Hate the new Evernote

[DTLow 5,736]

Just providing a discussion topic for user rants
For specific feedback/requests please post individually in the requests forum
For specific technical bugs/issues please post individually in the bugs/issues forum

edit  This is the best news I've seen; we can install a legacy version, and run side-by-side with v10
https://discussion.evernote.com/forums/topic/128793-roll-back-to-714-possible-or-not/?do=findComment&comment=578723

[Paul A. 609]

50 minutes ago, gbarry said:

Yes. This is the start of the foundation for a multitude of improvements both old and new, and we need and want the community's feedback as we go forward.

Why do you keep exhorting customers to join the beta program, but then not actually invite everyone who applies? There are some design decisions in the new app where I would have had some very pointed feedback if I had been invited into the beta.

Quote

• That new codebase means we can fix bugs quicker and release new features more often (yep, we’ve got some cool things already in development—join our Beta Program for a sneak peek!).

 

[DTLow 5,736]

7 minutes ago, Paul A. said:

Why do you keep exhorting customers to join the beta program, but then not actually invite everyone who applies?

You are now invited to v10.0   🙂
Warning - review the feedback before installing

[Paul A. 609]

1 minute ago, DTLow said:

You are now invited to v10.0
Warning - review the feedback before installing

Are you making a joke or do you actually have the power to add me to the beta program? I am aware that version 10 has been released (already have it installed and starting to test) but want to be in the beta so I can better influence the Evernote app's evolution from its current state.

[DTLow 5,736]

3 minutes ago, Paul A. said:

Are you making a joke or do you actually have the power to add me to the beta program?

A little joke; I added a smiley face   
Sorry - I have no beta powers

[Paul A. 609]

I need more time to play with version 10.0.10. There is lots to like, but I am astonished at some of the design decisions. Here's one quick example:

 

Btw, just in the time it took me annotate the above image I ran into a bug three times where it reverted a change I made to one of my comments every time I tried to open the image to copy and paste it into the forum.

[Gavin Gough 88]

1 hour ago, Paul A. said:

Are you making a joke or do you actually have the power to add me to the beta program? I am aware that version 10 has been released (already have it installed and starting to test) but want to be in the beta so I can better influence the Evernote app's evolution from its current state.

I have been a part of the Preview and the Beta programmes. Like many others, I've spent time offering feedback and making suggestions, often for what seem to be really obvious functionality or design considerations. I'm really surprised to see this release because it didn't seem that the last beta release was anywhere close to being ready.

I guess my point is that you shouldn't feel frustrated at not being able to influence Evernote's "evolution" as it doesn't seem as if being in the beta programme really made any difference.

[bishopblaize 66]

1 hour ago, Paul A. said:

I need more time to play with version 10.0.10. There is lots to like, but I am astonished at some of the design decisions. Here's one quick example:

 

Btw, just in the time it took me annotate the above image I ran into a bug three times where it reverted a change I made to one of my comments every time I tried to open the image to copy and paste it into the forum.

Yeah I did the same thing. A magnifying glass means a search box in so many other apps, they need some different signifier or everyone will just keep clicking there, especially if the sidebar is collapsed.

[Paul A. 609]

10 minutes ago, Gavin Gough said:

I guess my point is that you shouldn't feel frustrated at not being able to influence Evernote's "evolution" as it doesn't seem as if being in the beta programme really made any difference.

That's probably the worst thing that could be said about any beta program. Oof.

[Gavin Gough 88]

I've participated in the Preview and the Beta programmes for this release. I've noted bugs when I've seen them, responded to the feedback questionnaires and posted observations to the Preview and Beta forums. I'm really surprised to see this release go live when the most recent beta didn't seem nearly ready.

It feels as if this release has been rushed rather too rapidly. Perhaps to catch up with the iOS release? It doesn't even feel like a robust Beta, let alone a full release.

I appreciate this is a "journey" and improvements can still be made, etc. etc. but shouldn't the app at least... you know... work?

I made a list of some of the basic functionality that I was waiting to see fixed.

I say "fixed" because these are all things that already existed in the previous release and have not been implemented in 10.0.10.

1. Tabs! - Imagine using a web browser and the developer removed the ability to open more than one tab at a time. My mother only uses one tab in her web browser but I suspect she might be in the minority. This was highlighted early on in the beta programme and seems to have been ignored.
2. Local links - Again, highlighted early on and seemingly ignored. Not only does it seem impossible to create a local link to a note, existing evernote:// links no longer work. Imagine if you were a paying Evernote customer (I am) who'd created a lot of links in other applications (I have)! No need to imagine, I guess. So all the carefully-crafted links are not honoured. Why take this functionality away? Or why send out a product before it has this basic functionality included? </rhetorical>
3. PDF Annotation Summaries - I annotate documents, research papers etc. Previously, annotations were summarised at the top of the note. Really useful stuff! That's no longer available. Not only that, my existing annotation summaries have lost all recognisable formatting. Highlights in the wrong places, text annotations pointing to the wrong text.
4. Web Clipper - I'm not sure what's happened here but the web clipper, which used to be excellent and so much better than any competitors' solutions, is now formatting clipped content in strange and unexpected ways. What was a predictable behaviour is now a lottery.
5. Creating a Table of Contents from multiple notes - No longer an option. Why not?
6. I could go on (and frequently do).

There are a host of curious design choices that other beta users have highlighted. I'm not quite so frustrated with those things. I can live with a quirky new way of doing something as long as it works. Why do I need to click twice on a link to open it? Who knows? It's a behaviour I'm not familiar with and seems like a curious design choice but I'm really only bothered that the link opens.

TL;DR?

Evernote is broken.

At least, it doesn't work in a way that will allow me to keep using it without employing a lot of "workarounds".

This is true of the iOS release too. (The issue about offline notebooks is well documented in the relevant forum, for example.)

Having been with Evernote for 12 years, I was happy to contribute time to the Preview and Beta programmes. I liked Evernote. I encouraged friends to use it. I pestered work colleagues to download it. I don't expect to be making such encouraging noises in the future!

I'm sure a huge amount of work has gone into making this new Evernote release. Perhaps this is simply a bumpy start to an exciting journey but it's not one that I'll be joining. I just want Evernote to be what it used to be, a reliable, robust 'second brain'. This release, sadly, is not a step forward.

[luckman212 165]

Really saddened to read these comments as well as others in the 10.0 section. It looks like I'll be holding on to 7.x for a while longer while the kinks get worked out of v10.  Deal breakers for me are the internal links not working and sync issues. I'll stay tuned but this probably needs another couple of months to bake.

[gbarry 2,658]

Hi everyone--appreciate the feedback thus far. For two of the noted features above--we're continuing to work on internal links and their functionality. With regard to classic links and internal links, I'm testing against both and seeing them route correctly within the new Evernote. We have a future release to improve them when pasted outside of Evernote, but internally to Evernote they should be working on the latest version. What are you experiencing?

As for TOC, you can now copy any combination of multi selected notes into a bulleted or numbered list in the editor, creating your own table of contents note, and re-arrange it using the editor's drag and drop capabilities for the bulleted list. It adds two steps, but increases the overall flexibility of being able to apply groups of note links throughout. Additionally, we remember the order in which you have selected the notes, meaning you can quickly compile your TOC list (or any list) of note links quickly for pasting into any note. Would really love to hear if that additional flexibility expands and improves upon the TOC functionality.

[smac9 15]

Many functions are no longer supported. I am going to uninstall the new version and go back to the older version until they are fixed.

• I can't open notebooks in tabs like earlier.
• Presentation mode.
• Need to click twice on links of other notes to visit them.
• No preferences.
• No sync option.

And still discovering more missing features. The new release is a downgrade, even though it's a new system - they ought to have educated the users about these features.

[stocky2605 401]

OK, after releasing 10.0.x they have an even larger beta test community for the Mac Client, too. (besides the new iOS version)

none of my reported bugs are fixed, e. g. you cannot add/remove columns in list view of notebooks - that's bad.

And no, I don't report them again due to lack of time.

[MosesGTC 13]

1. Missing CONTEXT/ related notes suggestions
2. Cant do presentation
3. Cant search without internet
4. Notes are not located locally?!

[luckman212 165]

Oh my god is this really true? No more local search or storage?? So if EN goes belly up I guess there goes your entire note library, good luck searching or exporting anything. Poof.

[Gavin Gough 88]

9 hours ago, gbarry said:

Hi everyone--appreciate the feedback thus far. For two of the noted features above--we're continuing to work on internal links and their functionality. With regard to classic links and internal links, I'm testing against both and seeing them route correctly within the new Evernote. We have a future release to improve them when pasted outside of Evernote, but internally to Evernote they should be working on the latest version. What are you experiencing?

