BUGGED: Cutting Formatted Time in Note Body

[John in Michigan USA 129]

Yet another formatting bug. Evernote, your note parsing code is *****. Instead of trying to make it be helpful and save typing, it creates no end of trouble. SIMPLIFY the code base, write clean code, and TEST IT. It is pitiful how you poorly imitate well designed and implemented features from your competition just so you can check the box that says yeah we've got this feature too. Do you really think this creates real value for the company?

Once again, taking bets on:

• How long before a fix is attempted?
• How long before the fix is reverted back to the bugged state? See for example
• How many iterations of this seemingly endless cycle before a fix finally makes it into production?
• How many times will volunteers have to guess at whether we're supposed to evaluate a fix, update this topic, document a bug reversion, update this topic, all with no earthly clue if that feedback is being heard?

To reproduce:

1. Create a new note
2. Type a time in format in HH:MM AM/PM format for example 5:49 PM
3. Select what you just typed
4. Hit Ctrl+X to cut it into the Windows cut/paste buffer
5. See the attached .mp4 for a movie of what happens. Basically the "Create Event" popup appears. If you don't want to create an event, there's no obvious way to cancel it. I clicked on a blank part of the note. This caused the popup to disappear, so it would seem this is an intended way to cancel the pop-up. Cancelling it this way leaves the note frozen for OVER 30 SECONDS. In the movie you will see the cursor move as I try to type text. I am unable to click on the "Suggested Templates" section either. Finally sometime times out and the buffered text appears. I am unable to keep recording the screen to show you how long the note stays frozen because the resulting .mp4 is too large to upload to this forum.
6. There is a very annoying work-around. From the "Create Event" popup, pick Notepad and then delete (exit without saving) the resulting calendar.ics that is created in Notepad.

10.77.3-win-ddl-public (20240221121132)
Editor: v177.3.2
Service: v1.93.3

[Mike P 2,650]

1 hour ago, John in Michigan USA said:

To reproduce:

Thanks for the detailed steps. I can not reproduce this. When I hit ctrl+X the time is cut as would be expected. In case it is relevant,  I am on a more recent version and I do not have an Outlook calendar added.

10.78.2-win-ddl-public (20240227143346)
Editor: v177.5.0
Service: v1.94.2
© 2019 - 2024 Evernote Corporation. All rights reserved

[John in Michigan USA 129]

@Mike P Thanks for trying to reproduce. I don't have Outlook calendar added (unless it auto-adds itself in some obscure way; I certainly don't use Outlook calendar, and it's been months since I even opened Outlook 2016. I will wait until EN pushes an upgrade my way and see if that makes a difference...then wait until the bug reverts in the upgrade after that!

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,970]

I can't reproduce it in v. 10.78.2 either. I don't use Outlook at all. Is that an Evernote dialog? I've never seen it. If that is Outlook popping up a Create Event dialog, then it seems pretty obvious that Outlook is monitoring the clipboard and, when it sees a time appear there, it pops up that dialog. How is Evernote supposed to fix that???

On 3/3/2024 at 9:15 AM, John in Michigan USA said:

Yet another formatting bug. Evernote, your note parsing code is *****. Instead of trying to make it be helpful and save typing, it creates no end of trouble. SIMPLIFY the code base, write clean code, and TEST IT. It is pitiful how you poorly imitate well designed and implemented features from your competition just so you can check the box that says yeah we've got this feature too. Do you really think this creates real value for the company?

John, you've been around these forums long enough to know that they are user-to-user. If you really want to report this to Evernote (and not just give the impression you are so that later on you can complain that they didn't respond), submit a bug report (even though it's not their bug; https://www.evernote.com/SupportLogin.action), or email feedback@evernote.com.

[John in Michigan USA 129]

True, part of this is me blowing off steam,  which is perhaps an annoyance to other readers. I will try to keep that in mind.

On the other hand, bug reports aren't public. I want potential new users to be able to find out about these chronic problems before they're locked in, the way I am 😞

[PinkElephant 8,157]

Couldn't reproduce this on my Mac.

To me it looks like an interaction with Windows - Microsoft tries to push it's apps into all parts of the PC.

I am not sure this would be found with any reasonable testing prior to release. It is sort of special - that is more looking like support ticket event for me.

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,970]

On 3/5/2024 at 3:10 PM, John in Michigan USA said:

True, part of this is me blowing off steam,  which is perhaps an annoyance to other readers. I will try to keep that in mind.

On the other hand, bug reports aren't public. I want potential new users to be able to find out about these chronic problems before they're locked in, the way I am 😞

I repeat:

On 3/4/2024 at 11:44 AM, Dave-in-Decatur said:

I can't reproduce it in v. 10.78.2 either. I don't use Outlook at all. Is that an Evernote dialog? I've never seen it. If that is Outlook popping up a Create Event dialog, then it seems pretty obvious that Outlook is monitoring the clipboard and, when it sees a time appear there, it pops up that dialog. How is Evernote supposed to fix that???

