Anyone else fee that Evernote has lost its way?

[mnzau 23]

I have been a premium user for 11 years now.

I struggle with every aspect of Evernote now, where as for about the first 9 of these 11 years I was using Evernote multiple times a day and a strong advocate.

What has happened? It feels to me like they are not doing focus groups with users to make sure that new features are a)needed b) implemented well  and further to that - things that need improving have not changed at all since day 1 (like the basic ability to support varying thumbnail sizes or improving support for stylus (S pen / Apple Pencil) input.

I am so disillusioned that after 11 years I want out.

[DTLow 5,736]

I'm a long term Evernote user, and still active with the Evernote Legacy product   
It's working well for me

The Evernote v10 product is a work-in-progress; and imho not ready for general use   
I'm keeping an eye on it, and will review it after the work is completed

>>ability to support varying thumbnail sizes; improving support for stylus (S pen / Apple Pencil) input

Not a priority for me   
I view Evernote as a text note tool; I use other products for sketching with an Apple Pencil

[PinkElephant 8,077]

It makes no sense to define the own necessities as a blueprint for the general development of a product. Long time users had more time to develop workflows based on specifics of a software, so they are often harder hit when a major release is rolled out.

If the old version did, what you needed, it was a match. If the new version doesn’t, it is a mismatch. In this case you should probably start to identify a better solution for your use cases, and prepare the transition.

That legacy is still around can buy you time to move without pressure.

What I observe in your post is that the only issues you really mentioned (varying thumbnail sizes, stylus support) are things that did not work well in the old versions either. IMHO these are no arguments to have a problem with the new version - nothing lost in comparison Legacy to v10 there.

[gazumped 11,652]

I've been with Evernote ever since it used a calculator roll display,  so likewise long-term and sticking with Legacy unless and until the wrinkles get ironed out of the new version.  The problem with Evernote,  I think,  was that they decided to listen to users - who wanted (amongst many other things) the same experience on all devices in all operating systems including the web;  and a standard layout no matter what size display.  Sadly that didn't allow for the fact that the UI had to be dumbed down so the worst-featured device could operate as smoothly as all the others - and the fonts available had to be restricted to ones that were available to all displays and all systems.

Evernote tried to fit in with that by using a 'wrapper' app that allows it to function on most devices - but no-one in house had any great experience with coding for that type of software.  So I'd guess they brought in new hires and temporary staff and tried to reinvent the app from the ground up.

Pretty much everything else - slowness,  glitches and missing features - flows from that.  It'll clear up or it won't.  The company is on iteration 22 or so of the version,  so they're clearly working very hard to get things up to speed,  and have been pretty successful in some areas...

Evernote wouldn't be the first of my favourite apps to bring in new services that fundamentally changed the way I use it.  I bet it won't be the last.

[BroEl 0]

So, I take it there's no way to set up thumbnail's the way they do with their "The joy of web clipping" and other Native Notes they include after updates? 

 

e.g "The Joy of Web Clipping" note and others when their explaining new features. There's no thumbnail image in the note, it only shows the thumbnail in the Notes Snippets View.

[mnzau 23]

I haven't thought to put it all down but things I miss(ed) are.

1. The windows clipper (used to be able to right click on the Evernote icon and clip anything from the screen into Evernote with no issues)
2. The auto folder import (this is back - but was missing for over a year)
3. The clean layout (now when I open the app on my windows PC I am presented with so much b/s I can't think! What the f is scratch pad? Why are more than 50% of each note thumbnail just empty space , and the thumb of the note part is so small proportionally.
4. Why can't I resize the panels? Like when I am in votes view, the new note space is 50% and the list of thumbs on the left is 50%, but why cant I drag the bar to see more thumbs? I can drag it to make the note thumb area smaller, but not larger.
5. I have an MS Surface PC with a Pen, a Samsung Note with a Pen, and an iPad with a pen, yet I can't hand write in the note compose window with any of them! Why? Evernote does an awesome job of reading handwritten notes (so I can search them), but it wont let me write them!
6. Thumbs are broken, when I scroll down a few pages in my notes view - all the thumbnails, instead of showing my notes, are just white boxes with Grey paper Icon in them.  The notes themselves are fine, but I have no previews.

FYI I have 8,365 notes dating back to April 2010.

[PinkElephant 8,077]

OK, let us take a look:

1) The EN Helper is active as soon as the app is started, including a quick note field and several clipping options.

2) Yes, import folders are now available in v10, on the Mac even for the first time

3) Design is design is design - whereas one can not cramp enough into every little corner, others prefer a nice, easy layout. Maybe look up „horror vacui“ in Wikipedia to read a bit about this in the history of Fine Arts.

4) Maybe you can tomorrow resize panels, whoever knows (wouldn’t this be a killer feature …)

5) Pen support was never a burner, so this does not disqualify v10 compared to legacy. It still is no great experience. I simply use another app, thank you, works just fine. Handwritten note taking is a whole segment in its own right, feeding several apps crafted around this one feature. I don’t expect a general use app like EN to perform in each aspect as good as the specialist players in that field.

6) The thumbs exist, maybe they take a few seconds to load when you scroll fast.

I could continue with some aspects, but I won’t. Everything (everything !) you had in 6.25 is still available, simply install legacy. It installs and can be used in parallel to v10, no problem there. 

And maybe have the courtesy to add a list of those things that did not exist in the legacy clients, and you have got them now, thanks to v10. Maybe they are not important to you - but for the group of users in general they are, a pick from them for everybody, and for everybody something different. 

[gazumped 11,652]

On 9/25/2021 at 5:45 PM, BroEl said:

So, I take it there's no way to set up thumbnail's the way they do with their "The joy of web clipping" and other Native Notes they include after updates? 

e.g "The Joy of Web Clipping" note and others when their explaining new features. There's no thumbnail image in the note, it only shows the thumbnail in the Notes Snippets View.

Hi.  What or where is 'the joy of web clipping' and where did you see "Native Notes"??

[mnzau 23]

On 9/25/2021 at 10:18 PM, PinkElephant said:

OK, let us take a look:

1) The EN Helper is active as soon as the app is started, including a quick note field and several clipping options.

2) Yes, import folders are now available in v10, on the Mac even for the first time

3) Design is design is design - whereas one can not cramp enough into every little corner, others prefer a nice, easy layout. Maybe look up „horror vacui“ in Wikipedia to read a bit about this in the history of Fine Arts.

4) Maybe you can tomorrow resize panels, whoever knows (wouldn’t this be a killer feature …)

5) Pen support was never a burner, so this does not disqualify v10 compared to legacy. It still is no great experience. I simply use another app, thank you, works just fine. Handwritten note taking is a whole segment in its own right, feeding several apps crafted around this one feature. I don’t expect a general use app like EN to perform in each aspect as good as the specialist players in that field.

6) The thumbs exist, maybe they take a few seconds to load when you scroll fast.

I could continue with some aspects, but I won’t. Everything (everything !) you had in 6.25 is still available, simply install legacy. It installs and can be used in parallel to v10, no problem there. 

And maybe have the courtesy to add a list of those things that did not exist in the legacy clients, and you have got them now, thanks to v10. Maybe they are not important to you - but for the group of users in general they are, a pick from them for everybody, and for everybody something different. 

Thanks,

Some follow up.. 

1) Where is the EN helper invoked from? Sounds good, don't know about it.

2) Great

3) Yep.

4) Let's hope

5) But it is EverNOTE, and the searching of handwritten text works extraordinarily well, so it is a shame to not be able to write with a stylus in the new note compose panel. All they need to do is add support for that rather than having to invoke another "sketch" entry panel. None of the other note taking apps work as well in terms of cross platform (and hand written search) like Evernote does, so they really should capitalize on these two large advantages they have.

6) Nope, older ones of mine (more than say 1 year) NEVER appear, no matter how long I wait

Thanks!

@EverNote please take note of point 5 if nothing else!

[agsteele 2,942]

58 minutes ago, mnzau said:

1) Where is the EN helper invoked from? Sounds good, don't know about it.

I'm not sure of the Mac layout and terminology but in Windows the Elephant icon in the system tray links to the helper. Left click opens the scratchpad and that includes an icon of a computer screen. Click the icon to open the screen clipper to capture part of your screen to a note.

[PinkElephant 8,077]

[DTLow 5,736]

On 9/25/2021 at 9:55 AM, mnzau said:

yet I can't hand write in the note compose window with any of them! Why?

The Evernote editor is text based, storing notes in .enml format (basically html)

There is support for file attachments to a note.   
These attachment files support "hand write" and is what Evernote uses for it's sketch feature

[PinkElephant 8,077]

If you want a handwriting app, use one of the many apps that specialize in this discipline.