As for TOC, you can now copy any combination of multi selected notes into a bulleted or numbered list in the editor, creating your own table of contents note, and re-arrange it using the editor's drag and drop capabilities for the bulleted list. It adds two steps, but increases the overall flexibility of being able to apply groups of note links throughout. Additionally, we remember the order in which you have selected the notes, meaning you can quickly compile your TOC list (or any list) of note links quickly for pasting into any note. Would really love to hear if that additional flexibility expands and improves upon the TOC functionality.

Hi, thanks for your reply.

It's good to know Classic links will be reinstated. Existing links do work, as you say, but not in the same way. Previously, clicking an evernote:// link would open that note in a new window, which was ideal. Now, focus moves to the current note in Evernote, losing focus on the note currently selected. If the Evernote window is full-screen, it's necessary to go and find it. It's a different behaviour and whilst it's not a huge deal, it's another example of something that previously worked simply and effectively is now a lot more awkward.

It is possible to create a list of notes, as you described. Thanks for that. But, again, here are several steps to replace a feature that previously took one. Yes, a bulleted list can be reordered. That's handy. Is it better than the previous one-click approach? I'd say that's debatable. For me, no, it's more cumbersome.

Finally, I really do appreciate the feedback and can see that some of these issues might be resolved in the future. But they came up in the Beta testing. The issue about internal links certainly did. The lack of tabs too. You and I spoke in the forum about the mess with annotation summaries and I spent some time providing examples and system logs. I'm really struggling to understand why this release has been pushed out before these things were fixed. They're not flourishes I'm looking for, they're basic workflow functions.

I can't work with this version so have returned to the previous release. Therefore testing the issues you mentioned requires reinstalling 10.0.10. You're welcome.

The iOS release is just as bad. Not relevant to this forum thread, I know, but relevant to the question of why Evernote appears to be pushing out a product before it's ready. It was literally impossible to type the title of a note in the first iOS 10 release. And here's a quick sketch note I just added in the most recent version. It says, "Here is a note that I am writing with the sketch option in Evernote iOS". If you can guess what the last sentence says, I'll give a special prize. I certainly don't know and I wrote it!

And that illustrates my bigger point. What was a perfectly usable and productive app has been broken. The cosmetic changes are lovely and I appreciate them. I also understand that you can't please all the people all the time and satisfying all users is impossible. But when it's not possible to write the heading of a note or add handwriting to a note or link to a note or annotate a note or open more than one note... it's no longer a usable notes app. Is it?

[ElephantPaper 2]

I'm so glad I can download the Legacy, not liking the new version at all. It feels a lot more sluggish and this confirms it after realising it's web app, ugh.

What I need the most is to be able to put the notes above and the editor below because my display is on vertical mode. 

[gbarry 2,658]

5 hours ago, stocky2605 said:

none of my reported bugs are fixed, e. g. you cannot add/remove columns in list view of notebooks - that's bad.

@stocky2605--I believe this issue may be resolved in the latest release. You can add/remove columns by right clicking anywhere in the list view column, or clicking the view options button when list view is selected. It looks like we have some work to do to retain the saved columns on a per view basis, which would increase the flexibility here.

[gbarry 2,658]

Searching offline should also be working and available. At initial install, we load up the note meta data first, which lets you quickly orient to what is available in the account, builds the lists, etc. The note content syncs in the background, and depending on the size of your account, may take some time to do this. If you click into any note or search for a note that is not synced yet, we will opportunistically load that up ahead of what is already syncing.

That initial load of meta data can also make it look like the notes are unavailable if you go offline during this initial sync. I'd be interested if you're still running into an offline issue after the notes have loaded. Working offline is an important part of the experience.

[DTLow 5,736]

22 minutes ago, gbarry said:

At initial install, we load up the note meta data first, which lets you quickly orient to what is available in the account, builds the lists, etc. The note content syncs in the background, and depending on the size of your account, may take some time to do this.

This background sync isn't new
I can do a search on *, and get a count of notes downloaded/indexed

[stocky2605 401]

31 minutes ago, gbarry said:

@stocky2605--I believe this issue may be resolved in the latest release. You can add/remove columns by right clicking anywhere in the list view column, or clicking the view options button when list view is selected. It looks like we have some work to do to retain the saved columns on a per view basis, which would increase the flexibility here.

@gbarryunfortunately for me, no - yes, the coloumns do appear in the menu after right click, but nothing happens, when I select/deselect columns - the list view remains unchanged - as long as you are within a notebook - the changes are applied to "all notes view" only.

UPDATE: it works only if I use the view options button! using right click to the list view column, nothing happens

[gbarry 2,658]

46 minutes ago, stocky2605 said:

@gbarryunfortunately for me, no - yes, the coloumns do appear in the menu after right click, but nothing happens, when I select/deselect columns - the list view remains unchanged - as long as you are within a notebook - the changes are applied to "all notes view" only.

UPDATE: it works only if I use the view options button! using right click to the list view column, nothing happens

Got it. Thanks for checking. I have one last theory on this, which I think will involve a UX fix on our side. The list view is horizontally scrollable, it doesn't automatically scale to fit added columns. Is it possible the added columns are hidden behind the note panel? You can drag it out to expose additional real-estate for the list. I don't think this is happening because you mentioned it works with the view options button, but I want to double check (because our approach here radically changes).

[toao 147]

I've been an evernote user since january of 2010, but started to use it as the basis of pretty much all my digital processes in 2013. and I have loved it. boy, have I loved it. family, friends, neighbours and colleagues, all of them have been indoctrinated by me to join my enthusiasm. some got annoyed, some smiled, but many have become converts.

Now Evernote certainly did not make it easy to continue to use and love the product over recent years, but I hung in there. Ian's smart and funny videos finally indicated things were moving again and the fact that while there were shinier and more capable tools out there Evernote continued to be a reliable and oh so unbelievably flexible workhorse.

I was already somewhat skeptical when it transcended that electron, a web development environment, would be the basis of the rebuild, but hey, I am not a coder, so what do I know. so there was still considerable enthusiasm on my end when I finally saw the note of version 10 coming out. fortunately I did not install right away, but took the time to go through the release notes. and there it was: no more local notebooks. and not even a comment or a hint on any substitute for them. maybe optional zero knowledge encryption of local notebooks instead? no word about it. could have turned the loss into a benefit. not happening. at least not for now.

maybe it is a european thing or maybe it is just me, but there is no way I would send my financial or medical information or some other private data unencrypted into the cloud. not even evernote's (which is actually google's cloud, isn't it?!). and a quick row call with my converts shows a lot of agreement there.

this is a sad day (for me). in some interview Ian had indicated three main new features will be coming in the next few months, so maybe, just maybe, zero knowledge encryption of notebooks is one of them, but I will not hold my breath considering there is not more uproar here about the missing local notebooks. I guess I need to start contemplating a heart transplant for my digital processes.

so, while I wait for the next three things Ian has hinted at: what other tools are out there on the mac? my current favorite would be devonthink, but would be curious about other pointers.

cheers,

Lorenz

 

[pansovic 68]

I totally agree with the frustration. 

My tables are a mess when inserting a document. It's like going 5 years back. Impressive the lousy work. It's just basic stuff what we are asking. 

[Attila Balogh 20]

Guys I'm disappointed...

Unfortunately the new version is not better, not even the same...

It's just a copycat of the web so a lot of desktop features has been dropped... I see that it is easyer to maintain from development side, but as a user... I'm disappointed. How can it be that with an upgrade the app lossing a lot of features? Saving development costs? 

[Mostafa Al Belliehy 11]

On 10/7/2020 at 6:02 PM, DTLow said:

Confirmed - but this step may not be necessary; I would wait until I get an error message

I ran the new version for few minutes and tossed immediately.

For me, I just deleted the app in Applications folder, recopied the old version 7.14 (I keep older versions on my machines for some time), then ran it.

Everything worked well without any issues and sync is OK.

[Alvin C 121]

3 小時前, Attila Balogh說:

Guys I'm disappointed...

Unfortunately the new version is not better, not even the same...

It's just a copycat of the web so a lot of desktop features has been dropped... I see that it is easyer to maintain from development side, but as a user... I'm disappointed. How can it be that with an upgrade the app lossing a lot of features? Saving development costs? 

While they want every platform to be similar, iPad cannot have the same (number of) functions as Mac.

For users, it would be great if iOS and Android smartphone can have the same UI and functions. Smartphone, tablets and laptops can have different workflow and interaction while keeping the same functionality. I know this is more difficult, but truly beneficial to users.

This Mac version is not as disastrous as iOS one (surprisingly that it is a bit faster than Notion in which it is also based on Electron framework) but will take away a lot of features that some users have, and some functions take one more step, like renaming tags that I no longer tap the name and correct it immediately (now I have to call out the menu to choose 'rename').

