REQUEST: Old thumbnail view again

[Don.a.dio 4]

I downloaded the new version 3.1.1 and was unpleasantly surprised by the new uniform thumbnail view of notebook pages.

I much preferred the previous view, where the thumbnail displayed the full content of the note. That way when the note was an image, the image took up the full size of the thumbnail. I feel it was much easier to find notes this way, each thumbnail different from the other. As it is now, all the thumbnails look the same.

I also preferred the slider to increase and decrease the size of the thumbnails.

Please don't make me downgrade! I'm already stuck on Safari 5.0.5 to keep the Evernote plugin intact.

[Metrodon 2,184]

Most history points to Evernote not being a fan of user options and of them believing that their ideas about viewing options are correct. They might bring back the old thumbnail view...but I wouldn't bet on it.

[Matt960 5]

Evernote! Please pay attention to this request - it really is deal breaker.

 

For those of you on this thread using a mac, another option for more visual collections is:

http://realmacsoftware.com/ember

 

It has a much nicer 'card' view with titles below and not obscuring the thumbnail.

[mike.ket 5]

Completely agree with this post. We need the V4-styule thumbnails view as an option. I don't understand why the developers are not doing this given the complaints? Is that view patented or something? Than say so instead of trying to convince us that card view is somehow better -- which is clearly isn't!

[bartek 0]

On WIN app they did the same. Now it is completly useless.

[BMJT 5]

Just adding my support to this. Please bring back the old thumbnail view, or at least allow us the option to use it. What was once a useful, intuitive feature has been cast aside in favour of something I cannot comprehend as any kind of improvement.

I add many PDFs to Evernote, including ebooks, so when I view these as a collection I enjoy being able to clearly see all the covers, akin to the Kindle or iBooks library, so I can quickly find what i'm looking for, in addition to enjoying an attractive array of nicely designed covers.

I am currently stuck on version 3.0.6, and although my financial support is tiny and imperceptible to such a large company, I won't be going premium again, or updating until some ground is made on this.

[lexnels 4]

Ok, so if anyone at Evernote is reading this (they've not made themselves visible if they are) you've lost a premium subscriber here because of this. Just not worth renewing my subscriptions any more when I can't use Evernote as an easily-browsable visual archive any more, and I'm sure others are feeling the same. Would love to have it made worth my while to renew again.

[HFB 0]

I also agree with Don.a.dio.

Now I'm still using Evernote v.2.0(Mac client application) and Safari 5.0.5(clipper) combination because they can clip web page as pdf file and give good visibility in tumbnail view. I'm Japanese user. EN is worldwide service with a lot of supporters, so this demand is huge. I hope these requests of thread's member will come true.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Don.a.dio. さんに賛成です。

私は、PDFでのクリップが可能なこととサムネイルビューが使えるからという理由で、Evernoteを2.0のまま、Safariを5.0.5のまま使っています。私は日本人ユーザーです。Evernoteは世界中の人々に支持されていますよね。だから、私たちの声を大切にしてください。この掲示板にコメントした方々の願いがかなうことを願います。

[Metrodon 2,184]

No change.

[Don.a.dio 4]

I noticed there have been 2 more updates since 3.1.1. each of which I've been ignoring. Has the old view been reinstated at all? Or am I stuck on 3.0.6 forever? I am a paying customer if that bears any consequence....

[news nerd 1]

I've been a premium user since close to the beginning and this is the first time I've felt moved to complain in the forums.

I and all of my colleagues and friends who use Evernote cannot understand the logic of the card view.

So I'd like to add my support for reinstating a true thumbnail view. Failing that, at least give us back the slider to control the zoom of the card view in a more granular way. The large cards are not big enough to be functional when browsing documents.

All of the other recent improvements are great, but the card view is a retrograde step.

I saw this creeping process of ignoring user needs happen with a similar piece of software (Yep for Mac) and it wasn't pretty.

[sascha1 2]

I want the old thumbnail view back.

