Hate the new Evernote

[ehrt74 240]

On 10/27/2020 at 3:19 PM, lgpiper said:

Then too, EN's choice to limit fonts to only three or four really ugly ones makes no sense. 

Evernote wants consistency over the different platforms. For this reason only certain fonts can be offered. It makes no sense to offer fonts which are only legally allowed to be used on Windows, for example. What should be displayed on Android or on the Web version?

[ehrt74 240]

On 12/12/2020 at 6:32 PM, Piotas said:

You cannot blame Electron framework for Evernote v10 being extremely slow. There are note taking apps written in Electron that are EXTREMELY FAST (for example Recollector - https://recollectr.io/) or very fast (see Joplin - https://joplinapp.org). I used both while searching for Evernote alternative.

Currently ALL alternative solutions I tried are FASTER than Evernote v10 during my usage scenarios.

The new Evernote v10 for Android is faster than the old version. The web client is also plenty fast. What platform are you using ?

[ehrt74 240]

On 12/11/2020 at 9:48 PM, Shad0wca7 said:

It's absolutely awful. The new app is slow and it has lost new notes now on a couple of occasions. 

The slowness is across my Mac as well as iOS devices. 

So.. I've removed my credit card details from my Evernote Premium subscription and will not be renewing - I'll be moving everything to Apple Notes.

You could use the legacy app until v10 has matured. 

I've been using v10 on the web for the last year (it used to be called v6). It has improved enormously quickly.

[ehrt74 240]

On 12/11/2020 at 6:58 PM, CalS said:

I think it is more the development engine that is being used (Electron) and the fact that even on a desktop most of the processing is occurring on the servers.  It can be tuned up some but not likely it will be as snappy as a stand alone app on a desktop.  Laws of physics get in the way.  Any server based process will be slower than a local one.  Anyone using On Demand Sync on Windows would see that.  It's just can the lags be shrunk to the point that they aren't a nuisance.  

Google Stadia has unnoticeable lag when playing games in 4k. Running stuff on a remote server, particularly now that evernote is hosted on google cloud, shouldn't mean a large performance hit.

[ehrt74 240]

On 12/11/2020 at 6:50 PM, tavor said:

I wonder how much of the sluggishness is related to the new common codebase. Meaning, if many or most of the underlying processes are now common across platforms, you give up some of the optimization you could otherwise have for the specific platform, whether that is Windows, Mac, iOS, or Android.

Of course if all the competitors are doing the same thing, it's not really a competitive disadvantage. 

It's a pity flutter wasn't quite ready for Evernote 2 years ago when they started developing the new version. Of course, there's no way around compiling to js for web versions, but iOS/Windows/Linux/Android versions could use compiled binaries.

As it is, every competitor is using one codebase for all platforms nowadays. Evernote just does a whole lot more than the competitors. Examples being real-time search and running a text recognition software over images. These things take real computational power and well-optimised workflows. To the best of my knowledge, no competitor gets close in these areas.

[CalS 5,280]

4 minutes ago, ehrt74 said:

Google Stadia has unnoticeable lag when playing games in 4k. Running stuff on a remote server, particularly now that evernote is hosted on google cloud, shouldn't mean a large performance hit.

Yup.  Any native app with a local data base will have an advantage of no internet lag.  The key is to minimize that lag when server access is required.  EN isn't there yet on the V10 desktop apps.

[CharlesC 3]

I upgraded to version 10.4.4. recently...it was unworkable, destroyed any ability to use the program. I felt all my work was locked in and unusable. I used to be able t send a support ticket, now i can't find a way to do it. I reverted to version 6 and this works fine, but I am now concerned that Evernote is not taking care of premium users and I am also concerned that for some reason this has been done deliberately. Why is there no comment from Evernote about what they have done?

[Big Trev 35]

7 minutes ago, CharlesC said:

Why is there no comment from Evernote about what they have done?

They've commented a bit, this is the latest from the CEO: https://evernote.com/blog/state-of-the-product/

Can't say that it passes muster for me - seems a bit like a half apology, "I'm sorry that you feel like that".  I'm looking at alternatives.

[Hanswurst 2020 1]

Evernote 10 is a total mess. My structure of stacks and notebooks gone. I am a premium customer since 2012 and will look for an alternative . My business partners as well.

[Piotas 121]

22 hours ago, ehrt74 said:

The new Evernote v10 for Android is faster than the old version. The web client is also plenty fast. What platform are you using ?

Depends your usage scenario. On my LG G6 Evernote v10 (beta) last week was STARTING in 25-28s.

Yes, half a minute waiting to start taking your notes.

My Evernote account currently has about 4k notes in 20 folders and about 400 tags.

On my OnePlus Nord Evernote v10 (non-beta) starts much faster (less than 10s), but this phone has as much RAM as my old PC (12GB), but still it 2-3x longer than Joplin with more (5,5k) notes.

Main issue with Evernote v10 PC app that EVERY operation takes noticably more time. Openin a note. Tagging a note. Moving a note to a folder. All takes a 1-4 seconds. Multiply up to x50 for multiple notes (because v10 has 50 notes selection limit and there is performance reason).

[Piotas 121]

20 hours ago, ehrt74 said:

Evernote just does a whole lot more than the competitors. Examples being real-time search and running a text recognition software over images. These things take real computational power and well-optimised workflows. To the best of my knowledge, no competitor gets close in these areas.

You are still taking about features of Evernote v6. All features you've mentioned are present and works much better in "legacy" Evernote.

[Chua 1]

I think Evernote should lay off their product manager.  Adding the features which user don't like, but remove the features that user want.  Really bad user experience. 

[joaopspp 2]

I love Evernote, and it's an important tool in my routine.

That's why it was so frustrating to see this new version. Looks like a beta version that was poorly tested and put into production. I don't expect that from Evernote and I won't renew my subscription if they don't fix everything soon.

[Blaze44 2]

The new Evernote is *****. I enjoyed this app for so many years. The only solution I got from Evernote Support guys is the Legacy version. It's good for now but I am afraid it's not going to be support for good. I'm frustrated but I will find an alternative solution and start moving on all the people I have convinced to use Evernote.

[ehrt74 240]

4 hours ago, Piotas said:

You are still taking about features of Evernote v6. All features you've mentioned are present and works much better in "legacy" Evernote.

Real-time search was added recently and rolled out in evernote v10, i think.

[CalS 5,280]

16 minutes ago, ehrt74 said:

Real-time search was added recently and rolled out in evernote v10, i think.

Real time search actually went away with V10.  Now there may be up to a 3 minute lag before updates are indexed.  Part of the design according to previous posts.  Legacy is still real time.

[ehrt74 240]

1 minute ago, CalS said:

Real time search actually went away with V10.  Now there may be up to a 3 minute lag before updates are indexed.  Part of the design according to previous posts.  Legacy is still real time.

Maybe i've got the wrong name. The list of suggestions when you enter a search term is updated as you type. I find this to be really useful.

[CalS 5,280]

7 minutes ago, ehrt74 said:

Maybe i've got the wrong name. The list of suggestions when you enter a search term is updated as you type. I find this to be really useful.

That's more of an aided search process.  

[Rainer Winkler 10]

On 12/13/2020 at 3:25 AM, Bryanne said:

To be fair, it was a good letter.

The statement by Ian Small gave no timelines, to commit himself how long the Legacy Version can be used at least. For someone who has to plan switching his notes to a different platform, I would not call it a good letter. It was an imprecise letter.

[gazumped 11,652]

6 minutes ago, Rainer Winkler said:

The statement by Ian Small gave no timelines, to commit himself how long the Legacy Version can be used at least. For someone who has to plan switching his notes to a different platform, I would not call it a good letter. It was an imprecise letter.

Interestingly,  in a different interview,  Ian Small suggested that they have no plan for this current venture - presumably they're purely reacting to events...

[davidtderrick 54]

I'm sure Ian Small is a nice guy, but I never sense a clear long-term vision beyond the obvious and a few slogans and ad hoc adjustments.

[Peter Romero 5]

I made a separate post for this, but here's a comparison of performance in v6 and v10: 

Edit: it was pointed out that this isn't fair because it includes the startup time of EN10. But I always have to quit it after every use, because it takes over some keyboard shortcuts that I need in other apps. So this is an accurate representation of the time it takes me to extract information from it.

[Bryanne 60]

yes, I agree. This is probably Evernote's one big weakness as a company - they seem to live in another dimension - one divorced from its user-base. Ultimately it opens the door to more competition. No company will endure unless it engages with its customers and sets expectations properly

[gazumped 11,652]

Hi.  Have you tried signing in to your account via a browser and Evernote.com?

[MrIllustrator 165]

Thank you for the video, perfect example of what all EV 10 users are experiencing. A graphic indication indeed of why EN 10 is not fit for public consumption. Just as I have said before, don’t the people at Evernote use their own product, just look at this rubbish you have released!

