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Sharing Notebooks via a Public Link discontinued


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First, apologies if this is the wrong place, but I haven't been able to find an answer with all my searching. I'm trying to share a notebook with just a URL....I used to know how to do that, but now when the share window comes up, I only have options to share with individuals. I used to be able to crate links for the whole notebook I could share. Is this a change? Is there a way to roll back to a previous version to avoid this change?

 

I am a teacher and I am trying to share my notebook full of notes with all my students. I just want a single link to the notebook and not have to deal with hundreds of email addresses.

 

Thanks - again, sorry if this seems rushed or unclear, it is. I just assumed I was going to be able to do the same things with Evernote that I always have. 

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zgoude, I am pretty angry at Evernote right at the moment, so apologies if I sound like I'm ranting BUT Evernote just removed the ability to make a notebook public without telling any of us. I was quite embarrassed when members of a community advised me this morning that my link no longer worked. And then when I went to re-share the notebook, the ability to create a link to it was gone.  Customer Support got back to me a few minutes ago with this:

 

Yes we informed today that there has been a changed to the option to offer Public Notebook URL's, we have decided that for security we would require for Users to share that notebook individually. That option would be located below generally where you would obtain and copy the link to the Public URL. You would now just need to add each E-Mail of each user that you wish to share that information with, ensure it is the E-Mail associated with their Evernote account.

This will also help with regulating who has access to your information. Giving you more control and security over your information.

 

Well, I'm sorry, but making something public is not the same as sharing with a few people's email.  If I wanted that option I would have selected it. As for security concerns, what are those concerns? Why wasn't I told about them, and why can't I choose for myself? 

 

It is such bad form for a software company to remove functionality especially without advising its paid users. 

 

I am very upset with Evernote right now. Not just because of what they have done but how they went about it.  Very upset indeed.

 

 

I

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This is an unfortunate change. I used public notebooks frequently for various important tasks.... This is a big hit.

I also loved viewing some public notebooks created by several EN Ambassadors. The public notebook was a great feature.

I wish I had known it had been removed so that I could anticipate the change and modify my workflow appropriately in advance, rather than scramble to change things around and tell my collaborators in the last minute.

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@lisec: Thank you for this information! A lot of users want to publish materials (per examples slides and docs after a workshop), but don't want to force friends to get an Evernote account.

Terrible! A big roll back! In Google Drive or with OneNote: one click and materials are public! First Evernote putted away the feeds of public notebook, than the entire thing.

This together with the terrible change in the Windows Beta of the notebook list (multi columns blown away, one long list) makes this formely good product too a very average product - in my eyes.

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I just saved a note URL and accessed it from a different IP address without problems,  and I used a Google+ link to look at someone else's 'public' notebook without being invited - I'm now confused as to what's going on here.  Any suggestions,  Evernote peeps?

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I just saved a note URL and accessed it from a different IP address without problems,  and I used a Google+ link to look at someone else's 'public' notebook without being invited - I'm now confused as to what's going on here.  Any suggestions,  Evernote peeps?

I suppose you tested a single note link? This should stay to work. But you can no more generate a public link for a _notebook_.

If you still have a link of an old public notebook it could work furthmore, but I think there are no new public notebooks.

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I just saved a note URL and accessed it from a different IP address without problems,  and I used a Google+ link to look at someone else's 'public' notebook without being invited - I'm now confused as to what's going on here.  Any suggestions,  Evernote peeps?

I'm under the impression (based on my own notebook) that current notebooks that are public are still accessible, but you can't share new ones I don't think.
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I just saved a note URL and accessed it from a different IP address without problems,  and I used a Google+ link to look at someone else's 'public' notebook without being invited - I'm now confused as to what's going on here.  Any suggestions,  Evernote peeps?

I suppose you tested a single note link? This should stay to work. But you can no more generate a public link for a _notebook_.

If you still have a link of an old public notebook it could work furthmore, but I think there are no new public notebooks.

 

 

My bad - I tested a single note link,  and an already shared notebook.  But trying to share a new notebook I have no option to make it public - I have to specify email addresses.

 

So let's see:  SIngle notes can still be shared by URL,  but notebooks have to be shared by email address.  Now I think I have this straight.  Maybe.. 

