Option to Single Left-Click Tray Icon to Open Program Instead of Quick Note

[muzicman82 16]

I don't use the Quick Note. Instinct with any program in the tray is to just left click to open it. It's currently 2 clicks whether I open from the Quick Note panel or right click to open. Please make this an option. 

[RagingRaven 6]

On 12/8/2021 at 7:58 PM, Mike P said:

I personally can't see EN allowing a single left click on the elephant icon to do anything other than opening a quick note - otherwise, they might argue, it wouldn't be a quick note.

If it's an option, people can change from the settings, what would be the issue?
The default behavior could still be quicknote, but people who want it to open the main program, would at least have the option to change it.

The thing is, the behavior in the past was that it would open the main program with a left click. This changed when they introduced QuickNote, which is fine and understandable. But if you were used to the old version, having the quick note pop up instead of the main program is quite annoying.

So I don't see a good reason against making this an option.

[asore 3]

10+ year user here also that just created a forum account to say that I also hate this new system tray behavior and even more so hate the attitude of the "experts" that have responded here. This is the type of ***** response that is so prevalent on support forums now. "You don't like what it does? It's your problem. Anything and everything the software does is amazing and perfect!"

There are other threads with lots of other users chiming in to say they don't like this also. Most importantly, for a piece of software that most of us use to enhance our productivity, changing the behavior of one of the most common ways we interact with it (i.e a quick launch I personally use dozens of times a day) to make it less efficient and force us to change our deeply ingrained habits, is a poor design decision imo.

And "Experts," your "you don't like it, too bad" attitude and a company ignoring their long-term users is exactly what sends core users looking for new alternatives. I've been a proselytizer for Evernote for over a decade. This thread is the first time in all of those years that I am taking the time to start exploring alternatives.

[bhousman 8]

Clicking on the Sytem Tray icon should open up Evernote as it did previously. Totally dumb decision to change this beahviour or not give the user to choose which they prefer. I'll soon be porting my notes to another program even though I've been a paying member since 2010!

[Brother Tobias 8]

I keep trying to like v 10 over Legacy, but every time I start if I run into this nonsense of the tray icon wanting to create a new note. What I want to do is access my notes, not create a new one. The primary purpose of Evernote used to be just that. It's easy enough to create a new note if I want one, once I'm in the main program. But now it's two clicks to get there just to open it.

IIRC the old Evernote had a global hotkey for creating a new note.

[Mike P 2,640]

I have to say I am very confused by this whole thread, and others like it. Evernote is unusual in having a system tray icon.

Normal behaviour in Windows is for the X to close the program. If we have not finished with the app yet, we minimise it. Yet for some reason people want to constantly close EN (which doesn't actually close it but leaves it running in the background, consuming just as many system resources) and then expect the tray icon to open the program in the same way as clicking on a minimised icon does.

So why treat EN differently? Just minimise it, as you would every other windows program, and then you have the standard Windows one click solution to maximise it again.

[gazumped 11,661]

Regardless of the logic there are some practical considerations...

• How much would it cost to add a preference option;  recode the tray icon to include & activate it;  then quality check the update and release it to all users?? 
  I'm guessing "lots".
• How many votes / how much support does this request have?  This thread has 1 vote so far...
• Will it improve retention?  Not noticeably
• Help gain new business?  Not likely...
• Likelihood of the overall change helping improve cashflow?  Negligable...

[Leos Literak 5]

Hi, I have been using Evernote for 10 years and it is getting worse and worse with each upgrade. This is another example. I have reinstalled my laptop and my Windows app was upgraded. I hate it! Evernotes hires the worst UX engineer in space. 

A week ago I had Evenote running in the Windows system tray where it did not occupy any precious space of the task bar. I could click it and open the app quickly. Now some genius introduced f*ing quick notes and I cannot get rid off them. I want to open the app as I used to do for years. Proposal of putting EN on the task bar is silly. I do not want it there. I want the previous behaviour.

The only reason I have not left to Notion is that their Evenote import sucks. I am Evernote hostage.

[EverGrope 3]

Make the trayicon configurable or add a global shortcut to open evernote already...

