More text deleted than should be

[Oddball 4]

I'm having a strange issue in Android 14 Evernote 10.58.1 with more text being deleted than it should be.

Example:

I type out the test phrase "Here is a text sample." I then highlight the word "text" and backspace.

 

Current behaviour: "text sam" disappears, leaving "Here is a ple" remaining. This only happens if I select the word "text" via long-holding on the word, then backspace. UPDATE: Or if I double-tap to highlight the word, then backspace.

 

Expected behaviour: only the word "text" disappears. To test things out/narrow down the cause, I tried other methods, and the following all work correctly:

If I'm on desktop Evernote.

If I'm in any different Android app, and I use any method to highlight the word, then backspace.

If I'm on Android Evernote, and I double-tap to highlight the word, then backspace, UPDATE: Nope, now this also results in the bug.

If I'm on Android Evernote, and I long-hold to highlight the word, then *cut.*

Edited December 12, 2023 by Oddball
new information to the bug

[Dave-in-Decatur 4,014]

What keyboard do you use? There have been similar reports from people who are using Gboard, I believe. For some reason Evernote has had problems interacting properly with it. You can search this from to see if such information turns up.

[Oddball 4]

I use SwiftKey.

[agsteele 3,077]

1 hour ago, Oddball said:

I use SwiftKey.

You could try an alternative keyboard and see if that makes a difference. You can always uninstall after the trial.

[Roy Douglas 66]

I reported this bug at least a year ago. Still not resolved.

[Roy Douglas 66]

And I just tested this again and I'm still having the issue.  I use Gboard.

[agsteele 3,077]

You should try an alternative keyboard to isolate whether it is an issue between Evernote and Gboard only or an issue with all keyboards on your device.

[Paul A. 681]

15 hours ago, agsteele said:

You should try an alternative keyboard to isolate whether it is an issue between Evernote and Gboard only or an issue with all keyboards on your device.

It's a known issue with Gboard that Evernote refuses to fix for over three years, from while Evernote v10 Android was in pre-release beta. It was on their list to fix "at a reasonably high priority" according to an Evernote PM over two years ago, and yet here we are. It's little stuff like this that sours me on Evernote. Fix the small stuff that irritates and I'm happy to pay for the app, but it rankles to get big price increases and the old irritating bugs remain.

Btw, you were the first to comment on one of my posts on this bug two and a half years ago.

 

[agsteele 3,077]

2 hours ago, Paul A. said:

Btw, you were the first to comment on one of my posts on this bug two and a half years ago.

Yes, we've had several conversations about Gboard. I was encouraging @Roy Douglas to confirm that his issue was just with Gboard. I'd have taken it on to say that Evernote doesn't work well with Gboard but you've beaten me to it.

[Oddball 4]

@agsteele@Dave-in-Decatur

The bug which I reported at the top occurs on both Gboard and Microsoft SwiftKey Keyboard, but does NOT occur on AnySoftKeyboard. In case that helps narrow things down. But the user interface is unfavourable on AnySoftKeyboard so that's really not a solution in my personal opinion.

[Dave-in-Decatur 4,014]

1 hour ago, Oddball said:

@agsteele@Dave-in-Decatur

The bug which I reported at the top occurs on both Gboard and Microsoft SwiftKey Keyboard, but does NOT occur on AnySoftKeyboard. In case that helps narrow things down. But the user interface is unfavourable on AnySoftKeyboard so that's really not a solution in my personal opinion.

We here aren't able to follow up on the technicalities, but this does sound regrettably familiar regarding Evernote and Gboard and SwiftKey. I use Smart Keyboard Pro (for its language capabilities) and don't have the problem, so it's clearly isolated to certain KBs. Beyond that lie the mysteries. See the link in @agsteele signature to contact Evernote support. But others have been doing that for awhile without results.

[Oddball 4]

On 12/11/2023 at 3:44 PM, Dave-in-Decatur said:

See the link in @agsteele signature to contact Evernote support. 

That's odd, I don't see signatures in any of these forum posts. Maybe there's a way to toggle those on and off, but I can't find that in my settings.

Does it simply lead to this URL? https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/requests/new If so, using that webpage just gives me some generic advice (update app, clear cache, sign out and back in) and then tells me to come here to the community. Contacting support options are greyed out behind upgrading.

P.S. I have a slight update to the issue, I will edit the top post.

[Dave-in-Decatur 4,014]

1 minute ago, Oddball said:

Does it simply lead to this URL? https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/requests/new If so, using that webpage just gives me some generic advice (update app, clear cache, sign out and back in) and then tells me to come here to the community. Contacting support options are greyed out behind upgrading.

Ah. Yes, actual support is a paid feature. They're really the only ones who can do anything about it, since it certainly involves the interaction between Evernote and SwiftKey. FWIW, such problems with specific keyboards have been observed by many, and reported to support already. Anyone holding their breath, I'm afraid, has had to exhale.