Evernote does not have a bug here, let alone a chronic problem, if another program is monitoring the clipboard looking for specific material. Check your Outlook settings--they may have done an update in the background and turned a clipboard sniffer on.

[John in Michigan USA 129]

On 3/7/2024 at 1:29 PM, Dave-in-Decatur said:

I repeat:

Evernote does not have a bug here, let alone a chronic problem, if another program is monitoring the clipboard looking for specific material. Check your Outlook settings--they may have done an update in the background and turned a clipboard sniffer on.

As before, I don't have outlook installed, so I have no Outlook settings screen to check. These days, not having an app installed doesn't mean Microsoft isn't messing around with settings or the clip board behind the scenes, but Evernote is also actively rolling out an updated calendar and outlook integration feature. It could easily be the case that EN is messing around with the clipboard (or whatever is causing this).

Think of it from a Microsoft support POV: you're asking them to prove an non-installed app isn't messing with Evernote. How would they do that? If I were them, the first thing I'd ask would be, are there apps other than Evernote that are seeing this problem? The answer is, I haven't tested every app that has an outlook integration or uses the clipboard, but of the ones I use, only EN freezes. Also, it is Evernote, not Microsoft, that raises the "Create Event" popup and populates it with choices. Outlook is only one of the choices, and I documented that it is a problem even if you click on something simple like Notepad. It seems obvious that EN isn't correctly handling the case of a user wanting none of the options on the pop-up bar. Even if something changed in Outlook or Windows that triggers this, it is the Evernote UI that freezes for 30 seconds. This seems much more likely to be an Evernote problem.

Anyways, thanks again for trying to work with me on this. I'm just going to monitor things and hope it fixes itself.

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,970]

I asked about Outlook settings, since you said this (highlighting is mine), which I took to mean you did have Outlook 2016 installed:

On 3/4/2024 at 10:57 AM, John in Michigan USA said:

@Mike P Thanks for trying to reproduce. I don't have Outlook calendar added (unless it auto-adds itself in some obscure way; I certainly don't use Outlook calendar, and it's been months since I even opened Outlook 2016.

I've got a Windows 10 computer, so probably Outlook is on it somewhere, but I managed to set up the computer when it was new without creating a Microsoft account, so I'm not even logged in to MS. I once again tried typing 5:49 PM in a note and then cutting it to the clipboard, and I didn't get a popup. I'm running Evernote 10.79.2, and in Settings there is now a Calendar section, with various options and a list of connected calendars. For me, it's only Google. Might be worth a look there to see if somehow Evernote has an Outlook connection for you.

[John in Michigan USA 129]

" it's been months since I even opened Outlook 2016."

Sorry, I see now that was unclear. I opened the Outlook 2016 app, it started the setup dialog, and I closed that screen. Therefore I had opened it, but not installed it :-}

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,970]

50 minutes ago, John in Michigan USA said:

" it's been months since I even opened Outlook 2016."

Sorry, I see now that was unclear. I opened the Outlook 2016 app, it started the setup dialog, and I closed that screen. Therefore I had opened it, but not installed it :-}

Thanks for the clarification. The mystery remains, though. I can see Evernote popping up a dialog when something with a special format is selected, but I don't ever remember Evernote monitoring the clipboard before. Weird.

[John in Michigan USA 129]

Now running:

10.79.3-win-ddl-public (20240307101007)
Editor: v177.6.1
Service: v1.95.0

...and I'm no longer able to reproduce this bug, i.e. the UI no longer freezes after I cut or copy the selected text. I'm leaving this post as "unsolved" while I monitor things to see if the bug comes back.

As a side note, it seems an odd design choice that the "Create event" pop-up is only triggered when I cut or copy (Ctrl-X or Ctrl-C) the selected text.

Given that "/" is the prompt to display the "add element" pick-list containing 13 elements you can choose from, the most intuitive way to narrow down this list to a single choice, the event element, would be to type "/5:49 PM"...but that doesn't trigger any pop-up. The second most intuitive way to invoke the "Create event" pop-up would be to simply type "5:49 PM" and have it automatically pop up, but then disappear if you keep typing...although I could see how this might be disruptive. Alternatively, the "Create event" pop-up could appear when you highlight "5:49 PM", this would save you the trouble of right-clicking...although currently the only element the right-click menu lets you create in this context is a link, the other possibly relevant element(s) such as event aren't available by right-clicking on selected text that matches the hh:mm or hh:mm AM/PM format. IMO the least intuitive way to invoke the "Create event" popup (without having to pick from a long list of elements) is to cut or copy the selected text.

Also, whatever keystrokes trigger the pop-up, it should probably display a shortened pick-list consisting of the event element and the link element, since any text could be a link.

Edited March 17 by John in Michigan USA
thought of more points I wanted to make