[kthesun 101]

I have waited a few weeks and bottom line two issues:

 

1. The UI is so f**** slow and I hate that. I try to minimize the tasks I complete with EN.

2. I am missing tons of features I was used to. There is no reason to take away these features.

 

Overall: I am still extremely pissed and it won't stop. I will find an alternative one day and I will recommend everyone I know who is looking for a note app not to use Evernote. 

[tavor 668]

31 minutes ago, MrIllustrator said:

Thank you for the video, perfect example of what all EV 10 users are experiencing. A graphic indication indeed of why EN 10 is not fit for public consumption. Just as I have said before, don’t the people at Evernote use their own product, just look at this rubbish you have released!

I have suspected for years (based on longstanding pattern of general releases of product with glaring bugs), and said as much on this forum, that no one in senior management is a power user of Evernote.

That video and similar complaints in many posts have me reassessing - it may be that no one in senior management is even a daily user of Evernote! 

The one thing they did correctly with this release is continuing to sync the legacy Mac and Windows versions - which really does highlight that the v10 general release is actually a beta testing scheme. Imagine if they dropped sync on the legacy desktop apps! It would be notemageddon!

[ehrt74 240]

This is weird. On my Android device from clicking on the evernote icon to being able to create a note takes about 3 seconds.

Also I tested how long it takes for Evernote to index new notes so they are searchable. This takes less than 10 seconds on my Chromebook.

[ehrt74 240]

9 hours ago, CalS said:

That's more of an aided search process.  

Yepp. it's really useful and something no competitor has, to the best of my knowledge.

[PinkElephant 8,072]

2 hours ago, ehrt74 said:

This is weird. On my Android device from clicking on the evernote icon to being able to create a note takes about 3 seconds.

Also I tested how long it takes for Evernote to index new notes so they are searchable. This takes less than 10 seconds on my Chromebook.

It is 5 sec on my iPhone.

Could still be faster: Long press on the app icon should call an action menu with a „New Note“ option. And the Watch App is missing.

AFAIK they are working on it.

[ehrt74 240]

2 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

It is 5 sec on my iPhone.

Could still be faster: Long press on the app icon should call an action menu with a „New Note“ option. And the Watch App is missing.

AFAIK they are working on it.

Yep. there's lots of long-press actions which would be great, within the app too. Hopefully they'll come soon.

[Sir Force 0]

+1 - what was the UX team thinking - this new version is no bueno.  at least there is a onenote importer to load the enex file.  I've been using evernote for many years and it worked great, it was simple and easy and I could count on it.  

 

Now I am luck if I can create a note on macos evernote and actually be able to type the note without rebooting or restarting evernote or using my mobile. UGH.this sucks.  blasphemy

[PRM-EN 0]

Like others I'm very concerned with the investment I've made in creating thousands of notes in Evernote.  I can't understand why they would take away so much functionality in the new version.  Makes me wonder if Evernote as a company is in decline and acting rashly.  Actively looking for an alternative.

[Piotas 121]

16 hours ago, ehrt74 said:

This is weird. On my Android device from clicking on the evernote icon to being able to create a note takes about 3 seconds.

Also I tested how long it takes for Evernote to index new notes so they are searchable. This takes less than 10 seconds on my Chromebook.

When it is already running on Android phone, it wakes up within 3s as well. But after rebooting your phone or NOT using evernote for few hours, it starts in 12s on One+Nord (AC2003) with 12gigs of RAM and this year's new Qualcom 765G (8-core) - see attached video. Last time I used evernote on this device yesterday.

I just deleted screengrab I did because it contains senstivie data, but I measured - 10s to warm start. 14s to be able to enter note or search. 3x longer than joplin with similar number of notes (ported from Evernote!).

[Piotas 121]

3 hours ago, PRM-EN said:

Like others I'm very concerned with the investment I've made in creating thousands of notes in Evernote.  I can't understand why they would take away so much functionality in the new version.  Makes me wonder if Evernote as a company is in decline and acting rashly.  Actively looking for an alternative.

let me comment on some advertising I got last month from Evernote

[CalS 5,280]

15 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

It is 5 sec on my iPhone.

Could still be faster: Long press on the app icon should call an action menu with a „New Note“ option. And the Watch App is missing.

AFAIK they are working on it.

It took 25 seconds on my iPhone to get to all notes.  It is faster if I close EN and reopen after this initial load.  So it must be doing something with notes created/updated since last access.  I only have 10 notes that are offline.  On my iPad it takes about 5 seconds, the notes panel appears with a circling icon as the note header stuff and whatever other changes since last access are synced.

Murphy's Law, but it seems every time I go to add a quick note on the iPhone, typically a to do, I wait interminably to get access to the add note button.  Really not usable.  I've started emailing the to do to EN, a no lag process other than entering the a couple of characters of the email address.  Crazy silly.  

Once they are both "up" rendering times seem to be about the same, slight edge to old EN.

[romelden 30]

Dear Mr. Ian Samll,

I would like to say thank you to Evernote, and Mr. Stephan Pachikov.   Evernote saved my works and company in 2020.

I am running a small family business in Hong Kong and our factory in China since 1994.  And I started using evernote since 2008.  The mainly function of Evernote for me is mainly a "Document Storage System".  In my memory, terms of "clouds" was not popular at that time.  But EN was the first one giving me this mobility when I running between Hong Kong and China.  EN let me no longer traveling with my heavy notebook.

In the meantime, I tried Chinese version EN (YinXiang) and EN Team.  But for the reasons of xxxxxxx, I only keep my paid international version after all.

The mostly loved of Evernote was, the sacnsanp.  Hahah! many people start laughing at me now.  But for me, using EN as a document storage, I need to scan, upload, save tens of documents in Evernotes everyday, including office records, technical documents, points founding, communication records, todo, planning, excels, words, etc.  It really work very good to one press scan to EN (at least at that time).  And I can get all my records everywhere, in China factory, Hong Kong or even on the way traveling and meeting with customers.  And clipping everything what I saw by computers, phone, pad when I am working, traveling, or even on bed.

In 2020, I am pinned in Hong Kong because of family need and cannot stay in China without coming back (for 14 days quarantine in each location is needed, and costs of quarantine).  Actually, the border "blocking" came much faster than imagined.  And luckily all my working materials are on Evernote.  It keeps my working at least 80% same as before. (Of course, factory running depends on my helpful colleagues in China and others "clouds").

I recommending Evernote to many friends and telling them my experiences when they asking me how to running my businesses in this situation.  And telling them how importance of "clouds", which Evernote giving me this concept. In my memory, earlier  than google documents, and not workin in China.

Here I want you to know, how Evernote is important to me, and why I am in love with Evernote.  But, why a couple would become "HATE" each others and divorced?  It is what my feeling now after yelling for 3 months, posted many posts of complaining.

Please kindly solve the problems, not the 0/1 in programming. And face, meet, talk, reply to your loyalty users directly., I am one of them but not only one, and much much many more here and there all over the world.  Please tell Mr. Shane D. stop using the Chinese style reply here, it is not helping you.  I am a manager too, even as small as an ant in front of the Elephant.  Knowing and satisfying customers' need is the only way of business. 

 

Steven Tang

From Hong Kong

[ehrt74 240]

6 hours ago, Piotas said:

When it is already running on Android phone, it wakes up within 3s as well. But after rebooting your phone or NOT using evernote for few hours, it starts in 12s on One+Nord (AC2003) with 12gigs of RAM and this year's new Qualcom 765G (8-core) - see attached video. Last time I used evernote on this device yesterday.

I just deleted screengrab I did because it contains senstivie data, but I measured - 10s to warm start. 14s to be able to enter note or search. 3x longer than joplin with similar number of notes (ported from Evernote!).

When I pin the app to not shut in the background it opens instantly when i click on it. I wonder what's different between my phone and yours? I'm using a Samsung S20 with Android 11.

[luvmyc6 46]

On 12/12/2020 at 6:14 PM, Kolmir said:

...

In the first half of the 2020 many preview/beta users tried to convey the message to EvN that new software wasn't ready even for beta stage and testing phase should took at least twice as long or even more. Unfortunately, such voices were ignored - probably due to some high level managerial decisions.

By the way: no "testing use cases" were available during public preview/beta. Whole process just looked as an exact opposite to the best practices proposed for example by ATDD/TDD or ISO like 15504 or 12207 or 15288, etc. Dev team simply provided new test releases as is - without proper release notes... There were no test scenarios, no detailed infos what were modified or added...

So sad to see that beta testing results and feedback were completely ignored by EN upper management. And, wow, to hear that EN, as a software company, has no proper procedures and communication for beta testing when there are easily accessible documented standards they could (should) be following. Their total lack of a true QA and Testing process is truly appalling, especially when the CEO tries to imply they have one.