 

[stocky2605 401]

20 hours ago, gbarry said:

Got it. Thanks for checking. I have one last theory on this, which I think will involve a UX fix on our side. The list view is horizontally scrollable, it doesn't automatically scale to fit added columns. Is it possible the added columns are hidden behind the note panel? You can drag it out to expose additional real-estate for the list. I don't think this is happening because you mentioned it works with the view options button, but I want to double check (because our approach here radically changes).

@gbarrystrange behavior, on one notebook it works, on another one it doesn't (it changes then again "all notes view" and sometimes other notebooks) - and no, nothing is hidden, cannot scroll anything - seems to be a UX bug since, as you know, using the view options button works well.

[NizarR 1]

Hello, 
It seems that this thread is the right place to get answers on the missing features I used to love Evernote for, adding to the things mentioned above, here's my list:

• Tags: are harder to use and no longer serve their purpose. 
  • I can no longer select multiple tags at the same time from the tags sidebar. Once I click on the tag it closes the sidebar and applies a filter based on that one selection. 
  • Previously, when I select a tag, it highlights all the combinations (which was very useful).
  • I have sub-tabs, the buttons for expanding and collapsing parent tags are gone
  • Previously, in the notes list, it shows only the tags applied to the notes in the notebook in question. Now (after going to the filter menu then to tags sub-menu) it shows all tags
• Global shortcuts are all gone: and no information if they will be brought back
• Some of the attachment extensions are no longer supported: e.g, tiff (no longer supported so I lost so many of my images), some 'big' images are displayed as attachments not as images.
• Share: no longer connected to my contacts, it used to give suggestions from my contacts once I start writing an email address or name
• Sidebar: not showing the notes count (hopefully it will be back with the preferences)
• In-App (classic) Links are gone: I know it's mentioned above but I had to repeat since I heavily rely on it to link notes from other applications 

 

 

[aukirk 367]

23 hours ago, stocky2605 said:

@gbarryunfortunately for me, no - yes, the coloumns do appear in the menu after right click, but nothing happens, when I select/deselect columns - the list view remains unchanged - as long as you are within a notebook - the changes are applied to "all notes view" only.

UPDATE: it works only if I use the view options button! using right click to the list view column, nothing happens

1 hour ago, stocky2605 said:

@gbarrystrange behavior, on one notebook it works, on another one it doesn't (it changes then again "all notes view" and sometimes other notebooks) - and no, nothing is hidden, cannot scroll anything - seems to be a UX bug since, as you know, using the view options button works well.

@stocky2605 and @gbarry - is it possible that the disconnect here is that the column is showing up in the list view, but just not sortable in search results

 

?  Stocky indicates "when I select/deselect columns - the list view remains unchanged".... so it doesn't appear that it is an issue with the column showing on the screen real estate, but that it is not changing the sort order.

I have experienced the same thing with the Reminders column, but it only fails to work in saved searches.  If I am in All Notes, or a specific notebook, I can sort by the Reminders column.  However, if I am in search results or a saved search, clicking on the Reminders column does not change the sort order.  It appears that search results are only sortable by title, created, updated fields.  I find this to be a huge problem with my workflow, since I have lots of saved searches for different types of reminders based on context, so hopefully this is on the radar/roadmap to repair.

 

[Marko Zorec 4]

Ok - i can do the clean macos install so i suppose there will be no problem with sync... anyway - the old version which i found here is too old for me - i want the just previous version before the last one....

anyway - am I wrong or this new macos desktop evernote is realy just the same like the browser version? The tables are different, the fonts are different - why all this? It is really bad....

[xmasmoneky 72]

On 10/7/2020 at 8:36 AM, DTLow said:

edit  This is the best news I've seen; we can install a legacy version, and run side-by-side with v10
https://discussion.evernote.com/forums/topic/128793-roll-back-to-714-possible-or-not/?do=findComment&comment=578723

By the way - appreciate the Evernote team releasing v10 in a way that you can still run v7.  Migrating to a new code base is *always* painful (but necessary to unlock the next wave of innovation).  This gives users options to maintain current workflows until v10 matures enough for them to switch over (and/or they decide v10 is not going to work for them no matter what).

That said - I need Top View back or else I'm leaving forever.  And you'll miss me.  Believe me.  You'll miss me.

[nigelrumsey 17]

11 hours ago, DTLow said:

No - v10.0 overwrites v7.14

btw The legacy App is identified as v7.14.1

>>Any reason to stick with 7.14 and not trust Legacy in the same way I trust 7.14?

I'm guessing the two apps are equivalent and the Legacy version can be trusted
I'm sticking with 7.14 because my Applescripts aren't set up to reference Evernote Legacy

Also, v10.0 is a work-in-progress - I recommend not upgrading until the work is completed

It’s helpful we continue to run the old version. I, like many others here, participated in the beta. I spent a lot of time testing and feeding back, however, it seems that none of that work has been taken into account. I’m not arrogant enough to think that EN are going to tailor the release to suit my requirements.

But EN is a not a game, I like many, are using all day everyday as part of my business. This latest release is obviously far from complete and shouldn’t have been a general release.

As a long term user I couldn’t be more disappointed. Evernote have lost my trust and good will. 

[luckman212 165]

@Claudio79 Welcome to the wonderful world of Electron apps! Where the simplest of tasks takes 10x longer than it should, because EN is is just another bloated javascript web page now. Don't wait up for a native preferences pane - it's never coming back (not possible to implement in Electron).

[Airbear 6]

Evernote is still banking on the idea that users won't leave because all their notes are in Evernote but the way this is going... I might change from a devoted user to leaving the Evernote system. There are never great surprises like in the past, just short term solutions to sh(*&ty software they produced... From workflow to zero in no time.

[jochi 3]

Pasting my post that was never responded to in the beta group. It's apparently closed now with no indication anywhere except the fact you can't reply. Whatever, seems typical of Evernote at this point.. seriously disappointed with all the resources they have that this is the best they could do.

Quote

 

I've been an Evernote user since the very early days and a Premium subscriber for years. I've always been frustrated by the slow performance, but I put up with it for the other features. The Beta is certainly an improvement but it's got some significant issues that will prevent (or at least discourage) me from continuing to use it. Any ideas on the below?

1. Markdown — I use this heavily in my workflow. Support for composing with markdown is nice addition but the Evernote format is a disappointing limitation ... once it's in Evernote proprietary format it ceases to serve the purpose of having a portable note format

2. Keyboard shortcuts — The new version has all this internal menuing with very limited shortcuts and ability to customize

3. Collaboration — I share lots of Notebooks and links with my family. The new version dispenses with the evernote:// URL protocol for shared links so they open in a web browser instead of the app, a real nuisance. After years of wrestling with it, I finally came up with a Keyboard Maestro macro that did the trick to get the evernote:// link, but that function is removed entirely in the beta. Seems literally counterproductive for a productivity app to spawn a new browser window/tab every time a user clicks a shared link.

4. AppleScript — I've had an AppleScript watching a folder on my Mac that imports any file I drop into it. There seems to be no support for AppleScript at all. 

5. I have several shared notebooks with my family. I created some notes recently in my default notebook, only to find when I wanted to move them to the shared notebook that all the shared notebooks were locked.

 

 

[MrIllustrator 165]

I'm 100% behind you, so many things that are missing it's hard to come to terms with.

[DTLow 5,736]

8 minutes ago, Bsoan said:

so many things that are missing it's hard to come to terms with.

I've come to terms with Evernote offering a new product   
I can chose to continue with the old product, or switch to the new product

For now, I'm continuing with the legacy version
I'll take another look at v10 when the work-in-progress is completed

[anoell 15]

I have been using Evernote for about 10 years, recommended it to several people, was beta tester for a while ... and now I am so disappointed! So many useful functions and shortcuts were scrapped, Evernote has been mutilated!

Here are some of my complaints and I am finding more every day:

- Is the only option to send a note to a non Evernote user now by copy & paste? really?

- The option of easily creating a table of content is gone (yes, I know there is a clumsy workaround).

- A big irritation is the window size. When the app is closed, it (often, but not always!) defaults to small size, not filling the window as I set it before.

- The option of just having the main note window in white / light mode, but both sidebars in dark mode is also gone.

- And of course the main problem, the missing tabs, on which I have commented on already in another thread, has totally destroyed my workflow in Evernote.

Unfortunately I had to look now for an alternative. Having said this I realised that Evernote tries to make that very difficult to leave as html export is not possible anymore, so you are basically stuck!

So the bottomline is: The new version is not usable.

I have re-installed the Legacy version to be able to work with it until I found the best alternative.

 

 

 

[stocky2605 401]

On 10/9/2020 at 2:33 PM, stocky2605 said:

@gbarrystrange behavior, on one notebook it works, on another one it doesn't (it changes then again "all notes view" and sometimes other notebooks) - and no, nothing is hidden, cannot scroll anything - seems to be a UX bug since, as you know, using the view options button works well.

