(Archived) EN 3 - Fullscreen gripe

[Ruefus 0]

I like the new update but for one exceedingly annoying feature.

Lack of list-view (or any view options) in Fullscreen mode under Lion. My workflow depends on a single click to view the note, and then one more to begin entering data. This mini-thumbnail view, while perfect for some, renders fullscreen mode useless for me. I know nothing is 100%, but if you offered three view options before - why not in fullscreen mode?

Aggravating, because I really do like using applications in fullscreen.

[binotto 0]

Ditto here.

[gravitas 0]

This definitely came up a lot during Beta, and it is something we've talked about internally. Currently, having multiple views causes some usability problems, so at the very least we'll have to resolve to those issues enabling.

The current fullscreen view is so inconsistent with the normal views available in windowed mode, that it seems a step backwards to me, and your zooming implementation is incredibly bad. I'm surprised EN thought this was suitable for shipping and equally surprised Apple allowed it into the App Store. I really hope EN are working on implementing the normal three views in fullscreen mode. You also need to enable editing notes inside the note pane of the fullscreen window - I really don't want to have a popup window for editing unless I ask for one.

[dlu 628]

Yeah, for example, I have a note in which I've clipped 10 images of different knives. In the current "thumbnail view" I'd see one thumbnail per note showing the top portion of the note, so I'd see the first image of 10. I'd like a mode where every image and attachment in every note was displayed and clicking on the image would open that note and maybe scroll to where it is.

I use it quite extensively for clipping art and design to work off of, so it would be nice to have a "gallery" mode that lets me see a stream of all the content if that makes sense...

That makes sense, but could be rather confusing if you don't know what's exactly going on. If you always have one image per note, it'll look exactly the same. Or what's most likely is that it'll mostly look the same, but just different enough to be confusing or look buggy.

Also, it'll be the first time we depart from showing anything other than a single "note" as a thumbnail, snippet, etc. It is probably something we'll want to address at some point, especially as more and more notes in Evernote move beyond plaintext. Thanks for bringing it up

[dlu 628]

But to make it a permanent design choice to just toss out the formats that (if things were divided evenly) two thirds of the user's workflows are based on? Do not get.

We pretty much never make permanent design choices. Though I do understand that sometimes it might seem like forever for something to change. I agree with most of the comments on this thread, we'll be working through your concerns on this as best we can.

[dlu 628]

You also need to enable editing notes inside the note pane of the fullscreen window - I really don't want to have a popup window for editing unless I ask for one.

This would be if there was a snippet or list view in fullscreen mode, correct? There's currently no note pane in the fullscreen window

[ryanopaz 5]

Just need to say, I've been banging my head trying to figure out what I was doing wrong here. How can list view not be an option? Seriously, I thought I was missing something obvious, as this is beyond reasonable to be asking for.

[swinterroth 0]

This is my thought on a full-screen writing mode.

http://wordtrunk.com/2011/09/06/evernote-zen-full-screen-writing-mode

[tcapote 0]

Add me to the list of users who would all available views in Full Screen Mode in Lion. I was VERY disappointed with the fixed view implementation in the release version. I am a fan of full screen mode, but not this view.

I hope with is being addressed, PLEASE!

[dlu 628]

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

[t34bpilot 0]

I may have found a workaround. I exited full-screen mode and noted that all three view modes became enabled. I then dragged the screen edge until I effectively had a full-screen image...all three views remained enabled and worked fine. I'd be interested to know if this works for anyone else. FYI, I'm using a MacBook Pro running Lion. Also, I've never used a Mac until yesterday so please pardon this post if it's a no-brainer.

[Metrodon 2,188]

I may have found a workaround. I exited full-screen mode and noted that all three view modes became enabled. I then dragged the screen edge until I effectively had a full-screen image...all three views remained enabled and worked fine. I'd be interested to know if this works for anyone else. FYI, I'm using a MacBook Pro running Lion. Also, I've never used a Mac until yesterday so please pardon this post if it's a no-brainer.

What you've done is maximise the app window which is slightly different from putting the app "full screen"

http://www.apple.com/macosx/whats-new/full-screen.html

[mwnivek 0]

I too would really like a fullscreen mode with all three view modes. Thank you!

[erkkap 0]

I also registered here just to express my frustration with the lack of different view modes in full screen.

I totally love Lion's full screen mode in general as it makes shifting between most used apps faster. Unfortunately the current full screen view of Evernote is useless for me.