[Mary R 2]

I agree. I strongly dislike the new view. I tried to get used to it but it has lost all of the usefulness of having quick visual information from larger pictures, and only so we can have the first few words of the text appear in the card view. The lines are completely pointless and only serve to clutter things up, and I have no use for the date and time (though I can see the usefulness for others... and that wouldn't be a large "expense" to the real estate for images if it stayed). I've been disappointed with the appearance of the iPad version and was looking forward to them being similar. I never thought the change would be in the direction of making the Mac version look more like the cluttered iOS version though!! What a disappointment.

For those of us who use Evernote to collect notes that include images, these teeny tiny new thumbnails whenever we're foolish enough to add any writing at all to the bottom of a note with an image in it make it look very uninspired.

A potential fix (for me, anyway) would be to have it set up so that if an image is the ~first~ thing in the file (i.e. before any text), then the thumbnail takes up the whole card, the way it does if there isn't any text at all. Of course, losing the pointless cluttering lines (Why would they be there in the first place?) would also be a bonus.

[lexnels 4]

What do you mean by "harmful for more than just aesthetic reasons"? Because it's less efficient, or something else?

If you're quickly trying to scan through reams of visual refs the lines provide a distraction that hinder the mental process of scanning them. The cropping affects this even more so. I've gone from scanning a big list of image objects to scanning a big list of lined-box-objects that I need to focus on the image inside. If that makes sense.

[peterfmartin 221]

• Paper lines/rules: Why? Good Lord, why? This adds completely unnecessary visual clutter to the page, which is harmful for more than just aesthetic reasons when scrolling through hundreds of items
  

What do you mean by "harmful for more than just aesthetic reasons"? Because it's less efficient, or something else?

[GrumpyMonkey 4,320]

Most history points to Evernote not being a fan of user options and of them believing that their ideas about viewing options are correct. They might bring back the old thumbnail view...but I wouldn't bet on it.

i think i would disagree with this. evernote actually has a long history of providing user options. the toggle for viewing metadata in mac, the slider mentioned here to adjust sizes, and the ability we have now to remove panes from view all strike me as options.

on the windows platform i think there may even be more options than there were in the past. in fact, we just got a new option to use a vertical list view. just about everything i have been requesting on these forums in terms of options turns out to already exist in windows.

there is a recent trend on the mac side to remove options and have a single default setting. this undoubtedly aids the developers, and it might even aid users by providing a uniform and aesthetically streamlined experience, but as seen in this thread, it can also wreak havoc on users. in my case, the inexplicable loss of search explanations from the mac version (it still happens on the web and in windows) threw a wrench into my workflow. we used to have the option, but now we don't...

[GrumpyMonkey 4,320]

i'll chime in here. i didn't find the thumbnails useful, and i don't like the card view either. but, i certainly see their value in some workflows.

i think we need to convince the pachyderms in power that toggles and customization options are the way to go. the windows platform does this for many more features, in addition to providing the highly coveted vertical list view.

new features are great and welcomed as long as they complement instead of replace old ones. it can be frustrating when you design your workflow around a great evernote feature, only to have it removed and replaced with something else, or just removed.

a default view is fine, and i think we expect designers to make decisions about how the app will look and act, but we shouldn't all

be forced to use the default view. the windows platform these days is looking really good, and if evernote took this as the gold standard, along with the mac interface's polished look, things would be much improved.

[lexnels 4]

I've gone from being a huge Evernote advocate (got a fair few colleagues to sign up to premium accounts) to being embarrassed for anyone to see how I collate visual items. Here's why:

• Paper lines/rules: Why? Good Lord, why? This adds completely unnecessary visual clutter to the page, which is harmful for more than just aesthetic reasons when scrolling through hundreds of items
  
• Dates: Most people will being seeing their items chronologically anyway, so this is fairly superflous. Click (or hover?) if you need to see these details. And why blue? The exact same blue as the default link colour in most browsers and many apps? More visual clutter that makes skimming through multiple items a massive chore.
  
• Cropped thumbnails: Seriously guys, this seems like the laziest solution ever.
  
• Thumbnail size slider: This feature was great. Why remove it?
  

