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(Archived) Red Circle...


emeliesanders

Idea

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We did a lot of usability testing last year, and found that a lot of people would install the software, log in, and then be immediately overwhelmed by all of the buttons and panels and controls on the screen, and have no idea where to start.

We've done a number of things to improve this (including the "Getting Started Guide" http://www.evernote.com/about/getting_started/), but a slightly tacky prompt on the "New Note" button for first-time users seemed better than risking people not knowing how to get started.

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I detest that red circle! My way for using Evernote involved cleaning out my inbox on a near-daily basis, and that circle drives me nuts! Please give us an option to turn it off!
If you click on that once and create a second note in your account, you will never see it again.

It only displays if you have only a single note in your account.

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I detest that red circle! My way for using Evernote involved cleaning out my inbox on a near-daily basis, and that circle drives me nuts! Please give us an option to turn it off!

Seems a little antithetical to the Evernote idea to be cleaning the whole note store out at all, least of all on a regular basis. Are you sure that Evernote is a good fit with your needs? If you're doing todo list management, there are probably better options.

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Seems a little antithetical to the Evernote idea to be cleaning the whole note store out at all, least of all on a regular basis. Are you sure that Evernote is a good fit with your needs? If you're doing todo list management, there are probably better options.

wrong question, jefito! :(

One can use Evernote very nicely with the GTD concept of "Inbox" in order to temporarily store data until it is reviewed and acted upon, either deleted, stored for future reference, or taken as an action to proceed further in a more complex project.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done

So I do very much agree with n8henrie's view on the Inbox being cleaned up every now and then, and that's what I do too. But I have to say, even with Inbox down to zero, I still have not seen the red cicle come up. I will pay close attention the next time I will cleanup (later today probably) and I will report.

Ciao, Luca

yet another GTDer... :wink:

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wrong question, jefito! :(

(snip)

But I have to say, even with Inbox down to zero, I still have not seen the red cicle come up. I will pay close attention the next time I will cleanup (later today probably) and I will report.

No, not a wrong question. If you reread the thread, the circle only appears when you have one note in your entire account. Not just a single notebook (IE, your inbox). So if you are clearing out all your notes from your Evernote account on a daily basis, that's certainly your choice. But it's not using Evernote for the purpose it was designed. EN was designed to be a receptacle for your notes forever (hopefully.) And to expect EN developers to change something for your use only, especially when you're using it in a manner for which it was not designed, is unrealistic.

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Seems a little antithetical to the Evernote idea to be cleaning the whole note store out at all, least of all on a regular basis. Are you sure that Evernote is a good fit with your needs? If you're doing todo list management, there are probably better options.

wrong question, jefito! :D

Actually, it's a pretty reasonable question. Evernote's strengths are pretty well-known: capturing and storing your stuff 'forever' and cross-platform support. It's still relatively weak at to-do list management and note editing, as compared to applications that are dedicated to those types of operations (though it's improving in those areas). It's always good to question how a tool fits your tasks/requirements.

One can use Evernote very nicely with the GTD concept of "Inbox" in order to temporarily store data until it is reviewed and acted upon, either deleted, stored for future reference, or taken as an action to proceed further in a more complex project.

Sure but that's different than completely wiping out all of your note store, which is what causes the red circle to appear. You have an 'inbox' Notebook that needs to be kept clean, but you're also storing notes externally to that notebook. That's all fine -- I don't believe that an empty notebook will cause the red circle to appear if you have other notes stored in other notebooks; at least that's my experience.

So I do very much agree with n8henrie's view on the Inbox being cleaned up every now and then, and that's what I do too. But I have to say, even with Inbox down to zero, I still have not seen the red cicle come up. I will pay close attention the next time I will cleanup (later today probably) and I will report.

n8henrie's problem is that in order to have seen the red circle, he must have cleaned out his entire note store, and not a particular Inbox notebook (if you're storing notes for future reference, then that's why you're not seeing it). That's antithetical to the Evernote 'store it forever' concept, and I'd guess it would be a pretty rare use case, so Evernote's use-based decision to put the red circle indicator there to aid new users is a reasonable choice.

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No, not a wrong question. If you reread the thread, the circle only appears when you have one note in your entire account. Not just a single notebook (IE, your inbox).

now *that* makes sense, and that's why I have never seen the red circle, as I always had more than one note in my account. I happily stand corrected. :D Thanks for your clarification, BurgersNFries.

I now wonder how n8henrie really uses Evenote! What do you do with the notes after cleaning up your inbox, if I may ask? Do you export them? So you only use Evernote for clipping?

For my GTD implementation, I very much like to use Evernote as a reference file, and possibly also for project support material, though I would like to see better links between Evernote and OmniFocus in order to fully exploit the potential. I surely hope that links to notes into Evernote become available soon!

Ciao, Luca

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Actually, it's a pretty reasonable question. Evernote's strengths are pretty well-known: capturing and storing your stuff 'forever' and cross-platform support. It's still relatively weak at to-do list management and note editing, as compared to applications that are dedicated to those types of operations (though it's improving in those areas). It's always good to question how a tool fits your tasks/requirements.

we typed our answers at the very same time, jefito. I was under the wrong assumtpion that the red circle would pop up also when an individual notebook would be empty, and that's why I was baffled to learn about the red circle experience from n8henrie. I too use a notebook called ".Inbox" as my default in my GTD implementation using Evernote, and that's why I got confused. I can't really understand how n8henrie really uses Evernote, hence my question to him/her.

Thanks for your clarification.

Ciao, Luca

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Thanks for the info. I'd suggest the circle be dropped. I'm sure it's meant to make it easier to get going, but seriously... it's awful.

You can create a new dummy local notebook and move the 2 new dummy notes into that dummy local notebook. Then the red circle will never be shown and the dummy notes will not be sync to your mobile devices.

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Here's my use case. I use evernote to read a number of shared notebooks but I never create my own notes (I use Omnifocus for that purpose). In this case, the only way to get rid of the red circle is to create two bogus notes (and never delete them). This really should just be an option. Otherwise, it's REALLY annoying.

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