They typically analyze the handwriting while it happens, because this improves the handwriting to text capabilities.

To grab handwriting directly in EN, use the Sketch feature (inserting a picture canvas into a note) or try the Penultimate app.

[mnzau 23]

4 hours ago, agsteele said:

I'm not sure of the Mac layout and terminology but in Windows the Elephant icon in the system tray links to the helper. Left click opens the scratchpad and that includes an icon of a computer screen. Click the icon to open the screen clipper to capture part of your screen to a note.

OMG - the old version it was right click the icon. Ok so a left click brings up the menu you describe with the scratch pad and a computer screen icon in the bottom left. When I click that computer screen icon, nothing happens, no capture event and no new notes appear in my Evernote account. 

All I need now is for that to work and I will be much happier.

I am on windows 10, EN 10.22.3

 

[hopefull - change happens 0]

how do you resized a picture using paint in evernote?  it worked before --- to many changes or updates making this software not user friendly anymore.....

[eric99 978]

1 hour ago, hopefull - change happens said:

how do you resized a picture using paint in evernote?  it worked before --- to many changes or updates making this software not user friendly anymore.....

I don't know about paint but it does work with IrfanView. I don't see a reason why it shouldn't work with paint, have you saved the result explicitly before leaving paint?

[PinkElephant 8,077]

The question is what you want to do.

Showing the picture smaller, but keeping resolution can be done inside of EN.

For a true resizing (changing the pixel count) an external program is needed.

[agsteele 2,942]

19 hours ago, mnzau said:

OMG - the old version it was right click the icon. Ok so a left click brings up the menu you describe with the scratch pad and a computer screen icon in the bottom left. When I click that computer screen icon, nothing happens, no capture event and no new notes appear in my Evernote account. 

All I need now is for that to work and I will be much happier.

I am on windows 10, EN 10.22.3

 

Works just fine for me

[PinkElephant 8,077]

On the Mac I would assume there is a missing permission, go to settings, security, privacy and set a checkmark, presumably in the screen recording section.

No idea on Windows.

[10gallonhat 20]

Here's the thing @mnzau - EN didn't lose it's way, it change direction. It was intentional. V10 is a fundamentally different product than Legacy. Don't expect it to work the same. It just looks similar and works similarly on the user end. The back end is all new and different. Their goal appears to be having as many users as possible on the most stable and simple system. Outlying issues/abandoned features/power users aren't important enough to address. I've tried.

v10 is broken for me. I liked Legacy just fine, but they'll cut people off eventually (and the old version of the android app has been painful for a while). I knew it would take me quite a bit of effort to make a switch (11 years of data and 22k+ notes). I finally chose a program months ago, but it took me a while to learn enough about it, weed out some old notes, prep my data for export and figure out how to import into the new program. Two months in, I'm still learning, rethinking workflows, tweaking some broken links and adjusting, but I'm glad to have escaped. I will never again lose data because EN (v10) failed to sync!

I don't mean to be mysterious. I chose Obsidian. It was a tough choice. It doesn't work quite like EN (current or past versions). It's also not as user friendly for the casual user. In reality, it's highly flexible (though I don't understand how to implement some of the more advanced plugins). What I like is that it can be tweaked to be very similar to my ideal EN experience and the data is in a future proof format. At this point I'm still referring to EN for older historical data, but that will decrease as time goes on. I was never going to have a clean break, no matter what I chose.

[PinkElephant 8,077]

If it does a better job for your need, good decision.

Personally I think defining those who decide to leave as „power“ users as a problematic badging. Who decides to leave has an individual set of key features, as do those who stay. Both groups are „power“ users - hopefully using the right tool to em-power them in their day to day work, hobby and leisure.

It should be remarked that the group of users who stay and find in EN v10 the best environment for themselves is way larger than the group deciding to leave.

[Bradley H 0]

Evernote support has left me high and dry after 10 years as a customer. Scary trusting your personal information to a black box. When they don't respond you are locked out! A forced upgrade this summer to  Evernote version 10.125 resulted in a lost of half of my notes. I have a backup but the support staff can't get their own application to access the file. It appears they have lost control of both their new Evernote 1-.125 and the Legacy App that should support finding my notes again. The worst part is that there is virtually no support. I have been reduced to having to send an email requesting assistance then waiting 7 days for a response. (Any now nothing) I paid extra to try to get a hold of a human to work through the problem but my requests are in vain. I've been encouraging with a "you can do it" attitude but silence. I would love to be proved wrong. Evernote, talk to me, help get me back up and running so I can love you like i did for a decade

[10gallonhat 20]

It does the trick so far. I do miss some EN features though (fabulous doc capture and auto-filing).

Personally, I'd define Power Users as high volume and/or long time users. I just don't thing EN considered how a sudden switch to their new architecture would work out for lots of notes and/or lots of attachments. If they did consider such things, they decided those users weren't enough of their business to cater to specifically. I'm sure many, many new users will be very happy with v10. Honestly, I probably would be if I started a new account and abandoned my old info (which I can't do).

[eric99 978]

On 9/29/2021 at 10:14 PM, 10gallonhat said:

Here's the thing @mnzau - EN didn't lose it's way, it change direction. It was intentional. V10 is a fundamentally different product than Legacy. Don't expect it to work the same. It just looks similar and works similarly on the user end. The back end is all new and different. Their goal appears to be having as many users as possible on the most stable and simple system. Outlying issues/abandoned features/power users aren't important enough to address. I've tried.

v10 is broken for me. I liked Legacy just fine, but they'll cut people off eventually (and the old version of the android app has been painful for a while). I knew it would take me quite a bit of effort to make a switch (11 years of data and 22k+ notes). I finally chose a program months ago, but it took me a while to learn enough about it, weed out some old notes, prep my data for export and figure out how to import into the new program. Two months in, I'm still learning, rethinking workflows, tweaking some broken links and adjusting, but I'm glad to have escaped. I will never again lose data because EN (v10) failed to sync!

I don't mean to be mysterious. I chose Obsidian. It was a tough choice. It doesn't work quite like EN (current or past versions). It's also not as user friendly for the casual user. In reality, it's highly flexible (though I don't understand how to implement some of the more advanced plugins). What I like is that it can be tweaked to be very similar to my ideal EN experience and the data is in a future proof format. At this point I'm still referring to EN for older historical data, but that will decrease as time goes on. I was never going to have a clean break, no matter what I chose.

Obsidian is an electron app too 😞

[afraba 10]

Evernote in last 6-9 months is UNUSABLE.

A simple ap like EN only makes sense if it is fast and solid. And it should be so in desktop and mobile. 

Now it is SLOW and fragile. In Android it was fast, snappy, supersolid, never crashed.

Now it is enfuriatingly slow, and it likes to shut down easily when you docsomething unexpected, like swiping the screen softly, you sometimes have to start it 3 times for a simple task.

I've come to hate it when it tells me Good morning! (Please make this salute optional). I only have a good morning if everything works properly. It sounds sarcastic that the app has turned polite just when it is completely useless.

More nice things... the Android version still keeps telling me it is preparing the new app for me... come on.

Clipping?  Used to work perfectly, solid and fast, now it so SLOOOOOWWWW and buggy: And keeps adding by default 20-30 tags that I chose not. Suppose they are the last tags I've used for other notes in last months.. so it adds the drudgery of having to SLOWLY delete all the wrong tags.

Also, the fact of adding boolean searches but restricting to high level users is, well, I find it shameful. Evernote is all about searching, there's almost nothing else. We used to think that there were huge problems and complexity that prevented boolean searches. Now we learn this is not the case, BUT! we are told at the same time that we are not 'smart' enough to enjoy proper searches.... Thanks EN !

As someone has said here, this app is on the (fast) way to self destruction. I would say that there's some (dark)  interest somewhere in destroying it.

 

I'll end with two polite demands:

1. Please give us the option to install previous versions (6 momths ago).

2. PLEASE PLEASE, tell us what is the cause of the disaster. We can understand anything.

- Has the central server changed?

- Is the app now syncing with Google and exchanging greetings with them ? We need to know what's going on during our long waits. And one of the novelties since the revamped disastrous versions is  -together with the Good Morning-  the invitation to use Google Cal.  Is this a clue?

BTW, have you heard at EN about issues with Google and privacy ? Come on !

 

PS I've been on EN for almost 10y now. I'm still here because I've not had the time to research something else. Sadly.

[PinkElephant 8,077]

Google, Part 1: EN is AFAIK since a long time running on servers rented from Google. Not inside of Google, they are separate, but hosted and operated in Google data centers. Maybe this is a reason to prefer Google services when setting up integrations with other clouds - the cord is pretty short to link them up. It is a reason as well for a rock solid, nearly perfect availability of EN servers.