[eric99 978]

On 12/9/2020 at 7:55 PM, rts said:

Welcome, kinsman! There doesn't seem to be a drop in replacement at present, so your options are limited by what you most value in what's now branded as the Legacy version. If you are happy with a product that only works on Mac OS and iOS, for example, then DEVONthink is worth looking at. Reviewing the previous comments in this thread will provide numerous other candidates, again depending on what capabilities you most need/want and which EN capabilities you could easily live without.

I am currently testing Joplin because it appears adequate to my needs even if it falls far short for other people's circumstances. Web clipping seems to be a capability not easily replaced, so I suspect I may have to switch to a free EN account and adjust my workflow to use EN's clipper and periodically export the resulting notes to my new app. Ugh, just typing that possibility makes me sick to my stomach.

If you dislike the V10 GUI, then Joplin is no alternative because it has almost exactly the same layout and it has no wysiwyg editor like EN. Joplin also renames all your resource files (pdf, images) to a cryptic ID, even in the exported folders.  For me, this is a stopper because my files have meaningful names which may be searched independently.

That being said, Joplin has a lot of potential. If the developer would be able (financially) to work full time  at this product, it would be very soon at the level of EN V6 or better. The most interesting feature is of course the E2E encryption.

[Markus (Graz) 24]

The new evernote version is an absolute disaster. After years with no additional, meaningful features (highlighting, etc.), and - in my opinion - ignoring their users (im a premium user since 2012), .. Evernote is forcing customers like my to look after an alternative tool 😞

 

The new version:

- has no important, meaningful new feature for me (priorizing notes with drag and drop, highlighting, any kind of kanban like organization possibility, etc.)

- instead of that, .. the new version is:

- completely buggy (in all versions: IOS, MacOS, etc.)

- extremely slow (in all versions: IOS, MacOS, etc.)

- confusing

- and do not fulfill modern requirements (fast, stable, configurable, easy to use, feature rich, graphical GUIs, etc.)

 

Can anybody suggest me an alternative. Now, the evernote team has have got made it, that I am completely frustrated and willing to change the tool 😞

[Markus (Graz) 24]

I hate the new evernote also, .. and it destroyed my hope, that the evernote team is able to release a stable and fast version of evernote, .. with new, meaningful features, .. we are waiting since years (highlighting, drag-and-drop prioritization of notes, kanban support, etc.)

 

Can anyone suggest an alternative tool???

Thanks!

[Piotas 121]

6 hours ago, ehrt74 said:

When I pin the app to not shut in the background it opens instantly when i click on it. I wonder what's different between my phone and yours? I'm using a Samsung S20 with Android 11.

If I pin an app to run in background, it will stay. I am referring to standard app behavior of vanilla Android 10 of ColorOS. I see no reason to force run resource hog to run in the background.

[Gnopps 29]

2 hours ago, Markus (Graz) said:

Can anyone suggest an alternative tool???

For EN-replacement with local storage: Joplin

For EN-replacement with more functionality: Nimbus

For working with flexible documents & databases: Notion

There are plenty more, for example Obsidian. However, none of the options can match all of EN legacy functionality.

Check out noteapps.info for comparisons of some alternatives.

[tavor 668]

4 hours ago, eric99 said:

If you dislike the V10 GUI, then Joplin is no alternative because it has almost exactly the same layout and it has no wysiwyg editor like EN. Joplin also renames all your resource files (pdf, images) to a cryptic ID, even in the exported folders.  For me, this is a stopper because my files have meaningful names which may be searched independently.

That being said, Joplin has a lot of potential. If the developer would be able (financially) to work full time  at this product, it would be very soon at the level of EN V6 or better. The most interesting feature is of course the E2E encryption.

Joplin does allow you to use your preferred editor, so you can use something like Typora, which has features that far exceed Evernote's editor (outlines, formulas, diagrams). I imagine there's no issue using a WYSIWYG editor if you prefer that over a markdown editor.

Agreed that renaming your attachments is not desireable.

I find it amazing that an open source project on a shoestring budget that is largely driven by one man has been able to create a note app that is within reach of EN and its hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars in funding, and several hundreds of employees. It really does make you wonder about EN's deployment of its resources (remember Evernote socks and coffee mugs?).

I agree that if the Joplin dev devotes more time, he could soon catch EN Legacy (which means surpassing current v10). Another thing he has going for him is the plugin architecture which allows people to add functionality to Joplin without having to wait for the main Joplin dev to get around to it.

1 hour ago, Gnopps said:

For EN-replacement with local storage: Joplin

For EN-replacement with more functionality: Nimbus

For working with flexible documents & databases: Notion

There are plenty more, for example Obsidian. However, none of the options can match all of EN legacy functionality.

Check out noteapps.info for comparisons of some alternatives.

One place where Nimbus falls short is opening/editing multiple notes simultaneously. I believe that is not possible in the Windows app, though may be possible in browser version.

[AlbertR 523]

Seems you already had a look at Notion 😉
But save your time: After some days of playing around most of the people who are looking for a reliable data management tool came or will come back to here... Stay with Legacy and enjoy every new EN-10x version that comes up in short cycles.

[zwei7 0]

The new evernote took away all my fonts. Now there is like 6-10 available.

Some fonts have very specific spacing that makes them line up vertically.

I need those specific spacings.

[jordancummins 1]

I am INCREDIBLY disappointed with the "NEW EVERNOTE".   It is VERY slow, clunky, poorly organized, and an embarrassment.  How could this have been released by a company that actually has a committed group of paying customers?     I don't know about the rest of you, but if the Legacy version is not restored as the standard version, I will be looking for a new note organization system.   What a catastrophic failure of software engineering.

[ehrt74 240]

3 hours ago, tavor said:

Joplin does allow you to use your preferred editor, so you can use something like Typora, which has features that far exceed Evernote's editor (outlines, formulas, diagrams). I imagine there's no issue using a WYSIWYG editor if you prefer that over a markdown editor.

Agreed that renaming your attachments is not desireable.

I find it amazing that an open source project on a shoestring budget that is largely driven by one man has been able to create a note app that is within reach of EN and its hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars in funding, and several hundreds of employees. It really does make you wonder about EN's deployment of its resources (remember Evernote socks and coffee mugs?).

I agree that if the Joplin dev devotes more time, he could soon catch EN Legacy (which means surpassing current v10). Another thing he has going for him is the plugin architecture which allows people to add functionality to Joplin without having to wait for the main Joplin dev to get around to it.

One place where Nimbus falls short is opening/editing multiple notes simultaneously. I believe that is not possible in the Windows app, though may be possible in browser version.

I really don't know Joplin but does it run an OCR over images to make then searchable or offer real-time search indexed search results of 1000s of notes? How about adding notes to pdfs or images? Does it have a grammar allowing you to issue specific queries over http? 

[toao 147]

@Markus (Graz) as you seem to be living in the apple universe and contrary to AlbertRs comment I have recently migrated to Devonthink because of the mess EN has created with V10 and most say it both outperforms EN and is far more feature rich for my use cases...my only regret is not having migrated sooner...

[tavor 668]

2 hours ago, ehrt74 said:

I really don't know Joplin but does it run an OCR over images to make then searchable or offer real-time search indexed search results of 1000s of notes? How about adding notes to pdfs or images? Does it have a grammar allowing you to issue specific queries over http? 

You're asking mostly about EN Premium features. For someone who requires those features, Joplin is not an option. But it could be an option for someone for whom EN Basic suffices, and it eliminates some restrictions such as device limits and has some additional features. And it's open source and free to use.

What's really interesting is how note apps has exploded in recent years. Lots of options, all a bit unique in feature-set. The competition should drive some great innovation in the note taking space.

[Kade 13]

Recently I've read Ian's new blog post - State of the Product. What he said is promising... that Evernote devs will continue to improve the app debacle continuously. But I already had months of frustration with this half-arsed, far from complete, and unstable program.

Am I missing something? I don't have much knowledge on product quality management, but you can't put raw dough on a bakery shelf. You have to bake in the oven for adequate time. Until then, no one should experience the taste of awful raw flour, especially when the bakery put that as a "cooked" bread. I'm just a customer walking into the bakery expecting delicious, golden brown bread. I don't give a flip about whether this is a beta, or in development, blablabla. I want it COMPLETE. Especially when I'm paying this $50 or so for years. At this stage, I'm feeling like Evernote is ripping me off. Legacy version? I'm using it, but who in the right mind recommend older version, while focusing all of the attention to the new version and giving zero concern to the legacy ver? It doesn't make any sense.

