Internal linking and anchors

[Kevin - iO Digital 9]

It would be really interesting if there's a new feature in the next update so you can link to anchors in your document.

Linking form one place to an other anchor in the same note would be really handy. 
A little more complex nice one would be if you can link from one note to another specific place (anchor) in another note.

Now I have to scroll or search in my notes to find something I refer to. A link would fix this

[BobCc 2]

Been a user for many years. I have also wished hidden in-doc anchors were a feature for a long time. I appreciate that it may not be the way some people like to work, but EN is a tool, and would be a better tool for me if notes could have anchors and link from the top of the note.

For the nature of the particular note I'm talking about, it doesn't make sense to break it into smaller notes. Searching (especially on mobile) is a clunky solution when a simple click would do the trick.

I've continued to use EN when others that were using it with me have moved on to other things. I still really like it, I would just like it more if it could do this!

[PinkElephant 6,273]

Would be a positive step, I fully agree. I think it would help many fellow users to create a network of information, spanning their database.

You can work around it already by inserting marker words into your text at places where you want to jump to. You then jump by using the in-note search to go to the markers.

[bobbyt2 1]

I came on here searching if is is possible.  Technically Evernote already supports HTML anchors.  All they would need to do internally is add a button to create a hidden #anchor by a section and then you can link to the #anchor using the existing link button (or a dropdown menu could appear in the link box if document anchors exist allowing you to select an existing anchor.)

[PinkElephant 6,273]

Thanks for contributing - I suppose EN devs know pretty well what it takes.

The code is only the core of any function. It means to bring features to different platforms, that need to work seamless for the users and be anchored in the GUI. Usually embedding a function takes a lot more than the function itself. On top of this comes QA, documentation, help documents, translation, rolling it out, supporting it. 

This is one aspect.

My personal feeling is that EN won’t release anything in that direction before the redesign of the syncing process. So for now you probably need to go the way of posting searchable key words into the note, or wait for a function to be released.

[Grant837 62]

I am surprised this (link to a specific location in a document)  does not get more attention, especially for an information management tool, where this funtion would be a requirement...

I know Evernote is focused on business users, but this also is useful for that audience - how often do not workers want to link a colleague through to a very specific piece of information?

It would also help compete with MS OneNote which can do this...

 

[LucaBen 13]

This has been a request for the last ten year, it's time for the Evernote team to take this seriously into consideration. I also find quite disappointing that there's no wishlist website where users can submit features requests and track what's in the backlog. I am not happy paying for Premium and have no tool to get involved in new developments.

[PinkElephant 6,273]

To involve yourself into the development, you can use the feedback function of the clients.

EN has its own strategy of communicating. In fact they have improved on it, compared to the past. If you want to learn about the major development lines, there were the videos and there still is the blog from and with Ian Small, the EN CEO.

For 2022 he announced they will be working on a new syncing engine - which is one of these things that are not sexy to brag about, but absolutely necessary. Sort of engine room overhaul, while the passengers are enjoying life on the sun deck.

Some competitors publish their backlog. If you read through it, you may notice they mainly publish features they still need to develop, that already exist in EN. To tell you are working to close the gap to the market leader is not really surprising, isn’t it ? If you ARE the market leader, it is a different game: You want to keep your lead, so you better keep your mouth shut and your devs working.

I think that Tasks were a pretty nasty surprise to many competitors in 2021 - just to name an example. When did they talk about it ? When the „public trial“ launched - why not ?!

[LucaBen 13]

1 hour ago, PinkElephant said:

Some competitors publish their backlog. If you read through it, you may notice they mainly publish features they still need to develop, that already exist in EN. To tell you are working to close the gap to the market leader is not really surprising, isn’t it ? If you ARE the market leader, it is a different game: You want to keep your lead, so you better keep your mouth shut and your devs working.

I think that Tasks were a pretty nasty surprise to many competitors in 2021 - just to name an example. When did they talk about it ? When the „public trial“ launched - why not ?!