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I can confirm that existing public notes and notebooks still work, at least for now. It looks like public notes can still be made too, at least for now. It would seem that only public notebooks got the axe, at least as far as I can infer from the support response posted above and from experimenting. Without an official public announcement though, all we have is inference....

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Sharing notebooks was an important feature.  I believe this "security" issue is a mask of something.  There  two ways.  Public (view) and view edit.  I believe we should take on the responsibility of which we choose.  And to not announce it, just rather slip it in during an update?  I'm disappointed. 

This was a feature I used often.

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It is very sad that this feature has been removed. I have a couple of Notebooks that are shared all over the world by the Public method.

This is also one of the great features I rant about to friends and acquaintances, particularly when wearing my Evernote T Shirt and they ask me about it.

Regards

Chris

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+1

I don't consider myself as a power user but I need to trust in the future of a app before investing time with it and bend my needs and wants to its features. When features disappear, so my trust.

I won't quit now but I actually get worried.

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I can confirm that existing public notes and notebooks still work, at least for now. It looks like public notes can still be made too, at least for now. It would seem that only public notebooks got the axe, at least as far as I can infer from the support response posted above and from experimenting. Without an official public announcement though, all we have is inference....

 

Indeed, Notebooks that were made public before the change are still accessible, or are supposed to be.  I had two public notebooks, one of which is no longer available. I've got a ticket open about why that is, as both should still be available. Until support figures this out, you might want to double-check all of your public notebooks to ensure their urls still work. The one I have that doesn't work was created about 4 to 5 days before the change, and had a single note in it. I don't know if that is relevant, but if you have a made a notebook public very recently or have one with a single note in it, perhaps you can tell me if it still works.

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I'm a teacher and this just caused a big problem in one of my courses. One of my assignments was to do research on a topic and hand in the public link. One section's due date was a week ago. They completed it fine. The other section's due date was today, and all the students started complaining that they couldn't find any way to generate a public link. I was getting really annoyed at them and giving them failing marks. 

 

When even the smartest students had the same problem, I checked it out for myself and realised that the button to create a public link was gone. My old shared notebooks still worked. And you can still share notes individually (which is what my enterprising students resorted to).

 

Now I know why. I would just like Evernote to know that these decisions really do have an impact on people's lives. There should be an announcement, or at least a note in the interface letting users know what has happened. 

 

Worse, this kind of behaviour now makes me wonder if I made a mistake teaching Evernote to my students. A company you entrust so much of your life and work to has to be run like a very tight ship.

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Mraacep, I and many others here completely agree with you.  As a paying customer, you might consider contacting Support to complain *and* send a Feedback message to them, detailing exactly how this feature regression - that occured with ZERO notification or warning of any kind - has affected you, your standing as a trusted teacher, your students, their education and their parents faith in you and your school.

It may have no effect, but perhaps if enough folks - specifically *paying* users like yourself - complain loudly enough, *directly* to Evernote - then mabye, just maybe, they will reverse the decision, or release an alternative.

If nothing else, if as many paying customers as possible post here and contact EN directly with such complaints - assuming the recent app regressions like this one & the cancelled Tech Support for free users, are not signalling something drastic like EN going under or being bought out - perhaps such actions will push Evernote to realize such actions as they have taken lately with ZERO warning to their customers, is a very bad move.  One that could cost them customers, lose revenue and badly damage their reputation...  Which, if it doesn't bring EN crashing down, might at least make them seriously rethink the they handle any future service changes.

I'm a teacher and this just caused a big problem in one of my courses. One of my assignments was to do research on a topic and hand in the public link. One section's due date was a week ago. They completed it fine. The other section's due date was today, and all the students started complaining that they couldn't find any way to generate a public link. I was getting really annoyed at them and giving them failing marks.

When even the smartest students had the same problem, I checked it out for myself and realised that the button to create a public link was gone. My old shared notebooks still worked. And you can still share notes individually (which is what my enterprising students resorted to).

Now I know why. I would just like Evernote to know that these decisions really do have an impact on people's lives. There should be an announcement, or at least a note in the interface letting users know what has happened.