[agsteele 3,077]

1 hour ago, Oddball said:

That's odd, I don't see signatures in any of these forum posts

My guess, you're viewing on a phone. Signatures don't seem to be displayed on a phone.

[Oddball 4]

On 12/12/2023 at 4:26 PM, Dave-in-Decatur said:

Ah. Yes, actual support is a paid feature. They're really the only ones who can do anything about it.

As someone who's had myriad bugs in this app, I can say that it's very disappointing that they lock actual support like this.

On 12/12/2023 at 4:26 PM, Dave-in-Decatur said:

Such problems with specific keyboards have been observed by many, and reported to support already. Anyone holding their breath, I'm afraid, has had to exhale.

That's disappointing too, but I appreciate the information. If I'm understanding you correctly, you mean that the devs know about this issue but have chosen not to address it? I've certainly seen lots and lots of updates to the app but none that address bugs I have.

22 hours ago, agsteele said:

My guess, you're viewing on a phone. Signatures don't seem to be displayed on a phone.

No, I'm viewing on desktop. I've tried both Firefox and Chromium. Screenshot attached.

Let me try turning off my tracker-blocker extension... Nope, that didn't do the trick either.

Most forums have settings to toggle on and off signatures, but to my surprise I don't see anything of the sort here.

[agsteele 3,077]

29 minutes ago, Oddball said:

Most forums have settings to toggle on and off signatures, but to my surprise I don't see anything of the sort here.

These forums use some third party forum software from a company called Invision. If there is a problem with signatures it is unlikely that Evernote will be able to much other than switch to different software.

[Paul A. 681]

21 hours ago, Oddball said:

That's disappointing too, but I appreciate the information. If I'm understanding you correctly, you mean that the devs know about this issue but have chosen not to address it? I've certainly seen lots and lots of updates to the app but none that address bugs I have.

Correct. Though I would personally rephrase from "chosen not to address it" to "not sufficiently prioritized fixing it/them."

Regardless, I'm frustrated too. New features are fine and there are some new features that I'd like, but at this point fixing some of these bugs that have annoyed me for years is more likely to keep me subscribed than new features.

[agsteele 3,077]

Spell out brieflt, but clearly, the issues that you feel need to be addressed with the Gboard interaction. I have the opportunity to feedback some 'quality of life' issues for attention in 2024 via the Evernote Expert community.

Just the Gboard stuff please and I'll be happy to submit it for attention. But I will also ignore anything else

 

[Roy Douglas 66]

Very simply (in EverNote Android, and when using Gboard keyboard)

1) Highlighting x number of characters, and then touching the backspace key deletes not only those x characters but also the next x characters as well.  For example: If I highlight 3 characters, and touch the backspace key, it not only deletes those 3 characters but the next 3 characters as well. If I highlight 5 characters and touch the backspace key it not only deletes those 5 characters but the next 5 characters as well.

2) If you have a numbered list or bulleted list of items, and you place the cursor at the beginning of the first item in that numbered or bulleted list, and you touch the backspace key, it deletes the entire first numbered or bulleted item and then moves the second numbered or bulleted item to the end of the previous text above the list of items. For example:

Fourscore and seven years ago

   1) Item 1

   2) Item 2

   3) Item 3

If I place my cursor to the left of the "I" At the beginning of "Item 1" and then touch the backspace key, it results in the following:

Fourscore and seven years agoItem 2

   3) Item 3

As you can see, it completely deletes "Item 1" entirely and it moves "Item 2" to the end of the "four score and seven years ago" text

3) Highlighting any text and then touching the shift key is supposed to cycle through the three case scenarios for that text - A) all lower case, capitalized first character and then lower case everything else, and C) upper case everything.  (Try this in any other app besides Evernote and using Gboard and you'll see what I mean).  Instead, highlighting any text and then touching the shift key deletes that text.

These issues are significant because, without the user realizing it, EverNote has deleted text that they didn't intend to delete.  And user most likely will not even notice that text has been deleted.

 

[agsteele 3,077]

I'm just another user offering to use an opportunity that I may have to present these quality of life issues with Gboard and Evernote. I have no plans to try these things out. Not do I offer to go on about how long the issues have existed.

I will put this forward but no promises of the outcome or timescale.

[MacKenzie White 0]

While we're waiting for devs to "prioritise" the issue, are there any keyboards that do work?

We've ruled out  gboard and swiftkey. I can add grammarly, and might have to pay to see if I like the mentioned Pro one.

Is anyone having a trouble-free experience with a glide kb?

[Oddball 4]

@Roy Douglas I didn't know it affected lists too, but that makes sense. Thank you for rewording the bug explanation. One thing I disagree with: I find it very easy to notice that removing or replacing a word that I highlighted, deleted more characters than it should have. It's very obvious to my eye. The issue is that it's a giant pain to have to re-construct the word(s) that got halfway deleted, especially as regularly as I use this feature.