@gbarryI was contacted by your support staff - just trashed, rebooted and re-installed Evernote.App - this did fix the problem. Unbelievable, re-installing is still a good way to solve problems, even in 2020 🙂

No problem now to add/remove any columns in any notebooks.

[MrIllustrator 165]

I'm getting more problems every day, sorry, The latest, if I click on a particular tag in the favourites bar on my Mac it say 163 notes but in iOS if I tap on the same tag in the favourites it only shows 128 notes. Oh my goodness, this is so frustrating. I've double checked what I'm doing and I'm sure it's not user error. It's the same tag.

This list of things wrong is getting very long indeed, If only I had somewhere to reliable store it.

I absolutely love Evernote and so I'm hoping that all these things will eventually get sorted out for both iOS & MacOS.

(Update) around an hour later the correct number of notes now displays. Both Computer and my iPhone had full working internet access throughout all the time they did not sync and both evernotes had been opened and closed several times to try and force a sync as that option is no longer available in the apps. Basically they didn't sync for nearly an hour and I don't know why. Never happened before like that before 10

(Update 2) I just watched a youtube video and the chap actually recommends you "Force Quit" evernote for iPad in order to get it to sync. Enough said, I suppose that applies to iPhone and possibly to the mac, who knows.

 

[Burstl 7]

 

I am very dissapointed with the new Evernote. Essentially almost all customisation options have been taken away. I will address a few points that I immediately recognised.

• Preferences are gone. This is embarrassing for a new release to be honest. Before it was possible to choose dark mode but leave the notes in light mode. Please include that option again.
• Tables: It is not possible anymore to choose any color you want from a color picker, only a few preset colors. Also it is not possible to change the color of the table border anymore. This was essential for me since I put a lot of work in customising my notes and used tables in essentially almost every note.
• Tables: You cannot resize tables anymore.
• Attachments: You cannot resize the symbols of attachments anymore which makes notes very clunky. If you want to put an attachment in a table the table is messed up since the attachment symbols are very long. Either let the user resize the attachment icon or give options for smaller preview symbols, for example like widgets on iPhone where you can choose 3 sizes.
• Fonts: I understand that for a fast note it is good to have only a few preset fonts. However, there should always be the option to choose the font you like. 

These are only a few points i realized immediately. I honestly cant believe how this was accepted as release. It is fine to rewrite everything from scratch but you cannot take away essentially all customisation options. This is an insult to the user since the user doesnt have any option and you reformat all notes that users have spent many hours to personalise.

I am sure if these customisation options dont come back, many users will leave and look for an alternative. The idea of a newer version of a program is improving on it not taking most of its features away.

[stocky2605 401]

6 hours ago, stocky2605 said:

@gbarryI was contacted by your support staff - just trashed, rebooted and re-installed Evernote.App - this did fix the problem. Unbelievable, re-installing is still a good way to solve problems, even in 2020 🙂

No problem now to add/remove any columns in any notebooks.

@gbarrypuh, problem is back 😞 only view options button is working, right click in columns gone

[MrIllustrator 165]

If you go up and down in the note list using the arrow keys the note doesn't refresh in the (as I was typing this I got this error message below and half the text I typed into this note disappeared):

I'll start again, If you click on All Notes in the list on the left and it displays all notes and then use the arrow keys to go up and down in that list the note on the lists right does not re-fresh but instead stays the same, displaying only the first note, no matter how far you scroll with the arrow keys on the other notes, It only refreshes if you deliberately click on one of the notes in the list on the left and only then correctly displaying the contents of the note.

[Paul A. 609]

48 minutes ago, MrIllustrator said:

I'll start again, If you click on All Notes in the list on the left and it displays all notes and then use the arrow keys to go up and down in that list the note on the lists right does not re-fresh but instead stays the same, displaying only the first note, no matter how far you scroll with the arrow keys on the other notes, It only refreshes if you deliberately click on one of the notes in the list on the left and only then correctly displaying the contents of the note.

Evernote staff has confirmed elsewhere in the forums that this is by design. We need to hit "enter" on a different note in order for the selected note to load. I suspect (just my speculation) that this is for performance reasons.

[Zaylor 11]

Just "updated" to the new Evernote for Mac.

What the hell did they do to Evernote for Mac? It used to be perfect. Now it is barely useable.

Most importantly, I used to be able to have a horizontally split view with the list of notes on top and the editor/viewer on the bottom. Now it seems only the vertically split view is available.

It used to be that when you split Evernote to the left or right half of the screen it would automatically hide the sidebar. This was perfect behavior. It no longer does this.

They got rid of the CMD-J note switcher! This feature saved so much time!

I wish I could roll back
Taylor

[MrIllustrator 165]

13 hours ago, Paul A. said:

Evernote staff has confirmed elsewhere in the forums that this is by design. We need to hit "enter" on a different note in order for the selected note to load. I suspect (just my speculation) that this is for performance reasons.

That can’t be an interface design choice,  (no screen refresh) that’s how people search for their stuff! You have to (see your stuff or you can’t search) what’s the point if you can’t see it, No email program has ever worked like that for good reason (would you use it if it did) and no version of Evernote (until now) ever worked like that, so it’s not an improvement, a design choice for performance reasons.  
How that behaviour (no screen refresh) is an improvement please, (until you hit the enter key). 
I can’t see any advantage, it’s quite the opposite. 
Am I really expected to hit the enter key and then the down arrow hundreds of times a day just to see my note contents and not just the titles? Madness. 

This is a little bit ironic because there are other areas of the new interface where hitting the return key does absolutely nothing when it should, like trying to select a notebook. You are forced to take your hand off the keyboard and use the mouse to double click on a notebook in a list of 1 in order to select it, even though you’ve just narrowed the search down to just 1 notebook! using the keyboard already. Surely just hitting the enter key at that point would’ve been the right way to go, it works with tags on some screens but not notebooks? That conversation is for another post. 

I don’t want to criticise, I want to be constructive, I want a clear two way conversation so in case I’m missing something or simply not understanding a new more efficient workflow I can learn, I don't think this is an example of that.

I think the iOS implementation is really a massive improvement over the old, apart from sync issues I'm having at the moment. (Basic). (Back end fixed?)  but the MacOS Evernote seems to have been written for a touch interface, just like iOS and has ignored the accepted interface design conventions that make it usable on a computer.

Evernote is, was, a wonderful product that might just need a few tweaks to make it even better. 

[MrIllustrator 165]

7 hours ago, Zaylor said:

They got rid of the CMD-J note switcher! This feature saved so much time!

I wish I could roll back
Taylor

Hi Taylor, That's my biggest miss of the new evernote CMD-J such a brilliant thing when I was told this tip, I didn't look back.

But you can roll back if you want, I did on one computer, re-loaded 7.14 and kept the new version on the other computer, just in case they fix all these problems and start adding these essential features back. It's like live beta testing. Evernote users live in such interesting times.

How to roll back youtube video link: https://tinyurl.com/yycbyqba 

Here's the link on how to go back and install the older version:

https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/360052560314

This guy makes a living out of evernote and he's just said in this video that evernote are releasing beta level software to the public.

 

[monicaricciorganizer 6]

On 10/9/2020 at 3:28 AM, Attila Balogh said:

Guys I'm disappointed...

Unfortunately the new version is not better, not even the same...

It's just a copycat of the web so a lot of desktop features has been dropped... I see that it is easyer to maintain from development side, but as a user... I'm disappointed. How can it be that with an upgrade the app lossing a lot of features? Saving development costs? 

At least you can open the app. 

It's really disappointing when known bugs / issues are ignored and new versions are rolled out without being tested well enough. Very disappointing especially to those who pay for premium service. I depend on Evernote for my business and now I feel like I need to somehow figure out how to export my notes in case the app becomes unusable. Like it is now. As in, won't open. Sooooo.... 

[stocky2605 401]

Dear Evernote Team,

maybe it would be easier to re-implement all features of the V7 version and then ask the community what features could be removed.

This way, remove many, and then ask what features needs to be restored is bad.

[DTLow 5,736]

11 hours ago, stocky2605 said:

maybe it would be easier to re-implement all features of the V7 version and then ask the community what features could be removed.

This way, remove many, and then ask what features needs to be restored is bad.

I don't think so - it would take years for such development   
We'll see a shorter time frame if selected missing features are implemented

I would have been happier if the dropped feature list was discussed ahead of the release   
Instead, we get the release with the notice feature x has been dropped (like Local Notebooks)   
And no notice for some dropped features; we had to discover ourselves (like Email)

[s2sailor 2,181]

3 hours ago, stocky2605 said:

maybe it would be easier to re-implement all features of the V7 version and then ask the community what features could be removed.