Worse, this kind of behaviour now makes me wonder if I made a mistake teaching Evernote to my students. A company you entrust so much of your life and work to has to be run like a very tight ship.

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What? How is it possible to remove such a functionality without explaining it ?

 

We need shared links for notebooks! I'm now a paying user, since some months, and I alos think that removing functionalities without warnings isn't acceptable.

 

also I think that they can ADD a feature like shared with precises emails, that'not a problem and I'ts possible to keep the two functionalities, they have different goals.

 

support ticket created to complain about this

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It looks as if public notebooks are still available through the API. Can anyone with some development knowledge confirm this with an example? Perhaps it's pretty easy to build a temporary solution around the API?

If the ability is shutdown via the service (as is likely, since using an old version of Evernote won't magically make them work, I'd guess (evernote also uses the API, right?), then whatever API functions that you would use to create public notebooks would likely also not work for 3rd-party developers. Most likely the API doc hasn't changed, is all.
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I have always had nothing but praise for all things Evernote, and have been all for workarounds in the past on a host of things... BUT... there is no workaround for the absence of this feature. People have built strategies around it. Overnight it is not as convenient for educators. Dropbox would fare better in some ways in this department. Don't make me resort to public folders in Dropbox. I beg of you. I follow almost every scrap of information on the web via "Mention", including twitter. The biggest buzz I see time and time again refers to Evernote and education. There are countless blog posts extolling shared notebooks. People use Evernote because it makes life easier. Now a teacher/ professor has to collect lists of emails and manually enter them into a share field within his Evernote account? That's kind of tedious.

 

Every Evernote user that is not a premium user will inevitably hop on board in the near future. There was a time where I wondered how Google made money off people like me... then I got a credit card and became an online consumer, as well as nowadays finding most of what I want online before buying it. An overwhelming number of people who use Evernote are "free" users. I was for about a year. It's a matter of time. What I'm saying is that Evernote, as a company, should pay attention to all of its users. It's all about word of mouth. That's 90% of what I see on Twitter these days with free premium months. Actually, I have never really noticed whether there are "Dropbox Evangelists", etc. (as a catch phrase). There are Evernote Evangelists every which way you turn. Remember that a great part of the success of the Evernote service is directly because of such people. 

 

Please bring that feature back... or give us a hell of a good reason why not.

 

Evernote still rocks. I'm sure they will take these comments into account and rectify it.  

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This is an unfortunate change. I used public notebooks frequently for various important tasks.... This is a big hit.

I also loved viewing some public notebooks created by several EN Ambassadors. The public notebook was a great feature.

I wish I had known it had been removed so that I could anticipate the change and modify my workflow appropriately in advance, rather than scramble to change things around and tell my collaborators in the last minute.

We are moving into a more collaborative environment, where sharing notebooks with individuals is a better collaborative approach when using Evernote as your workspace. We hope that this does not prevent you using Evernote!

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This is an unfortunate change. I used public notebooks frequently for various important tasks.... This is a big hit.

I also loved viewing some public notebooks created by several EN Ambassadors. The public notebook was a great feature.

I wish I had known it had been removed so that I could anticipate the change and modify my workflow appropriately in advance, rather than scramble to change things around and tell my collaborators in the last minute.

We are moving into a more collaborative environment. Where sharing notebooks with individuals is a better collaborative approach when using Evernote as your workspace. We hope that this does not prevent you using Evernote!

No, it certainly won't prevent me from using Evernote, but it has put an end to ONE important way I had been using Evernote until this point. As a result, I will no longer be able to use Evernote for tasks involving these collaborators.

Always more than one way to do something, though, and I will undoubtably find an alternative method to collaborate in the context specifically affected by this change.

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Forum housekeeping--apologies to those who were following this thread--it was inadvertently combined with a private thread, and when that occurred email follows were stripped and the old permalink changed. We've re-split out the topic and recreated it here with the original comments from the public thread intact. Apologies for the inconvenience.

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I use the public note link a lot but not the notebook one as of yet. I had high hopes of the possibility of using Evernote to publish many of my courses online - was just waiting for the ability to control the order of notes when sharing. But now that they have pulled the shared notebook feature, there goes that dream.