Android app: I am not using Android, so only one comment. If you use any Android device, you don’t have to bother about EN privacy. It is practically impossible to un-Google any Android client. It will talk to Google, like it or not.

If you now still want to continue running that privacy leaking operating system, here is a link to an Android legacy version:

http://evernote.s3.amazonaws.com/android/google-play/com.evernote.google-play.8.13.3.1083330.allArch.6087.apk

Clipping: You can get rid of having stuff added to clips by switching off the autofiling feature. It tries to guess what you would do, and does it for you. If you have pretty repetitive clipping tasks, it may work. It didn’t work for me, so I switched it off.

Boolean search: What do you want to search ? Use the standard search field plus the filter options, and I don’t know if you really need „Boolean“ any more. Caution: „Need“ is not the same as „Want to have“. Maybe you can post an example for a search here. We then make the „Must have“-check.

[afraba 10]

Boolean searches:

If the feature is not really needed, why bother to implement it and anounce it at the top of the list? Why restrict it to top tier account?

As for examples of searches that benefit from boolean search, I will not delve into it but just imagine I need to collect those notes with words  (A and B ) or (A and C), but not those with (A and B and C). When you've got thousands of notes and want to have a precise group to work with, it comes handy. If can also be done searching for (A and B), tagging them with X, then tagging also (A + C), then do a search with that new tag plus the exclussion of (A + B + C ), but it's cumbersome.

We used to do that, on the assumption that the search engine could not help us for efficiency issues. But now we learn that it is possible, but only if you upgrade. Well, we will not upgrade, in fact some people are thinking about downgrading.

Unfortunately, even migrating has been made more difficult by limiting the number of notes you can export to an Enex file to 50 (Something that has been quietly done and little publicised - maybe it should be advertised as another marvellous feature).

All in all, I see little space for improvement, its as if EN had lost its way. 

[gazumped 11,652]

2 minutes ago, afraba said:

even migrating has been made more difficult by limiting the number of notes you can export to an Enex file to 50

Not actually accurate - exporting complete notebooks is possible from the notebooks page,  and from the Legacy version if you have it installed.

I do agree that most folks probably don't need boolean searches.  Not sure why it's considered a 'professional' feature.

[PinkElephant 8,077]

@afraba if you want to search what you posted, then you need full Boolean search indeed.

When you need it, it creates additional value for you, even if it is „just“ your time saved on searching.

EN decided that if they create that sort of value for you, they will put a price tag to it. And because only a few users will probably ever need it, they put it into the top drawer.

Take it or leave it, I would say. This in the end is up to you, to take that decision.

If it saves you 2 bucks a month (what is an hour worth for you, and what is 2 bucks compared to it ? 1 minute ? 5 ? 10 ? Cm‘e on, you are not that cheap ! ), it is worth it. If not, stick with Personal (I did).

[eric99 978]

12 hours ago, afraba said:

Boolean searches:

If the feature is not really needed, why bother to implement it and anounce it at the top of the list? Why restrict it to top tier account?

As for examples of searches that benefit from boolean search, I will not delve into it but just imagine I need to collect those notes with words  (A and B ) or (A and C), but not those with (A and B and C). When you've got thousands of notes and want to have a precise group to work with, it comes handy. If can also be done searching for (A and B), tagging them with X, then tagging also (A + C), then do a search with that new tag plus the exclussion of (A + B + C ), but it's cumbersome.

We used to do that, on the assumption that the search engine could not help us for efficiency issues. But now we learn that it is possible, but only if you upgrade. Well, we will not upgrade, in fact some people are thinking about downgrading.

Unfortunately, even migrating has been made more difficult by limiting the number of notes you can export to an Enex file to 50 (Something that has been quietly done and little publicised - maybe it should be advertised as another marvellous feature).

All in all, I see little space for improvement, its as if EN had lost its way. 

I've never understood why EN had such an awkward search syntax concerning boolean search. The intuitive new Boolean search should have been part of it from the very beginning.

[PinkElephant 8,077]

It is pretty obvious that this discussion is leading nowhere with regards to an app that is more than 10 years old -and worked for millions of users without this feature (and for most users still does).

The decision to reserve it to the top subscription level can be argued - in the end EN needs to make a living of and by developing new features. The more heated our discussion is, the more it confirms that this is a value-adding feature, worth to be reserved for high value customers.

This „I want it, but I want it for free“ to me seems a bit naive. But OK, everybody can spend his adrenaline wherever he wants.

[afraba 10]

I've noticed considerable improvement in speed in last couple days. Fingers crossed 

Especially after switching off Auto-filing, in Personal Settings.

Aparently this option was turned on the last version update, it slows down the app, populates your new notes with unwanted tags, and in the case of web and video clippings, it clutters the note with unwanted stuff.

Advise to everyone check out that Auto-filing is off !

[PinkElephant 8,077]

I doubt an update turned it on - mine is still off, as it was for the last years.

But a good hint to make things move faster.

[afraba 10]

I would swear it was not me. Anyway, maybe its just in the Android app.

In fact, this had already caused me trouble some years ago, and I had already forgotten. I never get into personal settings when things are smooth..

[tonychung 17]

I'm rather annoyed that longtime Evernote supporters on this thread are so arrogant as to invalidate the OP (@mnzau)'s suggestion that Evernote should support native handwriting and sketching directly within a note. While other note taking apps can perform these functions, using different apps would segment the act of note-taking into separate experiences rather than organizing everything in a single app environment, across multiple platforms.

It's 2021. Apple has handwriting support built into iOS so we can write URLs with the pencil and not need a keyboard. If the OS can support handwriting in the interface on iOS, Android, and Windows Surface, then it should be fairly simple to harness that capability within Evernote.

Use cases (I recognize Evernote currently supports some of these features in a container):

• Combined typing / handwriting / sketching / formulas /diagrams
• Taking a photo / embedding an image and writing markup in the middle of the page
• Importing PDFs and annotating them in context outside of the note
• Sketch noting during meetings and presentations

I expected better results when Evernote bought Penultimate. I am terribly disappointed. 

[PinkElephant 8,077]

For me this is dinosaur thinking: The one big fat app that does it all.

And we all know what happened to the dinosaurs in the end …

What EN could improve: Be faster to use services offered by the OS in which it is running, and integrate them into the app. Currently the strategy  to have one unified desktop app and one unified mobile app runs against it.

[tonychung 17]

19 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

What EN could improve: Be faster to use services offered by the OS in which it is running, and integrate them into the app. Currently the strategy  to have one unified desktop app and one unified mobile app runs against it.

Agreed. The app could focus on maintaining parity between environments only with regards to note formatting/structuring, and use additional OS services as they become available.

To your point about "one big app that does it all" I think that there's a way for Evernote to do enough of it all, or offer ways to do what people want without introducing friction. Handwriting/drawing using an embedded app component is a large amount of friction, whereas using tags and categories to organize notes is a better practice than multi-layered subfolders.

[Subodh Nayar 1]

Evernote 10 is awful. I use Legacy daily and then occasionally  the web version to create headers. Functionally all that 10 does is duplicate notes and freeze or lock up. I see zero value in it. If I could find a way to export all of my Evernote content to another application I would. It's certainly not worth the US$70 they are charging

At a minimum if 10 could be switched to manual synchronization that would make it at minimally usable. 

Like so many people on this discussion I am mystified as to why Evernote decided to sunset their Legacy version.

[rimboma 36]

At this point most of you guys are so out of touch, dishing out stellar wishes left and right, having an app at hand taking like 10 seconds to display basic content!

I fell into the "Windows Phone doesn't need high-end phones to run smoothly" scam once and bought a budget phone. I literally upgraded to a high-end Windows Phone to have actual non-MS apps smooth and snappy, including Evernote. Almost 10 years later Evernote on my Redmi Note 8T is as SLOW as it was on that budget Windows Phone! An app that mainly handles freaking text!

So, dear Evernote... You know what you can do with those "upgrade to premium" banners. At this point you should be happy a massive exodus hasn't started yet.

@tonychung Keep dreaming

[rimboma 36]

On 10/8/2021 at 6:29 PM, afraba said:

I've noticed considerable improvement in speed in last couple days. Fingers crossed 

Especially after switching off Auto-filing, in Personal Settings.

Aparently this option was turned on the last version update, it slows down the app, populates your new notes with unwanted tags, and in the case of web and video clippings, it clutters the note with unwanted stuff.

Advise to everyone check out that Auto-filing is off !

This forum section is not platform-specific. Please state what platform are you referring to.

[PinkElephant 8,077]

Run nice and smoothly - on Mac and iPhone/iPad (if it is newer hardware, say 3-4 years old or younger). Runs slower, but usable even on a 2015 iPhone 6S+ and 2014 iPad Air 2. These are the oldest models that could upgrade to iOS 13, which is the minimum for EN v10. And they just now received the brand new iOS 15, without flattening them.

