Why do I keep updating? Grrrrr!!

[BikerDon 6]

Every time I upgrade I end up with mixed formatting in the internal links to other Notes - it is so annoying.

Oh yes and the default font changes and the previous font I use to like using isn't available any more <sigh!>

And then there's those annoying Backlinks and links to web pages already linked from within my Note.

Is there anything I can do about them please?

[BikerDon 6]

OK so maybe not a huge problem in the grand scheme of Evernote but it annoys the hell out of me and my OCD 😆

[PinkElephant 8,158]

Some remarks:

The URL will show by default, no exceptions. Clipped pages are static. One click on the URL allows to check the current status of the clipped page.

Backlinks are super useful: Initially you could insert a link, and move forward to that page. Say you started in a TOC note, and moved to one of the notes linked there. You could then click on the "back" arrow, and move to the page where you started.

But if you opened the detail page coming from another note, there was no way to move from that page to the pages to which it has a link. If you open one of the notes that are part of the TOC, you can click on the backlinks, and see there is a link from this note to a TOC note. Click it, you go to the TOC (maybe you didn't even remember there was a TOC), and you can navigate from there to any other linked note.

Backlinks worked for me on personal. On Free they show, but can't be used to navigate.

That the notes in the links show differently is probably some embedded HTML formatting. You can correct it easily: Select the text (the links), choose "Normal Text", choose "Apply". This will set all links to the standard, which usually is Sans Serif, 16pt and green.

[BikerDon 6]

7 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

The URL will show by default, no exceptions. I find it quite useful - the saved pages are static, and one click on the URL allows to check the current status of the clipped page.

I don't clip web pages I insert web links for pages that are useful to me when building or configuring the model.

As I said it chooses one of the many links in the Note and inserts it at the top which is completely unnecessary as the link is already in the appropriate section of the Note

[BikerDon 6]

25 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

That the notes in the links show differently is probably some embedded HTML formatting. You can correct it easily: Select the text (the links), choose "Normal Text", choose "Apply". This will set all links to the standard, which usually is Sans Serif, 16pt and green.

Thank you for that tip, it works with the colour variation but it doesn't fix the links that ended up as 'Mixed' font

[BikerDon 6]

27 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Backlinks are super useful: Initially you could insert a link, and move forward to that page. Say you started in a TOC note, and moved to one of the notes linked there. You could then click on the "back" arrow, and move to the page where you started.

I do my own implementation of Backlinks then. The top of every Note has a list of all the relevant Notes as you can see (a TOC as you call it). Every relevant linked Note has the same TOC so I can return to the starting page or any of the other relevant Notes at will. A simple copy and paste when creating a page means a saving of £6.67 a month 🤣

[BikerDon 6]

14 minutes ago, BikerDon said:

Thank you for that tip, it works with the colour variation but it doesn't fix the links that ended up as 'Mixed' font

It fixes the 15/16 font pt size variation too, thanks 👍

[PinkElephant 8,158]

Backlinks were requested for quite a while by users - nice addition to the feature set.

Backlinks are not only useful for TOC handling. They are useful wherever notes are linked. In many cases they allow to skip creating a TOC. The problem with several TOCs inserted into all related notes: If an entry changes, you need to update all TOCs manually. Backlinks update automatically. 

My time savings are worth 6,67 per month, easily ...

[MvdH 410]

6 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

Backlinks were requested for quite a while by users - nice addition to the feature set.

Backlinks are not only useful for TOC handling. They are useful wherever notes are linked. In many cases they allow to skip creating a TOC. The problem with several TOCs inserted into all related notes: If an entry changes, you need to update all TOCs manually. Backlinks update automatically. 

My time savings are worth 6,67 per month, easily ...

Keep in mind if applicable: Backlinks break when merging. Something I do all day.... 😞  

[PinkElephant 8,158]

Backlinks point to notes. Notes have a UID. Merge notes, and a new note is created, with a new UID. This affects links and Backlinks.

Do we need to discuss this effect every time backlinks are mentioned ? Then we need to discuss it as well every time links are discussed. They don’t point to merged notes, for the same reason.

