(Archived) Activity Feed Q&A

[Jackolicious 808]

What do you all think of the activity feed?

[GrumpyMonkey 4,320]

What do you all think of the activity feed?

The Activity Feed is a huge improvement, because it enables us to follow other people's notebooks as they get updated. I think I have about 60 shared notebooks, and before the activity feed I would say I only regularly looked at a handful of them that I knew would be updated. Now, I look at at least half of them on a regular basis.

One thing I would like to see in the future, though, is some idea of how many people have joined our shared notebooks. And, if we have not shared it with the world, I would like to see who has joined it.

I am wondering what the cryptic wording about the Activity Feed in the last few releases means. It seems to be suggesting that there will be something more than just updates about when notes are added or changed

By the way, if you are looking for shared notebooks, I've got a list of some here http://www.princeton.edu/~cmayo/sharednotebooks.html

[jbenson2 2,147]

By the way, if you are looking for shared notebooks, I've got a list of some here http://www.princeton...dnotebooks.html

GM - that is a awesome job. Thanks for posting all of them.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,320]

By the way, if you are looking for shared notebooks, I've got a list of some here http://www.princeton...dnotebooks.html

GM - that is a awesome job. Thanks for posting all of them.

Thanks for the kind words. I may have one of the longest Evernote shared notebook lists in the world

To be honest, though, the authors did all the work. There are some really fantastic / inspiring shared notebooks in there! The alerts we get now make sure we don't miss out on any of this stuff, so I'm quite pleased with how the feature has been designed.

[slothbear 1]

I just read about the Activity Feed in the latest Evernote News. Trouble was, I wasn't certain what it was or how I would use it. That might sound clueless, but I only have one Shared notebook.

My first step is to check Help. There were no entries found for Activity Feed, Activity, Feed, or Activity Stream (as it is named in Evernote News: "the handy new Activity Stream").

It would be great if all features were mentioned in Help -- even if there's not a long entry, at least it gives something to search for on the net -- especially when multiple terms are used for the same thing.

Help also shows where your query shows up in the menus, and I was surprised there is no menu option, no keyboard shortcut. Even if there is no Help Entry for the item, then at least I'd be able to activate the feature and see what it is.

[slothbear 1]

I just found the "Help" I wanted in the Evernote Blog. That's great! Put that content in the Help system where it can be found... or is it possible to include blog content in the Help menu's search?

http://blog.evernote.com/2012/07/18/evernote-for-mac-now-with-activity-stream-and-retina-support/

[slothbear 1]

I thought I'd try the options that the Help menu does offer. "Online Help" takes me to way too many options, but I tried a couple.

A Knowledge Base search brought up nothing for "activity stream" or "activity feed". Lots of stuff for "activity", hey, there it is, "Activity Log"! And there it is in the Help Menu too -- I had missed it before, since I usually just type-to-find. (I just learned something -- Mac OS does not include the Help menu's contents in it's type-to-find index. too self-referential?)

Huh. This Activity Log thing doesn't look like it "shows you exactly what's happening in your shared notebooks". At least not without a lot more knowledge. I'll keep trying the Online Help.

I searched the Evernote for Mac User Guide under Documentation. Seven occurrences of "activity", but they're all about the geeky activity log. No wait -- there's a keyboard shortcut for Activity, command-zero. Huh, that brings up a blank window labeled "Sync Status".

The Community Forum finally gives me enough search results that I can form some idea of what the new Activity Stream feature is.

wrap up

• there's nothing in the Help menu for Activity Stream
  
• there's no keystroke for the Activity Stream
  
• there are a lot of overlapping feature names. I know naming is hard, but overlap is confusing.
  

name index

• Activity (the actual label for the feature in the user interface)
  
• Activity Stream (name in Evernote News and Evernote Blog)
  
• Activity Feed (the most useful search term, appears to be the "internal name", like in this forum entry)
  
• Activity Log (sounds friendly, right between "Open Trunk" and "Getting Started Guide" in the Help menu. Not friendly.)
  
• Sync Status (labeled "Activity" in the User Guide, but gets extra points for having a keystroke shortcut)
  

ok, i'll stop now. sorry I haven't had my coffee yet.