If I was to release the new product with different "code base" or "some hard-to-understand techie words", I would simply put that in a beta stage, and wait until something is considered as done. No one asked for fancy reactive UI or newer fonts, something like that. I just want to store my notes, as the way I've done before. Change is inevitable and I agree with that, but it has to be done with minimal interference with user experience. Why do I have to search for user forums? Why do I have to read the "state of the product" that is in a dedicated blog page which is not directly accessible from the front page of the product? Why do I have to understand Evernote staffs when they do things that will never be understood? No preferences menu on public release of word processing software, that needs some annual purchase to sync over 2 devices? Do you really think this is finished?

I'm not saying there will be no hope for this app. I'm still have trust to Evernote devs who are writing codes around the clock. Eventually all will be good. What I'm saying is that problems are just too overwhelming that the software is almost unusable, so it would have been better just not releasing new version, rather than continuously giving suffering on the entire userbase. So I decided to leave Evernote for some months, sticking to the legacy version.

Never, ever release a product that is not complete. I still suffer from inability to disable spellcheck red lines for several months. Darn it.

[Tsnellgrove42 9]

I am deeply concerned by the radio silence.

The same company that routinely sends me useless spam about “new ways to get organized” is completely silent for three months after a disastrous product rollout? No expectation setting on what was and wasn’t supported in the “all new” version? No apologies for lost data and horrible user experience?

The “Contact Evernote” page has only snail mail addresses on it? No way to provide feedback outside of these forums? 

I look back to Apple’s botched release of Apple Maps as an example of how great leaders respond to problem releases. Immediate and candid acknowledgement of problems. Taking responsibility from the top. Offering short term mitigation’s and work-around while taking a long-term approach to bettering the product. Prioritizing customer communication, experience, and trust.

These attributes have been sadly lacking during the Evernote v10 fiasco and, more than the release failures themselves, force me to doubt the future of the platform. Disappointing.

Evernote: You may have needed a new codebase but right now what you need most is a new CEO.

- Tom

[Wanderling Reborn 185]

On 12/8/2020 at 4:02 PM, luvmyc6 said:

Oh yes, I remember those feeble and pathetic attempts by MS! To this day, some people at my company (esp the MS defenders) never understood that LN was more than just a "Mail" application.

LOL but for us the end users it was primarily a Mail application. And it SUCKED. Big time. The “Interface Hall of Shame” website had an entire separate section dedicated to Lotus Notes - while most other software got a paragraph.  Well deserved, too.

Switching from LN to Outlook was a breath of fresh air. While Outlook may not have the advance database features of LN, as an email / calendar/ task manager it’s indefinitely better.

[isthisme 11]

Modern software development: forego testers, forego releases, just hire web developers to write agile constantly-updated pages, even for desktop apps. Put everything on a subscription plan, don't let people buy perpetual licenses. Everything is slower, everything is always in flux, all clients are on the latest version the web developer just pushed. It's not just Evernote, all nu-programmers are like this. Anytime you run a newly-updated app and it became much slower and less native-looking, this is what happened.

The main appeal of Evernote to me was the great desktop app. Now it's another slow webapp in a desktop shell, and it lost its primary advantage over other Electron apps like StandardNotes and Joplin. (speaking for myself as a user only syncing text notes)

[tavor 668]

On 12/16/2020 at 4:50 AM, eric99 said:

If you dislike the V10 GUI, then Joplin is no alternative because it has almost exactly the same layout and it has no wysiwyg editor like EN.

 

On 12/16/2020 at 9:55 AM, tavor said:

Joplin does allow you to use your preferred editor, so you can use something like Typora, which has features that far exceed Evernote's editor (outlines, formulas, diagrams). I imagine there's no issue using a WYSIWYG editor if you prefer that over a markdown editor.

@eric99 - I need to correct myself. Typora does have a WYSIWYG view. It's a fantastic editor that lets you do things that EN editor cannot. Some implementation of an outline mode has been requested for years by EN userbase, and we still don't have it. Typora has it and you can use that as your preferred editor in Joplin.

Also, Joplin editor has WYSIWYG in beta. 

[luvmyc6 46]

10 hours ago, Wanderling Reborn said:

LOL but for us the end users it was primarily a Mail application. And it SUCKED. Big time. The “Interface Hall of Shame” website had an entire separate section dedicated to Lotus Notes - while most other software got a paragraph.  Well deserved, too.

Switching from LN to Outlook was a breath of fresh air. While Outlook may not have the advance database features of LN, as an email / calendar/ task manager it’s indefinitely better.

Yes for many it was just a not so great mail app. But at my company, we also had well over 90,000 unique custom LN apps, developed internally, ranging from a basic discussion forum, to robust document management and approval workflow repositories, to extremely complex business process solutions (which accounted for about 10% of the total).

[Mishkafofer 25]

I actually like the new version and its look.

But I also feel the pain of Power users that used Evernote to the max and now their workflow is damaged / gone / changed.

The good thing is that the updated are coming fast.

Also, Evernote team should be more open about roadmap. Color tagging was used by me a little bit, but it seems that some folks used it in a big way.

 

I had similar experience few years ago when workplace Outlook database was migrated and i lost all my tags. 

[Claudio79 14]

Sorry but I can't contain my disappointment about the new Evernote. The crappiness of this "revolutionary" update goes far beyond any worst expectation!  While I'm slowly getting used to the Mac and Windows client, some days ago I updated my Android app, and....got no words to say other than "slow". Slow. SLOW. S-L-O-W!!!!! My phone is not a blazing-fast-brand-new-one, but it's a fair decent Honor 10, which can run almost anything smoothly and nicely. But using the new Evernote looks like playing a modern Tiple-A game on a Pentium 4 nineties PC! About 10 seconds only to have the app open and ready to add a note, unresponsive commands, buggy search (as always), missing pictures and so on.

That's a total shame, seems like you wished to add more disasters to this damn 2020! 🤦‍♂️

[laserfocus 2]

After the big update, lots of my notes are in a weird container where I can't access the text. I have to individually process them to get my text back.

But JPGs are trashed! Why can I no longer copy them from evernote? This has been an issue all month.

Worst Evernote ever. I want my time and money back for trusting this thing that has locked up all my data.

Why would you DO that?

[DTLow 5,736]

1 hour ago, laserfocus said:

lots of my notes are in a weird container

see 

 

[Brendan Murphy 26]

On 12/17/2020 at 11:04 AM, Tsnellgrove42 said:

I am deeply concerned by the radio silence.

The same company that routinely sends me useless spam about “new ways to get organized” is completely silent for three months after a disastrous product rollout? No expectation setting on what was and wasn’t supported in the “all new” version? No apologies for lost data and horrible user experience?

Huh?  Tom, they haven't been silent for 3 months.  They have pushed out numerous updates since the initial v10 release, almost on a bi-weekly basis.  That's not silence.  And the fact that they have been able to push out those updates so quickly is proof that the direction the current CEO has taken them on is working.  He has been very open and honest since beginning this rebuild process. Did you read the recent blog post? 

[Brendan Murphy 26]

1 hour ago, laserfocus said:

After the big update, lots of my notes are in a weird container where I can't access the text. I have to individually process them to get my text back.

But JPGs are trashed! Why can I no longer copy them from evernote? This has been an issue all month.

Worst Evernote ever. I want my time and money back for trusting this thing that has locked up all my data.

Why would you DO that?

You can reinstall the Legacy version and it will have all the features you were used to. Install an older version of Evernote

[bo12 13]

Hi all, 

is there a quick find function in the new version? It was cmd-j before I think. I am using alt-ctrl-f but the search is very slow. I am wondering if there is another way of quickly finding notes. Also, has anyone been able to get multiple tabs working somehow ?

 

Thanks

[eric99 978]

1 hour ago, bo12 said:

Hi all, 

is there a quick find function in the new version? It was cmd-j before I think. I am using alt-ctrl-f but the search is very slow. I am wondering if there is another way of quickly finding notes. Also, has anyone been able to get multiple tabs working somehow ?

 

Thanks

On my 4 year old laptop (16 GB ram, I7, ssd), alt-ctrl-f is very fast and works perfectly.  What PC are you using?

Edit: have you updated to the latest EN v 10.5.7 already ?

[rts 66]

2 hours ago, Brendan Murphy said:

Huh?  Tom, they haven't been silent for 3 months.  They have pushed out numerous updates since the initial v10 release, almost on a bi-weekly basis.  That's not silence.  And the fact that they have been able to push out those updates so quickly is proof that the direction the current CEO has taken them on is working.

If they are able to make improvements so quickly then why were they in such a rush to release it? It arrived with a bunch of problems that should have been caught in QA. Not to mention it was missing features that people rely on for their workflow.

To be fair, I highly doubt the developers were in a rush to release something so unfinished. That was almost certainly a management decision driven by a CEO who didn't think tag support was a big deal.

