Sharing is Caring

[gazumped 11,697]

I've always advised users to share by notebook - then everything you wanted your audience to see could just be dragged into that notebook and it was instantly shared,  effectively as browser pages.  

The process has been updated in v10 so that it is more confusing for non-Evernote end users.  It is still possible to share a notebook by email,  and have someone navigate to a browser view.  But there's much more marketing emphasis on the viewer having an account and opening the shared notes in the app rather than as browser pages.

I can see where that's a benefit to Evernote - they want subscriptions,  and they don't necessarily want lots of people using their service as a sort of web site host/ manager,  encouraging non-subscribers to access the Evernote network using bandwidth that actual subscribers need for syncing and uploading.

Setting up a shared notebook is quite hard work,  and accessing without an account even harder - and neither situation is good for an Evernote 'host' or their users.

I can see two possible answers - both external to Evernote.  One is a third-party app called Postach.io which will convert any Evernote notebook into a public blog.  For small numbers of shared notebooks,  the free version may be sufficient - just create a new notebook and send the intended user a link to 'their' very own blog in the style "JohnDoe.postach.io"

Here's one I created earlier - https://cliffeactual.postach.io - despite all my best intentions I never have kept that up to date. (Resolution for 2024 - must do better...) 

You could give up to 5 (I think) individual users access to their very own blog in the free account - there's no login,  so they're not secure as such - except they're findable only if you know the URL..

The other option here is https://workflowy.com - which is much easier.   

I created a 'lesson plan' outline in no time,  and while the link to the feature is horrible - https://workflowy.com/s/student-name/cAmU4FzzLFgXzmkq - it at least can contain an individual name.  There's very little branding,  just a small blue "add to account" button in the top right for those who already use the software. 

The hierarchical structure has (allegedly) infinite depth and its possible to add images / files / links to each bullet point.  Easy to service for the creator,  and simple to access for the viewer.

For ease of setup and minimum user stress I'd pick Workflowy for shared work.  Opening a free account to receive and save the content is pretty intuitive if and when necessary.

But if you're going to use either of these third-party solutions,  please feedback to Evernote on the reasons for doing so.  I think it should be much easier to set up a small notebook for individual shares,  and any associated branding and marketing should be much less 'in your face' than it is now.

It's OK to take credit for a job well done,  but my impression is that Evernote loudly invades my personal space to do so.  Not cool. Maybe we can get them to change their style.

Constructive comment welcomed below...  <gulp>

EDIT:  See comments below - I forgot to mention here that Postach.io has a subscriber-level option to require a password for access to blog pages,  plus various other benefits including Markdown support.

[Mike P 2,661]

Some interesting ideas. One possibility I've thought about is having a master shared note with links to other shared notes. You therefore only need to share one link with your audience. If you paste a "shareable link" into another note it automatically pastes the name of the note as text with the link hiding behind it - exactly the same as when you paste an "app link" or "web link" into a note.

The things that make this difficult for anything but a few notes are:

• You need to paste each link individually into your master note. There is no bulk share or bulk copy shareable link option when you select multiple notes
• The master note doesn't really work within EN. The links obviously take you to the web browser shared version. So you need some other system to make it easy to find the linked notes within EN to update them for example (e.g. a tag or as you have the exact note name just use search)
• No security other than having to know the share link.

[gazumped 11,697]

2 hours ago, Mike P said:

you need some other system to make it easy to find the linked notes within EN to update them for example (e.g. a tag or as you have the exact note name just use search)

It should be possible to keep all the shared notes together in a notebook - you're just sharing individual notes rather than a complete notebook - but the process of copying the sharing link takes a while,  and new subscribers with access to the parent note still need some handholding to get them to a 'normal' web page view.

One of the perks of Postach.io (that I forgot to mention above) is that it is possible to protect a blog with a password (no idea how secure their system is) and I did set up one blog with a public access where one of the links was a 'members only' passworded area in a second blog account.  That's a subscriber-level benefit.

[PinkElephant 8,170]

The downside with sharing a full notebook is that it can't be "published" any more. You can send the link to a list of recipients, that need to be know by their email address. But we can't create a sharing link, and simply publish it somewhere. This only works for individual notes.

So Postach.io is currently one of the few options to share the content of a notebook, without knowing who will access it.

[gazumped 11,697]

6 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

without knowing who will access it.

In its current form,  Evernote will never be the equal of a commercial website with 'proper' tracking features,  but I'm sure it would be feasible to set something up - maybe via a single-page actual website - which tracks which (and how many) users are active there...

[Mishkafofer 27]

This is a missed feature. Some EN competition offer this feature as publishing your own wiki or similar.

[gazumped 11,697]

3 hours ago, Mishkafofer said:

This is a missed feature. Some EN competition offer this feature as publishing your own wiki or similar.

It may be worth starting or voting up a Feature Request page if you'd like the option.  Don't know what any provider is going to do if something goes viral thought - that'll be another 1M or so connections through the servers if they're not careful.  It's a good opportunity for some (tasteful) branding,  but it's also potentially a lot of non-member (i.e. non-paying) traffic.