[Boot17 1,465]

15 hours ago, BikerDon said:

Is there anything I can do about them [Note URL and Backlinks] please?

...I don't clip web pages I insert web links for pages that are useful to me when building or configuring the model.

As far as I know, the Note URL is set automatically only one time when the note is first created... it doesn't randomly pick a URL from your list of notes and put it in there. (How are you creating the new note and/or inserting web links?)

In case you already didn't know, you can remove the note URL by going to Note Info and clicking the little 'X' in the URL field:

Unfortunately, you can't remove the Backlinks from showing.

[MvdH 410]

11 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

Backlinks point to notes. Notes have a UID. Merge notes, and a new note is created, with a new UID. This affects links and Backlinks.

Do we need to discuss this effect every time backlinks are mentioned ? Then we need to discuss it as well every time links are discussed. They don’t point to merged notes, for the same reason.

It is not difficult to fix technically that backlinks don't break when merging. 😊 Just a single index referring old id's to the new ones. Evernote is full of that, like the search/tag indices. This way it works now is what I call a usability defect. 

And yes, I feel the need to respond to people discussing or considering using backlinks this drawback. A drawback which, to me, is important and big. It might be important to them too, to know in advance and be educated. 

But I understand it can be annoying seeing someone adding a "be warned" about that point each time a new discussion is opened about e.g. backlinks. I hope you can tolerate it every now and then. 🤗😔

[PinkElephant 8,158]

As I said, when merging links break in the same way - they point to UIDs that do not exist any more.

Or better: They still exist, and take you to the waste „notebook“. And there you have the original notes, with working backlinks. Only when the waste is emptied, the links / backlinks cease to work.

[MvdH 410]

18 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

As I said, when merging links break in the same way - they point to UIDs that do not exist any more.

I hear you. But it doesn't have to function that way. I failed to get my point across earlier. Let me try to rephrase. Though I can easily imagine me not succeeding in finding the right words.

It is easy to solve technically, by creating a cross reference index of old id's to look up the new ID to link to. To the user it would be an unnoticeable in-between step after clicking a on a link in a note to another note. After merging (back)links would function to  opening the resulting merged note instead of trying to original 'lost' one, and vice versa.

It would keep working as desired, not loosing functionality of the backlinks made earlier, before the merge. 

If I miss to convey my point again, no hard feelings. Then I'll try again next time someone brings up backlinks. 😉😁

[PinkElephant 8,158]

Sure it would be possible to start collecting UIDs in additional tables. Today when notes are merged, a completely new note is created. This new note has a new UID, different to all the UIDs that existed before for the individual notes. This could have been solved differently, by merging note 2-n on to note 1. But they decided to create a new note, joining all content, with its own UID.

So far, so good - because this keeps things simple. You just have a single UID to handle, ever. Before you had the individual notes, now you have a new one, with its own, distinctive UID. Easy to handle, because you always have 1 UID per note. Not zero, not multiple.

Sure a table could be created, holding the old UIDs and linking them to the new note. Based on this you could as well make links be reconnected, and backlinks survive a merge. But this would practically mean significant parts of the app needs to be rewritten. They would need code that enables reading the table linking existing and old notes. When you then think about the possibility of notes being merged multiple times, the water gets deeper and deeper.

Technically feasible, but not as simple as it sounds, and for sure with a negative impact on performance.

[BikerDon 6]

On 7/6/2023 at 2:55 PM, Boot17 said:

As far as I know, the Note URL is set automatically only one time when the note is first created... it doesn't randomly pick a URL from your list of notes and put it in there. (How are you creating the new note and/or inserting web links?)

In case you already didn't know, you can remove the note URL by going to Note Info and clicking the little 'X' in the URL field:

[SNIP]

Unfortunately, you can't remove the Backlinks from showing.

There is an even easier way - see attached screen shot......

But I do have 653 Notes. I did this when I had far fewer Notes but after an update they all came back again.

So as you can imagine I don't want to do it again 🙏