 

[Metrodon 2,184]

Assuming what they say is true (and why would they bother not telling the truth?) tags are used by a very very small subset of users.

So, tags aren't a big deal.

 

 

[CalS 5,280]

55 minutes ago, Metrodon said:

Assuming what they say is true (and why would they bother not telling the truth?) tags are used by a very very small subset of users.

So, tags aren't a big deal.

Though it might be good to know if it is percentage of active users, percentage of premium users, etc.

[Paul A. 609]

59 minutes ago, Metrodon said:

Assuming what they say is true (and why would they bother not telling the truth?) tags are used by a very very small subset of users.

So, tags aren't a big deal.

Even assuming the first part is true, it does not necessarily follow that the second part is true.

[NorcalScott 53]

1 hour ago, Metrodon said:

Assuming what they say is true (and why would they bother not telling the truth?) tags are used by a very very small subset of users.

So, tags aren't a big deal.

 

 

The comment of the CEO about few users using tags is what concerned me the most, to be honest.  Tags are a VERY big part of my workflow, and the main reason I chose Evernote in the beginning.  Maybe others don't use them, but my job requires storing of information that needs to be categorized by several different criteria, and tags are very useful for this.

The way I see it, there are some huge warning signs here:

- EN seems to be saying that power users are not that big of a concern to them, and I am a power user (to an extent)
- They seem to be saying that key features I use are not that important because not many others use them
- They seem hell bent on moving to a cloud dependent, centralized data model rather than the current environment where databases stay on the computer and are synced to the cloud for use on other devices.  We are trading local control to an environment where the totality of my data is out of my control.

I don't think Evernote can survive without power users, who are probably the only people willing to pay for a notetaking app, so we will see where this leads to.

I am testing out Joplin and it is actually pretty solid.  It certainly lacks some features that EN has, but it also includes some nice features EN doesn't have, like encryption, and it is blazingly fast to use and perform searches on.  If I am able to move my workflows over to Joplin and be able to use my Windows machine, my iPad and my Android phone successfully for a few months, I will make the switch permanent.

[tavor 668]

1 hour ago, NorcalScott said:

The way I see it, there are some huge warning signs here:

- EN seems to be saying that power users are not that big of a concern to them, and I am a power user (to an extent)
- They seem to be saying that key features I use are not that important because not many others use them
- They seem hell bent on moving to a cloud dependent, centralized data model rather than the current environment where databases stay on the computer and are synced to the cloud for use on other devices.  We are trading local control to an environment where the totality of my data is out of my control.

I don't think Evernote can survive without power users, who are probably the only people willing to pay for a notetaking app, so we will see where this leads to.

I am testing out Joplin and it is actually pretty solid.  It certainly lacks some features that EN has, but it also includes some nice features EN doesn't have, like encryption, and it is blazingly fast to use and perform searches on.  If I am able to move my workflows over to Joplin and be able to use my Windows machine, my iPad and my Android phone successfully for a few months, I will make the switch permanent.

The bolded part cannot be emphasized enough for those who prioritize privacy and security. To be fair to EN, they are not alone in this approach. Many note apps are not offering either:

(1) local-only notes that are not uploaded to app provider's cloud, OR

(2) E2E encryption that does not leave the encryption key in the app provider's hands

And with a full cloud model, good luck accessing your notes if there is an outage (at EN, at their cloud provider, or at your broadband provider) or if you lose power at your home and cannot power your broadband equipment.

I hope they reconsider, as they are best in class in the note space, but after listening to the CEO in a few different conversations, it's clear to me they are full steam ahead (though if enough users opt out, well, the business doesn't exist without the users, so it remains to be seen what proportion of users draws the line vs goes along).

I've been looking at alternatives, and like @NorcalScottI'm testing out Joplin. 

[bo12 13]

7 hours ago, eric99 said:

On my 4 year old laptop (16 GB ram, I7, ssd), alt-ctrl-f is very fast and works perfectly.  What PC are you using?

Edit: have you updated to the latest EN v 10.5.7 already ?

When I type in the search box suggestions are somewhat sluggish. I am used to getting instant results. I think it has to do with the fact that the new app is actually a web app in a wrapper and there is an intentional delay between every key strokes. It makes sense for a web app since every key stroke is a cost to Evernote backend but offline it makes no sense at all.  I have a fully spec'ed macbook pro 2019. Compute is not a problem

I have also created the following Alfred 4 workflow (powerpack upgrade required) with this apple script to open the search box automatically when called

tell application "Evernote"

    -- Bring app to the front, starting it if necessary

    activate

end tell

-- Simulate CMD+CTRL+F
--tell application "System Events" to keystroke "f" using {control down, down option}

tell application "System Events"
	delay 0.3
    keystroke "f" using {option down, command down} 
    keystroke "a" using {command down} 
end tell

Its a shame tabs are now gone

[Front Row 9]

This new update is, in my humble opinion, an unmitigated disaster.  I have never had as many duplicated notes and note conflicts as I have had in the past few days.  You can say that EN is automatically syncing but that is simply not the case.  I've now made it SOP to close and reopen the app from time to time and I still get conflicts and duplicates, and that is without crossing over between macOS and iOS devices. 

Previously I just made sure to manually sync EN after adding a lot of data and also to do that just before closing the app.  Now that corporate has removed the sync button (Why? Do share your logic.) there appears no way to force a sync.

I am looking for alternatives. A file folder filled with Pages or Word documents would be less stressful at this point. I don't subscribe to software so that the developers can make changes to a product that already worked, just so I can spend several hours searching for solutions to problems their "improvements" have created.

Yes, I realize that people are resistant to change.  This is not the case here, the product is broken.  I am actively considering cancelling my subscription.

 

[Alvin C 121]

6 hours ago, tavor said:

The bolded part cannot be emphasized enough for those who prioritize privacy and security. To be fair to EN, they are not alone in this approach. Many note apps are not offering either:

(1) local-only notes that are not uploaded to app provider's cloud, OR

(2) E2E encryption that does not leave the encryption key in the app provider's hands

And with a full cloud model, good luck accessing your notes if there is an outage (at EN, at their cloud provider, or at your broadband provider) or if you lose power at your home and cannot power your broadband equipment.

I hope they reconsider, as they are best in class in the note space, but after listening to the CEO in a few different conversations, it's clear to me they are full steam ahead (though if enough users opt out, well, the business doesn't exist without the users, so it remains to be seen what proportion of users draws the line vs goes along).

I've been looking at alternatives, and like @NorcalScottI'm testing out Joplin. 

Now we can still have an offline access because Evernote allows, but cloud default, sending to cloud first, no local. But for some services like Notion, they totally depend on internet connection.

After version 10, it seems Evernote is more dependent on cloud because of cancelling local notes and the new search. I found that I can't search on iOS while I can search (without immediate so called smart search suggestions showing you related tags, notebooks ...) on macOS. Even when there is perfect internet connection I need to wait for the server to update my database. I contact the support and they admit the search is for online only, and they are considering releasing the offline one.

My database used to be corrupted before as my deleted note information was shown on search results, and I had to contact support to fix the issue. Now the problem is almost solved as I still find those notes when I search "checkboxes". Cloud dependent services can make a problem more complicated because you don't know whether the root on my end or the server end, and I am concerned about my data cannot be totally deleted in this case.

I prefer local default note taking apps like Joplin, Apple Notes and Bear. I am using Bear now and the search result is instantaneous. Bear doesn't have their own cloud, although the app only allows the iCloud option depending on our own Apple account to sync.

Google had an outage a few days ago and Evernote is using the Google resources. Dunno if there was an interruption on EN during that period.

[rts 66]

7 hours ago, Metrodon said:

Assuming what they say is true (and why would they bother not telling the truth?) tags are used by a very very small subset of users.

So, tags aren't a big deal.

Never attribute to malice that which may be explained by incompetency. And shipping v10 before it was ready and then leading people to believe it was ready is not a sign of competence at the top. Ian Small may indeed be the CEO the company needs to survive. I am certain however that I can't take his or the company's promises on faith.

As to tags, I use them as just one example of missing functionality. Tags may not be a big deal for me or you. They've been around forever though and I have yet to hear anyone make a case that they shouldn't have been put in the product in first place. Indeed, if the new received wisdom is that very few people use tags you have to wonder why they were put in there in the first place. Notebooks? Nested tags? Color-coded tags? Is it possible that these were put into the product in response to customer demand? Meta data for database records? Crazy talk, I know. And don't get me started on the font decisions.

The problem with serving multiple platforms with a common code base is that there is always an incentive to pick the lowest common denominator in your product design. In v10 I see that LCD approach and similarities to the web client. I have used web access on occasion when I was using Linux. I'd say it was adequate for light use, but not something I'd choose over a desktop app. Similarly v10 is a LCD solution that many may find adequate. It's certainly not something that's going to keep this customer paying for a Premium account, however.