And no, using it in regular window mode isn't the same thing, because then it has to share that working space with other apps.

[ukle 0]

I also vote to have all modes available in fullscreen. I live in evernote and find full screen mode to be tremendously useful especially with gestures, but think it is crippled to open multiple windows.

Furthermore, why not use fullscreen to enable viewing thumbnails of *all* the images--not just thumbnails of each note which may include *one* of many images.

I'm not sure what you mean by thumbnails of all the images? Would this mean you could have multiple thumbnails for a single note?

Yeah, for example, I have a note in which I've clipped 10 images of different knives. In the current "thumbnail view" I'd see one thumbnail per note showing the top portion of the note, so I'd see the first image of 10. I'd like a mode where every image and attachment in every note was displayed and clicking on the image would open that note and maybe scroll to where it is.

I use it quite extensively for clipping art and design to work off of, so it would be nice to have a "gallery" mode that lets me see a stream of all the content if that makes sense...

[rogw 7]

+1 for all views in fullscreen mode.... Thanks for listening and commenting Evernote. That really helps.

[shenglu 0]

I fully recognize that many other possible rolling back and really enjoy the upside, especially if they have multiple computers, some of the lions, snow leopards, (swallow) a number of Windows. Disappearing scroll bar (Members - Gadgets article really do not see how long).

[tetsuo29 0]

I would like to also chime in and say that I wish Evernote supported all of its views in full screen mode. It seems silly that it doesn't. Hopefully, they will listen to their users.

[dlu 628]

Thanks everyone for chiming in.

[alstone3 0]

I still can't see the use of Launchpad when we have the Dock, and the one-click Applications folder if we need it. But hey - that's just me.

This is exactly what I said, but there was an article (on ArsTechnica I think) which described it as a tool to help users new to Mac OS X. A prominent icon on the dock, showing all of the installed applications, without out having to dig into the file system looking for the Applications folder... Not something many of us will ever need, but useful for a new user.

Anyway, I just wanted to chime in - I would really love to see the default view in full screen mode. I'm using an 11" MBA, and while it took a while to get used to, the marriage of Mission Control, spaces, and full-screen applications are a huge help to my workflow. Evernote is exactly the kind of application which is perfect to leave in full screen mode, just a three-finger gesture away at any time, but not cluttering a limited screen all of the time. While I can see some users appreciating the iPad like view that is currently available, I would much prefer seeing the default view in full screen mode.

Thanks for all of your efforts, Evernote is a great application, and hopefully you'll be able to resolve the usability issues in a future release.

[gtuckerkellogg 33]

I have a different request for full screen mode. Right now there is a row of small controls above the thumbnails:

Show | All Notes | Notebooks | Tags | Web Clips | Mobile | Files

Since the "notebooks" and "tags" controls activate pulldowns, please add a pulldown for saved searches. This should be straightforward, and not raise any interface issues.

Greg

(Of course, I'd also want all the views made available, but this is a different request)

[dlu 628]

I have a different request for full screen mode. Right now there is a row of small controls above the thumbnails:

Show | All Notes | Notebooks | Tags | Web Clips | Mobile | Files

Since the "notebooks" and "tags" controls activate pulldowns, please add a pulldown for saved searches. This should be straightforward, and not raise any interface issues.

Greg

(Of course, I'd also want all the views made available, but this is a different request)

Greg, I like that idea. Currently you can drag individual saved searches to the favorites bar, but I can see how a pulldown could be very useful. The only issue I can think of is that most of our users don't have saved searches. And of those that do have saved searches, most only have a handful so it would probably be more useful to have individual saved searches separated. I'll bring it up internally

thanks!

[gtuckerkellogg 33]

Greg, I like that idea. Currently you can drag individual saved searches to the favorites bar, but I can see how a pulldown could be very useful. The only issue I can think of is that most of our users don't have saved searches. And of those that do have saved searches, most only have a handful so it would probably be more useful to have individual saved searches separated. I'll bring it up internally

thanks!

People may not use saved searches much if they don't know how powerful they are. The full search syntax seems to be documented only in the API documentation (Appendix C!), which may intimidate many users. If Evernote made the saved searches easier to understand (documentation), access (pulldown) and modify (well, that would be new), it would open up a lot of power to Evernote users.

Speaking of search syntax, the documentation indicates that only one notebook can be selected in a search. You can search for multiple tags, but only one notebook, and the notebook choice must be first. I assume this is accurate, but I notice on the Windows interface I can restrict a search to "all notebooks in a stack". This seems to violate the restrictions of the syntax documentation. Does the GUI use the API syntax, and if so does the API syntax documentation needs to be updated?