My impression is that there is a specific problem with Android, probably a mix of not standardized hardware plus a hodgepodge of manufacturer dependent update plans (or a lack of them).

The use of a resources devouring framework to nest the app does not help to make it perform.

[kfreels 31]

On 9/25/2021 at 11:35 AM, PinkElephant said:

It makes no sense to define the own necessities as a blueprint for the general development of a product. Long time users had more time to develop workflows based on specifics of a software, so they are often harder hit when a major release is rolled out.

If the old version did, what you needed, it was a match. If the new version doesn’t, it is a mismatch. In this case you should probably start to identify a better solution for your use cases, and prepare the transition.

That legacy is still around can buy you time to move without pressure.

What I observe in your post is that the only issues you really mentioned (varying thumbnail sizes, stylus support) are things that did not work well in the old versions either. IMHO these are no arguments to have a problem with the new version - nothing lost in comparison Legacy to v10 there.

OK Oldtymers... before you rip me for my low level 2 status, see my profile. My time with evernote in this thread is second only to dazumped. I just rarely had reason to come here before now and it's not to gripe, but to hopefully convince Evernote to save itself. To do so, I'm going to have to educate this young whippersnapper about a few things in the business world. Believe me, it's gonna hurt me more than it hurts him..... 😛

This statement is absolute nonsense...  "It makes no sense to define the own nessisities as a blueprint for the general....." 

The reason that Evernote became the top dog, gaining up to 1 million new subs PER MONTH at one point is because they understood that there is no blueprint. Everyone is different and what works for one doesn't for another. To have broad appeal means to provide OPTIONS. It's these options that separated Evernote from other similar apps. Suddenly these people, many who have been here for as long or longer than I have, are thrust against the wall, not with just change, but change that fundamentally forces them to accomplish less with more time and work put in. It would be one thing if it was an improvement in efficiency for some people and a loss for "oldtymers" that can't adjust to the new ways. But that isn't what has happened here. My daughter working on her Doctorate is about to shelve Evernote for something else and she uses it in a completely different way than I do for different reasons. The 10.x version, no matter how "pretty" doesn't work for her. It doesn't work for me. There is no possible way to change the way she or I use it to make it more efficient except to simply not use it. I have 11 years of data saved in mine. She has almost hald of her high-school and beyond life in hers. And you're suggesting that we just pack up and move and roll with it? Or should we stay and waste time by doing more work to accomplish the same thing? 

The reason that there were so many options available was because over time they knew that to be a real powerhouse they had to cater to all the different ways that people needed to do different things. New versions of software come out to increase market appeal, thereby increasing demand and increasing sales. It's like a car manufacturer decided to push out a new version of a base model ford escort with a manual two-speed transmission, less power, no stereo, no powerpoint, manual windows, wipers with one speed, and a marvelous paint job and your argument seems to be "but it's pretty!"..... Clearly your two years of using evernote plays a factor. But here's the reality from a business stanpoint... The Legacy version isn't being updated anymore. Soon it will become a security risk and people will be forced to make a decision. When that time comes, if the new version isn't capable of delivering what their users need, they will go spend their money elsewhere. All of those small market segments that each little feature was put in to accomodate will find something else that does it better and they'll go somewhere that they can get what they need. Each will have their own unique reasons for leaving but leave they will....much faster than they'll be able to replace them with new customers that want fewer features because the fewer features that are there, the more options people have...many being free. When it happens, investors will stop investing, value will drop, people will begin selling their stock off as the stock value plummets and then people will start loosing their jobs at evernote. And with infrastructure being much slower at reacting than markets, they'll be unable to keep up with the decline and will trigger an even bigger sell-off of stocks. I've seen bigger companies than this just plummet to bankruptcy in a few months like this and if/when it happens the product you're happy with will be at risk as well. 

Those of us invested in this product don't want to lose it. Getting these features back in line with their market isn't just  about anyone's personal needs. It's a collective need. Whether you realize it or not, because of the sheer size and value of Evernote as a company, your comments are counterproductive even for your own simple needs. 

**My apologies. I need to make an edit here. Above I made an incorrect statement when I said "It's like a car manufacturer decided to push out a new version of a base model ford escort with a manual two-speed transmission, less power, no stereo, no powerpoint, manual windows, wipers with one speed, and a marvelous paint job and your argument seems to be "but it's pretty!""

Allow me to replace it with something a bit more accurate: It's like a car manufacturer decided to cancel a high-end SUV and run out in the middle of the night to replace those already in people's driveways and garages with a shiny new version of a base model ford escort with a manual two-speed transmission, two-stroke engine, no stereo, no powerpoint, manual windows, one speed wipers, and a marvelous paint job and your argument seems to be "but it's pretty!"

Again, my apologies for the oversight.

[kfreels 31]

 By the way.....how in the world does someone get over 10,000 posts in 2 years? That's like 14 posts per day! I don't want this to come off as fecetious.... I really want to know.... That has to take you every bit of 2-3 hours per day and I just don't understand having that kind of free time. 

[PinkElephant 8,077]

OK, obviously you are unhappy (very unhappy) and want us to know. If I see a trend in the forum, it is that some of the longest term subscribers are the most unhappy - maybe because they spend years to optimize routines that stopped working now with v10. It all depends on the use cases.

Fair enough, one reason there is a forum is to exchange unpleasant experience as well.

I just need to correct your „chain of doom“ in one detail: EN is privately held, no public shares, not stock prices that could fall. So, I am sorry, no doomsday on Wall Street.

In the end each company survives and thrives by creating value to its customers.Since the usual subscription is annually, there is literally no risk of logging into EN tomorrow, and finding nothing. We will see how the experiment with v10 will turn out - prophecies are difficult if they talk about the future.

[PinkElephant 8,077]

… whatever 🐘

[gazumped 11,652]

21 minutes ago, kfreels said:

Those of us invested in this product don't want to lose it.

I can understand and sympathise with that - but having been around for a while,  this is far from the first product I've used which has,  for a time,  seemed essential - but then got overtaken by the market,  or by a buy(or sell)-out,  and quietly passed away.  And there's always been a replacement out there somewhere. 

Whilst I'd love the universe to run to my convenience and for Evernote to get back to full usability,  I apply the Rasczak principle: "I'll use this app until I find something better".

It's a fact of life that Evernote primarily has to please its investors,  and will do whatever it takes to generate the incomes they expect.  If that also pleases the 'old guard' of users,  it's a happy accident - but not essential.  Evernote has a long experience of big changes causing a furore amongst existing users (we all hate any change to the status quo) and causing some churn.  They'll probably wait out the current period of rapid updates and hope that the volume of new users will equal or exceed the value of lost custom.

If that proves ineffective,  they'll try more new directions.  I'm sticking with the pre-Legacy Windows and Android apps for as long as possible,  and I'll give them as much time as I can to get v10 up to my standards.  As it currently stands,  the only major obstacles are:

• no easy ability to take local backups of the database,  and 
• it's too S-L-O-W

For everything else there's just work-arounds.

Others have different needs and everyone has the same decision to make:  can you manage with what's available in Legacy and/ or v10 in the short term?  If the answer is 'no',  then logically you have to move elsewhere.  Supporting Evernote should not be your priority: completing your daily tasks is.  If, like me,  you can manage with compromises in the short term,  then buckle up:  Evernote is going to keep on developing,  driven by its statistics and income - not by impassioned pleas for text outlining or image editing.

 

[ehrt74 240]

On 10/7/2021 at 4:23 PM, PinkElephant said:

Google, Part 1: EN is AFAIK since a long time running on servers rented from Google. Not inside of Google, they are separate, but hosted and operated in Google data centers. Maybe this is a reason to prefer Google services when setting up integrations with other clouds - the cord is pretty short to link them up. It is a reason as well for a rock solid, nearly perfect availability of EN servers.

Android app: I am not using Android, so only one comment. If you use any Android device, you don’t have to bother about EN privacy. It is practically impossible to un-Google any Android client. It will talk to Google, like it or not.

If you now still want to continue running that privacy leaking operating system, here is a link to an Android legacy version:

http://evernote.s3.amazonaws.com/android/google-play/com.evernote.google-play.8.13.3.1083330.allArch.6087.apk

Clipping: You can get rid of having stuff added to clips by switching off the autofiling feature. It tries to guess what you would do, and does it for you. If you have pretty repetitive clipping tasks, it may work. It didn’t work for me, so I switched it off.

Boolean search: What do you want to search ? Use the standard search field plus the filter options, and I don’t know if you really need „Boolean“ any more. Caution: „Need“ is not the same as „Want to have“. Maybe you can post an example for a search here. We then make the „Must have“-check.