Thanks for the useful information, @PinkElephant, much appreciated; will check that out. Submitting feedback is not an option any more, I did use it, and have no idea whether those suggestions are going to have a follow up, or not. As regards the publication of a backlog, I am not entirely persuaded by your argument, even though I see where you are coming from. It still takes months to develop new features, they probably have a solid team, so they would have a competitive advantage even if they did publish it. Large corporations are all quite slow at implementing new features, so I don't see a big risk there. Plus competitors also do research and they can keep an eye on this community, if they wish, so I doubt they would need Evernote to publish their backlog in order to decide what should come next. As a proof of what I am saying, take Webflow as an example: they are very successful and they've been retaining their position as market leads for years, and they have a wishlist website that has been running for a few years now: before adding   cutting edge features such as support for CSS grid and flexbox, membership area, reusable templates, and certain e-commerce features, these ideas were upvoted and discussed by their community. I prefer that approach, particularly if your users are paying, they should be kept in the loop with plans for the future. I don't really care about competitors catching up, as long as Evernote proves that they are truly listening to their users. It's a shame that there's people here who have been asking for anchors since 2011, and we still have no idea weather the EV team is going to take that into consideration at any point in time...

[PinkElephant 6,273]

Yes, users can be a great source for ideas. Why EN does things the way they do, only they can explain. Even Apple recently brought ports, SD-Reader and MagSafe back, against all odds - so there may be hope.

The argument about the „10 years not implementing a feature“ however cuts both ways: 1) …. Such an old request, must be bumped up now; 2) …. Such an old request, we didn’t need it for 10+ years, which is proof in itself we won’t need it ever.

So let us say, adding outlining and better internal structure to notes have (obvious) use cases, back then and today.

Probably there are technical reasons that make it harder than we imagine. But I hope as well they will add this capability in the near future.

[agsteele 2,370]

There is a place to propose your suggestions. Each of the applications has a requests forum. These have the options for other users to vote-up suggestions. We're told that they are monitored but, as with feedback, no announcements are made.

Often the voting option is ignored or missed, a proposal becomes overwhelmed by a community discussion, and we post suggestions on the wrong place. Eg a Teams proposal placed in the MacOS threads.

In addition to the Feedback option and the Requests forums, you can submit a support ticket with suggestions.

So please make your proposals. But you will not get anything more than a general acknowledgement. No promises made.

[Denhez 2]

Hey 👋

Any update on this feature ? 

That would be super useful. 

This is my use case -> I'm taking many udemy courses and organise my notes using Evernote. So it's super easy to classify the content of the courses with notebooks and tags. But for each individual course, since I'm attaching many of the slides or screenshot from the online courses, the notes become hugeeeee. So every time I'm opening a note, it takes like 15 seconds to scroll down to bottom of the note just to add some content. So this anchor functionality would be super useful to create a "table of content" at the top and link it to any section in the note.

Thanks to the developers team, amazing product, it's the only functionality i need to scale my learning to hundreds of courses with links between courses 🙏

[Boot17 901]

11 hours ago, Denhez said:

Any update on this feature ? 

That would be super useful. 

This is my use case -> I'm taking many udemy courses and organise my notes using Evernote. So it's super easy to classify the content of the courses with notebooks and tags. But for each individual course, since I'm attaching many of the slides or screenshot from the online courses, the notes become hugeeeee. So every time I'm opening a note, it takes like 15 seconds to scroll down to bottom of the note just to add some content. So this anchor functionality would be super useful to create a "table of content" at the top and link it to any section in the note.

I haven't heard any talk about it -- so not updates AFAIK.

Evernote has long had issues with sync and note duplication. Having really long notes exacerbates that problem. (I personally don't think Evernote currently wants to implement internal anchor linking and table of contents because that would encourage users to take long notes.)

Instead the solution is to break up those long notes into smaller notes. Each of those sections you have could be its own note instead. Your C1P1 Solutions Architect could be a notebook or a tag. Even if you didn't reach the single note size limitation, I don't believe 27 hours of video lecture summarized into one note with screenshots is going to work out so well... here be dragons!

[Ron Ray 0]

I'm reading a lot of reasons here, particularly by @PinkElephant for not implementing a simple request. I'm a consultant and every time a client asks me, "Ron, can you..." My answer is yes even when I don't know how to do it. I learn and I meet my customers needs, then they think I'm a hero because so many people they asked before they asked me, only gave them reasons why they couldn't do it.