 

[zonderkoolzuur 14]

13 hours ago, NorcalScott said:

The comment of the CEO about few users using tags is what concerned me the most, to be honest.  Tags are a VERY big part of my workflow, and the main reason I chose Evernote in the beginning.  Maybe others don't use them, but my job requires storing of information that needs to be categorized by several different criteria, and tags are very useful for this.

The way I see it, there are some huge warning signs here:

- EN seems to be saying that power users are not that big of a concern to them, and I am a power user (to an extent)
- They seem to be saying that key features I use are not that important because not many others use them
- They seem hell bent on moving to a cloud dependent, centralized data model rather than the current environment where databases stay on the computer and are synced to the cloud for use on other devices.  We are trading local control to an environment where the totality of my data is out of my control.

I don't think Evernote can survive without power users, who are probably the only people willing to pay for a notetaking app, so we will see where this leads to.

I am testing out Joplin and it is actually pretty solid.  It certainly lacks some features that EN has, but it also includes some nice features EN doesn't have, like encryption, and it is blazingly fast to use and perform searches on.  If I am able to move my workflows over to Joplin and be able to use my Windows machine, my iPad and my Android phone successfully for a few months, I will make the switch permanent.

 

Speaking of which, I see Evernote's page entitled "Our GDPR Commitment" is empty (https://evernote.com/privacy/gdpr)

I struggle to see how anyone using Evernote to deal with personal data can possibly comply with the GDPR under this new "cloud-only" approach.

[toao 147]

5 hours ago, Alvin C said:

I prefer local default note taking apps like Joplin, Apple Notes and Bear. I am using Bear now and the search result is instantaneous. Bear doesn't have their own cloud, although the app only allows the iCloud option depending on our own Apple account to sync.

while apple only, I would add devonthink to the mix. have migrated out of this EN mess a few weeks back and am very happy with the decision...

[Wanderling Reborn 185]

On 12/17/2020 at 9:21 PM, tavor said:

 

@eric99 - I need to correct myself. Typora does have a WYSIWYG view. It's a fantastic editor that lets you do things that EN editor cannot. Some implementation of an outline mode has been requested for years by EN userbase, and we still don't have it. Typora has it and you an use that as your preferred editor in Joplin.

Also, Joplin editor has WYSIWYG in beta. 

The problem with Joplin, for me, is that it's all but useless on iOS. And if I only used my data on the desktop, I'd just put it in Onedrive / Google drive as regular documents. Both these services have PDF and image OCR, something Joplin doesn't do. Onenote is indispensable for work if your organization is using Outlook and Office, the level of integration is fantastic (MS does a very poor job promoting its best features, or how they can be used to simplify a Project Manager's life). Evernote is a great alternative otherwise. With Joplin, I am not sure what it would do for me that I can't get with text notes, Word and Excel files stored in Onedrive and indexed. 

[Piotas 121]

3 minutes ago, Wanderling Reborn said:

The problem with Joplin, for me, is that it's all but useless on iOS. And if I only used my data on the desktop, I'd just put it in Onedrive / Google drive as regular documents. Both these services have PDF and image OCR, something Joplin doesn't do. Onenote is indispensable for work if your organization is using Outlook and Office, the level of integration is fantastic (MS does a very poor job promoting its best features, or how they can be used to simplify a Project Manager's life). Evernote is a great alternative otherwise. With Joplin, I am not sure what it would do for me that I can't get with text notes, Word and Excel files stored in Onedrive and indexed. 

I have similar struggle, I am tied into Microsoft ecosystem of Teams/Office. I use Joplin purely for notetaking related to calls, meetings and daily activity, while the rest (emails, contacts, tasks) are in separate workflows.

Still, IMHO using a OneDrive folder structure with documents is easier than embedding them in legacy Evernote notes - there is no real benefit of putting your files INTO the notes.

[SyberBot 1]

It is too bad Evernote doesn't support local notebooks any longer.

Joplin looks like a nice replacement for evernote, and they have local notebooks!

https://joplinapp.org/

 

[tavor 668]

2 hours ago, SyberBot said:

It is too bad Evernote doesn't support local notebooks any longer.

Joplin looks like a nice replacement for evernote, and they have local notebooks!

https://joplinapp.org/

 

No, Joplin does not have local notebooks in the sense in which Evernote Legacy does. The difference between local notebooks and offline notes seems to be a common point of confusion on this forum. Maybe I can clear things up.

Evernote's Local Notebooks refers to local-only notebooks. Many of you may not be familiar with this feature as EN has downplayed it for years, even hiding it a bit. So you either knew about it from back when they did talk about it or you found it from hunting through the menus. None of the notes in these local notebooks gets synced to the cloud, so they also cannot be synced to your other devices. These notes reside *only* on the device on which they were created (in EN, this means a desktop/laptop as only the Windows and Mac apps allow you to create local notebooks). The obvious user benefit is privacy - since these notes are never synced to the cloud, you don't have to worry about the app provider, cloud storage provider or cloud hackers ever accessing these notes. The obvious drawback is they aren't synced, so you don't have access to the notes from other devices. They also cannot be used for enhanced search and sharing functions since EN cannot access these notes. Local notebooks are gone in v10 and this feature is not coming back. Those of us for whom local notebooks is an important feature for some portion of our notes (i.e., the notes we don't want to risk others accessing) have either already left or are using EN Legacy and will have to figure out what to do when Legacy is no longer supported.

Separately, you have offline notes. This refers to local storage of synced notes, as opposed to cloud-only storage. With offline notes, if your broadband provider, or EN or the cloud storage provider experience an outage, you still have access to your notes. Another benefit of offline notes is that there is zero lag. When your searches have to be sent to the cloud, executed on your cloud stored notes, then results sent back to you, you might experience some lag.

Getting back to Joplin, it does NOT have local notebooks. What it does have is offline storage, i.e., all your notes are stored on your synced devices, in addition to the cloud.

[Alexander Sadovskiy 2]

First of all, I would like to thank your for a great app. But sometimes it becomes worse. )

In the new version, several features have changed.

1. Moving notes between notebooks became harder.
I like to move notes between notebooks.
I used to be able to select hundred notes in a group and drag them from one notebook to another. What about current state?
– I will not be allowed to select more than 50 notes
– moving is extremely slow
– notes change the date (!!!) — to my mind, it is unacceptable, notepad link is a meta attribute, the text of the note itself does not change, so no reason to change the date
– last moved notes appear in labels in a menu

2. Backuping became much more difficult.
In a previous version I made a backup copy like this: I selected all the notes (I have about 500 of them) and clicked "Export". So for 1 minute I got backup.
Now i am not allowed to select more than 50 notes.
I can export only notebook, so I have to backup 20 times (20 notebooks) instead of 1 time.

3. Moving via link to an outer site demands 2 clicks.
I don't know why I have to click twice to jump by my link. The first click shows a link, the second moves me. It's not an usual web behaviour and it's too slow.
 

Could you improve back this functionality?

Edited December 19, 2020 by Alexander Sadovskiy
Remebered yet one feature

[Wanderling Reborn 185]

2 hours ago, Piotas said:

I have similar struggle, I am tied into Microsoft ecosystem of Teams/Office. I use Joplin purely for notetaking related to calls, meetings and daily activity, while the rest (emails, contacts, tasks) are in separate workflows.

Still, IMHO using a OneDrive folder structure with documents is easier than embedding them in legacy Evernote notes - there is no real benefit of putting your files INTO the notes.

Why don't you use Onenote for meeting notes and daily activity? It's so well integrated with Office, Outlook and Teams, you're really missing out if you're not using it for that. (Onenote 2016, as Windows 10 app is too limited).

E.g. when I have a meeting, with just one click I create a Onenote page with all meeting data - including a sign in list where I can check off attendee names, agenda, and a Notes section. All of that is automatically copied from Outlook. I then brainstorm the meeting ahead of time under Notes, add links to relevant documents and emails (or just copy them  as attachments), and add checkmarks with all questions that need to be covered, checking them off as we go. Any notes to myself that I don't want to share with meeting go into a collapsed outline on the right side of note, outside the main body. If any actionable items come up during meeting, I create Outlook tasks right from my notes, without leaving Onenote. When I am done, I export meeting notes to PDF,  and distribute them to meeting participants with a few clicks in Outlook (right click on meeting in calendar, "Reply all", click on attachment icon, it will automatically suggest the last document created in any Office app). The "tags" (which are not really tags) is also a very powerful feature, when used right. It's a major time saver. 

[ChunkyMonkey 0]

Honestly, I'll be moving away from this poorly released and developed app. I continuously get messages indicating 'Oops, something went wrong' and upon selecting ok, I'm pushed back to the top level of whatever stack I was in. Sigh.