I know we're never going to see eye to eye on this, but one of the reasons i use Android and not iOS is the increased privacy. Apple, after all, colaborates with the Chinese government to spy on its users. Google refused to do that and so pulled out of the Chinese market.

 

Google calendar has the advantage that it has a very well defined API which allows you to embed it in webpages. Most other calendars use things like CalDAV, which is a really annoying buggy mess of an API (and right up there with Bluetooth when it comes to badly defined APIs)

[DTLow 5,736]

3 hours ago, ehrt74 said:

Apple, after all, colaborates with the Chinese government to spy on its users

Can you provide the sources for this information?    
I know the Apple devices are assembled in China

[PinkElephant 8,077]

Apple does in China (!) what is necessary if they want to continue in that market. You can like it, or not.

But because of this local issue, the Chinese iCloud is complete separated from the rest of the Apple infrastructure. If I am not mistaken, Apple is not even operating it themselves.

For users in China things happen accordingly to Chinese law. For all other users this has no relevance at all.

[lmsergio 7]

That was my understanding as well.

[DTLow 5,736]

1 hour ago, PinkElephant said:

For users in China things happen accordingly to Chinese law. For all other users this has no relevance at all.

For users in the U.S., things happen according to the U.S. law   
For users in Canada, ...

[PinkElephant 8,077]

And for us Europeans it is GDPR - significantly stricter than the federal rules in the US …

[ehrt74 240]

1 hour ago, PinkElephant said:

Apple does in China (!) what is necessary if they want to continue in that market. You can like it, or not.

But because of this local issue, the Chinese iCloud is complete separated from the rest of the Apple infrastructure. If I am not mistaken, Apple is not even operating it themselves.

For users in China things happen accordingly to Chinese law. For all other users this has no relevance at all.

I'm just saying that Apple could have pulled out of the market rather than choosing to contribute to a system in which people are treated so badly.

[PinkElephant 8,077]

Some say pull out. Others say stay in, because only human interaction can promote change.

In the end it makes probably no difference for the user in China which phone he buys.

By the way, Google does business in China as well. Nearly all Chinese phone brands use Android as operating system, and „enrich“ them with their own breed of „I will call home“ software. Google seems completely indifferent about this.

Now let’s talk about western users who buy that sort of spyware loaded gadgets …

[ehrt74 240]

12 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

Some say pull out. Others say stay in, because only human interaction can promote change.

In the end it makes probably no difference for the user in China which phone he buys.

By the way, Google does business in China as well. Nearly all Chinese phone brands use Android as operating system, and „enrich“ them with their own breed of „I will call home“ software. Google seems completely indifferent about this.

Now let’s talk about western users who buy that sort of spyware loaded gadgets …

No, Google does not do business in China. Android is an open-source product. it *must* be freely available for everybody, otherwise it would not be open-source.

And Apple in the west knows exactly what apps you use and when, knows exactly what you do with your phone and mac, knows exactly where you are at any moment.

[DTLow 5,736]

1 hour ago, ehrt74 said:

And Apple in the west knows exactly what apps you use and when, knows exactly what you do with your phone and mac, knows exactly where you are at any moment.

I suspect if this is true, internet connection would be required

[PinkElephant 8,077]

Ever heard of Huawei being cut off the use of any Google services ? I won’t discuss the question if this is justified - I just point to the fact as such. Huawei phones are now running on a OS they developed themselves, with apps from their own store etc.

About all the rest: You would /should be amazed for how many parts of the connected world this is true: Can know where you are (this even predates the smart phone, any mobile could be located), can know which services you use etc. You are doing as if this was by any means specific to Apple devices, which it is not.

Of the big 4, only Apple is not trading with your data - Amazon does it for themselves, Google and Facebook live from selling chunks of your profile every second. Basically they make profit by selling who gets access to your attention - and your wallet.

For me, this is enough to set Apple apart in terms of privacy.

[eric99 978]

29 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Of the big 4, only Apple is not trading with your data - Amazon does it for themselves, Google and Facebook live from selling chunks of your profile every second. Basically they make profit by selling who gets access to your attention - and your wallet.

For me, this is enough to set Apple apart in terms of privacy.

And what about microsoft ?

[PinkElephant 8,077]

Operating BING …

From the rest IMHO closer to Apple than to the others.

[ehrt74 240]

5 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

Ever heard of Huawei being cut off the use of any Google services ? I won’t discuss the question if this is justified - I just point to the fact as such. Huawei phones are now running on a OS they developed themselves, with apps from their own store etc.

About all the rest: You would /should be amazed for how many parts of the connected world this is true: Can know where you are (this even predates the smart phone, any mobile could be located), can know which services you use etc. You are doing as if this was by any means specific to Apple devices, which it is not.

Of the big 4, only Apple is not trading with your data - Amazon does it for themselves, Google and Facebook live from selling chunks of your profile every second. Basically they make profit by selling who gets access to your attention - and your wallet.

For me, this is enough to set Apple apart in terms of privacy.

Huawei was cut off from using Google services in countries other than China. in China they never had access to Google services because Google is not active in China. Google chose not to support the oppressive regime.

Huawei phones now run on stock Android with a skin they put on it.

Google is not trading your data. None of your data ever leaves Google's servers. What happens is that some algorithm sends you an ad based on the webpages you've visited. That's it. 

My point is that Apple is not some champion of privacy. They are quite happy to collect and examine your data. I'm much more worried about Apple than I am about Google because everybody is looking at Google trying to catch them doing something nefarious, but after 20 years they still haven't done so. Fewer people are looking at Apple.

[DTLow 5,736]

6 hours ago, ehrt74 said:

Fewer people are looking at Apple.

Well ... we still have the conspiracy nut-jobs

For more serious monitoring, we have https://applecensorship.com

[PinkElephant 8,077]

Huawei was cut off from Google servers by action taken by the last US government - and the ban was even postponed one time, if I remember correctly. It was not a decision taken by Google. As I pointed out above, I do not want to judge on what was happening, just to stick to the facts.

Regarding privacy I just take a look at the earnings reports. Apple earns money (a ton of it …) by selling devices, and to a lesser extend services the users pay for. Ah, and they earn a billion from Google to make Google the preselected search engine (what a user can change without problems). So the money and stock value depends on users to continue spending - which means trust is the top value. It is the users paying the show, by paying money directly to Apple.

By contrast, Google and Facebook (earning tons of money as well …) run extensive „free“ services, where users don’t pay for what they get. Instead the dollars are rolling in from the marketing budgets of companies targeting users. Why are they willing to pay ? Because these 2 companies offer „the best targeting in the world“. Facebooks says they know up to 3 days before the user knows it him/herself that his engagement status will change. They say they know earlier that somebody got pregnant than a pregnancy test is run. This sort of access is where the dollars come from.

No, they don‘t sell users data - this is the hoard from which they make a living. What they sell is targeted access to their users, driven by algorithms that do a lot of harm (especially those by FB) beside selling ads. And this is better, if I follow your opinion ???

[ehrt74 240]

2 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

Huawei was cut off from Google servers by action taken by the last US government - and the ban was even postponed one time, if I remember correctly. It was not a decision taken by Google. As I pointed out above, I do not want to judge on what was happening, just to stick to the facts.

Regarding privacy I just take a look at the earnings reports. Apple earns money (a ton of it …) by selling devices, and to a lesser extend services the users pay for. Ah, and they earn a billion from Google to make Google the preselected search engine (what a user can change without problems). So the money and stock value depends on users to continue spending - which means trust is the top value. It is the users paying the show, by paying money directly to Apple.

By contrast, Google and Facebook (earning tons of money as well …) run extensive „free“ services, where users don’t pay for what they get. Instead the dollars are rolling in from the marketing budgets of companies targeting users. Why are they willing to pay ? Because these 2 companies offer „the best targeting in the world“. Facebooks says they know up to 3 days before the user knows it him/herself that his engagement status will change. They say they know earlier that somebody got pregnant than a pregnancy test is run. This sort of access is where the dollars come from.

No, they don‘t sell users data - this is the hoard from which they make a living. What they sell is targeted access to their users, driven by algorithms that do a lot of harm (especially those by FB) beside selling ads. And this is better, if I follow your opinion ???

Google services haven't been available in China since Google pulled out of the Chinese market. Huawei has never had Google services in China. They are not available there. All smartphone manufacturers who sell Android phones in China do so without Google services. Android is an open source project. Anybody is free to download and install it. There is nothing Google can legally do to prohibit this because Android does not belong to Google: it belongs to you and me and everybody.

Look, thank you for being interested in privacy. Privacy is important in the modern world and I think people being interested in privacy is a good thing. 