Not for the Evernote development team 🙂

[Jon/t 1,275]

On 10/11/2020 at 1:04 AM, luckman212 said:

@Claudio79 Welcome to the wonderful world of Electron apps! Where the simplest of tasks takes 10x longer than it should, because EN is is just another bloated javascript web page now. Don't wait up for a native preferences pane - it's never coming back (not possible to implement in Electron).

You can do this in Electron.... best way would be to design an interface and when saved it stores prefs in a JSON file locally on the hard drive. When the app is loaded prefs can be called from this file.

You could also sync this as well if you want so all devices have the same settings. EG select Dark Mode on Windows and it appears on all other apps as the setting is synced.

You could also set prefs directly in the cloud as well... lots and lots of options available just depends how the devs want to do it.

[xmasmoneky 72]

1 hour ago, Jon/t said:

You can do this in Electron.... best way would be to design an interface and when saved it stores prefs in a JSON file locally on the hard drive. When the app is loaded prefs can be called from this file.

Moving forward - when you think Electron, think positive!

[Paul A. 609]

12 hours ago, MrIllustrator said:

I don’t want to criticise, I want to be constructive, I want a clear two way conversation so in case I’m missing something or simply not understanding a new more efficient workflow I can learn, I don't think this is an example of that.

I agree, I don't think it's an improvement to require enter to load the note, but it is clearly designed to work this way as stated by the product manager in comments in these forums. Putting on my speculation cap, I suspect that the new app loads notes significantly more slowly than the legacy app (I haven't measured but it certainly feels like this is the case), and this slower loading is probably much more noticeable when quickly arrowing through a list of notes. It probably makes the app feel extremely sluggish, so the solution they came up with is to simply not load a new note until the user performs an affirmative action (i.e. the enter key).

Increasing the performance of the app would perhaps allow this issue to be solved, but it may not be feasible to sufficiently improve the app's performance to go back to the way it was in the legacy app. Alternatively, one possible design change would be to use a "pause" as an indicator that the user wishes to load a note. That would allow a user to rapidly arrow through a list of notes without the app feeling sluggish, and then when a user pauses on a note (for some short period of time, perhaps 1 second) Evernote could then load the note automatically without needing an enter key.

 

[MrIllustrator 165]

14 hours ago, Paul A. said:

I agree, I don't think it's an improvement to require enter to load the note, but it is clearly designed to work this way as stated by the product manager in comments in these forums. Putting on my speculation cap, I suspect that the new app loads notes significantly more slowly than the legacy app (I haven't measured but it certainly feels like this is the case), and this slower loading is probably much more noticeable when quickly arrowing through a list of notes. It probably makes the app feel extremely sluggish, so the solution they came up with is to simply not load a new note until the user performs an affirmative action (i.e. the enter key).

Increasing the performance of the app would perhaps allow this issue to be solved, but it may not be feasible to sufficiently improve the app's performance to go back to the way it was in the legacy app. Alternatively, one possible design change would be to use a "pause" as an indicator that the user wishes to load a note. That would allow a user to rapidly arrow through a list of notes without the app feeling sluggish, and then when a user pauses on a note (for some short period of time, perhaps 1 second) Evernote could then load the note automatically without needing an enter key.

 

Thank you Paul, that makes sense, It's such a pity that it appears that they have sacrificed such an important interaction with the program, no other program that I know of works that way for good reason. I suppose it has something to do with this removal of your own data off your own computer which again if true I'm finding hard to believe. Is it true?.

Can it be true that they've moved all my data for evernote into the cloud and what's why we have such long delays in window re-freshes now, many seconds long, on one re-fresh where I just clicked on a tag I had to wait 7 seconds, I started counting them because I couldn't believe it. In the past it's instant as we all know.

Have they really moved the whole database on line without telling anyone up front? This is what I'm hearing off other posts, if so, which I'm suspecting what a terrible way to find out.

Update, here's another one, I just clicked on one of my tags "rates" and it took the screen so long to update (around 8 seconds) I took this screenshot of what I was seeing in that time. There's far more wrong with this program than missing features. Note the un-named notebooks on the left, they of course do have names but they didn't re-fresh, they look like missing teeth, which is funny because they feel like missing teeth to me. (Because like thousands of users I've invested many years building this databases and don't like to see my data being treated like this). Oh in case anyone thought that it was my internet connection, these are my connection speeds: ping: 14ms Download: 149.93Mbps Upload 21.16Mbps which I believe is quite good.

[Paul A. 609]

@MrIllustrator

Evernote notes* have always live in the cloud, they just also lived on your PC, assuming you had a PC. The mobile clients worked a little differently. The old clients are well understood by the community - we know exactly how and where notes are stored, how they sync, the benefits and limitations, etc.

The new apps change how they store and sync notes, and the community is still developing an understanding of exactly how they work. Your notes still live in the cloud, and to some extent they are also stored on your PC for offline use. Whether this is a 100% copy of your entire cloud database without any size restriction is, to my knowledge, still unknown.

The lag you are experiencing might be a side-effect of the new architecture, or could be a side-effect of your notes not fully syncing to your PC, or (perhaps more likely) could simply be a bug. Would encourage you to reach out to support, particularly if you can repeatedly recreate the situation where things take multiple seconds to load.

 

*The legacy desktop apps included a "local notebook" option which kept notes entirely local to your PC, but this is not how most people tend to use Evernote.

[MrIllustrator 165]

I know Evernote has always been in the cloud of course, but it was also on my computer, that's the only way it could bring back the search results and screen re-freshes so quickly, so when I did a simple search it was instant, when I clicked on a notebook it was instant, when I clicked on a tag it was instant.

As you know, now it isn't approaching those types of speeds, I can click on a tag and yesterday one took 8 seconds to re-fresh and show me the associated notes (10). I videoed it because I couldn't believe it. What do you think accounts for the incredibly slow speed so many users are experiencing now in version 10+ but not in the previous versions.

I have a quite good internet connection speed and nothing is competing with Evernote for the bandwidth.

14ms ping, 148mbps download, 21mbps upload and the computer I'm running Evernote 10.1.4 on is 11 years younger than the computer in the other room running 7.14 and you guessed it the 7.14 computer is instant in it's searches and screen re-freshes instant, this one is not with it's 11 year younger architecture.

I can click on a tag or a notebook and literally start counting 1, 2, 3, etc. and then it re-freshes, the longest time it took was on one tag, 9 seconds I got to before it showed the results.

(Update) just did it again to show myself I wasn't fooling myself, I switched back to Evernote 10.1.4 and clicked on a tag in the side bar, I counted to 8 before it re-freshed. Approximately 8 Seconds of counting, I wasn't counting fast but trying to make each number, one second long.

[Paul A. 609]

4 hours ago, MrIllustrator said:

As you know, now it isn't approaching those types of speeds, I can click on a tag and yesterday one took 8 seconds to re-fresh and show me the associated notes (10). I videoed it because I couldn't believe it. What do you think accounts for the incredibly slow speed so many users are experiencing now in version 10+ but not in the previous versions.

It's probably a bug, or a series of bugs, or something specific to your account or your computer. I agree that the new software is not as snappy and responsive as the legacy software, but I'm seeing maybe 1.5 - 2 seconds from clicking on a tag and seeing a filtered list of notes. The difference between my 1.5 - 2 seconds and your 8 seconds is massive, and if you contact support I would hope they would want to see some of your log files and try and figure out what is going wrong for you.

[Dak 2]

I appreciate that the legacy version is available, but I'm sad that installing 10.0 broke the beta. I'm also sad that I have to run 10.0 to get updated to 10.1, since 10.0 is *so* broken for me. (No web clipper? That's more than 90% of what I use Evernote for!)

[Dak 2]

On 10/7/2020 at 2:23 PM, Gavin Gough said:

I have been a part of the Preview and the Beta programmes. Like many others, I've spent time offering feedback and making suggestions, often for what seem to be really obvious functionality or design considerations. I'm really surprised to see this release because it didn't seem that the last beta release was anywhere close to being ready.

I guess my point is that you shouldn't feel frustrated at not being able to influence Evernote's "evolution" as it doesn't seem as if being in the beta programme really made any difference.

Agreed. This version is SO cut-down from the Beta...and makes the Beta unusable by some alteration of the local database.

[soundsgoodtome 155]

I wants my notes in Helvetica Neue, as they've been for years. Why would you take away custom fonts and force us to use fonts you've preselected? What's the downside of letting us use whatever fonts we want?

I'm not against updates. I like new features! I like fresh design! But so far, all this "update" seems to do is (a) take away features we've used (b) make it harder to do things we've done for years. (Or in the case of iOS, requiring additional taps to do what we used to do with fewer taps.)