[jefito 5,598]

If you have a stack named "MyStack", you can use stack:MyStack to specify a search of all of the notebooks in a stack. I don't think that it's documented anywhere -- though it should be (the other place that I looked was in the Knowledge base article on Advanced Search Operatores here: https://support.evernote.com/link/portal/16051/16058/Article/535/Using-Evernote-s-advanced-search-operators) -- but it works. Verified by picking a stack in my notebook list, and creating a saved search from it, a cheap and easy way of seeing what's going on.

[gtuckerkellogg 33]

Thanks, that's very helpful! I use stacks along the lines of David Allen's "Organizing Categories" (reference, support, outcomes, incubating), and I use tags for, among other things, areas of focus (family, work, finance, health, etc). Being able to do this search now allows me to have saved searches like

"Work Support" => "stack:_support tag:_work"

which I can use in my weekly review. What a help this is! It actually makes full screen mode useable. :-)

[GrumpyMonkey 4,320]

Vista was annoying, markedly slower, wouldn't work with my software, and ate up my laptop's battery. I still like XP, because it just works, but I have to say that Windows 7 was a real step forward. I enjoy it, but am I excited by it? No.

Lion is something innovative that radically departs from ealier versions. I don't see the comparison with Vista. You spend a few dollars and get a brand new operating system that takes you someplace new (Lion) or buy a bloated monster for many more times that price (depending on how much you want to spend to get a full featured os) to add "effects" to your folders. Vista wasn't popular because it was more of the same--just worse.

In Lion, iIf you don't like the full screen, you don't have to use it. The same goes for all sorts of other stuff. As far as Evernote is concerned, I hope they can come up with a solution for the fullscreen mode, because I think that is something Apple will be keeping around in the future. A lot of us work in the 11 and 13 inch world.

[GIB 0]

Noticed evernote had full screen and thought great. Went into the view and then noticed the odd large icons so thought I would just switch the view back. I couldn't work out how todo it and hence came to this forum to find out.

It's certainly rather odd you can't switch. I use full screen for most of my apps on my MBA, none of them tell me work in a different way ! Very odd decision by evernote team.

[Ruefus 0]

Maybe I'm just thick as a brick - but I STILL don't "get" full-screen mode.

What on earth is its use? Even without the limitations that EN has put in there? Surely a maximised window is just about full screen, with just the Menu bar at the top (in which I have all sorts of interesting information, including the date and time, disk activity, network activity, etc) and the Dock at the bottom. And the Dock can be made to auto-hide anyway and slide down out of the way if you really need that centimetre or so...

So - what am I missing here? Why the big hullabaloo over "full screen"? What is it all about? Is it aimed at users of 11" MacBook Airs who need every millimetre they can get? It sure makes no difference to my MacBook Pro or my iMac.

I just don't get it - sorry.

And while we're on it, I should mention that of 5 Macs in our household, I have upgraded one only to Lion, and even on that one, I have used various tweaks to make it as much like Snow Leopard as possible, eg turning off the silly unnatural scrolling (natural if you're touching the screen, but not when using a mouse or touchpad), Launchpad (useless without a touchscreen), and many others. I just wish I could turn off the stupid "Everything GREY" stuff as well - but we've been there, done that in other threads. And I just can't see the point of "Full Screen" at all......

So why is Evernote making a big thing of it too? Another "slavishly following Apple" move like the greyness?

For a full-size desktop, it's not really an issue. For an 11" or 13" MacBook, screen real estate is paramount. Plus - having a desktop that contains ONE window and WON'T allow any other to reside on top works for me, along with the left-to-right swiping between desktops. With OSX Lion, this is the first time I've not used a mouse on a laptop and actually felt better for it.

Launchpad isn't useless without a touchscreen. I use it all the time and it's super-easy to find what you want. The reverse swiping while odd at first, has become preferable for me....took about 10 minutes. Not being a jerk here (at least not intending to be), but just 'cause you don't like it doesn't mean the rest of us won't love it or find significant uses for it. I've got a Snow Leopard iMac at home. Going to throw down for a touchpad and upgrade to Lion here soon.

[gps2003 0]

I would support that. I do not unterstand why it is not possible to select a view type in Lion Fullscreen mode. It is my understanding of the new Lion fullscreen mode that in this mode the behaviour of the application is similiar to the standard window view.