[tonychung 17]

Hey y'all... this thread has diverged from complaining about why Evernote doesn't meet our personal needs and into political territory outside of Evernote's control!

Can we please just refocus on demanding that Evernote build their apps to meet our particular needs so the product managers don't eventually quit in favour of drafting government policies?

🤣    🤣    🤣    🤣    🤣    🤣    🤣    🤣    🤣    🤣    🤣    🤣    🤣    🤣    🤣    🤣    🤣    🤣    🤣    🤣  

[vositis 0]

My issues are:

I use hierarchical folders and always have to keep things organized.  But if you try to move a note to a folder - THEY FLATTEN THE HIERARCHY.  WTF?  Why?  At least make that an option!?  Why have hierarchical folders if you can't use them that way?

When scanning things, MOST scans get named with some Arabic characters, which are read right to left and a pain to rename.  Especially statements, checks, bills, etc that have bar codes on top or anything with graphics at the top.  Seriously... I'm a software engineer and I discovered Evernote when I met some of their engineers... it can't take a junior engineer more than a day or two of engineering time to omit any Arabic characters from the file naming algorithm!!!

It's great that we added tasks.  But I don't use that feature.  You're too late to the game, I use other things for tasks.  Do I REALLY have to go through an extra click when creating a note to choose note or task EVERY SINGLE TIME!??!

Yeah... they've lost their way.... the new product management department sucks.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all-in with Evernote.  Everything that touches my desk gets scanned into Evernote and shredded.  There are no filing cabinets in my life.  And I've tried the competitors and they are worse.

But I am frustrated enough to be trying the competitors....

[tonychung 17]

On 10/18/2021 at 8:57 PM, vositis said:

Don't get me wrong, I'm all-in with Evernote.  Everything that touches my desk gets scanned into Evernote and shredded.  There are no filing cabinets in my life.  And I've tried the competitors and they are worse.

But I am frustrated enough to be trying the competitors....

 

Yes... especially that new up-and-comer Notion. I remember back in the day they weren't anything worthy of note, but they've updated their UI quite a bit and are a strong contender ... EXCEPT that Notion considers note content in the context of "blocks". You can't copy text into a Notion (mobile, iOS) window and expect to copy it back as one block. At least Evernote does that right.

But for other things, Evernote goes just so far and then....

 

Evernote technically only has one level of hierarchy within a notebook. I don't know how you're using multiple levels. The only level above a notebook is a Stack, which isn't so much a hierarchy as a grouping. Like, you can't put a note in the first level of a stack at the same level as the notebooks. And you can't house sub-notebooks inside a notebook. I'd like this to be more versatile, too, but I can see how development-wise it would be tough to manage... like a notebook version of Inception (notebook within a notebook).

[mcarrara 6]

Except for that little political spat, this thread has been very interesting.

EN never had a true file structure for notes I don't like that, but I accept that.  I tried using Tags to compensate, didn't work for me.  So I moved my reference materials to another app that fits my work style. No harm no foul.  EN just wasn't for me.  I used the handwriting in the old version to take meeting notes.  Sketch is not a replacement.  I now use another app on the phone for handwritten notes and attach them to an Evernote note.  More work, but very doable. I guess my opinion is be flexible or write your own program.  You don't like the path EN has chosen?  Don't follow it.

The only rant I have is about scratch pad.  What is it for?  If you could write there with a stylus I get it.  Just typing there is dumb.  Open a new note.

Mark

[DTLow 5,736]

1 hour ago, mcarrara said:

EN never had a true file structure for notes I don't like that

I suspect you're referring to a folder/subfolder methodology   
Some users emulate folders using the notebook/tag trees in the sidebar   
The notebook tree  provides a 2 level hierarchy; the tag tree provides unlimited levels

Personally, I'm thankful that Evernote introduced me to tag methodology; it's a superior organization tool

[tonychung 17]

As far as Evernote "Losing its way", I'm not happy with the new tiered plans. I have subscribed to Premium for years. Every few years, they drop features, or reduce features for my version of Premium. Now they've completely pushed my Premium down a level, but kept charging the same price. And for what? To be able to set up additional filter blocks and featured notes on the home page. Where's the love for our loyalty, Evernote? I'm still here! Customizing the home page without limitations should be a standard paid feature... after all, it costs enough. Oh well, I could rant on and on, but it will fall on deaf ears. It's like, you condition the public long enough, they believe what they're told.

[PinkElephant 8,077]

Name one feature - a single one - that was reduced from the subscription with the switch from Premium to Personal:

...

See, hard to do so, because there is none !

There are even additional features you (and me) got included in the subscription, for the same price as before. This is true if it was a full priced subscription. If you were on a rebated subscription, you still have everything as before, just no new features (unless you decide to upgrade).

They added another subscription level, with more additional features. Need them ? I mean NEED, not want. Then they will make good for the 2€/$ rapidly, so it should be a no brainer to upgrade. Don't need them ? Don't get them.

If you can live with the experience that your neighbour has a larger car parked in front of his house than you ...

[idoc 400]

On 9/25/2021 at 9:37 AM, gazumped said:

I've been with Evernote ever since it used a calculator roll display,  so likewise long-term and sticking with Legacy unless and until the wrinkles get ironed out of the new version.  The problem with Evernote,  I think,  was that they decided to listen to users - who wanted (amongst many other things) the same experience on all devices in all operating systems including the web;  and a standard layout no matter what size display.  Sadly that didn't allow for the fact that the UI had to be dumbed down so the worst-featured device could operate as smoothly as all the others - and the fonts available had to be restricted to ones that were available to all displays and all systems.

Evernote tried to fit in with that by using a 'wrapper' app that allows it to function on most devices - but no-one in house had any great experience with coding for that type of software.  So I'd guess they brought in new hires and temporary staff and tried to reinvent the app from the ground up.

Pretty much everything else - slowness,  glitches and missing features - flows from that.  It'll clear up or it won't.  The company is on iteration 22 or so of the version,  so they're clearly working very hard to get things up to speed,  and have been pretty successful in some areas...

Evernote wouldn't be the first of my favourite apps to bring in new services that fundamentally changed the way I use it.  I bet it won't be the last.

We've had this conversation many times and even those who were most offended by the new version eventually had to simmer down and try to understand the reasons for the changes.  I appreciate the fact that they are trying to make it work the same on all platforms but I'm still confused by many of the modifications.  For example, in the legacy version the tab and notebook selection takes place on top and are located close together.  In the new version the notebook icon is on top and the tab is on the bottom.  I can't imagine what focus group or design team could have thought that the new way was better than previous.   There are many examples like this (I just picked one randomly) in which I question the decision-making process that went into the change.  Contrast that, for example, with a company such as Apple.  Every iteration of ios has had its fans and detractors but somehow we all understand that a lot of careful thought and planning went into every change.  Recently ios 15 introduced the notion of having the URL address bar on the bottom of the page instead of the top.  Initially there were howls of protests and contemptuous jeering; however, over time many people (myself included) began to see the wisdom behind it.  Also, Apple always tries not to upset the apple cart when it makes its changes and often leaves the user some recourse to go back.   I really like what EN has done with Tasks and Filtered Searches, and I grudgingly admit that the new look is very slick; unfortunately, this has come with so many compromises that it's hard to feel benevolent about any of this.  I'm desperately hopeful that somehow they'll turn this around and come up with a compromise product that works not only for the pedestrians but also for the seasoned drivers.

[PinkElephant 8,077]

The reason I believe why the tags were moved to the bottom is they want to show the tags. And there is more space down below than at the top.

Convincing or not, up to everybody's thinking.

v10 in general is a complete redesign, going together with a recoding of 100% of the apps code. So every option "to go back" to an older versions style would have meant to create more code for the new version, because nothing can be reused. I think they chose the better solution by moving ahead with the new app, and let users decide to continue with legacy in parallel.

[mcarrara 6]

@DTLow, I tried to use tags to sort notebooks and stacks.  It didn't work for ME.  I'm not complaining, just stating that EN and my brain work differently.

It reminds me of where I work.  Me and a couple coworkers, all grizzled veterans of several jobs in different industries, complain about how management does this and that wrong.  How we would do it better.  After that we always agree our current jobs are the best we have ever had.

No job is perfect.  No app is perfect.  For my use case, EN is by far the best app out there.  

Mark

[gazumped 11,652]

37 minutes ago, mcarrara said:

I tried to use tags to sort notebooks and stacks.  It didn't work for ME.

Perfec'ly acceptable.  My relationship with tags is.. interesting.  I use Notebooks as a first layer of granularity,  and 'smart' titles - "D - T - S - K" where:

• D = date of the meeting / document / phone call that was the subject of the note (the created date of a note can be wildly different)
• T = type of content - meeting note / letter / user guide
• S = source - what's the name of the project / organisation / person featured here
• K = keywords - any other useful word or phrase that might help me find this content in future

If at a later stage I find that any given search generates too many hits,  or if I want to find a particular set of notes quickly,  I'll tag notes to be excluded -or included- next time.  So in my system,  tags are very much an afterthought. 