Taking away features is NOT an upgrade. This is getting more and more disappointing.

—A paid user

[DTLow 5,736]

15 minutes ago, soundsgoodtome said:

I wants my notes in Helvetica Neue, as they've been for years.

A request has been posted for fonts Here
To indicate support, use the vote button at the top left corner of the discussion

[daniel.upton2@live.com.au 1]

Make sure you have cloud HQ set up for backing up your notes, if they have made this many errors with the edition then you want to cover your data. Who knows what could happen next. 

I will stick to the Legacy client and observe updates to V10 I think, I was worried this would happen

anyways they can only go up from here I hope

[cbm967 3]

So unhappy with 10.1.7 release for Windows.

I have used Evernote for personal and work use for years and it has been superb.

I am finding new release for Windows and web unusabe.  So many problems.

 

[RobinM 2]

Thanks to all who have offered info and the download for a previous version here.

I, unfortunately, upgraded to the 'new' EN. I have a few notebooks that I want to convert to tags only and move to my general notebook, and the bright and shiny new EN will allow me to select only 50 notes at a time. It then takes about 3 minutes to tag them and then another 3 mins or so to move to a new notebook. With some 2000 notes in one notebook, how many days is this going to take me? For one notebook? This is unworkable.

I've been using Evernote since version 2 point something and have, for a few years, had a paid subscription. I, again unfortunately, got a new premium subscription just in August so have a long time til renewal - which I won't be this time. Not again. Ever.

I went to the legacy app, I selected all of them in a jiffy and then they moved out of that notebook and into another within 3 seconds!

How frustrating, disappointing, angering Evernote is. What a shame. I've now installed Bear (Apple only) and am very happy with it and will go with this notetaker moving forward. I'm angry that I've paid for an EN subscription just to be thwarted and angry when I use it. What have they done!?

[luckman212 165]

@RobinM and to the community: The more I think about this, the more I realize - "shame on us". The warning signs have been there for YEARS that EN was in big trouble. All the executives have jumped. The dev team has been gutted and replaced with a handful of outsourced Javascript kids at an undisclosed offshore location. Support team is made up of 3rd party volunteers. Prices were increased. Features were removed. Bugs keep piling up. The technical debt alone at this company must be staggering.

So in the end what we should really be doing is thanking EN for finally giving us what we have all been asking for: A reason to finally hit that emergency eject button. There is no other option at this point. Which is clearly what they want us to do, based on their user-hostile behavior and antipatterns year after year. There is simply no other rational explanation.

[xmasmoneky 72]

22 minutes ago, luckman212 said:

There is simply no other rational explanation.

<rant>

The Evernote Team is not "out to get us".  Maintaining 6 unique native code bases (Android, iOS, Mac, Windows, Web, sync platform) is INCREDIBLY HARD.  Feature sets diverge between all platforms, angering users.  Pace of innovation slows, angering users.  Technical debt inevitably builds, but now you have 6 unique sources of varying technical debt.  As a result - bug fixing pace slows, angering users.  Meanwhile Evernote is a business, and it has to be sustainable.  Every company eventually reaches the "we have to make significant upgrades to our aging platform / approach if we're going to make it" phase.  Many companies throw in the towel at this point.  Evernote is fighting through this phase.  Hard choices will have to be made.  But I for one am glad they are fighting through this and trying to come out the other end.  

Hard choices mean some features will get left behind.  I might love feature X - but if the data says it is not widely used, or it is too cost-prohibitive to include - Evernote might have to cut it.  I might hate that decision.  I might join the forums and try to rally support from fellow users to demonstrate to Evernote that the return on supporting the feature is worth the investment.  This new data may help Evernote prioritize the feature now or later down the road - or they might still have to cut it in the name of creating a long-term viable platform.  But if you think the people at Evernote are happy to reduce any features that users find helpful, then you need to think again.  No software developer wants to make software less useful for users.  But the entire company going out of business because the software was unsustainable helps no one.

It bugs me when people on this forum ***** on the people of Evernote.  One can say "It is incredibly short-sighted to leave out feature X because of A, B, and C".  But saying things like "user-hostile behavior" and "shame on us" (as if the Evernote team is trying to purposely trick us) I'm sure destroys the morale of the people (like you and me) working at Evernote trying their best to deliver for as many users as they can while having to make incredibly difficult choices.  If Evernote doesn't strike the right balance, then people will leave and that is the risk the people of Evernote must face.  Let's work together (as a user forum) to boost the signal on the things we think are important, and be prepared to walk away if it doesn't work out.  But constantly challenging the intent of the Evernote team ultimately helps no one.

</rant>

 

 

[MrIllustrator 165]

Makes sense, here’s to the future. 

1 hour ago, xmasmoneky said:

Hard choices mean some features will get left behind.  I might love feature X - but if the data says it is not widely used

 

[DTLow 5,736]

4 minutes ago, MrIllustrator said:

you might have been as surprised as me to find out directly from Ian Small on YouTube that only 2% of users actually use tags ! That means that tags could easily be on the hit list of features to drop going by what you and Ian say. 

Tag use at 2% came as a surprise to me - I simply don't believe it
and I don't believe tags are an endangered feature
Evernote is a tag centric product but I know many users have trouble switching from a folder paradigm

[MrIllustrator 165]

2 hours ago, xmasmoneky said:

Hard choices mean some features will get left behind.  I might love feature X - but if the data says it is not widely used

That makes sense in some ways but did you know that less than 2% of users actually use tags, Don't take my word for it, take Ian Small's, Evernote CEO's word instead in this YouTube video recorded only yesterday 18th Oct.

Data says that tags are not widely used so will they drop them going by what you and Ian Small say.

Don't you think that would be a very hard choice indeed if tags were left behind, because they are "not widely used".

How many of my important features or yours would rank lower that 2% going by this, I thought everyone used tags, well over 75% would have been my guess, I was way out, I was very surprised to hear this. I thought tags were essential to a good workflow, apparently 98+% of Evernote users don't think so.

Go to this YouTube video at around 33:09 and listen to Ian Small say himself "Less than 2% of our audience" He moved them to the bottom because 98% of users don't use tags and they were "in the way". I wonder if Ian Small is in the (less than 2%) somehow I don't think so.

https://youtu.be/7gz0mxGC4-0

[Frki2 76]

 

3 hours ago, xmasmoneky said:

<rant>

The Evernote Team is not "out to get us".  Maintaining 6 unique native code bases (Android, iOS, Mac, Windows, Web, sync platform) is INCREDIBLY HARD.  Feature sets diverge between all platforms, angering users.  Pace of innovation slows, angering users.  Technical debt inevitably builds, but now you have 6 unique sources of varying technical debt.  As a result - bug fixing pace slows, angering users.  Meanwhile Evernote is a business, and it has to be sustainable.  Every company eventually reaches the "we have to make significant upgrades to our aging platform / approach if we're going to make it" phase.  Many companies throw in the towel at this point.  Evernote is fighting through this phase.  Hard choices will have to be made.  But I for one am glad they are fighting through this and trying to come out the other end.  

Hard choices mean some features will get left behind.  I might love feature X - but if the data says it is not widely used, or it is too cost-prohibitive to include - Evernote might have to cut it.  I might hate that decision.  I might join the forums and try to rally support from fellow users to demonstrate to Evernote that the return on supporting the feature is worth the investment.  This new data may help Evernote prioritize the feature now or later down the road - or they might still have to cut it in the name of creating a long-term viable platform.  But if you think the people at Evernote are happy to reduce any features that users find helpful, then you need to think again.  No software developer wants to make software less useful for users.  But the entire company going out of business because the software was unsustainable helps no one.

It bugs me when people on this forum ***** on the people of Evernote.  One can say "It is incredibly short-sighted to leave out feature X because of A, B, and C".  But saying things like "user-hostile behavior" and "shame on us" (as if the Evernote team is trying to purposely trick us) I'm sure destroys the morale of the people (like you and me) working at Evernote trying their best to deliver for as many users as they can while having to make incredibly difficult choices.  If Evernote doesn't strike the right balance, then people will leave and that is the risk the people of Evernote must face.  Let's work together (as a user forum) to boost the signal on the things we think are important, and be prepared to walk away if it doesn't work out.  But constantly challenging the intent of the Evernote team ultimately helps no one.

</rant>

 

 

+1 on this.

As i see it, main ranters are people using evernote for 10 or 10+ years. And that is cose THEIRS way of using evernote changed. Well, different times, different usage. People are ranting cose they are now in situation that they need to change or adopt new processes or workflows after comfortably using everything same for last 10 years.  

Maintaining 6 different softwares is just not normal or productive for evernote, and this unification is only right direction. Yes, they have/had bugs, but this is gigantic change that they are doing and is understandable. To help transition they gave possibility to use legacy evernote until all is done, so i dont see problem here.

if evernote continue to deliver changes, even small ones every 2 weeks, when probably sprint is over i will be more than satisfied and in that case evernote future is strongly bright.  