 

Unfortunate as there were many people who put a lot of work curating and creating content into Evernote Notebooks and sharing them with us and now all their work is down the drain.

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I too have just signed up to this forum to vent my frustration at this (after first sending a complaint to Evernote support). Removing public links to notebooks does not turn Evernote into a "more collaborative environment", but rather it does the opposite. I use the shared links to send my notes to my collaborators without forcing them to sign up to Evernote; many of them are not going to sign up to a new service just to view my notes and are instead going to ask me to send them in a different format. The cynic in me suspects that that might be the point: turn all those people who view public notebooks into signed-up Evernote users...

That aside, I really should have to learn about the removal of features through this forum. I just wasted half an hour trying to figure out how I'd created public links in the past, only to stumble across this thread and find out that I couldn't any more. If removing public notebook links really is an improvement for us paying customers, where is an official post from Evernote explaining the rational?

PS: I find it ironic that the email I just received from Evernote welcoming me to the forum contained a link to an FAQ... in a public notebook...

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Brief update on this. First off, I want to thank everyone for the responses thus far--we've been evaluating them as they've been rolling in. As noted above, this was done as part of a more thorough set of changes we're making with the shared notebooks experience. We've decided to roll back this change for now, and you should see this reinstated in next week's web release. Again, want to thank everyone for the continued feedback and keep it coming.

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Brief update on this. First off, I want to thank everyone for the responses thus far--we've been evaluating them as they've been rolling in. As noted above, this was done as part of a more thorough set of changes we're making with the shared notebooks experience. We've decided to roll back this change for now, and you should see this reinstated in next week's web release. Again, want to thank everyone for the continued feedback and keep it coming.

 

I am sooooooo glad to see you are putting this back in.  The idea of creating a public notebook was by virtue of that choice, NOT intended to be secure.  warn me again before I agree.. but please let's hope this stays as a feature in future releases.   I didn't use it often, but a public notebook URL is NOT the same as adding more email addresses.  (in most cases, I won't know who is linking to my public notebook that I want open).  

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I am delighted that you are putting back in this feature as it is one of the facilities that I especially liked about Evernote. A shared note book allows me to share various data for about three projects.

 

I was planning on using a shared notebook for the links that I shall be giving in a book that is being published next Feb. I therefore want to be sure that if I provide that link in the book that by the time the book is published the facility to have a shared notebook will still be available.

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I very much appreciate the updates from you and Charboyd, and I'm very glad this feature has been re-instated...for now at least. You seemed to hint this is a temporary measure that will again be implemented in the next release...

Which leads me to a couple questions (deliniated with "Q)" before them) and some final (...for now..

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Brief update on this. First off, I want to thank everyone for the responses thus far--we've been evaluating them as they've been rolling in. As noted above, this was done as part of a more thorough set of changes we're making with the shared notebooks experience. We've decided to roll back this change for now, and you should see this reinstated in next week's web release. Again, want to thank everyone for the continued feedback and keep it coming.

 

 

I can't help notice that you said you would roll back the change "for now." Sounds like you will UNroll it again in the future? Can you please be more specific? If this will EVER be unrolled again, then I will still have the same problem I have now, and Evernote will cease to be functional for me. 

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I can't help notice that you said you would roll back the change "for now." Sounds like you will UNroll it again in the future? Can you please be more specific? If this will EVER be unrolled again, then I will still have the same problem I have now, and Evernote will cease to be functional for me. 

 

 

I'm with you on this one Darren. I think they're just now realizing how important it is, most notably for educators. I'm just wondering why this wasn't so obvious before. An overwhelming number of the Evernote blog posts/ reviews scattered across the web are about using Evernote for education. In turn, most of the people who write those posts are teachers/ professors... plus, most of them rave about public notebooks. 

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Regardless of the significance of the feature to one group of users or another, I think it is poor form to remove features without making the change publicly known. If Customer Support is experiencing some significant belt-tightening, as the recent CS changes imply, why let users submit support tickets only to find out it was an intentional change made by EN? As I see it, announcing the change would save those precious CS resources. But I also don't run a tech company so... what do I know.