So if I want to find a user guide for an item I bought from Amazon last week...  well the Amazon notebook is probably all I'll need!  Managing notes your way,  or my way is fine.  People aren't wired the same everywhere - whatever works for you!

 

[DTLow 5,736]

1 hour ago, gazumped said:

'smart' titles - "D - T - S - K" where

I also use "smart titles", stuffed with metadata

My D = Subject date; because I need an easily edited date in addition to Evernote's Created and Updated dates   
Evernote had a Subject date metadata field, but made it impossible to use.  It's completely disappeared in the v10 version

My S = description or details, not sure if this corresponds to your "Source"

My K = Keywords is a duplicate of the tags assigned to the note

I also append $ for receipts   
Example: 2021-10-15 Receipt [Lunch] Type-Receipt Vendor-TimHortons Budget-FoodDining $7.95

[idoc 400]

I use tags very extensively.  I manage affairs for my immediate family, for some extended family and for my company.  They each get a tag with their initials.  A JS tag may  pertains to my child John Smith.  If it has anything to do with health, it may get a "Health" tag.  And if it has to do with insurance it may get an "Insurance" tag.  Therefore, if John Smith gets a Blue Cross statement for a visit with his M.D in October 2021, it would get those three tags and it may have a note name such as "JS Dr. Welby 10-2021"

The advantage to this system is that I can use the tags to precisely filter down.  A medical report from Dr. Welby will have the JS and Health tags but not have the insurance tag.  A report from Dr. Welby's billing department for my other son, KS, will have the Health and Insurance tags and a KS tag instead.  I don't need to carefully construct the note title because my search is relying on tags.  If you relied more on names you may need a note name that reads "KS Dr. Welby Blue Cross 10-21".  However, if the insurance had changed from Blue Cross to Aetna, or if Dr. Welby was not the doctor at that time, or if you can't remember the exact month that the visit took place, then you may run into difficulties.  It takes me a few seconds to pick the tags that I want but it means that I don't have to sweat exact note titles.  Also, I can use the tags as a kind of visual memory.  For example, I travel to New York quite a bit; therefore, I will have a tag for every trip to NY eg: NY 10-21, NY 6-21.  I remember that a couple of years ago, in winter,  I stayed at a nice hotel in NY but I can't remember the name.  I will peruse the tags list until I find a tag that says "NY 12-18".  When I select that tag I will find the hotel that I stayed at since everything I did on that trip was tagged with "NY 12-18".  I'm sure that I'm not the only one that relies extensively on tags and therefore I find it galling that my main means of organization is now relegated to the very bottom of the page.

[PinkElephant 8,077]

In fact I don‘t see the argument behind a tag being shown at the bottom of the page being anything different from one showing at the top. The more information shows at the top, the more cluttered it gets.

Probably most Taggers (like myself) don’t see the problem, because we tend to use few notebooks with short names. But EN accommodates Notebookers as well, folk that name notebooks like „Little Johns 9th Birthday Party, Part 2 After Eating The Cake“. This uses up a lot of space in the notebook area on top.

For me other functions would be more important, like the view of all tags on one page, to help with housekeeping. Or when selecting a tag initially only showing notebooks and other tags where the selected tag appears (and the other way, when selecting a notebook).

[DTLow 5,736]

1 hour ago, idoc said:

I find it galling that my main means of organization is now relegated to the very bottom of the page.

I wasn't happy with the switch, but I got over it   
I've learned to work with tags at the bottom

Regarding tag names, I start with a prefix (? ! @ . #) to indicate (Who What Where When Actionable)   
?? for family members

I reflect hierarchy in the tagnames; for example !Budget, !Budget-Housing, !Budget-HousingRent

[idoc 400]

20 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

In fact I don‘t see the argument behind a tag being shown at the bottom of the page being anything different from one showing at the top. The more information shows at the top, the more cluttered it gets.

Probably most Taggers (like myself) don’t see the problem, because we tend to use few notebooks with short names. But EN accommodates Notebookers as well, folk that name notebooks like „Little Johns 9th Birthday Party, Part 2 After Eating The Cake“. This uses up a lot of space in the notebook area on top.

For me other functions would be more important, like the view of all tags on one page, to help with housekeeping. Or when selecting a tag initially only showing notebooks and other tags where the selected tag appears (and the other way, when selecting a notebook).

I select a notebook and tags for every item.  So a Netflix statement would get put into the "Home" notebook and would have a "netflix" tag. On v10 I have to select the notebook on the very top and the tag on the very bottom.  I also have many items that are tagged the same way but go into different notebooks.  My eyes now need to flit from top to bottom to make sure that the tag I selected is properly matched.  It's a third world problem but if you're filing dozens of notes a day it's wasted effort.  It also doesn't make sense from an intuitive point of view.  When you file papers into folders within a physical filing cabinet you want to see the papers, the folders, the tabs and the cabinet all within the same place.  My point is if you polled 1000 people about whether they wanted this particular change I would guess that the vast majority would either not care at all (like Pink Elephant) or deeply care (like me).  I think only a tiny minority would actually welcome or cheer this change.  And this is what I find disturbing about the changes that are happening...we need to see more people cheering and fewer people jeering or just shrugging their shoulders.

 

[PinkElephant 8,077]

If you want to speed things up, you can use a keyboard shortcut. The shortcut to assign a tag is editable, you can choose one that is friendly for you to reach with one hand.

[Reflexx 5]

Frustration has brought me here like many others.  I've been an Evernote user for a while (September 2008).

After a certain point evernote became like every other bloatware out there.  Features to make EVERYONE happy, while forgetting why many of us are here.  Simple, fast, reliable, backup-able, and NOT just living in the connected / cloud world.  

I have always had a local copy of my evernote Dbase on my computer (behind the Windows password AND in an encrypted drive).  Then I also made an actual copy of the database to a physical portable drive and backed up to a server.  Yes, this is / was my security blanket.  My LIFE is in evernote and I wanted to be ablet to easly access AL mydata without an internet connection.  My personal "Hitchhiker's Guide and Life Wiki"

Now in V10 all that is gone.  Evernote please give those of us that were 100% happy with simplicity and security you promised us over a decade ago.  I TRUSTED the product Phil described. Now I'm uncertain.  Now I have an outdated local database, I don't know where Evernote is keeping data on my computer, I don't know how to back it up, I don't know how much of my data is available to me off-line (PC or phone?),  and my only alternative is to use the Legacy(?) version until it becomes obsolete or unsecure? And the worst part, there is no human to call for help. What the hell have I been paying for all these years?

 

So Is my Evernote database (16GB) on my laptop obsolete? It was really easy to drag and drop that folder onto a portable HDD. Did evernote create a new ENEX file on my PC somewhere and is slowly re-downloading all 16GB of data and taking up another 16GB? (doesn't seem like it).  Because I can open Evernote and see all my files w/o decrypting that drive that my database is on.   Is that new database encrypted?  Can I download it?  Because if I have to download 16GB from the cloud every time I want a current backup copy, that would be asinine.  

 

THIS is why I kept my Evernote Dbase on an encrypted drive partition AND there's not even an option to use an Evernote password on a PC???

 

[PinkElephant 8,077]

How secure the login works depends on you:

1) Log out of the client instead of just quitting the app, or even only closing it. Then your login credentials are needed before you can open your account. Don‘t check the option „Remember me for 30 days“. For enhanced security set 2FA.

Hint: If you logged out, no offline access. You need to be logged in before going offline to have access to the local data when offline. A security measure, EN can’t check you are you  while offline.

2) There is a local copy of your database on your c-Drive. It is always on your system drive, v10 does not allow to install it elsewhere.

Look into c:\users\<your user name>\appdata\roaming

If you backup the EN folder there including all subfolders, AFAIK it can be restored from that copy.

Final remark: It makes it much easier to share information with you if the posts are shorter and to the point. I may have missed something you wanted to know because it is buried under a landslide of words.

[agsteele 2,942]

Using Windows you can encrypt your hard disk where Evernote resides. I use the native Windows Bitlocker but I'm sure that other options exist. A few users have done some clever stuff using symbolic links to cause Evernote to be saved on other drives than the C:\ drive You would have to search for the posts to find out how to do it.  It was, though, straightforward as I recall.

[RobertTostevin 9]

is anyone else experiencing slow refresh when scrolling a long list of notes on the Windows version?

 

It can be very frustrating as you scroll down to see the grey place holders and it then takes a second to fill in the screen.