That doesent mean that they did everything perfectly but that is like in software development of old legacy problems.

[luckman212 165]

2 hours ago, xmasmoneky said:

...Maintaining 6 unique native code bases is INCREDIBLY HARD...

...Feature sets diverge between all platforms...

...Technical debt builds...

...you have 6 unique sources of varying technical debt.  As a result - bug fixing pace slows, angering users...

...Evernote is a business, and it has to be sustainable... 

Oh please. Boo hoo! This isn't some lone dev in his basement maintaining an open source codebase for free.  EN charges a fair amount for their service and we should expect the service to work. If they aren't making enough money to support the platforms properly, then drop some platforms. Or charge more until the equation balances. Don't just ***** out an Electron app after years of stagnation and declare Mission Accomplished. This company gets zero sympathy from me, that ship sailed a long time ago. Everyone was waiting to see what EN's next move was going to be after development completely stopped last year. I think many of us were hoping that they would pull out some secret weapon that would make it all worth waiting for- all the bugs, broken things, data loss, sync glitches, app slowness...

When they dumped that steaming Electron &#!% pile on us it was really a slap in the face.

[s2sailor 2,181]

2 hours ago, DTLow said:

Tag use at 2% came as a surprise to me

Same here.  I would be interested to know what the percentage is for paying customers.  I suspect most just jump to the search box and dig out notes that way.  After 12+ years and 17K of notes I'll admit that is what I do.  I only have a handful of notebooks and maybe 50 tags but I only add them into the search if the initial keywords search doesn't narrow it down enough.  That continues to work for me.  I've considered higher levels of organization but stick to what I've always done.  I'm probably just lazy, but I always find what I'm looking for.  That said, I don't think tags are endangered either.

[lisec 283]

 I'm a little more than upset that I received a notification to update to the new version 10 just a couple of minutes ago, almost one full week after they have received all the negative feedback on the version. I expected them to hold on to it for a bit longer.

[MrIllustrator 165]

I don’t think tags will go but that was an amazing statistic less than 2% use them, I do use them for the simple reason I often don’t know what I’m looking for until I see it, so I use tags as a memory aid. I don’t know how many different associated note for instance relate to my car and I can’t do a search for the word car of course because that would bring back too many unrelated notes, so I think ahead and put the tag:car on the important car related notes and then don’t worry about finding the exact notes I want every single time. I use this for many many important things to me. Just searching without structure does not work for me at all. That is also why I put things in folders on my computer. 

[Paul A. 609]

1 hour ago, MrIllustrator said:

Go to this YouTube video at around 33:09 and listen to Ian Small say himself "Less than 2% of our audience" He moved them to the bottom because 98% of users don't use tags and they were "in the way". I wonder if Ian Small is in the (less than 2%) somehow I don't think so.

He's said in a different recent interview that he's a notebook person (he likes to file notes), and only rarely uses tags when necessary for a note which could otherwise live in multiple notebooks. He also appears to be a Windows / iOS guy, which might explain why Mac and Android seem to be getting a bit of short shrift compared to the pre-Ian-Small era, where the Mac and Android apps were (arguably) superior to Windows and iOS. 😕

Edit:

As for the 2% of users use tags, when the denominator is the total population of all Evernote users, including the dormant or very occasional users who may have been invited to collaborate on a single note or only keep a handful of rarely updated notes, then I could believe that number.

If one considers the population of active, heavy, paying users, I would imagine the percentage is much higher, high enough that I doubt they would ever consider getting rid of tags.

Edited October 19, 2020 by Paul A.
Added thoughts

[xmasmoneky 72]

24 minutes ago, Paul A. said:

As for the 2% of users use tags, when the denominator is the total population of all Evernote users, including the dormant or very occasional users who may have been invited to collaborate on a single note or only keep a handful of rarely updated notes, then I could believe that number.

If one considers the population of active, heavy, paying users, I would imagine the percentage is much higher, high enough that I doubt they would ever consider getting rid of tags.

Was going to say the same thing.  Here's some of the data I would look at:

• What % of searches (in search bar, clicking on a tag, etc.) make use of tags to filter the query?
• What % of users who had tags created later remove tags?  (signal on ongoing feature utility)
• What % of users who create a tag in week 1 of installing Evernote come back in week 2?  (i.e. impact of tags on product retention)
• What % of free accounts that convert to premium have tags created?
• What % of paying users have tags created?
• What % of 7-day active paying users have tags created?
• What % of premium accounts that renews in the past 24 months have tags created?

There is a ton more ways to slice the data - e.g. classifying users into casual, intermediate, and power users based on activities / activity level and then seeing how much tag usage correlates with each classification, etc.  Finally - to top it all off - there are also some features that are just foundational to the product that you can't leave out, or you might get an unexpected signal boost in importance through feedback from users in forums, etc.  One hopes that the Evernote team looks at all these quantitative and qualitative data points together to help drive product and prioritization decisions.

I personally think concepts like "tags" and "notebooks" fall under the foundational concept of Evernote (organizing your notes).  So I doubt they would ever be cut (but if they were - I'd personally have to find another solution).  But I think about something like Top View.  It was cut from Evernote's last big update a few years ago, I think based on low usage.  Many of the people on this forum (myself included) really pushed hard for it to be restored, and an Evernote employee took notice and engaged with the forum on better helping to articulate the value of the feature despite stats showing low usage.  We made a compelling case that not being able to see a note full-width had a real negative impact on a whole class of users (those working on smaller screens).  Evernote eventually brought it back - and though it isn't in v10 yet (so I continue to use v7 myself), the Evernote team proactively mentioned it is coming given the signal boost they received years ago on its importance.

[lisec 283]

I watched the Ian Small video like many of you did and my takeaway is that power-users don't much matter to them. There is a sense in which they have come out with an entirely new product, and they will build that one up to add a few features here and there, but it will never reach the level of the legacy version. Power-users are too demanding, too fussy, and probably consist of that now famous "2 percent". Of course, power-users are most likely the ones to pay the $90 Cdn/year for their pro version, some of us with multiple pro-versions. 

I hope I am wrong, but I doubt it. Any company that puts out a version like this one without any kind of extensive communication about its limitations (imagine business users' surprise!) deserves the ire it gets. Evernote may prove me wrong in the upcoming year, and I hope it does, but the disregard and disrespect they showed long-term pro users will always be remembered.

[xmasmoneky 72]

1 hour ago, luckman212 said:

Or charge more until the equation balances.

It sounds simple in theory, but it rarely works out that way in practice.  I don't know Evernote's numbers - but I can tell you that for every dollar more you charge, you typically churn more paying users and reduce freemium conversions than you do retain users or attract new business.  I suspect raising prices on existing users during a period where Evernote knows quality and pace of innovation has suffered on the existing platform would be more harmful than helpful at this point.

 

Quote

If they aren't making enough money to support the platforms properly, then drop some platforms.

Let's assume you run Evernote.  Your data says you can't raise prices at the moment without significantly risking the revenue stream you need to fund the next-gen platform.  Dropping platforms is one way to solve this.  Which platform would you drop?  Serious question.

 

Quote

When they dumped that steaming Electron &#!% pile on us it was really a slap in the face.

It seems like the Evernote team has chosen to create a single web-native platform, and to use Electron as a way to extend support to multiple surfaces (Android, iOS, Windows, Mac).  Is Electron perfect?  Definitely not.  But if they start from this foundation - they can optimize it over time per-platform, but 80-90% of their development efforts on the web-native platform will be reusable in all of these platforms.  That means faster bug fixes, faster pace of innovation, and more consistency cross-platform.  But it comes with very real trade-offs, both short-term (e.g. performance) and long-term (e.g. things you can do as a native app well - like notifications - that you can't as a wrapped app).  I don't know if Electron is going to be the winning choice in the end - but I understand why they chose it, and I am rooting for the Evernote team to mitigate the disadvantages and amplify the strengths of their choice.

[luckman212 165]

1 hour ago, xmasmoneky said:

Let's assume you run Evernote.  Your data says you can't raise prices at the moment without significantly risking the revenue stream you need to fund the next-gen platform.  Dropping platforms is one way to solve this.  Which platform would you drop?  Serious question.

I'm a Mac user so it pains me to say this but honestly if I was in a management position at EN and faced with this tough decision, I'd drop in this order:

• Mac desktop - small relative user base, iOS app is pretty good and users can hopefully use Web app until the Mac app was viable again.
• Windows desktop - I'm sure has many more users, esp. since EN came bundled with a lot of OEM laptops, but they too could be forced to use web/mobile as long as there was progress being made and a promise of an eventual release of a new native app.
• Android
• iOS - this would be my last choice.

