Messed up note title sort on the latest update?

[locksley 5]

I'm on 10.98.3.

 

Previously you could sort notes by title and you get:

1

2

3

10

 

But now you get:

1

10

2

3

 

Is anyone else getting this?

[gazumped 12,050]

That's a standard numeric search - try using ISO dates like 240727 as a work-around,  feedback@Evernote.com to request an alpha option.

[AlbertR 690]

On 7/27/2024 at 11:27 AM, gazumped said:

That's a standard numeric search

<pedanticMode>That's a standard alphabetic search</pedanticMode> 😉

Some apps (like Legacy in the past) used numeric searches by extracting numeric digits from start of a string, change them internally to numeric values, sorted the strings by using these values...

EN10 doesn't  support this intelligent method (in spite of having some other AI techniques implemented...). Another workaround (if you do not want to use ISO dates) is to use leading zeros like
01
02
03
10

But - oups - as I write this, I see that there are differences in sorting modes between the used apps:

Web:    Win: 

EN-Web uses alphabetic search whereas EN-Win-App uses more intelligent numeric search 👍
But we are in MAC forum here. I do not know how my example works on MACs or Android.

And BTW: There are more differences in interpreting special characters. Screen shots below are made from the same set of notes just above the shots in my first example:
Web:  Win/iPad: 

In this case, the Web-App uses alphabetic search based on ASCII order of the special characters.
But EN-Win-App and iPad (Mac also?) use some other rules (don't know which 🤔)...

[gazumped 12,050]

Hah! I knew it ended in 'ic'...

[locksley 5]

*sigh* I guess it is "standard alphabetic search", but it's been the other way for 10 years. I don't see the point in why they had to change it and break all existing usage patterns. Just creates all this extra work for no benefit. Such is v10 I guess.

[AlbertR 690]

On 7/28/2024 at 4:19 PM, locksley said:

*sigh* I guess it is "standard alphabetic search", but it's been the other way for 10 years. I don't see the point in why they had to change it and break all existing usage patterns. Just creates all this extra work for no benefit. Such is v10 I guess.

Maybe they use(d) some system-giving sort algorithms - and try now to streamline it to a more intelligent (as stupid ASCII) method.

But they should describe the sorting rules elsewhere... Earlier versions already used special algorithms to sort notes by tags (which is no longer available so far). I guess the "new" rule (as you see it) is what we know from Legacy 😉 (at least on Windows-App - which system do you use?)

[Jon/t 1,641]

As far as I know sorting (if you have RENT) is the same as before for number and letters but for special characters its in ASCII code order.

[ENnut 58]

On 7/27/2024 at 4:06 AM, locksley said:

I'm on 10.98.3.

 

Previously you could sort notes by title and you get:

1

2

3

10

 

But now you get:

1

10

2

3

 

Is anyone else getting this?

I'm seeing this and it's maddening. I have ~14k notes, most of which contain info on jobs/projects for clients. I used to be able to sort by descending title and the most recent job would be on top (because the job notes are numbered sequentially). Now what's on top is notes with the title "XYZ999 blah blah" when the most recent job is something like "XYZ1243 blah blah". I imagine this could be solved by modifying all the job notes with 3 numbers by placing a zero after the letters and before the numbers. But with 14k notes this isn't feasible. I need sorting changed back to the way it was - worked perfectly since I started using Evernote in 2008 until the last couple updates!

[gazumped 12,050]

22 minutes ago, ENnut said:

I need sorting changed back to the way it was

Hi.  We're other users here,  with no information on whether,  or how,  sorting has changed.  The whole thing has been re-coded,  because you're now using different software;  and its quite possible that recent updates to the servers and/ or to the app have had this effect;  however to get things changed you need to engage with Evernote directly,  either via Support or feedback.  It's unlikely this will be 'fixed' in the short term though - you're looking at wait times of at least months,  maybe years,  while Evernote work out what needs to be changed (assuming they agree it has to be...) and then introduce a new version.

Can you explain more about how you're recording these jobs/ prospects,  and who and why you look for the most recent?  I'm wondering if sorting the notes by creation date or updated date would help you,  or whether targetted searches for numbers,  date and/ or clients would do the job.

Bear in mind that if you can get your notes sorted into order,  you'd be able to create a 'parent' note listing the notes in the order you prefer,  and you could add further items to that parent note as they come up,  so no special naming or dating required.

[Boot17 1,532]

On 7/27/2024 at 6:00 AM, AlbertR said:

<pedanticMode>That's a standard alphabetic search</pedanticMode> 😉

I didn't know that pedanticMode was something you could turn off and on like that.

I think mine has always been stuck on.

Lemme see if I can find the off button in my settings somewhere...