 

[Leos Literak 5]

Hi, I like my desktop clean: icons and open apps in the task bar. If I actually don't need some app, I prefer to close it or hide it in a system tray. Evernote fortunatelly allows the second option. But there is a regression and what had worked for ages, is gone. I was accustomed that when I click on its icon in the tray, Evernote just started. Now it opens some quick note dialog and I have to seek a correct button to open EN. So I feel like my user experience is worse now. You may feel it opposite if you use EN as unstructured thought dump - then a quick note dialog may be helpful.

[gmcauliffe 0]

Win 10, System Tray, Left Click ==> SHOULD GO TO THE MAIN PROGRAM !!!

Going via Quick Note is a total pain.

At absolute minimum, one should be able to determine this behavior in Settings, but no such setting...

Every other program goes to the main screen, anything else is not standard / convention, or should be a user-configurable option.  Evernote, you're not being clever here, you're just annoying us.

 

[gazumped 11,661]

Don't know if the trick/work-around still works in v10,  but if you export a single new note to ENEX and keep that file on your desktop..  does clicking that file open it as a new note?

[muzicman82 16]

12 minutes ago, gazumped said:

Don't know if the trick/work-around still works in v10,  but if you export a single new note to ENEX and keep that file on your desktop..  does clicking that file open it as a new note?

Not sure, but I also don't want to have to go to my desktop to open since I generally have a dozen programs running. Also don't really want the program to open to a new note either.

[agsteele 2,945]

Add a program shortcut to the taskbar

[gazumped 11,661]

3 hours ago, muzicman82 said:

Not sure, but I also don't want to have to go to my desktop to open since I generally have a dozen programs running. Also don't really want the program to open to a new note either.

Sorry - thought you were talking about creating a new note.  If you want to open an existing note, how about saving a note link to the desktop instead?  If you work on several different notes,  create a Table of Contents note and save a shortcut to that...

[Mike P 2,640]

4 hours ago, muzicman82 said:

I don't use the Quick Note. Instinct with any program in the tray is to just left click to open it. It's currently 2 clicks whether I open from the Quick Note panel or right click to open. Please make this an option. 

Personally I never close EN only minimise it. If the elephant icon is in the task bar it still using just as much resource as if it was simply minimised so you are not saving anything. So for me @agsteelesolution is best.

Having said that, it is slightly odd that there is not a global keyboard shortcut to open EN. A sort of partial work around is to use Win+shift+F to open EN with the focus in the search bar. It will remember the last view. The last view will influence how you get out of the search (if you need to). If it was just a notebook hitting tab should be fine. If it was search results alt+ctrl+2 is a good bet. 

I personally can't see EN allowing a single left click on the elephant icon to do anything other than opening a quick note - otherwise, they might argue, it wouldn't be a quick note.

[Mike P 2,640]

17 minutes ago, RagingRaven said:

So I don't see a good reason against making this an option.

The problem is that EN seem very resistant to have any options for anything. Whether this is just for now or a long term strategy is anybody's guess. Therefore, in practice, you will probably need to live with it for the forseeable future or go elsewhere. In the past (may even have been at the beta stage) somebody (not an EN employee) asked for suggestions for the different options people would like - it ended up a long list! 

[agsteele 2,945]

If being able to left click on the tray icon is what you feel you are paying for then, for sure, you should move on. But perhaps you have been paying for the core functions.

I simply have a shortcut to Evernote on the Windows taskbar which launches Evernote. A change in muscle memory which was quickly achieved to open from the new shortcut.

[Mike P 2,640]

6 minutes ago, Brother Tobias said:

IIRC the old Evernote had a global hotkey for creating a new note.

As does V10. 

[agsteele 2,945]

18 hours ago, Brother Tobias said:

I keep trying to like v 10 over Legacy, but every time I start if I run into this nonsense of the tray icon wanting to create a new note. What I want to do is access my notes, not create a new one. The primary purpose of Evernote used to be just that. It's easy enough to create a new note if I want one, once I'm in the main program. But now it's two clicks to get there just to open it.

Create a shortcut on the desktop or taskbar. When you double click Evernote will open at the point where you last left it or in the Home screen if that is the preference you've selected.

[gazumped 11,661]

5 minutes ago, Leos Literak said:

I hate it! Evernotes hires the worst UX engineer in space. 