To add insult to injury, I'm being prompted with an indication that the using the browser based version on the same machine I have set as one of my 2 instances, is umm... another instance? What is this absurdity? If I can't rely on the stand alone application, I have to use something but if I'm stuck with 2 prunes a month and your app sucks, how should I proceed?

I'm not a power user by any means and I'm not really interested in following the discussion of how this is better because quite frankly, it's not. I have plenty of notes that I've accumulated over the last several years and they were up till now, nicely organized within the desktop version which is now just a polished *****. No more.

If I were shelling out actual cash for the app, I'd be cancelling but at least at this point I'm just stuck with taking the time to migrate to literally ANYTHING ELSE. Luckily, I'm stuck at home just like everyone else so I've got that going for me.

[Seb701 0]

I've used Evernote for several years, built a very robust system of tracking my life, memories and ideas. The new version is HORRIBLE! Nothing works the same, its so slow I often forget what I was trying to do, and it's no longer my prefered place for capturing notes. My renewal is up in a about a month and I'm currently lookin for other options to migrate to. If I have to relearn, I might as well relearn something new.

The work flows are off, the tagging and movement of notes is slow, doing anything with multiple notes is very slow and I don't like the views. Opening more than one note at a time is difficult. 

Can we roll back to a local version that syncs?

[nelsondma 3]

How can removing the option of having several windows open at the same time be a good idea?!!! I'm uninstalling the latest version and going back to the previous one until new releases again allow for having multiple Evernote windows opened simultaneously. 

[Piotas 121]

2 hours ago, Wanderling Reborn said:

E.g. when I have a meeting, with just one click I create a Onenote page with all meeting data - including a sign in list where I can check off attendee names, agenda, and a Notes section. All of that is automatically copied from Outlook. I then brainstorm the meeting ahead of time under Notes, add links to relevant documents and emails (or just copy them  as attachments), and add checkmarks with all questions that need to be covered, checking them off as we go. Any notes to myself that I don't want to share with meeting go into a collapsed outline on the right side of note, outside the main body. If any actionable items come up during meeting, I create Outlook tasks right from my notes, without leaving Onenote. When I am done, I export meeting notes to PDF,  and distribute them to meeting participants with a few clicks in Outlook (right click on meeting in calendar, "Reply all", click on attachment icon, it will automatically suggest the last document created in any Office app). The "tags" (which are not really tags) is also a very powerful feature, when used right. It's a major time saver. 

I used OneNote in the past, in my previous job for tasks you described due to integration with Outlook tied to calendar and contacts. I used OneNote 2013 (2012-2015). It was OK for limited number of notes for a few projects, but isn't suitable for note-everything-of-importance approach due to limited tree structure. OneNote is more "electronic" paper than text-note-taking app and it has some limitation of page-centric approach.

In my current job I am forced to use my employer's managed PC or Vmware virtual machine (as I am BYOD user), I no longer can benefit from OneNote-connects-to-all, I actually use Teams to sync data between host and VM (because admins blocked all "normal" methods of file transwer and firewall VM connects via VPN blocks most traffic). As result, currently  I use Evernote and Joplin in combo - Evernote mostly for junk website grab and email forwarding, joplin for note taking). I still use Evernote because I don't want to clutter Joplin with low-importance web-dumps, only important text notes. I even use Evernote weblinks with Joplin, Google Contacts and my CRM to link to text content. This is result of limitation of Joplin android app (you have to replicate all notes on your device, you cannot do it partially); also currently there is no file handler to mimic Evernote web links, so in cannot automate Joplin usage cross-app.

[Jaime Suarez Broker 5]

I do not know what they were thinking. One thing is for sure, the new EN sucks a lot. For once, after 2 weeks of getting sick at this garbage update I decided to cancel my premium. These people will NOT have my money or support anymore! It's the most I can do. Why support a company that has it's head so far up their..

[MB11 15]

With the level of upset and frustration that dedicated EN users are expressing, wouldn't you think management would at least come out with a "we hear you and we are going to make changes" message? Other than the blog the CEO recently posted (which addressed almost none of the concerns expressed on this forum), there is silence. This is highly disconcerting. 

EN is crucial to my work. I don't want to leave. But the longer the silence goes on, the more troubled I become. And unlike some of the posters here, I don't have the technical expertise to do a thorough job of evaluating options. I'm fairly sure there are a significant number of people in the same boat as I am. 

Am I wrong in thinking that the tools and functionalities that have been taken away aren't coming back?
That management is saying: "here the new EN and this is the way it is?"
Or is EN a company that has lost its way and is losing talented employees, and therefore is a sinking ship?

Sorry if this isn't worded well. The frustration level here is high. 

[CalS 5,280]

48 minutes ago, MB11 said:

With the level of upset and frustration that dedicated EN users are expressing, wouldn't you think management would at least come out with a "we hear you and we are going to make changes" message? Other than the blog the CEO recently posted (which addressed almost none of the concerns expressed on this forum), there is silence. This is highly disconcerting. 

EN is crucial to my work. I don't want to leave. But the longer the silence goes on, the more troubled I become. And unlike some of the posters here, I don't have the technical expertise to do a thorough job of evaluating options. I'm fairly sure there are a significant number of people in the same boat as I am. 

Am I wrong in thinking that the tools and functionalities that have been taken away aren't coming back?
That management is saying: "here the new EN and this is the way it is?"
Or is EN a company that has lost its way and is losing talented employees, and therefore is a sinking ship?

Sorry if this isn't worded well. The frustration level here is high. 

There is a recent video that was posted that addresses the issues of V10.  A bit of 20-20 hindsight  while downplaying the impact on heavy users.  Not disingenuous but in the neighborhood.  

[Weblogista 1]

I haven't read all these replies, but here I go...

I hate the new app. Just downloaded the Legacy app and am using that now. Both can exist next to eachother, so that is good. The new version is just the web version in a shell, right? It's almost identical to the web version, the one that only runs properly in Chrome, not in Firefox.

Now with this new version - WHY IS THERE NO LINUX APP YET??????

I mean, if you go this way, then that should be peanuts not?

I hate the ugglyness and sluggyness. When I create a new note, I see like 5 different windows being created, and then it's a miracle if I can type a new title and text, because often I need to restart to do that. The only improvement is search, because that didn't work at all in the old app on my Mac. If I needed search, I did that on the phone, added a space in the text so it moved up, then could proceed on the laptop.

Lists on the phone have different checkboxes than in the mac version. They look different, behave different. If I select one line in a list and move it, the bullets are not recreated properly.

V10 is a giant leap and many steps backwards. The giant leap seems to be: saving money by cutting down the dev team. I'm looking for alternatives. OneNote is not what I want. Joplin not really. What else is there?

[toao 147]

36 minutes ago, Weblogista said:

 I'm looking for alternatives. OneNote is not what I want. Joplin not really. What else is there?

if you are on the apple / mac side DevonThink is a real good substitute for my use cases (in fact it goes far beyond what EN "legacy" can do). have been using it for a month now and am very happy with it...

[�xel 4]

@Evernote, I am very worried about the current product situation and I'd like to beg you for clarification on your intentions.

The new product verion has so much differences in its working that it irreversibly destroys some formatting on your full notes collection. This is not a "have a try to the new version" scenario, but an irreversible disaster. I have few time for reporting but in the end, I see that my first reports of this severity remain unattended for 10 days - see linked issue below.

I currently have serious doubts about the company intentions. are you committed to work on solving all regressions, incompatibilities and damage to your users data, before discontinuing the legacy product and only then moving forward? Or will you just fix a concrete list of bugs, implement some features, and then saying "EN 10 final version, now this is our product, here you have, take it of leave it". It's important for your customers to take critical decisions and moving to the right service before the situation gets worse or it's too late for them to react. We have put our data and our daily workflow on your product and I am scared on the ways this may evolve from now to future.

Really thank you in advance.

 

 

[James0505 0]

I don't know if this is the best way to complain, but the new evernote is so bad I'm considering starting to use a new platform (been using evernote for 6 years). I totally get that the developers will get bored and want to change company if you just keep the platform as it is without trying to improve it, but someone has made a huge error somewhere and completely ruined the product. It's so incredibly slow and sluggish now that it's almost un-usable. Seriously, have any of the devs even used the new evernote? If you can't see how much worse it is now then you need to honestly re-think your career.

Does anyone know a way to revert to the old evernote? Particularly on Android Mobile.

[rts 66]

8 hours ago, James0505 said:

Does anyone know a way to revert to the old evernote? Particularly on Android Mobile.

Alas, at the bottom of the page describing the Legacy version (i.e., the way it used to work) it says it's only for the Mac OS and Windows versions:

 

Quote

 

Can I use a legacy app on iOS or Android?

No. Evernote Legacy is only available for Mac and Windows.

