Note Creation Date Change in New Release has ruined my journal organization approach

[Trent W 4]

I may be one of few having this issue. I use Evernote to journal events and reviews.  Many times these events are entered post facto.  In the previous release I was able to edit easily in the desktop app the creation date. (I understand Evernotes desire not to allow last updated date not to be edited.)  Then I could sort or filter by creation date and see the journal entries in chronological order or by specific date (would be nice to have filter by date range).  You cannot even edit the creation date in the web based UI.

In this new desktop release, Evernotes UI to enter or edit  a date other than one close by is horrible. You only have a forward and back arrow from today's month (see screen capture attached).  So, for example,  to enter/edit a creation date from 30 years ago for a personal journal log of that date, it would take (360 clicks (20x12). (And yes, I am an old guy of 60+).

The options I have considered:

• You can enter a date in the note but you can't sort on it.
• You could set up folders for each month but then you have a huge folder maintenance task plus you could not sort on multiple months worth of journal entries.
• You can create tags but then you have a large number of date tags and you cannot sort on tags nor filter on multiple tags (e.g., show me Aug, Sep and Oct from 2007)

Is anyone else using Evernotes as a chronological journal?  If so, how are you getting around this?

Can I request Evernote to go back to the original UI for editing creation date and allow a date to be typed in (with validation the format is correct)?  That would solve my problem.

Thanks

[RLeB 3]

The Alt-Shft-D insertion of date is something I would use for every new note, but it is only useful if we can set the preference to use the yyyy-mm-dd format. The current implementation only provides Month day, year. This is useless for sorting. Why would I bother to use this when I have to over-type it with the preferred format? The current implementation is of marginal utility and short-sighted.

[DTLow 5,749]

27 minutes ago, Trent W said:

Is anyone else using Evernotes as a chronological journal?  If so, how are you getting around this?

The Evernote metadata stores created and updated dates    
I prepend subject date to the note title   
Example:     2021-02-17 Journal ...

[Trent W 4]

Yes, I thought of this but did not like it as it makes my titles long.  Plus I have to go through hundreds of entries and change the titles.

It would be nice if there were a few text fields added that are sortable and filterable so a date could be entered there and would preserve the create and update dates.

[Trent W 4]

18 hours ago, RLeB said:

The Alt-Shft-D insertion of date is something I would use for every new note, but it is only useful if we can set the preference to use the yyyy-mm-dd format. The current implementation only provides Month day, year. This is useless for sorting. Why would I bother to use this when I have to over-type it with the preferred format? The current implementation is of marginal utility and short-sighted.

Agree. Date format is only useful if in a chronologically sortable format.

[mbca 2]

I'm having this problem, too, except for tracking expenses and not for journaling. I want to be able to use the date of purchase rather than the date that I uploaded the receipt into Evernote.

[Mike P 3,075]

2 hours ago, mbca said:

I'm having this problem, too, except for tracking expenses and not for journaling. I want to be able to use the date of purchase rather than the date that I uploaded the receipt into Evernote.

The creation date can be edited in the note information window (ctrl-shift-I) 

[Trent W 4]

We are aware that you can edit the creation date. That is not the issue. The issue is the UI change in this new release to how the date is entered.  You were able to type it in or select from the calendar prior.  Now you are only able to select from the calendar.

One update to my original post.  I was not aware, or the UI was updated after my post, that you can actually select the year.  It is not intuitive to see that this is possible as the year field is not noticeably designated as editable in the UI.  It wasn't until I saw a video on this that I learned it is editable.  And only if you hover over the year label does it change to show it is a selectable/editable value.  One main flaw with this is that the scroll window only shows a range of plus/minus 7 years worth of possible selections. I.e., if I bring it up in 2021, I can only scroll back to 2013.  Why it doesn't it scroll at least 100 years (a little more than a lifetime for a person)?  You have to click on 2005 to then get a scroll bar that goes back another 15 years.  

Let's say it is June 01, 2021 and I want to change it to Dec 21st 1997.  You have to click on the year, scroll to 2013, select 2013.  That brings up June 01, 2013.  Then I have to select the year and scroll back to 2005, select 2005.  Select the year again and scroll to 1997, select 1997.  Now I have June 01, 1997.  Now I have to click the month arrow 6 times to get to Dec.  Then I have to click on the 21st to change the day.  Then I have to click on the 'x' to close the calendar window. I could have typed in the date multiple times in the amount of time it would take me to click through this process. 

To top it off, if you go to the Time value, if it shows 12 in the hour field and I want to change it to 6, I can click the arrows provided six times or I CAN TYPE IN 6.  Why not give this same option for the calendar? Totally ineffective UI design (and I run software development for a living).  Evernote, please provide the ability to type in the date.

[Mike P 3,075]

5 hours ago, Trent W said:

We are aware that you can edit the creation date.

I wasn't answering your question - I fully appreciate your needs are different.  @mbca piggy backed on your  post and for them a simple change in creation date seemed to be sufficient.

[WarAxe 0]

Yeah, this really makes using Evernote a showstopper.  Seriously, what valuable Notes wouldn't need a sortable, convenient Date field?  I'm shaking my head.