Every few seconds wasted adds up to minutes, and multiplied by numerous readers a note is shared with in an organization adds up to hours wasted scrolling for information that could have been one tap away in a table of contents at the top of the page, even if the content is only a dozen sections each containing limited but important information.

As a developer myself I know this can be coded by one person within a week, therefore I'll go a step further and ask Evernote to please also include self-updating table of contents that can be inserted wherever desired. Really want to be creative, include the ability to select a first and last anchor, then automatically include all anchors in between whenever they're created.

No need to reply with speculation as to why established document tools can't be coded, as silence is preferable to unbelievable excuses. Thank you GreenElephant. 😊

[LucaBen 13]

I've cancelled my Premium subscription to Evernote and won't be upgrading again until I see a proper wishlist website where users can vote for ideas, and progress is tracked. It's ridiculous that as a paying customer, I have to use request forms for new features and hope they will be read at some point, or maybe 15 years are going to past and no changes will ever be implemented.

[PinkElephant 6,273]

No double posting, please.

[Nicolina 0]

Just checking in. Is there any update on an "anchor/link" feature?  Thank you 

[PinkElephant 6,273]

No, the situation is unchanged.

Make smaller notes and link them together.

Or place keywords in the text and find them by search.

[Boot17 901]

On 1/6/2023 at 11:17 PM, Ron Ray said:

I'm a consultant and every time a client asks me, "Ron, can you..." My answer is yes even when I don't know how to do it.

This is the basis of the Dilbert cartoons.

[Boot17 901]

5 hours ago, Nicolina said:

Just checking in. Is there any update on an "anchor/link" feature?  Thank you 

Try again next year -- maybe.

I'm only mostly joking because I've wondered for a while if when Evernote finally implements the syncing overhaul (which is done now, but still ironing out bugs) where they aren't re-syncing the whole note content, and instead are syncing just the changes if they wouldn't then do like a Table of Contents feature (like in a side bar) and then also allow linking to anchors.

Would be pretty cool to see that. I'd personally rather have a TOC and anchor linking than the AI stuff.

[Boot17 901]

On 1/9/2023 at 8:58 AM, LucaBen said:

I've cancelled my Premium subscription to Evernote and won't be upgrading again until I see a proper wishlist website where users can vote for ideas, and progress is tracked. It's ridiculous that as a paying customer, I have to use request forms for new features and hope they will be read at some point, or maybe 15 years are going to past and no changes will ever be implemented.

I'm not sure of many paid apps I use where I can request new features (or have ever thought to anyway). Maybe for smaller apps and companies, but definitely not for big companies like Apple, Google, or Microsoft. Evernote (now Bending Spoons) isn't near as big as those guys, but I'm trying to think of other companies with similar size perhaps like Bear, Craft, Things or DayOne (actually -- I think Bear, Craft, and Things are all way smaller companies) --and I'm not aware that they have any better feature-request-by-customers than what we have here with Evernote.

There are probably outliers there, but I think what Evernote has is more par for the course.

[PinkElephant 6,273]

There is a basic misunderstanding here. As a subscriber, I pay for the service as it is.

If the company asks users which features they would like to get, it is good policy. It does by no means promise to implement any of it, it’s just „we hear you“.

If a missing feature is necessary for the own use case, it may be reasonable to look for an alternative.

Canceling a subscription to „pressure“ the provider to offer it is completely beside the point - and will have no effect.

[Ron Ray 0]

On 6/17/2023 at 4:01 PM, PinkElephant said:

There is a basic misunderstanding here. As a subscriber, I pay for the service as it is.

If the company asks users which features they would like to get, it is good policy. It does by no means promise to implement any of it, it’s just „we hear you“.

If a missing feature is necessary for the own use case, it may be reasonable to look for an alternative.

Canceling a subscription to „pressure“ the provider to offer it is completely beside the point - and will have no effect.

PinkElephant, do you work for Evernote?

[PinkElephant 6,273]

Employees carry a „Staff“ on their forum badge. See any ?

Just paid my Professional subscription, BTW.

[Ron Ray 0]

50 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Employees carry a „Staff“ on their forum badge. See any ?

Just paid my Professional subscription, BTW.

I didn't need to see a staff or not, I could tell by your attitude that you're not a professional customer service person.

[PinkElephant 6,273]

Thanks, appreciated.