 

In theory one could side load an earlier version on Android. If you/I/we had known how bad things would get we could have saved the earlier version of the application, its APK file. It would be easy for them to deny access to our information on their servers if it detected an earlier version however.

UPDATE: A web search revealed a site with an archive of older versions: apkpure.com. I'm sure there are others. How much you're willing to trust a third-party site is up to you.

[Piotas 121]

On 12/19/2020 at 9:19 PM, Wanderling Reborn said:

Why don't you use Onenote for meeting notes and daily activity? It's so well integrated with Office, Outlook and Teams, you're really missing out if you're not using it for that. (Onenote 2016, as Windows 10 app is too limited).

E.g. when I have a meeting, with just one click I create a Onenote page with all meeting data - including a sign in list where I can check off attendee names, agenda, and a Notes section. All of that is automatically copied from Outlook. I then brainstorm the meeting ahead of time under Notes, add links to relevant documents and emails (or just copy them  as attachments), and add checkmarks with all questions that need to be covered, checking them off as we go. Any notes to myself that I don't want to share with meeting go into a collapsed outline on the right side of note, outside the main body. If any actionable items come up during meeting, I create Outlook tasks right from my notes, without leaving Onenote. When I am done, I export meeting notes to PDF,  and distribute them to meeting participants with a few clicks in Outlook (right click on meeting in calendar, "Reply all", click on attachment icon, it will automatically suggest the last document created in any Office app). The "tags" (which are not really tags) is also a very powerful feature, when used right. It's a major time saver. 

I already answered your question. My company forces me to use centrally-managed Vmware image with Outlook 2016 to use corporate emails. If I would use OneNote for taking notes, it would stay inside virtual machine, I would have to copy it manually to destination because they blocked OneNote from using replacated or OneDrive folders for saving files.

I use Office 365 on host to do most of the job, then use Teams to replicate files to virtual machine - because admins blocked any normal communication between host and vmachine and using OneDrive to share files between host and virtual machine is simplest working option.

In my previous company I used OneNote 2016 because I could benefit from OneNote-Outlook integration, this is no longer the case.

I use Joplin on host because it is faster, easier and my notes are not hostage inside virtual machine.

[Chris Darby 11]

On 11/30/2020 at 12:14 PM, ELeatherwood said:

I am a writer and researcher who went all in on this platform 5 years ago, and whose careful tagging and filing over that time has been rendered unusable by this latest version. This actually affects my livelihood.

I have about 20,000 notes that represent five years of careful tagging. I use tags daily to cross-reference my research to write content.

...

 

 

I keep running into this issue with technology and I suspect others do as well. We invest significant time and effort over years to make use of some incredible tools that people create, like Evernote, and we are more than happy to continue to purchase or subscribe to their services as a result, but then our "house of cards" teeter on the brink of collapse when the product suddenly and unexpectedly breaks or dissolves. As you alluded to, as we each organize and tag thousands of records, enabling us to rapidly retrieve past thoughts and concepts through indexed searches, leaves us dependent on tools like this as a sort of auxiliary brain. Ultimately I only have myself to blame for this, investing so much confidence and faith in a single tool and service provider, rather than breaking it out among different products. If I were to start over, I would rearchitect my approach by possibly focusing on open source software (although there are certainly support and maintenance pitfalls there as well), as well as spreading out the approach to data organizing among multiple different products. The problem with splitting up our auxiliary brains between multiple products is that we lose data correlation (record "A" now relates to record "B" in a different information ecosystem). I suppose the only potential for rearchitecting one's approach would be to focus on using open standards (i.e., service-oriented architecture, microservices) in which different products can communicate back and forth, ideally between each other within an isolated offline instance and online. Or maybe Evernote will surprise us and fix their previously product offering, and I can continue my dependency on their previously awesome software even in light of its proprietary nature.

[NorcalScott 53]

1 hour ago, Chris Darby said:

I keep running into this issue with technology and I suspect others do as well. We invest significant time and effort over years to make use of some incredible tools that people create, like Evernote, and we are more than happy to continue to purchase or subscribe to their services as a result, but then our "house of cards" teeter on the brink of collapse when the product suddenly and unexpectedly breaks or dissolves. As you alluded to, as we each organize and tag thousands of records, enabling us to rapidly retrieve past thoughts and concepts through indexed searches, leaves us dependent on tools like this as a sort of auxiliary brain. Ultimately I only have myself to blame for this, investing so much confidence and faith in a single tool and service provider, rather than breaking it out among different products. If I were to start over, I would rearchitect my approach by possibly focusing on open source software (although there are certainly support and maintenance pitfalls there as well), as well as spreading out the approach to data organizing among multiple different products. The problem with splitting up our auxiliary brains between multiple products is that we lose data correlation (record "A" now relates to record "B" in a different information ecosystem). I suppose the only potential for rearchitecting one's approach would be to focus on using open standards (i.e., service-oriented architecture, microservices) in which different products can communicate back and forth, ideally between each other within an isolated offline instance and online. Or maybe Evernote will surprise us and fix their previously product offering, and I can continue my dependency on their previously awesome software even in light of its proprietary nature.

This whole episode with Evernote 10 has made me realize that it is really important for me to break away from a proprietary system in which 10 years of my work could possibly be at the mercy of decisions made that do not necessarily consider my best interests at heart.  Even if Evernote were to completely reverse their decision on rolling out what I believe to be an inferior solution, I would still feel this way.

But, to be clear, choosing an open source solution like Joplin is not for everyone.  I am very close to having transferred all 10 years of my notes and attachments into Joplin, to sync between my Windows laptop, my iPad and my Android phone.  I've spent about 20 hours on this in the past 2 weeks and below are some of the issues I have encountered:

- Just the process of importing Evernote files into Joplin is not without difficulty.  I tried doing a mass import but found that many notes coming from Evernote needed some handling and manipulating once imported, for example, Joplin's sync system does not handle large (>10MB) files too well.  That's fine as I have decided that I do not want to attach anything that large, but it made mass imports unworkable, so I ended up importing Evernote files ~150 at a time, then checking attachments and pruning after each import.

- The biggest challenge of Joplin itself is the syncing process.  If you will only use one computer, it is easy and you can back everything up locally for safe keeping.  In my case, I need to sync between the 3 devices mentioned above.  In order to do this you need to choose a cloud provider that is compatible with syncing.  For this you have 3 choices - NextCloud/WebDAV, Microsoft OneDrive, or DropBox.  I tried each of these in order, and even though WebDAV holds great promise ($17 per year for 50GB of space from Cloudamo, for example), but the management of this was too difficult for my large number of files.   OneDrive worked really well and you can get 100GB for $1.99 per month.  Unfortunately, there is an issue in Joplin (being worked on) where if a note is 4MB or larger OneDrive sync fails and it is almost impossible to recover.  Some of my notes are that size, but it is hard to know which ones were causing the problem, and I had to give up for now.  Until this is fixed, I don't recommend OneDrive.  There is a way to setup your own NextCloud server using a Raspberry Pi and I am looking into that.

I finally settled on DropBox and it works really well.  Unfortunately, their lowest cost paid plan is $12 per month for 2TB of storage, and I already pay Google for 2TB of Drive storage (doesn't work for Joplin reliably, unfortunately) and I don't want to change.  Luckily, after I pruned things,   my total storage is around 3GB and I have 6GB of DropBox storage, so I will be OK there for a while.  I did encounter an issue where a few very small image files were stopping sync from completing, but I was able to track that down and delete the offending files.

There are things about Joplin I really like: The Windows client is very similar to Evernote; searching is fast and accurate - way better than Evernote 10; the web clipper of Joplin is VERY nice, better than Evernote's.  One missing feature is that you cannot email into Joplin to create notes, but that is a small sacrifice and one I can work around.  Tags work the same in Joplin as in Evernote and much to Ian Small's chagrin, I have about 500 tags   

Overall, if you are willing to put in the effort, Joplin is very much a viable alternative, and I expect it is going to continue to get better and better as the development team is motivated and talented.

[Chris Darby 11]

4 minutes ago, NorcalScott said:

This whole episode with Evernote 10 has made me realize that it is really important for me to break away ... Overall, if you are willing to put in the effort, Joplin is very much a viable alternative, and I expect it is going to continue to get better and better as the development team is motivated and talented.

Thank you for sharing your experiences with this, I do greatly appreciate it.

[DTLow 5,736]

15 minutes ago, NorcalScott said:

it is really important for me to break away from a proprietary system

For me, it is really important to be able to exit from a proprietary system   
Evernote's export feature provides the assurance that my data is not locked in  

In the meantime, I'm able to make use of the Evernote features; organization, search, ...   

Note, I'm using Evernote's Legacy product    
I won't consider using the Version 10 product until the ongoing work is completed