Er,  hi - we're mainly just users floating around up here,  but if you read the previous entries in this thread there are several suggestions for one-click activation.

...Or you could go back to the older version - Install an older version of Evernote – Evernote Help & Learning

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,954]

4 hours ago, gazumped said:

Er,  hi - we're mainly just users floating around up here,  but if you read the previous entries in this thread there are several suggestions for one-click activation.

But of course none of those is exactly the way it was before, which is obviously the only possible right way of doing things, since nobody in their right mind ever wanted to make a note quickly with a single click, right? Or ... maybe ... there are different ways of achieving the same purpose, and people can accommodate themselves slightly to the needs of others. Or maybe not.

[Boot17 1,448]

5 hours ago, Leos Literak said:

I have been using Evernote for 10 years and it is getting worse and worse with each upgrade. This is another example. I have reinstalled my laptop and my Windows app was upgraded. I hate it! Evernotes hires the worst UX engineer in space. 

That's just all your opinion, of course, which is not one I share.

5 hours ago, Leos Literak said:

I am Evernote hostage.

A self-imposed prison.

[Leos Literak 5]

I agree. I have several times attempted to flee away because of recent changes but fortunatelly for Evernote, the import into Notion does not work and I need my history. I had loved Evernote for years and recommended it many times. But it sucks now. I pay for it but they want more money so they change UI introducing new paid features but killing the user experience.

[Leos Literak 5]

On 12/3/2022 at 5:51 PM, Boot17 said:

That's just all your opinion, of course, which is not one I share.

A self-imposed prison.

Until I find an alternative and I am able to import my data, I need to continue with Evernote. It used to be a great app. Simple, intuitive and easy to use.

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,954]

51 minutes ago, asore said:

And "Experts," your "you don't like it, too bad" attitude and a company ignoring their long-term users is exactly what sends core users looking for new alternatives. I've been a proselytizer for Evernote for over a decade. This thread is the first time in all of those years that I am taking the time to start exploring alternatives.

Don't know if I'm one of those "experts" you mean but I suspect that whoever they are, they too are long-term core users. What I'm tired of is people who don't like the way something works now and insist that Evernote must change it back because they and they alone are Evernote's core/essential/power/long-term users. It would be great to have an option in the settings for this, I'm sure. But then we would get the complaints about bloated settings and something accidentally getting set the wrong way....

[PinkElephant 8,095]

This thread is similar to several others: The very individual preference of a user is styled to be an universal „solution“, for a problem that doesn’t exist.

Then the war cry is to „solve“ it by adding settings, to please the initiator of the thread and a often small, but outspoken followership. This thread here has 4 votes (which is less than the number of users who posted in the thread).

What would be the result if all of that would be implemented ? A ton of new settings, irrelevant for most users, bloating not only the settings but the main app code as well. A setting is no setting if it is not reflected in the code.

Such an app is not better, but worse, it’s usability reduced by the settings complexity, and development hindered by ever raising testing and QA requirements.

Put on top of that a little expert bashing - because the only „expert“ (self declared, by definition) is the one who startet the whole mess (strike that, I typed „thread“ …).

Nothing against user driven improvement - we have some threads open since a decade, with hundreds of votes in favor. These for me should have the top priority in checking for improvements driven by the community.

Personally I am not in favor for all of them, that’s my opinion as a single user - but ALL of these should IMHO be reviewed and evaluated.

[agsteele 2,945]

I think the issue is that left clicking on the tray icon now opens the helper rather than the program.  That's different from Legacy. But I'm confused why we have a flurry of concerns since this has been with us for nearly 2.5 years.

I was able to quickly re-program my fingers and for awhile right clicked the tray icon and selected Open.  Later I found it better to ignore the tray icon.  I created an Evernote program shortcut on the task bar.  Double click that and program opens. SImilarly for a desktop icon. The tray icon is then the helper (which I have hidden away to save tray space).

[gazumped 11,661]

4 hours ago, Mike P said:

Evernote is unusual in having a system tray icon.

