View mode: top list mode unavailable and no sorting on tags

[Dix0r 6]

Hi, 

Dissapointed in the new version 10.1.7 Windows client

Basic features missing:

- Top list viewing mode unavailable.
- Sorting on tags column impossible.

Besides that software feels slow and bloats. I would like to downgrade or something, this doesn't make sense and certainly doesn't make me productive. Don't fix things which aren't broken. Cancelling my automatic subscription for now. Evernote: you just lost me.

[Mike P 2,637]

On 10/24/2020 at 6:46 AM, Dix0r said:

- Sorting on tags column impossible.

Can't sort on any of the extra columns you can access in the list view which does somewhat reduce it's usefulness. Sorting by tags was a great quick and dirty way of spotting notes which don't have tags without having to use the advanced search syntax. Given that tags are now listed in the order you added them and not alphabetically, sorting by tags might not give you the desired results.

[kongulu 11]

The new EN is VERY VERY slow - I am hoping they can fix the problem, or continue to support the legacy app on Windows 10.

[Jim Poulin 3]

I reinstalled 6.25 too. No sorting on Tags = Useless for me

[Dix0r 6]

I downloaded/downgraded to the legacy version as well, hope this will be supported for a while.

Hope Evernote is getting this basic stuff sorted, otherwise I have to look for another tool to organize my notes (working with getting-things-done method),.

[Mesoman 20]

How do you downgrade? This new version has broken my usage patterns.

[DTLow 5,736]

7 minutes ago, Mesoman said:

How do you downgrade? This new version has broken my usage patterns.

https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/360052560314?fbclid=IwAR2TNqp-eGRH3Ds8Vfu-CiKPjYolJzZ_keR9eWQaDahJ2GN-7hwn595zI8w&__s=bsetfdgzirbvqtopurph

[Mesoman 20]

Thanks. That doesn't work for the mobile app, but fortunately, until they break it too, my mobile app doesn't have the problem - which involves notes hidden from portions of the tags hierarchy.

[Dix0r 6]

is this already fixed in the new desktop app so i can switch?

[Paul A. 615]

14 hours ago, Dix0r said:

is this already fixed in the new desktop app so i can switch?

Top view is now supported, but sorting by tags within that view is not.

[Dix0r 6]

Can this be added to feature request for the next sprint or something? How do I do this..? 🙂

[Dix0r 6]

One year later and this 'simple' feature is still not implemented. Even no feedback from Evernote or their development team why this isn't implemented?

Well, I will switch back to the legacy client again.

Does anyone have suggestions to switch over to another application who supports this (using the GTD getting things done method?).

[Boot17 1,447]

11 hours ago, Dix0r said:

One year later and this 'simple' feature is still not implemented.

11 hours ago, Dix0r said:

Does anyone have suggestions to switch over to another application who supports this (using the GTD getting things done method?)

Is one of your feature requirements for that other application to support tags, have a top list view that shows tags, and allows you to sort that list by tags?

[Dix0r 6]

yes

[PinkElephant 8,091]

Currently EN legacy supports sort by tags.

In my opinion it is practically useless - what is your sort order when you have more than 1 tag attached to a note ? See, it does sort, but it makes no sense, because it will not bring all notes with a certain tag into view.

What does make sense is the ability to filter for tags - this works in v10, and better than with legacy, because the filter dialogue allows the combination of more filters than legacy.

[MvdH 400]

Hi there @PinkElephant  Nice how people use tools differently. For me sorting tags is ESSENTIAL for my workflow. I think I assign/change about 5 tags for 100 new and old notes every day, so that is 500 changes per day. This as a business owner. That's why I am on legacy and why I am using tags like a Ninja via Ctrl+Alt+T and Alt+Shift+T dialogues and such. See here a screenshot why sorting within tags and sorting on the columns tags is needed for how I work: 

 Greetings and a smile, Mark 

[PinkElephant 8,091]

Thanks for explaining.

Sure you can build a tagging system around having a few tags flagging notes. The sort restriction stays: It sorts by the „first“ tag only (which is alphabetical, with symbols and numbers before characters). 

This means a tag can easily be moved to „second“ place by another - which sends the note holding it down the list.

Maybe this is the reason why I found tag sorting of little use. Saved searches and filters (this option was much improved in v10) work better for me, because all tags are found reliably.