Have any of your engineers actually sat down with a designer end-user to see how they use the app? It really doesn't seem like you have. Or you just don't care.

You have the code for the old thumbnail view, just add it back in and give us a new view type! Please!!

[peterfmartin 221]

Sad that they abandoned Snow Leopard, and EN is the only app that force me to upgrade to Lion again.

What are you talking about? I use Evernote with Snow Leopard.

[milohuang 1]

Actually quite like the new design and the card view performs quite well, guess that's I never really used the old thumbnail view before. Everything seems smooth with the last release, way better than the old version. Sad that they abandoned Snow Leopard, and EN is the only app that force me to upgrade to Lion again.

[jcbaudot 0]

I'm agree with this topic. The new card view presentation is really not useful for graphic benchmarking. Also the new clip note for Safari wasn't a good evolution ( must waiting the synchronization before really comment and manage a note ). If evernote continue with this bad evolution, probably find an alternative and cancel my premium account subscription :-(

[nova47 60]

It is now available in EN Win. We just need to get it added to EN Mac.

Had no idea...thanks JM. Maybe there's hope!

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

EN seems to have a propensity for either adding or not allowing removal of note information that many consider problematic to their viewing needs. Consider:r users who use EN heavily for images. Card view should have been an additional view option, not a replacement for thumbnail.

2 - Lots of people like the screen layout of snippet view. They also like the simple note description of the list view. But after years of some posters offering to give up their first born there's still no option to have a list view in a snippet layout. That is, only note titles and maybe date, in the vertical pane. Again, as an additional view, not a replacement for snippet.

Good point. We have been discussing the need for a Vertical List View on the Mac in this thread:

REQUEST: One more step to perfection: Vertical notes list

.

It is now available in EN Win. We just need to get it added to EN Mac.

[nova47 60]

EN seems to have a propensity for either adding or not allowing removal of note information that many consider problematic to their viewing needs. Consider:

1 - The only view option designed for graphic/photo centric users has gone from a large uncluttered thumbnail to a small image with text. I don't use either view, and I think the card view has a pleasant look. But if my workflow and use was geared towards images I wouldn't be happy. I see the card view as another option for the masses, whereas the thumbnail view is for users who use EN heavily for images. Card view should have been an additional view option, not a replacement for thumbnail.

2 - Lots of people like the screen layout of snippet view. They also like the simple note description of the list view. But after years of some posters offering to give up their first born there's still no option to have a list view in a snippet layout. That is, only note titles and maybe date, in the vertical pane. Again, as an additional view, not a replacement for snippet.

[Don.a.dio 4]

Are you referring to card view? You can learn more about this by searching for it in the forum.

Yes, I'm referring to card view.

If you were to consider the real world example, is someone more likely to quickly pluck out a playing card scanning through the deck face up, or flip through the backsides which were marked with titles, descriptions, and an icon of the suit (still always handy of course when conducting searches).

I also fear that I won't be able to convince others, especially older colleagues, to use the app when viewed this way. If they've never used Evernote before, I imagine they wouldn't realize a notebook contains all the files they're looking for if opened in card view.

Card view can still be there for those who like it, just don't eliminate the old view completely.

[Anton Motuzniy 0]

Yes, the new card view absolutely useless for graphic purpose! Now I˜ll try to restore previous version.

[glain 2]

I really did prefer the old thumbnail view. The new card layout is really useless for graphic oriented notebooks.

Luckily the updater moved the old app to the thrashcan, just picked it out of it and replacde the new version.

[tardis 87]

I vastly prefer thumbnail view over the card view too but I'm not holding my breath that it will be reinstated.

[mxs 1]

Agree with Don wholeheartedly. Thumbnail view was way more useful for people who are using evernote to collate their visual inspiration. Card view makes everything of equal importance, date, notes and the images are so small you can't really tell. With over 1,000 of notes, it's really impossible for me to find anything here when all I see is text.

How do I downgrade to older version?

[peterfmartin 221]

Are you referring to card view? You can learn more about this by searching for it in the forum.