[PinkElephant 9,019]

The simple answer is that this field „creation date“ is set by the EN software, and I doubt it is meant to be edited. It says and wants to contain the system date when a note was created.

So everybody who takes a field that is used by the system, and manipulates it to whatever use runs the danger that it will be overwritten. And a date set by the system does not need any fancy UI job - it just needs to show.

Anybody can write a date into the note body, and if it is always written in the same way, it is searchable and can be used to select notes. This works even better when the date string is placed in the notes header. This is independent from the system fields and thus protected against involuntary changes.

[CalS 5,311]

1 hour ago, PinkElephant said:

So everybody who takes a field that is used by the system, and manipulates it to whatever use runs the danger that it will be overwritten.

Create date not likely to be overwritten by the system.  

I change created date though not often.  It is particularly handy when adding documents to the system wherein a date order is beneficial.  Or if I have had a DAA and have not downloaded something that I should have.  Easier to do with search results if things are in their right sequence. 

Agreed, if the option is available one should use at one's own risk.  Issue here the it is a takeaway in V10.

[DTLow 5,749]

5 hours ago, WarAxe said:

Seriously, what valuable Notes wouldn't need a sortable, convenient Date field?  I'm shaking my head.

My solution is to prefix note titles with Subject Date
The database in Evernote Legacy actually included a Subject Date field    

[Chmedly 1]

I'm in Evernote "free" mode now after several years of paid service. I can't figure out how to change the created date in the Android app or in the web interface. It appears that Evernote no longer wants me to work the way that I have for many years. (Are they giving me the middle finger for cancelling my subscription??)

Starting every note with MY created date certainly is a solution but for me is highly, highly unlikely to be implemented as I have no plans to go back and update thousands of notes to conform to a new (imposed) restriction to the work flow. 

 

I'm still baffled about what has happened with Evernote this past year... Workflow is EVERYTHING for a heavy user. Where the heck are they going?? 

[DTLow 5,749]

4 minutes ago, Chmedly said:

I can't figure out how to change the created date in the Android app or in the web interface.

I'm able to edit date-created in Evernote/web

[Chmedly 1]

Can you elaborate on how/where? The only place I'm seeing the create date is the "view note info" window accessed from the 3 vertical dots in the upper right corner and the fields are not editable. Is there perhaps another place where I should be looking?  

[DTLow 5,749]

10 hours ago, Chmedly said:

The only place I'm seeing the create date is the "view note info" window accessed from the 3 vertical dots in the upper right corner and the fields are not editable

Screenshot is from Evernote/Web accessed using the Safari browser on my iPad   
The field is editable

edit: same results with Safari on a Mac

[Chmedly 1]

Aha! I need an iPad!

Here's a screen shot of Safari on a mac. Also tried with Chrome AND with the Android app. 

Can't click on the dates and change them. I CAN add a URL or an author.  

[RJLUK 308]

Get "Dayentry" app on iPhone or iPad it allows journal entries to be created within Evernote even this messed up "new" evernote. I create with phone and amend tidy up with whatever device is convenient.

[PinkElephant 9,019]

Good advise !

Just be aware that the apps from this developer were not updated in the last 4 years. This implies the risk they stop working one day. I wouldn’t rely on it forever.

Maybe you can build a new workflow around tasks.

[clarinade 0]

Yes, I'd also like to be able to change the date without having to click through a calendar. I'm currently scanning in a lot of old documents and changing the 'date created' to its original date. It is a MUCH longer process now than it used to be when I could simply type in the date, especially as someone already mentioned the year drop down list only scrolls to 2013, and then you have to click again to go back to an earlier year. I'd really like to still have the option of typing in the date. 

[CalS 5,311]

6 hours ago, clarinade said:

Yes, I'd also like to be able to change the date without having to click through a calendar. I'm currently scanning in a lot of old documents and changing the 'date created' to its original date. It is a MUCH longer process now than it used to be when I could simply type in the date, especially as someone already mentioned the year drop down list only scrolls to 2013, and then you have to click again to go back to an earlier year. I'd really like to still have the option of typing in the date. 

You could go back to the pre V10 version until you have completed your scanning project.  Probably faster than waiting for a create date edit change.  FWIW.

[DTLow 5,749]

7 hours ago, clarinade said:

I'm currently scanning in a lot of old documents and changing the 'date created' to its original date. ... I'd really like to still have the option of typing in the date. 

Evernote Legacy (Mac/Windows)

[PinkElephant 9,019]

@clarinade I understand your wish, but using a date field that is system driven and modify it is something you do at your own risk. When EN for example decides to lock this field, you‘re done. Some alternatives:

Write the date simply into the title. If you put it at the beginning and use something like YYYYMMDD you can sort by title, and get a chronological order.

Or use tags for the year and maybe a second set for the month. You can then simply select all documents from a given month by the search filters.

The third option is that EN will OCR your documents anyhow. If there is a date in the document, EN will index it. Because dates are written differently, searching a date may be difficult. But the year will be found.