Actually,  several of my apps have normal installs,  startup icons and Start menu access, but also (optionally in some cases) have a tray icon.  The behaviour of that icon is - variable.  Sometimes left-click opens the app,  sometimes it does nothing and right-click will open the app or provide some options.  I have Adobe Creative Cloud / Various cloud drives (Google / Dropbox) / MS Teams and others.

If you need one it's pretty easy to create a shortcut in any one of several places,  including - as @agsteele notes,  the taskbar.  In W11 I also have Evernote pinned to the Start menu.  The app tends to stay open anyway,  with the window minimized to the task bar - so it's always available with one click.  Until this storm in a teacup* blew up I'd actually forgotten there's a tray icon too...

If the behavious of the tray icon is the only thing that offends you about Evernote,  then I'd count you as being pretty lucky given the other diatribes we get around here.

*apparently the US translation here is "tempest in a teapot".  I prefer coffee anyway.

[bmcl26 488]

20 hours ago, Leos Literak said:

Until I find an alternative and I am able to import my data, I need to continue with Evernote. It used to be a great app. Simple, intuitive and easy to use.

I have been a paid user for 13 years and it has got better & better, especially over the past 18 mths. 

[Leos Literak 5]

Would you please give me some examples of what you consider as improvements?

[Boot17 1,448]

1 hour ago, Leos Literak said:

Would you please give me some examples of what you consider as improvements?

I'm not who you asked, but I'll list a few of my favorites:

• As a user of both Mac and Windows (and Web and iOS), I find the unified UI/UX across them to be divine. And even on iPad and iOS it is as similar as it can get! Before, this experience was less than ideal to me personally. I think Evernote has hit it out of the park with this one.
• Highlighting search in text in images. I'm not sure how long this one has been around as I've only been on Personal for just over a year and before that I was on the grandfathered Plus and I don't believe it could do it in that.
• I like the new Tasks and find them very handy to make notes actionable. I'm a big user of Things and I always wanted to add attachments and images to tasks and couldn't... now I can with Evernote. (I still use Things for quick one-off things. IMO, Evernote is pretty "heavy" for those kinds of things.)
• I really like the new checklists and along with that being able to also drag and drop lists (bulleted, numbered, checked).
• Backlinks!
• Improved linking to another note in-place.
• Auto upgrade process is improved and waits until you are ready for you to restart Evernote vs an in-your-face popup.
• Performance is way improved since the initial v10 release.

There are a lot more that they've done that I don't need or use: Home and widgets, Calendar integration, embedded spreadsheet view --- but definite improvements there too for those that use them.

This is really only a handful of new improvements. You can see a complete list of just v10 enhancements here: https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500001700002

FWIW - and to stay on track with the thread - I don't doubt that Evernote could improve in the use of the System tray -- especially on Mac. (I think they should have a preference for it to be hidden.) But this is really a very minor nit to me personally.

Also, lots of other areas where they could improve, but no software tool can be perfect to all people.

[Leos Literak 5]

Thanks for the list.

[gazumped 11,661]

I'm pretty sure you normally get a global icon when Evernote is installed - and if that's missing for some reason you can create one in about 10 seconds from any desktop.

[Boot17 1,448]

On 3/4/2023 at 8:58 AM, gazumped said:

In W11 I also have Evernote pinned to the Start menu.

I could only find this single mention of this in this thread and wonder if it got glossed over by some.

You can also do this in Windows 10 too. 

Why not just pin the Evernote app to the task bar as @gazumped has mentioned? If it's not already open then one left-click on it will open it.

[gazumped 11,661]

This is my cluttered W11 desktop with 7 apps active...

Yes,  I cut off the edges to show the icons more clearly,  but there are zero windows open - most of my required apps are pinned to the taskbar.

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,954]

6 hours ago, Leos Literak said:

Hi, I like my desktop clean: icons and open apps in the task bar. If I actually don't need some app, I prefer to close it or hide it in a system tray. Evernote fortunatelly allows the second option. But there is a regression and what had worked for ages, is gone. I was accustomed that when I click on its icon in the tray, Evernote just started. Now it opens some quick note dialog and I have to seek a correct button to open EN. So I feel like my user experience is worse now. You may feel it opposite if you use EN as unstructured thought dump - then a quick note dialog may be helpful.