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Brief update on this. First off, I want to thank everyone for the responses thus far--we've been evaluating them as they've been rolling in. As noted above, this was done as part of a more thorough set of changes we're making with the shared notebooks experience. We've decided to roll back this change for now, and you should see this reinstated in next week's web release. Again, want to thank everyone for the continued feedback and keep it coming.

I can't help notice that you said you would roll back the change "for now." Sounds like you will UNroll it again in the future? Can you please be more specific? If this will EVER be unrolled again, then I will still have the same problem I have now, and Evernote will cease to be functional for me.

i don't mean to disparage evernote here, but i would not expect anything to stick around, especially in evernote's startup phase. everything is pretty much in a constant state of flux, and we can expect more changes in the future. i don't think anyone at evernote can honestly say the feature will stay. i don't like this change. i'm one of those educators / users who has heavily promoted and used shared stuff in many forms. but, they have to do what they think is best.

that being said, unannounced, sudden changes wreak havoc on professional educators. the timing of this just as the semester starts in many places really could not have been handled more ineptly. seriously. this kind of disregard for users -- pulling features, waiting to see how pissed off people get, and then putting them back in (called a/b testing by some) is a very bad way to build trust and brand loyalty among professionals who rely on this for their livelihood.

in other words, evernote can make whatever decision they want in the future, but when it comes to abandoning support for things (the mobile web site, sharing, text to speech, etc.) they really ought to check themselves before they wreck themselves. announce, get feedback, implement, evaluate please.

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Very glad that they listened and rolled this feature back, but I am concerned it and other features I use everyday could disappear in future. The shared note features is one of my primary reasons for using Evernote and I had hoped to expand this to notebooks of my training content.

 

But now I am hesitant to write the content in Evenote if I won't be able to share the notebook I am creating it in.

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Very glad that they listened and rolled this feature back, but I am concerned it and other features I use everyday could disappear in future. The shared note features is one of my primary reasons for using Evernote and I had hoped to expand this to notebooks of my training content.

 

But now I am hesitant to write the content in Evenote if I won't be able to share the notebook I am creating it in.

 

Yep. This is precisely the problem with Evernote's approach. They have never identified what are "core" features that they will keep and "experimental" ones that may or may not stay in the service. Publicly shared notebooks are one of their oldest features, and if that can be abandoned any moment, just like the mobile site (also old, and also dropped without notice), then is Evernote willing to commit to anything?

 

The service aims to stay around for 100 years, but if they cannot commit to features, I don't see how this app will be feasible for users over the long term. My complaint here isn't about what is or is not in the app (I have complaints about that elsewhere), but about their unwillingness to pbulicly commit, notify users in advance of changes, and respect the fact that people are organizing their lives around the wonderful features that developers have created.

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Very glad that they listened and rolled this feature back, but I am concerned it and other features I use everyday could disappear in future. The shared note features is one of my primary reasons for using Evernote and I had hoped to expand this to notebooks of my training content.

 

But now I am hesitant to write the content in Evenote if I won't be able to share the notebook I am creating it in.

 

Exactly. The damage is done and I don't trust them anymore. Especially given that they are rolling it back temporarily until they decide to take it away again. Are we supposed to invest our time in creating content for a public notebook just to have them take it away again?  I get the impression that the rolling back may have been just to appease us for a while, in that "this will shut them up for a little while and then we will just announce it before taking it away again next month, or within a year, or next year..."  Or maybe they will switch that feature over to the business accounts, which amounts to the same thing, really.

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Very glad that they listened and rolled this feature back, but I am concerned it and other features I use everyday could disappear in future. The shared note features is one of my primary reasons for using Evernote and I had hoped to expand this to notebooks of my training content.

 

But now I am hesitant to write the content in Evenote if I won't be able to share the notebook I am creating it in.

 

Exactly. The damage is done and I don't trust them anymore. Especially given that they are rolling it back temporarily until they decide to take it away again. Are we supposed to invest our time in creating content for a public notebook just to have them take it away again?  I get the impression that the rolling back may have been just to appease us for a while, in that "this will shut them up for a little while and then we will just announce it before taking it away again next month, or within a year, or next year..."  Or maybe they will switch that feature over to the business accounts, which amounts to the same thing, really.

