Split screen

[calogie 0]

Hi

I often use Evernote on my desktop on a large screen. It would be great if I were able to view two parts of a note simultaneously by splitting the screen as per Word etc.

Any plans to introduce this feature?

Cheers

Cal 

 

[PinkElephant 9,253]

I hope there are no plans to add such a feature …

OK, I need to explain: EN treats the note as an entity. Change something, and the whole note syncs.

Now have the note open in another session window. One window syncs a change - the other one is left behind. When the sync comes back from the server, it finds an unchanged version. Result:“We detected a sync conflict and created a duplicate to make sure …“

Oh no, not again !

This is why I think it is a bad idea to open the same note in 2 clients (or windows) at the same time, ever, no exception.

But very simple to get around this: Make a duplicate of the note, open each one in its own window. No sync conflict, happy working session all over. Just make sure to enter all changes in only one of the 2 notes, to avoid utter chaos. After you used the 2 note setup, you can delete the unchanged note.

[Mike P 3,435]

On 10/28/2021 at 7:40 AM, calogie said:

Hi

I often use Evernote on my desktop on a large screen. It would be great if I were able to view two parts of a note simultaneously by splitting the screen as per Word etc.

Any plans to introduce this feature?

Cheers

Cal 

 

While I understand @PinkElephant's reluctance to have the note open twice it does seem to work if you stick to one clent. Try the following

• open the note in a new window 
• maximise the original note in the client (expand note icon at top left)
• put the two windows side by side
• You can then scroll the two windows independently and edit them independently.

It takes a couple of seconds for updates in one to be reflected in the other so you do need to be careful.

 

[Randy Zeitman 19]

Calogie is not asking for two editing windows.

This person is asking for a split window, panes, as per Word, as per BBEdit, as per any good text editor.

it’s a highly significant request and anyone with notes taller than a window height would find it a production enhancer.

Some apps, like adobe illustrator, will let you create a new view, technically shown in a second window, but the second window is not a second file. It’s a second view of one window.

[calogie 0]

Correct 

[PinkElephant 9,253]

EN is not meant to be a „good text editor“, and the concept is completely different. The classical word processors run locally on the computers memory, and have a physical page metaphor.

Asking to duplicate existing abilities from other apps makes no sense - and for me it is unexplained (except that there is a large monitor available …) why it would be good that EN supports this specific feature. I already wrote about the problems with syncing and conflicts that can occur when a single note is opened twice on a client.

If you have an endeavor where opening windows of the same project is mission critical, use Word, Pages, G-Docs or whatever. You can share the result into a note once you are done.

[ForestD 1,619]

I don't believe the point that @Randy Zeitman was trying to make is that Evernote should be a good text editor, he was just showing that this feature exists in other softwares and it *could*, in theory, exist in Evernote (if they thought there was a good return on investment for it and prioritized it).

The create-a-duplicate note and open it side by side is a good workaround. The open in new window and displaying the same note side by side is also a good one, albeit it comes with the chance of creating conflicting/duplicate notes if you are not careful. Both those work-arounds have worked well for me.

[PinkElephant 9,253]

Sorry, if any software would have the strategy to wildly copy any feature proposed by users "because it exists in another app", this software would be dead. Death for complexity, death for being unusable and death for loss of focus. This is a non-argument. 

It is a non-argument as well to expect every use case must be supported. Here the main argument is "because I use EN on a large screen". I assume from the original post that in addition the notes are pretty long (which IMHO should be avoided in a note taking app). In my home office I run it on a 32" 4K color corrected monitor - does this qualify as "large" ?

On the downside is a problem with syncing - I can't prove it, but as long as EN treats a whole note as the entity that is synced, it is plausible that having the same note open twice and editing both can easily lead to a syncing conflict.

Who want to have 2 views can have it: Open the note in a new window, and place it beside the main app window, showing the same note. If the monitor is as large as posted, there should be enough real estate to arrange this. For the syncing risk I do not propose it, however. If one needs 3 sessions, open the web client and place it beside the other 2 windows. Again, not suggested because this will likely multiply syncing problems.

[Randy Zeitman 19]

A large monitor isn’t required to justify the benefit of split pane - only that the note has enough content to need to scroll.

And EN certainly is not, should not, be a text editor.

I simply note that most of the time I would use a split pane because most every document, a half-dozen paragraphs or more, is taller than the window as they’re set to 24 pt.

The justification is to reduce scrolling, which occurs frequently, I assume because most people don’t edit a document by each paragraph in succession.