install Evernote. However, I was taken aback by the modifications in version 10. Unlike previous versions, it's now challenging to confine searches to specific notebook stacks. Instead, the results encompass all notes, spanning both personal and work-related stacks. This shift is a significant drawback for me.

 

 

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,971]

On 2/19/2024 at 1:28 PM, rokki said:

As a loyal customer for over six years, I recently acquired a new laptop and decided to install Evernote. However, I was taken aback by the modifications in version 10. Unlike previous versions, it's now challenging to confine searches to specific notebook stacks. Instead, the results encompass all notes, spanning both personal and work-related stacks. This shift is a significant drawback for me.

V. 10 is quite a shock the first time you see and use it, especially coming to it straight from v. 6, now that v. 10 itself has become more advanced over the years. In general, the filters at the top of a search-result list can be used to narrow the results. "Located in" is used to select notebooks, but only one at a time. You're better off using the advanced search syntax (https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/208313828-Use-advanced-search-syntax), which does include a search operator for stack.

[PinkElephant 8,170]

@rokki Everything posted in your post is wrong. You just don’t know where to find or how to do what you want to achieve.

We could answer this if you asked.

Continue to „enjoy“ the cozy legacy client is a short lived „solution“, if a solution at all.