As I understand it, what works now is to right-click the tray icon, then click Open Evernote. I tried a few experiments, and this seems to take approximately 2 seconds, as opposed to 1 second to simply left-click. Perhaps it takes 2.5 seconds as opposed to .75 seconds. In any case, the worsened user experience (which many people are reporting in several threads) seems to me to be more psychological than substantial (as user experiences tend to be, I would suppose). I don't use the system to tray to open Evernote in any case, even for the quick note--but it does seem to me that there might be many users and use situations for which quick access to creating a note is more important than quick access to the entire program. At any rate, I guarantee that if Evernote were to go back to the previous functionality those users would inundate these forums with complaints.

[Leos Literak 5]

Thanks for the tip to right click EN icon in the szstem tray. There is an extra menu but it is easy to orientate as it has just three options.

[agsteele 2,945]

14 hours ago, gmcauliffe said:

Evernote, you're not being clever here, you're just annoying us.

Sadly, you're talking to other users in these forums.  Staff occasionaly drop by but there is little evidence that it is regular. If you are a paying subscriber then you can raise a support ticket otherwise submit Feedback via the option in the application to be sure that your annoyance is received.

[gazumped 11,661]

15 hours ago, gmcauliffe said:

Every other program goes to the main screen

Actually no,  every other program does not go to the main window.  I have several in my system tray that have a range of options accessed by right and left clicks.  With Evernote a right-click lets you open Evernote's main window - or in Windows you could easily build your own shortcut to launch directly.

https://www.howtogeek.com/436615/how-to-create-desktop-shortcuts-on-windows-10-the-easy-way/

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,954]

15 hours ago, gmcauliffe said:

Win 10, System Tray, Left Click ==> SHOULD GO TO THE MAIN PROGRAM !!!

Going via Quick Note is a total pain.

At absolute minimum, one should be able to determine this behavior in Settings, but no such setting...

Every other program goes to the main screen, anything else is not standard / convention, or should be a user-configurable option.  Evernote, you're not being clever here, you're just annoying us.

 

Neither you nor any of us, nor any small group of us, gets to say what should happen. (At any rate, that's how I think it should be.) As @gazumped points out, the behavior that you prefer may be common, but it is not universal or standard. If you'd read through the thread, you'd see a variety of options and responses. None of which are satisfactory, of course, to the my-way-or-the-highway point of view. But you probably spent more time typing that post than you would spend in a month of extra clicks to open Evernote.

[Emete 0]

This is the third time I accept the update and they still didn't add a workaround for this. It's unnaceptable.
Going back to legacy once more.
When the legacy support ends, will uninstall.

[gazumped 11,661]

6 hours ago, Emete said:

When the legacy support ends, will uninstall.

You might have several months if you're lucky.  Otherwise - Goodbye.

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,954]

On 5/5/2023 at 10:59 AM, Emete said:

This is the third time I accept the update and they still didn't add a workaround for this. It's unnaceptable.

If you're willing to accept a workaround, please look through this thread, where several have been suggested.

[John66 2]

Closing down EN and using a shortcut from Desktop (or Taskbar) is not the same as leaving EN running and opening via the Windows Tray; the load time is noticeably different.

As workaround, I assign a key sequence to an unused button on my Logitech mouse, I use Alt+N. This pops up Quick Note, from there I click on the "Open Evernote" launch button at the top-right. Albeit, this is still 2-clicks, but I think it's more efficient (at least if feels that way )

I could take it one step further using AutoHotKey, but for now, my current workaround suffices.

Hope this is found to be helpful in some way.

 

Edited May 22, 2023 by John66
grammar

[Nikolay Trifonov 2]

Using AutoHotKey is what I do. Assigned an action to "Alt+E" keyboard that does the following:

1. right click on the systray icon and then

2. left click on "Open Evernote"

[jpaz 48]

Why don´t just implement the option to select which behaviour we want as default when clicking the icon? Giving choices to users keeps them happy. It is not rewriting the apps code, right? Why the need of workarounds for such primary stuff?

2 clicks when before I only needed 1 Getting used to it but more clicks = bad usability.

[jpaz 48]

Any news about this?

[agsteele 2,945]

It isn't coming and isn't promised. So no news expected.