Detecting sync delay and reconciling conflicts

[Notatious D 3]

  Even if Evernote syncs perfectly reliably, multiple conflicts can lead to conflicted changes due to connectivity problems or other practical matters.  It seems there are at least 3 things that make conflicts more likely and painful than they need to be:

 

1) The last modified date of a note is not readily visible when you go to edit the note (especially on the mobile app).  With that, one could check when notes are probably out of sync.  "I know I changed that note today, but the last modified says yesterday...better sync!"  This would be an easy and effective precaution.

 

2) If a sync fails, notify me immediately.  Don't let me discover days later...oh, there's a whole other version of this note copied below the main version under the "Conflicting changes" line.  That is really really bad, because I could then end up editing different parts of the different copies because I didn't realize everything was duplicated in the same note. 

Sometimes Evernote will save the conflicting version of the note in a special conflicting notebook and alert me.  And that at least lets me know it happened and doesn't mix the two.  But sometimes it quietly just copies the entire conflicted note at the bottom of the same note.  I have no idea why, but the latter is really unfortunate, especially with a huge note that can be incredibly time-consuming to reconcile. 

For example, I have a rather large note with several hundred lines.  It got "duplicated" (conflicted copy pasted to bottom) three times without my realizing there were conflicts causing this to happen.  So that's 8 versions in one note I have to painfully reconcile, line by line.  Until I find the time to do that, whenever I look up a particular part of the note, I have to check all 8 manifestations of it in the note if I really want to make sure I have the latest and didn't accidentally edit one or more of the copies at some point.

The same note would, at other times, have conflicts put in a separate "conflicted changes" note.  I have no idea why this was not consistent.

 

3) On that note, so to speak, it seems odd there is no reconciliation for conflicts.  (https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/30018-conflict-resolution/)

It would go like this:  "Here are 2 versions of the note that conflict, but look, only line #142 changed since the last good sync.  Here are the changes side-by-side.  Which do you want to keep?"  Easy for the user.  It's interesting that there is versioning...but no line-by-line versioning which is necessary for a note of any length.  (It doesn't have to be as fancy as an MS Word redline.  Wikipedia has a good system.)

I have no idea how one is expected to reconcile notes of any length when the changes are not identified in any way.  (I personally use unix diff for this; it is a pain.)

 

  (For me, Evernote on iOS actually doesn't sync reliably.  My computer and iPhone are supposed to sync every 5 minutes, yet I sometimes end up editing an old version on the phone, even though both have had the chance to sync for hours, and even though I have since made a habit of syncing as soon as I open the iPhone app, something I shouldn't have to do manually.  But I assume this is being worked on on an ongoing basis.)

 

  This stuff affects anyone who experiences conflicting changes, which I assume is every single Evernote user, whether sharing or solo.

 

Thanks,

- ND