What is more even if you then scroll up over items that were previously displayed it still takes a second to refresh - it's like there's no caching on the  client app at all

[Terry McFlurry 0]

6 小時前, RobertTostevin說:

is anyone else experiencing slow refresh when scrolling a long list of notes on the Windows version?

 

It can be very frustrating as you scroll down to see the grey place holders and it then takes a second to fill in the screen.

What is more even if you then scroll up over items that were previously displayed it still takes a second to refresh - it's like there's no caching on the  client app at all

This is the main reason that I decided to end my subscription on evernote this month.

I have lost my patience on watching how the app to sync. It takes a long time even under a fast network. What make more frustration is that sometimes it will duplicate your edited notes. I could find no logic there. 

Furthermore, I used to maintain my notes in different notebook. But I keep find that some of the notes which is not belong to the notebook appears in the notebook no matter how I move it.

Using evernote was supposed to smooth my workflow, but now it need me to pay extra attention on would it broke my notes.

[PinkElephant 8,077]

It may be that while the succession of updates were installed over the past months, your local database took a hit. Some of your observations speak for this theory. You could try this on a Windows installation - if it does not help, you are not worse off than at the moment:

1. Go to File > Sign Out [name] from the menu bar.
2. Select the "Remove my Evernote data from this device" option, then click Sign out.
3. Restart your computer.
4. Sign back in to Evernote

[Terry McFlurry 0]

8 小時前, PinkElephant說:

It may be that while the succession of updates were installed over the past months, your local database took a hit. Some of your observations speak for this theory. You could try this on a Windows installation - if it does not help, you are not worse off than at the moment:

1. Go to File > Sign Out [name] from the menu bar.
2. Select the "Remove my Evernote data from this device" option, then click Sign out.
3. Restart your computer.
4. Sign back in to Evernote

The issues isn't happen only once and isn't only on Windows. It happens started from the launch of v10 of all platform and just like never stop.

May be there is a little bit exaggerated, it seems better sometimes, but the user experience still really bad this year. Why on earth a service provider need paying users keep finding work around and solutions for them? This forum suppose to help users figure out the way out from feature limitation but not on the same buggy issues for such a long period.

The annual fee isn't cost me much, but I hate to continue supporting a company that didn't really take care of user's feedback.

[PinkElephant 8,077]

Nobody needs to follow any advise, even if it doesn’t take longer than 5min and is available for free. 

[RobertTostevin 9]

Thanks for the tip

I've  tried this out and it is a little better but not hugely 

 

This is all part of the general poor performance of the new app.

It's been over a year now since they released the new app and I've hung on hoping things will get better- and to be fair they have somewhat ... but performance and functionality are still not as good as the legacy Windows desktop app which I use 80% of the time these days in preference to the new one.

I'm baffled as to why they released so early and the lack of respect they have for user feedback 

I've been a big user of Evernote since 2009 - so I'll hang on for a while longer but am actively considering alternative systems now

[tonychung 17]

On 9/28/2021 at 7:28 AM, PinkElephant said:

…or try the Penultimate app.

When Evernote bought Penultimate I was excited because I was already using it on my iPad. I was hoping for a more seamless integration of features. Maybe start a Penultimate page inside a notebook, invisibly marrying the concept of embedded sketch note within an HTML page.

I’ve been using Evernote since 2011 and the main features that I use or would use might be highly specialized:

Seamless handwriting / drawing and text notes (similar to OneNote, only with better organization.

Structured notes (I like the current approach to incorporate and convert markdown format—this is a good start)

Archive notes to hide from general search. I export my archived notes to my computer, and am thinking of setting up a second free Evernote account to transfer the ownership of my old notebooks that I don’t want to include in search. We’ll see how this goes.

One trick I’ve learned from this discussion that I should really use more are tags. I use labels for email. Tags for notes should be a no-brainer.

It would be cool to add a component to a note that presented a list of links to notes that contain certain tags. I use this method in Confluence at work to build streamlined tables of contents.

Cheers!

-Tony

[Reflexx 5]

On 10/30/2021 at 3:57 PM, PinkElephant said:

How secure the login works depends on you:

1) Log out of the client instead of just quitting the app, or even only closing it. Then your login credentials are needed before you can open your account. Don‘t check the option „Remember me for 30 days“. For enhanced security set 2FA.

Hint: If you logged out, no offline access. You need to be logged in before going offline to have access to the local data when offline. A security measure, EN can’t check you are you  while offline.

2) There is a local copy of your database on your c-Drive. It is always on your system drive, v10 does not allow to install it elsewhere.

Look into c:\users\<your user name>\appdata\roaming

If you backup the EN folder there including all subfolders, AFAIK it can be restored from that copy.

Final remark: It makes it much easier to share information with you if the posts are shorter and to the point. I may have missed something you wanted to know because it is buried under a landslide of words.

 

Ok, I'll keep it simple.  

 

1) I want my evernote database to be encrypted on my computer.  simple.   YOu are suggesting a "procedure" for what used to be for me almost zero effort.  Close the laptop, drive automatically encrypted. Done and secure.  Someone gets to my laptop, even if they knew my Evernote password, there is NO database to be seen.  

2) there is no "c:\users\<your user name>\appdata\roaming"  There is NO other database on my laptop taking up 17GB (my curent and no longer synced evernote dbase).   So where is my data?   

3) Where is phone support?  After a decade of paying $1,200 a year I have zero phone support. 

 

[PinkElephant 8,077]

If you are using the tool provided by your OS, your disk is encrypted the moment you lock your PC or Mac. Up to you to activate it, no need for EN to do anything about it.

In preferences / settings, is the switch „keep my EN data when leaving“ active ? Then your data is on your disk - which you can control by cutting your internet connection and continue working. You got my best bet where to look. It’s not there on your computer ? Fine with me, I won’t go looking. If you want to know exactly where - go ask support. 

If you pay 1.200$ a year (!) it is because you were running nearly 20 Premium/Personal accounts in parallel (don’t see the use case), or appr. 8 Members on a Teams account (it has an Admin, you can talk to).

Seems you did well running your setup  without having somebody on the phone. Ask EN if given all that revenue they bake an exception for you, employing a support supernanny you can have on the phone.

Personally I can just look at my experience: I am doing fine with how support works for me as it is (with the exception of a few weeks initially when v10 had been released). You may feel different, do contact EN.

Remember the forum is user2user. And no, I am not about giving a dose of niceties to lace my answers with a bit of sugar glazing.

[PhillyBass 4]

On 9/25/2021 at 9:06 AM, mnzau said:

I have been a premium user for 11 years now.

I struggle with every aspect of Evernote now, where as for about the first 9 of these 11 years I was using Evernote multiple times a day and a strong advocate.

What has happened? It feels to me like they are not doing focus groups with users to make sure that new features are a)needed b) implemented well  and further to that - things that need improving have not changed at all since day 1 (like the basic ability to support varying thumbnail sizes or improving support for stylus (S pen / Apple Pencil) input.

I am so disillusioned that after 11 years I want out.

I feel you bro. I've been with EverNote 10+ years, perhaps 12?  My entire life both personally and professionally is tied around EverNote.  I have over 2500 notes and losing a single one would be a mess for me, and migrating to another platform would be a nightmare.  It is the pain of the migration that is keeping me on EverNote.

I have tried just about every EverNote alternative out there and there are no good alternatives for me other than Standard Notes.  I signed up to their 5 year plan, paid them the $150, and I will give them some feature requests - just two would make their platform a perfect replacement for EverNote. 

The EverNote Electron-based apps may be consistent between platforms but they are painfully slow.  I just upgraded from iPhone Xs to 13 and saw a massive performance improvement, so there's hope that in a few years of replacing my other mobile devices that they can run the Electron EverNote apps.  Sadly I do not have the classic apps o on my mobile devices, but I am definitely running the classic apps on my computers: MacOS, Windows, Linux (using WINE)

 

[Mikrocell 0]

I've been using it for 10 years and now one of my Win 10 PC's won't run it without Evernote crashing constantly and therefore forcing me to use it in a browser tab rather than a Win 10 desktop application.  And it's a dog on my Pixel 2 mobile, especially at launch.  So yeah, Evernote has become a pretty frustrating experience for me during this past year.

[PinkElephant 8,077]

If it crashes, you either have a bad installation, or corrupted local data. To correct the data problem, you can try this:

1. Go to File > Sign Out [name] from the menu bar.
2. Select the "Remove my Evernote data from this device" option, then click Sign out.
3. Restart your computer.
4. Sign back in to Evernote

If this solves the problem, you can leave the installation as it is.

To correct the installation, you first need to make a full uninstall. Use a tool like Revo Uninstaller to remove all program elements. Then restart the PC and reinstall from the EN website.