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(Archived) Consistency among platforms


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Hi all

 

A lot of people use Evernote on a diversity of platforms, which is one of the big advantages of Evernote: having all your information available wherever you are.

 

However, there are quite a few issues with consistency among platforms. Some are very minor things, but they make the use of Evernote everywhere cumbersome and less efficient than could be possible.

 

Here are just a few examples:

  • Auto-completion for tags: sometimes it's enough to hit enter when typing a partial tag and the complete matching tag is inserted, but at other times a new tag is created with only beginning of the intended tag.
  • Todos: in the Windows client check boxes are automatically added when hitting enter at the end of a previous line in a to do list, but on the iPad this is not the case and the check mark needs to be inserted every time.
  • Pop-up lists for notebooks: there are at least three variations of notebook lists: 1. plain alphabetically sorted list, 2. sorted list according to stack sequence, 3. hierarchical list with sub-pop-ups for stacks. The last option is by far the most useful, because it allows to find notebooks much more quickly and based on the stack organisation.
  • Fonts and styles can get mixed up when editing a note on different platforms.

Is there a chance that developers in the different platforms teams could have a look at this and make the whole Evernote experience more consistent, please?

 

many thanks for this awesome product and service!

cheers

André

 

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This gets discussed in the forums with some frequency. Evernote's stated stance (paraphrased) is that while consistency is a goal, the teams are largely independent in terms of feature prioritization and so differences do occur. Also, difference between underlying platforms can cause difference that can't be resolved -- for example, with respect to fonts, typefaces available on one device may not be available on another, so you may lose fidelity of display. Another also is that that various platforms have varying conventions for presentation of UI items -- Evernote must walk the line between honoring an OS's conventions (users expect certain behaviors) and enforcing consistency.

In general, we all want better consistency, I agree. It's just not a simple task.

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This gets discussed in the forums with some frequency. Evernote's stated stance (paraphrased) is that while consistency is a goal, the teams are largely independent in terms of feature prioritization and so differences do occur. Also, difference between underlying platforms can cause difference that can't be resolved -- for example, with respect to fonts, typefaces available on one device may not be available on another, so you may lose fidelity of display. Another also is that that various platforms have varying conventions for presentation of UI items -- Evernote must walk the line between honoring an OS's conventions (users expect certain behaviors) and enforcing consistency.

In general, we all want better consistency, I agree. It's just not a simple task.

Thanks for the explanantion, Jeff. Of course, it's tricky, but thanks for keeping it in mind - it makes the use of Evernote so much nicer. I do see quite some progress, indeed. The Windows client beta looks very promising.

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  • Level 5*

This gets discussed in the forums with some frequency. Evernote's stated stance (paraphrased) is that while consistency is a goal, the teams are largely independent in terms of feature prioritization and so differences do occur. Also, difference between underlying platforms can cause difference that can't be resolved -- for example, with respect to fonts, typefaces available on one device may not be available on another, so you may lose fidelity of display. Another also is that that various platforms have varying conventions for presentation of UI items -- Evernote must walk the line between honoring an OS's conventions (users expect certain behaviors) and enforcing consistency.

In general, we all want better consistency, I agree. It's just not a simple task.

Thanks for the explanantion, Jeff. Of course, it's tricky, but thanks for keeping it in mind - it makes the use of Evernote so much nicer. I do see quite some progress, indeed. The Windows client beta looks very promising.

One specific issue you will see that would be difficult to fix (I imagine) is the default font on your app. If you set it to Courier New (for example) on your desktop, they'll look fine there, but on the iPad (for example) they will look totally different. I believe the default setting is Arial (or something like that), so your notes change fonts. It is kind of frustrating, and the best solution is to set the font yourself for each note (formatting as plain text will accomplish this quite easily). Doing this (instead of letting it use the "default") sends a message to the iPad that you want a particular font (assuming it is available).

A possible solution (on Evernote's end) might be to give us some control over fonts on the iPad (we have very little now -- default or plain text), but the font selections would inevitably be different. And, in the end, I wonder how many users would match up their default settings. In my case, I'd settle for monospace fonts (it doesn't matter which), but I'll concede that I am a rare bird in this regard.

Anyhow, more uniformity would be nice, especially on core features, but some things (like fonts) might be a long time coming, if they come at all.

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This gets discussed in the forums with some frequency. Evernote's stated stance (paraphrased) is that while consistency is a goal, the teams are largely independent in terms of feature prioritization and so differences do occur. Also, difference between underlying platforms can cause difference that can't be resolved -- for example, with respect to fonts, typefaces available on one device may not be available on another, so you may lose fidelity of display. Another also is that that various platforms have varying conventions for presentation of UI items -- Evernote must walk the line between honoring an OS's conventions (users expect certain behaviors) and enforcing consistency.

In general, we all want better consistency, I agree. It's just not a simple task.

Thanks for the explanantion, Jeff. Of course, it's tricky, but thanks for keeping it in mind - it makes the use of Evernote so much nicer. I do see quite some progress, indeed. The Windows client beta looks very promising.

 

One specific issue you will see that would be difficult to fix (I imagine) is the default font on your app. If you set it to Courier New (for example) on your desktop, they'll look fine there, but on the iPad (for example) they will look totally different. I believe the default setting is Arial (or something like that), so your notes change fonts. It is kind of frustrating, and the best solution is to set the font yourself for each note (formatting as plain text will accomplish this quite easily). Doing this (instead of letting it use the "default") sends a message to the iPad that you want a particular font (assuming it is available).

A possible solution (on Evernote's end) might be to give us some control over fonts on the iPad (we have very little now -- default or plain text), but the font selections would inevitably be different. And, in the end, I wonder how many users would match up their default settings. In my case, I'd settle for monospace fonts (it doesn't matter which), but I'll concede that I am a rare bird in this regard.

Anyhow, more uniformity would be nice, especially on core features, but some things (like fonts) might be a long time coming, if they come at all.

 

Indeed, fonts depend on the platform and it's not trivial to find a good solution.

 

The other points that I mentioned and a couple more, however, should be easy to implement - imho...

 

Hierarchical lists of stacks and notebooks would be really handy and proper to-do continuation and auto-completion, too.

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