Actually, in Evernote the Lion Fullscreen mode is a special view without the same behaviour as in standard view.

Please allow to use the "normal" view options in Lion Full Screen mode.

[leisgean 0]

THIS! Please tell me you are working on this. I switch between notebooks often and having to exit out of fullscreen mode to do so makes using fullscreen pointless for me. Also, while in full screen you can't reorder the notes, so to go from order by date to order by name you have to exit fullscreen mode, do your reordering, then re-enter fullscreen mode? This is kind of a pain and I definitely, and unfortunately, won't be using full-screen mode until these changes make it usable.

[Metrodon 2,188]

This was discussed at some length during the beta phase and Evernote seem pretty firm in their belief that this is the way they want to go.

Personally, I'm not a fan and so full screen isn't an option for me.

[Ruefus 0]

This was discussed at some length during the beta phase and Evernote seem pretty firm in their belief that this is the way they want to go.

Personally, I'm not a fan and so full screen isn't an option for me.

If this is accurate it seems a nonsensical attitude for EN, which is so flexible its ridiculous. This feels like backtracking and removing a fair amount of that flexibility.

*shrug* I'll live with it until I can't and figure it out then.

[l7eslie3 0]

Paid user here, who registered for the forums just to chime in on this...

I'm not sure exactly what it means for application developers to be "firm in a belief" that they want to effectively hobble the application by disabling display modes that are highly desired by users. There is no reason in my mind why switching to full screen should mean I am no longer able to view the contents of my notes at a glance. On the contrary...why would I want to devote my increased screen real estate to thumbnails instead of content??? Full-screen mode still features the view mode buttons too. Just a tease? Crappy.

Best case: Re-enable all view modes and persist state between windowed and full-screen

Acceptable: Put something in Preferences that re-enables modes in full-screen

[Metrodon 2,188]

I guess the option is to stick in a windowed mode if you don't like what full screen offers. That works fine for me, and it worked fine for everybody else until the full screen version was released yesterday.

[NightStalker 409]

Maybe I'm just thick as a brick - but I STILL don't "get" full-screen mode.

What on earth is its use? Even without the limitations that EN has put in there? Surely a maximised window is just about full screen, with just the Menu bar at the top (in which I have all sorts of interesting information, including the date and time, disk activity, network activity, etc) and the Dock at the bottom. And the Dock can be made to auto-hide anyway and slide down out of the way if you really need that centimetre or so...

So - what am I missing here? Why the big hullabaloo over "full screen"? What is it all about? Is it aimed at users of 11" MacBook Airs who need every millimetre they can get? It sure makes no difference to my MacBook Pro or my iMac.

I just don't get it - sorry.

And while we're on it, I should mention that of 5 Macs in our household, I have upgraded one only to Lion, and even on that one, I have used various tweaks to make it as much like Snow Leopard as possible, eg turning off the silly unnatural scrolling (natural if you're touching the screen, but not when using a mouse or touchpad), Launchpad (useless without a touchscreen), and many others. I just wish I could turn off the stupid "Everything GREY" stuff as well - but we've been there, done that in other threads. And I just can't see the point of "Full Screen" at all......

So why is Evernote making a big thing of it too? Another "slavishly following Apple" move like the greyness?

[dlu 628]

This definitely came up a lot during Beta, and it is something we've talked about internally. Currently, having multiple views causes some usability problems, so at the very least we'll have to resolve to those issues enabling.

[NightStalker 409]

How about just scrapping full-screen mode, and concentrating on real issues, like RTF editing on the iPad?

[dlu 628]

At this point, it'd probably take more work to undo it...

[Ruefus 0]

This definitely came up a lot during Beta, and it is something we've talked about internally. Currently, having multiple views causes some usability problems, so at the very least we'll have to resolve to those issues enabling.

Now THAT makes sense. Thanks for posting.

[dlu 628]

Yes. And for the record, I meant to say "resolve those issues before enabling"

I'm having a bad typing day

[robnatick 0]

Count me in on this gripe. It's keeping me from using full screen mode.

[NightStalker 409]

Don't worry - no jerkiness taken

I still can't see the use of Launchpad when we have the Dock, and the one-click Applications folder if we need it. But hey - that's just me.

And yes - I'm fully aware that many others may really enjoy scrolling backwards and upside down, especially if they have multiple computers, some on Lion, some on Snow Leopard, and some on (gulp) Windows. And the disappearing scrollbars (yuk - can't see how long the article really is).

