(Archived) FEATURE REQUEST: Adopt best of breed features from others..

[cravingsunshine 0]

hi there -

i've been spending quite a bit of time evaluating evernote and various other information managment tools. i love many things about evernote, especially its cross-platform nature. but i (and apparently many others, based on reviews i've seen comparing evernote to things like journler) wish that evernote would adopt some of the best aspects of the other tools out there. i realize that some things are subjective and so employing them or not is a judgment call, but it seems that certain things are widely accepted as being helpful. there seems to be pretty wide consensus on what the "best" aspects are of various tools, and i see no reason why evernote couldn't combine the best of others into one.

that said, here's what i'd love to see in evernote:

1. better usage and organization of tags. it seems that the developers at evernote recognize that tags are very useful, but the attention paid to them in the ui and usage seems quite basic compared to others. in short, if you're going to build a tool that relies heavility on tags, it should be very robust in how it organizes and uses tags.

an example of really well-designed usage of tags is punakea, and i think evernote's utility would be greatly improved by looking at how punakea does things. punakea has a great ability to add tags, see related tags, find information based on tags, etc, etc.

beyond that, i notice that others have asked that only the tags used in a particular notebook be visible when that notebook is selected, which seems like a great idea (at least make it a preference option). in addition, though, it would be great if once you enter a tag into the search box, you'd be presented with a list of other tags that relate to that tag (e.g., are used in conjunction with that tag), like yep does. that's a useful way to narrow down a search when you can't remember what tags you might have used. and i notice that people have also asked for a hierarchical tag structure that is functional, which seems great, and which is done by "together".

2. smart folders. i realize evernote has "saved searches," which are conceptually the same as smart folders, but it'd be great to have a hierarchical structure for these (a la journler). that would allow me, for example, to create a smart folder called "bills," which could have sub- smart folders called "electricity," "cable tv", "phone," etc, etc. and although i've seen people requesting sub-notebooks, it seems to me that the idea of having hierarchical smart folders based on tags is more useful and could eliminate the need to have sub-notebooks.

also, why not call them smart folders since that seems to be a more accepted terminology. finally, there's a weird ui quirk such that when you click on a saved search, it automatically expands the tags list and pushes the list of saved searches out of view.

3. better text formatting. i really wish that evernote had more robust formatting for text. there's no ruler, no ability to set tabs, no real ability to create tables, etc, etc. journler is great in this regard.

[chasemann 0]

Totally agree with this post.

I really like the use of tags on Punakea and could see myself switching to a tag-based system (instead of sub-folders) if EN used the power of tags in a similar manner.

[qwavel 7]

3. better text formatting. i really wish that evernote had more robust formatting for text. there's no ruler, no ability to set tabs

I'm sorry, but I disagree with this. I'm not trying to replace my word processor with EN. I will keep using Word and Google Docs for the sort of formal document where fine control of presentation is important.

I'm already a bit surprised that the note editor supports fonts and font sizes, but doesn't support header styles. Header styles are very useful when writing notes and are widely supported, even in word processors. I like that Google Docs associates header styles with Ctrl-1, Ctrl-2, etc., making them very easy and quick to apply.

[UnionMac 0]

qwavel said:

I'm sorry, but I disagree with this. I'm not trying to replace my word processor with EN. I will keep using Word and Google Docs for the sort of formal document where fine control of presentation is important.

That's nice that this works for you. But why put the kabosh on a feature that others would find useful?

If there's a feature of EN that you don't like, don't use it. But don't deny something to others that they find helpful.

[qwavel 7]

qwavel said:

I'm sorry, but I disagree with this. I'm not trying to replace my word processor with EN. I will keep using Word and Google Docs for the sort of formal document where fine control of presentation is important.

That's nice that this works for you. But why put the kabosh on a feature that others would find useful?

If there's a feature of EN that you don't like, don't use it. But don't deny something to others that they find helpful.

Because there is only so much they can do with the editor so I think they need to pick a direction: organization vs. presentation.

[engberg 89]

We do plan to continue to improve our text editor so that you can type in notes that will look the way you expect, although we're definitely not planning on competing with Microsoft Word any time soon.

Thanks for the feedback ...

[mcevg 0]

Hi,

may I ask you one feature.

Please give us the possibility to do basic operations with photos in notes (as rotate 90-180-270 degrees, crop, etc).

It would be great to, for example, rotate 90 degree photo made by iPhone camera.

Thank you for essential product!

[jonaka 0]

Hi,

may I ask you one feature.

Please give us the possibility to do basic operations with photos in notes (as rotate 90-180-270 degrees, crop, etc).

It would be great to, for example, rotate 90 degree photo made by iPhone camera.

Thank you for essential product!

I second this request, I hate it when I have to open another application to do such a basic function within a note.

[sterlingz 7]

1. better usage and organization of tags. it seems that the developers at evernote recognize that tags are very useful, but the attention paid to them in the ui and usage seems quite basic compared to others. in short, if you're going to build a tool that relies heavility on tags, it should be very robust in how it organizes and uses tags.

beyond that, i notice that others have asked that only the tags used in a particular notebook be visible when that notebook is selected, which seems like a great idea (at least make it a preference option). in addition, though, it would be great if once you enter a tag into the search box, you'd be presented with a list of other tags that relate to that tag (e.g., are used in conjunction with that tag), like yep does.

2. smart folders. i realize evernote has "saved searches," which are conceptually the same as smart folders, but it'd be great to have a hierarchical structure for these (a la journler). that would allow me, for example, to create a smart folder called "bills," which could have sub- smart folders called "electricity," "cable tv", "phone," etc, etc. and although i've seen people requesting sub-notebooks, it seems to me that the idea of having hierarchical smart folders based on tags is more useful and could eliminate the need to have sub-notebooks.

also, why not call them smart folders since that seems to be a more accepted terminology. finally, there's a weird ui quirk such that when you click on a saved search, it automatically expands the tags list and pushes the list of saved searches out of view.

I could not agree more with these points. I have been posting on other threads that I find tag management horrible in this app - there are some really bad bugs present in the current Mac version. It's simply not acceptable, since the developers are pushing them as the best way to organize the data in Evernote, including suggesting they are an alternative to the oft-requested sub-notebooks.

Ditto on the Saved Searches behavior, which I've always found bizarre, and which has led me to avoid using them. Again, they are touted as a major solution to organizing data, but I think they need to be greatly improved to make them actually usable. And I completely agree - they should be named "Smart Folders" as this is the industry standard, and will help users adopt them much more quickly as that is a much more familiar metaphor to most people.