[Billyonaire 2]

This is insane, why did they update it. I have thousands of notes specifically sorted by date, now they are all out of wack, and your telling me there is nothing I can do about it. I have always loved Evernote, this update has me ready to slap someone it is so incredibly beyond  asinine  to change sort by Title for no reason at all and f*ck up massive perfectly sorted databases. 

[gazumped 12,050]

16 hours ago, Billyonaire said:

I have thousands of notes specifically sorted by date

Hi.  I sympathise with the frustration,  but please don't post twice on the same issue.  I deleted your other post. 

You can of course contact Support about this and request an option to sort numerically,  plus you may find that sorting by created date will put your notes back into some sort of order.  

https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/29101069844371-How-to-contact-Evernote-Support

[Billyonaire 2]

Hello, I appreciate your response gazumped! I see, forgive me but I suppose I wanted to do whatever I could to see if anyone had any solutions. 

I suppose part of my disappointment is that I have already contacted Evernote support twice about this issue, and even tried to reach out on youtube, and DMd staff on twitter, and have received no response. I will reach out via request again and see if I can sort numerically. 

Thanks for the tip on date in case I hadn't tried, yes this quickly came to mind but unfortunately isn't sufficient.

Again appreciate you taking the time to respond, I absolutely love Evernote, I am hopeful I can get this one headache quirk solved, have a great day

[Billyonaire 2]

Figured I'd add this, I have had amazing interactions with staff on my previous two requests, but have heard nothing back on this in almost two weeks. Hopefully we can get some comments from staff, really appreciate all you guys do Evernote is amazing but this is a pointless headache <3 

[ENnut 58]

I reported this sorting issue on 8/27/24, and yesterday received what appears to be an acknowledgement of it being a bug.

[Billyonaire 2]

Thanks alot for the input ENNut, awesome image included! That is exactly the issue, some are in order, some are not, it jumps. This was the picture that I sent them. Would be great if it is just a bug and gets fixed soon! 

[PinkElephant 8,754]

The answer email from support is no acknowledgment of a bug at all.

First it is a canned reply, nobody has in fact reviewed your ticket. Second with a little text analysis you will find they only tell to understand YOUR feelings about it (which is a no brainer, especially when coming from a machine without any emotional intelligence) without telling they understand it is a bug. They just say they are hard working on it (again from a machine - how does it know ?), which can easily result in working hard on nothing, and dropping it.

All sort orders are perfectly fine: They show the result of a text field sort, following the rules for text (not for numbers). 0 is smaller than 1, 1 smaller than 2, … , 7 smaller than 8, … . With 1 digit sorting numbers and text gives identical results. But 10 (as a text) is smaller than 7 as well, because 1 is smaller than 7. The second character doesn’t count, the first already decided about sorting order.

Another example: „The 7 dwarfs“ are smaller than „The 10 dwarfs“ ? No, in text sort the 10 dwarfs are smaller than the 7 dwarfs, because 1 is smaller than 7. It doesn’t play a role whether the numbers show up in first place, or somewhere further back - as long as the text string before the numbers is identical.

The same for the second example: There is no concept of a date here, everything is read as text, and sorted as such. You have chosen from largest to smallest, which is why the text character goes above the numbers characters. And then the numbers are text-sorted, from largest to smallest. It‘s always the first differing character in the text string that decides about the position in the sorting order.

Since the title field is a text field, the sorting documented in the examples is consistent, and no bug.

[ENnut 58]

So from when I started using EN in 2008 through mid-2024 a bug caused sorting notes with numbers in the title to be like this?:

7

8

9

10

11

12

[PinkElephant 8,754]

If you want to discuss history, go to a museum. Maybe they got it wrong at some point, and corrected it ? I don’t care, I watch at what IS (not WAS or WILL BE).

The current sort order is consistent with treating all characters in a text field as text. That’s really easy to see, once you understood the scheme.

There are enough bugs in that app to have a solid supply for forum threads (and tickets, and bug fixes), but this is no one. If you want to see numerical sort (or better by date), watch at the Created and Modified columns, for example. 

[Billyonaire 2]

Ok PinkElephant, I appreciate your input to the conversation, and I certainly won't argue with your explanation, it is correct, that is how it is now sorting. With that said, why change the way sorting has been done for YEARS on the app? The recent update inevitably caused some users MASSIVE headaches and essentially ruined their data bases. 

Again I appreciate your input, but the reality is this update which to me seems essentially pointless leaves me with two options:

1.Accept a beautiful data base crafted over years is now out of order

2.Change the names on thousands of notes 

 

I hope you can understand the irritation

[PinkElephant 8,754]

Oh, I clearly understand the irritation. That’s one of the reasons why a) I use the global convention to write dates as YYYYMMDD everywhere, including file names and b) rely on tags for my notes organization. 

For bug reports there is support.

For irritation reports there is
feedback@evernote.com