And I'm quite happy for those who love Lion. Personally, so far I hate it - it does absolutely nothing to improve my computer (the only one I've upgraded and can't change back).

Don't quote me, but I suspect that Lion just COULD end up as Apple's very own "Vista".....

But as I said - that's just me, and we all like different stuff.

[Metrodon 2,188]

Don't quote me, but I suspect that Lion just COULD end up as Apple's very own "Vista".....

True frontier gibberish, well done.

Apple are having a massive quarter reviews of Lion have been generally favourable, they have provided a completely new way of delivering OS upgrades without their system breaking down and from what I've seen of their message boards there are less issues than there were when SL came out.

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/08/22/apples_lion_drives_26_rise_in_mac_sales_during_july.html

[Ruefus 0]

Don't quote me, but I suspect that Lion just COULD end up as Apple's very own "Vista".....

Nah. Besides, I spent 6 months working exclusively in Vista. It didn't suck, didn't crash and Just worked.

Lion makes me want to work with the machine. Snow Leopard feels, well....conventional to me now. Dated, even.

[andrewjclark 0]

I was excited to get Evernote for Lion but the no-list-in-fullscreen is a total deal breaker for me! I don't want to whine but its a totally missed opportunity and the way it mimics the full screen mail layout when you're writing in a note seems totally nonsensical. I'm praying for an update to make full-screen just a little more flexible.

Other than, update looks great!

[acjohnnson55 1]

I echo all the previous comments. I eagerly awaited full-screen mode, but all I really wanted was a full-screen version of what I had before. This is not a step forward. Disappointing.

[ukle 0]

I also vote to have all modes available in fullscreen. I live in evernote and find full screen mode to be tremendously useful especially with gestures, but think it is crippled to open multiple windows.

Furthermore, why not use fullscreen to enable viewing thumbnails of *all* the images--not just thumbnails of each note which may include *one* of many images.

[dlu 628]

I also vote to have all modes available in fullscreen. I live in evernote and find full screen mode to be tremendously useful especially with gestures, but think it is crippled to open multiple windows.

Furthermore, why not use fullscreen to enable viewing thumbnails of *all* the images--not just thumbnails of each note which may include *one* of many images.

I'm not sure what you mean by thumbnails of all the images? Would this mean you could have multiple thumbnails for a single note?

[shigeya 0]

I also want resurrection of the other view modes.

Note that, it only do not use screen real-estate efficiently on small screens, but also on larger screens like my 27" in my office. Think about this: one note for every month for a year. I need to scroll down to see all tiny unreadable notes, and gray background occupy more than 80% of the available screen.

Looking forward to the fix.

[jeromecarney 5]

This definitely came up a lot during Beta, and it is something we've talked about internally. Currently, having multiple views causes some usability problems, so at the very least we'll have to resolve to those issues enabling.

If multiple views cause usability problems, then why-o-why choose thumbnail view as the one-and-only for full screen ? Does EN have internal indications that it's the most popular among its user base ? 'Cause snippet view effectively mimics the standard view available in Mail, RSS feeds and a host of other very successful apps. It's a logical, easy to navigate layout and I would think it would be the most popular view by far in Evernote.

[apdg 0]

Went ahead and registered for the purpose of this.

I was really looking forward to the Lionification of Evernote and the addition of full screen functionality but I have to say I was pretty surprised to see this design choice. I actually thought it was a bug, that it got stuck on one view option somehow. I don't quite grasp the purpose of forcing the one view. I understand there are "usability issues" involved but what does that mean exactly? That makes it sound like there are problems with users using the other views. Were people complaining that they had multiple options? This choice seems really counterintuitive. I'm scratching my head.

I definitely understand if it was a design challenge. I mean, to redo each view such that it plays nice with the rules of the full-screen world may be more work than the programmers want to make at this time. That would make sense. I'm sure there are challenges to converting everything, heck, as it is, thumbnail view in non-full-screen has some crazy graphic artifact action going on for me so I'm glad I don't use that view. But to make it a permanent design choice to just toss out the formats that (if things were divided evenly) two thirds of the user's workflows are based on? Do not get.

[steamrunner 1]

It's all pretty much been said above, but I'd add my voice (especially as I'm now a paying premium user ;-) to wanting all views available in full-screen. It was the first thing I spotted - and went "Oh... :-(" about - when first trying out the new full screen mode. It's not busting my gut though, I'll probably just stick to normal view as I've done up until now anyway. Otherwise, I'm quite liking EN3...