Quote

Is Electron perfect?  Definitely not.  But if they start from this foundation - they can optimize it over time

I understand this but the time to start that effort was 5 years ago WHILE they had a usable ecosystem of apps that people were reasonably happy with. There is simply no time left to start from a blank slate and ask a desperate user base to "hang on for another 3 years while we build up from scratch".

 

[PinkElephant 8,071]

If I had to take such a decision, I would look at my paying user base. Which devices are they using, with which percentage of usage ? It is not relevant what the average user does, what counts is the average PAYING user.

But the new generation of EN clients is said to be cross platform / cross OS. This means that probably all current platforms can be supported, because the code base is much less specific to any OS than before.

[CalS 5,280]

5 hours ago, DTLow said:

Tag use at 2% came as a surprise to me - I simply don't believe it

Ditto.  Somewhere it is written that if you massage the numbers long enough they will tell you whatever you want.

Same folks are saying they surveyed 300,000 users yet the IOS version does not support sorting search results.  Really???  Ever try to find something in 100 notes in random order on a phone?  And if it is only 2% of the users who use tags why the resistance all these years to implementing nested notebooks? 

Not meaning to be negative just looking at the data as it is presented and scratching my head.  Weird on a good day.

[xmasmoneky 72]

28 minutes ago, luckman212 said:

There is simply no time left to start from a blank slate and ask a desperate user base to "hang on for another 3 years while we build up from scratch".

That might be 100% true, and Evernote might lose a bunch of users because of the delay in getting out a v10 that satisfies enough user needs to create a long-term viable business.  It could even be the end of their business if the delay proves to have been too long.  I really hope this is not true, as I have been a long-time Evernote user and still prefer it - imperfections and all - to alternatives I've seen. 

v10 isn't good enough for me at the moment, but I really appreciate I'm able to run v7 in parallel.  I don't want to be running v7 forever of course, because at some point it will go away / get too old (and I love the multi-highlighter colors in v10).  So I'm focused on boosting signal in these forums for those features I really want to see make v10, and hoping performance and other issues can be worked out with incremental, faster updates moving forward (now that they are working off a generally unified codebase).  We'll see if v10 succeeds, but I'm rooting for its success.

[SueL 33]

Clugey, slow, and my colored tags are gone. Are there any alternatives that I can  transfer my Evernotes into?

[soundsgoodtome 155]

I love updates and new features. I often run beta versions of various apps (but wasn't aware of a beta cycle for v10, if it existed).

That said, Evernote 10 is an utter disaster. Feature after feature after feature is either broken or missing. Not obscure features, MAJOR features. Too many to list. (I've posted a few in other threads. I'm a paying user, and this is one of the worst updates of any app in recent memory.

Many of us have reported numerous bugs that went unfixed for years. (Literally.) Instead of fixing bugs, you devoted resources to creating this massive update—which is broken from head to toe.

I'm reverting to v7, which can easily be found here:

https://filehippo.com/mac/download_evernote_for_mac/history/

v7 is buggy, but at least I know where those skeletons are. v10 is downright unusable.

[toao 147]

7 hours ago, CalS said:

Ditto.  Somewhere it is written that if you massage the numbers long enough they will tell you whatever you want.

let's look at this interview at what it is: firefighting PR. Ian is picking out numbers that support his case trying to calm down the premium user base, certainly not the numbers that would be commercially sensible to look at nor the numbers / key performance indicators he certainly uses to run the business. in other words, I would not get hung up on the numbers, they are being quoted to tell a story, not to discuss what is actually happening.

also what is most revealing in all firefighting PR is what is *not* being talked about. in this case I think the massive performance issues of the new app were the most interesting omission to me...

[gazumped 11,652]

6 hours ago, soundsgoodtome said:

I'm reverting to v7, which can easily be found here:

Or you could use the legacy version 7 which runs in parallel with v10...

[Riggar 51]

Thanks for nothing. In one swoop you have completely destroyed my workflow and 7 years worth of an information database.

Many moons ago with the idiotic limitation of 250 notebooks I was forced to go the tagging route. That took a whole weekend to re-organise 3000+ notes. BUT once set up it did work well and no longer a limit on a high level entity. 

Today that's all gone - colour coded tag tiles gone. AND when you go to a tag area and create a new note you are bounced to ALL notes - the new note is not kept with the tag set. 

OK so I thought I'd look at Notebooks again and moving notes within tag to a Notebook - oh no the data is lost - brilliant how can that possibly happen!

This is a complete waste of space - and I am now looking at moving out of Evernote to something else - I just hope that the receiving software can read in Evernote data.

[gazumped 11,652]

Hi.  You don't mention whether this is Mac, Windows or mobile,  but have you tried stepping back to the last public version?  v10 is pretty much a skeleton so doesn't display much,  but if your data still exists within Evernote (or you have a usable backup) you may find the Legacy versions are the best place to stay for a while... 

[DTLow 5,736]

22 hours ago, Paul A. said:

As for the 2% of users use tags, when the denominator is the total population of all Evernote users, including the dormant or very occasional users who may have been invited to collaborate on a single note or only keep a handful of rarely updated notes, then I could believe that number.

Right; if we include dormant accounts it turns out a small % is using any of the features  🙂

[Chieff 23]

I think I'll find my copy of "The Inmates are Running the Asylum - Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity" while waiting for an answer.

 

[PinkElephant 8,071]

I have another indicator for power user unrest: This forum used to be full of Basic user postings in search for assistance.

Not any more, the percentage of Premium users jumped up when the v10 update hit the devices. Currently I do not see really positive postings, most are between „I can’t believe that’s happening“ and „Looking for the life boats“.

So leaving the discussion of tags vs. notebooks to the side (is this really our main concern ?) - somebody in Product Management obviously forgot to filter for what power and premium users are doing with their EN accounts. And for sure they did not ask for the workflows around EN, into which EN was embedded as key element.

Search failing to find all, or finding too much, no local content, no import folders, sharing is a mess, scripting is gone, as are shortcuts, clipping on iOS is plain broken, context gone, presentation mode axed, most backup solutions stopped to work etc. Anybody still playing the music on the Evertanic ?

[Metrodon 2,184]

At a guess, it's a feature that's used by a very small percentage of users and so hasn't been prioritised. Best bet is to stick with the old version for the time being. If it's a key feature for you and they decide not to bring it back then it's time to take you $$s elsewhere.

[Paul A. 609]

1 hour ago, PinkElephant said:

So leaving the discussion of tags vs. notebooks to the side (is this really our main concern ?) - somebody in Product Management obviously forgot to filter for what power and premium users are doing with their EN accounts. And for sure they did not ask for the workflows around EN, into which EN was embedded as key element.

It seems intentional. Perhaps they think it will be easier and more profitable in the long term to focus on free users in order to try and see what might convince them to start paying for premium. This assumes, of course, that they can convert free users to premium faster than they will hemorrhage existing premium users.

I'm not sure what else explains excluding power users from the preview/beta programs. I can't count the number of times people have posted on these and other forums wondering why they never got invited into the preview/beta despite years of experience with Evernote, years of experience beta testing software, and being among the first to sign up for the programs when announced.

[s2sailor 2,181]

4 minutes ago, Paul A. said:

I'm not sure what else explains excluding power users from the preview/beta programs. I can't count the number of times people have posted on these and other forums wondering why they never got invited into the preview/beta despite years of experience with Evernote, years of experience beta testing software, and being among the first to sign up for the programs when announced.

There were power users in the beta programs, but not heavily weighted.  Evernote likely wanted input from a population representative of their overall user base and not just the 2%ers.  Power users have already drunk the Kool-Aid and are paying for the service.  Evernote's challenge is to add features that will convince basic users to sign up for premium and do this without losing too many of their paying customers in the process.  There is a lot of huffing and puffing on the forums right now, and some will leave, but I think most will hang on with legacy for now and migrate to v10 later, assuming there is continual improvement.

[PinkElephant 8,071]

Now that is clever marketing - just name a single new function of v10 that will convert non-users into users, and freemium users into paying customers ?!

Hint 1: Free users were attracted by others through sharing. Sharing is broken in v10 - just try to find something in any content somebody shared to you.

Hint 2: Who waves the magic wand that will make non-payers willing to pay, while payers are stampeding for the emergency exit ? Because anything shy from magic will not do the trick.

I do not believe in intention behind all this. IMHO it is just a case of bad decisions based on wrong perceptions.

[Chieff 23]

Thanks Metrodon, 

I'm just so confused as to their priorities and perceptions of how I use it. Moving? My life is in there.

[s2sailor 2,181]

14 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Now that is clever marketing - just name a single new function of v10 that will convert non-users into users, and freemium users into paying customers ?!

I think the pretty highlighter colors is the killer new feature 🤣