To contact EN PM you can use the feedback function. I am not sure EN staff follows our forum discussions.

[Boot17 1,447]

7 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

This means a tag can easily be moved to „second“ place by another - which sends the note holding it down the list.

This is true for me too and most likely the case for most users. I have tags like "car", "home-care", "file-afdesign", "getac", "kiosk", "medical", etc. Sorting by tag would not do much for me to find all tags with "medical", because it could easily be the 2nd or 3rd tag on a note and its appearance in the list would be all over and random.

It looks like @MvdH has set up a tag naming convention (for at least some tags) to specifically make use of the subsequent tag sorting. Their tags look like this:

They've named tags precisely to take advantage of the sorting of tags by 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc tag. Because the tags all appear alphabetically, you can expect consistent behavior from the sort. It's not really so they can find a certain tag with "?Xpletus*" (for example) -- it's more of a productivity process strategy.

There are probably others that use tags like this -- I haven't combed through the threads to know for certain -- but I wouldn't have thought to use tags this way. I'm hazarding a guess that most people don't use tags this way either.

I wonder if this is a relatively easy fix/change for EN and it would be a good ROI for the amount of work involved. (Whereas there are other things that v10 doesn't have that legacy did -- like multiple tabs -- which seems there is more complexity to implement that within the new framework and I don't think that one is ever coming back.)

[PinkElephant 8,091]

Yes, this I understood as well. 

Doing so drastically limits the use of tags in general - it sacrifices many possible uses of tags to make them „sortable“.

Personally I don’t think this is a good approach. To find and act on notes controlled by a GTD-type workflow is better set up by saved searches. This approach works independently from the tag being in a certain position in an alphabetical order.

[MvdH 400]

You both are very correct. My approach isn't conventional, it is fully TSW/GTD compliant however. See https://thesecretweapon.org/  And many have responded in these forums to me using it the same way. However, maybe it's only 1% or less of the EverNote userbase. I understand EverNote not paying attention to this if that's the case. It DOES pose a problem to me WHEN Legacy gets unusable. I'm just patiently waiting and repeating when- and whereever I can. Hopefully EverNote will fix my usage. Also performance is a thing. Evernote 10 got MUCH faster, bút Legacy works instantly. Me making 500 tag changes a day, means if every change gets via multiple steps say added 5 seconds, this means >40 minutes a day of extra work each day AND the feeling of sluggishness and wasting time and waiting and listening to my own thoughts in the meanwhile. When I say I use tags as a ninja, I mean uit. 😉   Thanks for thinking along y'all, and also thanks for making me feel at least understood in my use-case! 😘🙏🤗❤

[MvdH 400]

About using saved searches for GTD, that's not doable for me. I started out like that years ago, turned out I needed hundreds of searches. Now I only need about 30.  This comes from the fact I overview tens of people with tens of projects each, loads of archiving/info on old projects on combinations of tags. However, I might need to think out a whole new process if the future dictates me losing legacy. Well, I'll see then.

[Liamat 12]

New Evernote is un-usable.  They broke GTD method.  I am looking to migrate to something else.  The worst part is I don't think Evernote cares at all.

[PinkElephant 8,091]

@Liamat There is a setup guide from the David Allen Company about how to use EN for GTD. I consider this "the" official guide to GTD with EN.

It describes the way to set it up with v 6.25 (Windows), what we call "legacy" today. BTW legacy is still available, so your argument is beside the point in any case.

But to come back to facts: Since you consider yourself a GTD expert (at least you post here as if you were) you can surely point out why it would not be possible to follow this setup with v10 ?!

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,954]

On 6/7/2022 at 10:10 AM, Liamat said:

New Evernote is un-usable.  They broke GTD method.  I am looking to migrate to something else.  The worst part is I don't think Evernote cares at all.

This is off-topic for this thread (which is almost 2 years old, and only started drifting toward GTD discussions recently). What exactly is broken and making Evernote unusable? Details might get some suggestions from the users here.

[agsteele 2,944]

Evernote doesn't present itself as a GTD tool. It is a note taking program.

The GTD issues mentioned arise from our usage. I've changed my workflow in a couple of areas so that I can still do what I used to do. Now, though, I have to work differently. 

Once done it takes only a few days to work in the new way without difficulty.

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,954]

How many Evernote users does it take to change a light bulb?

Change? CHANGE? Why did they take away my...? CHANGE???