 

 

Yep. I've had my public notebook for many years, and I have been a longtime advocate of public (and private) notebooks, especially in the classrom. I'm shutting mine down, and you'll notice (if you saw my posts before in the forum) that the link is gone from my signature.

https://www.evernote.com/pub/mayo-christopher/public

 

I'm not going to spend time (even the little bit that this public notebook entailed) working on a notebook if it might be abandoned any day. I certainly will not ever incorporate sharing into my syllabi again, because as a professional educator, I am unwilling to use tools that might disappear any day. I at least need them to stick around for the semester. I strongly recommend that other educators (many of whom were probably shocked at the beginning of the semester to see one of their tools disappear) consider backup options if they go through with using public notebooks.

 

As you can probably guess, I am pretty flummoxed by all of this. I don't think anyone is asking for a detailed roadmap of future developments at Evernote, but just a few commitments to existing features and a reconsideration of how they go about making radical changes to the service. Unfortunately, I see the way this occurred as part of a longstanding pattern of inadequately notifying users. I really hope they change their approach and consider the 100 million plus lives that are affected every time they do something.

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Grumpymonkey, I checked out your public notebook and it made me want to cry.  It is so so sad that someone who has invested in technology in the classroom the way you have has to fold it all. Shame on Evernote. Who in the hell was sitting in that conference room and thought it was a good idea to take away this feature just like that? Shame on them.

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Brief update on this. First off, I want to thank everyone for the responses thus far--we've been evaluating them as they've been rolling in. As noted above, this was done as part of a more thorough set of changes we're making with the shared notebooks experience. We've decided to roll back this change for now, and you should see this reinstated in next week's web release. Again, want to thank everyone for the continued feedback and keep it coming.

 

Since the public notebook feature was the actual reason why I signed up to use Evernote in the first place, removing this feature in the future would make me stop using it. Please keep it. Add security/confidentiality warnings if you must, but please keep it !

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Thanks Evernote for bringing back public notebooks quicker than expected. Sorted now for both Windows desktop and web versions. Your quick response to the outcry more than patches up things with me. Makes me feel that for any significant rollback in the future that users unanimously disagree on - both premium and free users will be heard. Awesome!

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Thanks Evernote for bringing back public notebooks quicker than expected. Sorted now for both Windows desktop and web versions. Your quick response to the outcry more than patches up things with me. Makes me feel that for any significant rollback in the future that users unanimously disagree on - both premium and free users will be heard. Awesome!

 

Frank123, I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but until Evernote publicly gives an estimate of how long this feature will be available (they brought it back "for now"), I can't use it.

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I hear you lisec.

 

It's a good first step though. The thing is that we want public notebooks back. There is no other better first step than this one. I mean, how quickly did they include it back in the new Windows revamp?... plus web version. If the lash back this time from users was enough to bring back the feature that fast, I'm sure users will have a greater case in the event of a recurrence. I do not use public notebooks for educational purposes, however, the biggest outcry came from educators far and wide, especially on Twitter. I think Evernote now realizes how essential this has been to so many people. 

 

Actually it seems a little more solid this time 'round, accessing the public notebooks options through its own "publish" section:

 

public%20notebooks.PNG?dl=0

 

It was mentioned that they wanted to really push the share feature for collaboration. It looks like through the above display they get to highlight that even better simply because it is now contrasted with the publish option. I think it's is a smart setup now. Someone did some scrambling and lateral thinking to come up with this beauty of an idea!

 

Another safety measure which might prolong anyone's use of pubic links, for if they ever do away with the public notebook feature (since the old public notebook links still functioned before)  would be to create some "standby" public notebook links which could be used at a later date when needed, since they would still be active. How many of them do we really need anyway? This should not have to be a workaround... I hope it wouldn't need to come to that, and neither is it the main point I'm trying to make... I'm just all for making do with what we have. I think it's all good from here on out either way :-)

 

As a side note. It never occurred to me before... but a possible alternative was still... and may still be in the future, the ability to publish a collection of public notes on the free postach.io blogging platform, which is also pushing hard in the educational field. Not the same, but a doable alternative for some. 

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Yes. I mentioned the postach.io option when the sharing was abandoned. On the surface, it looks like a nice solution. But, underneath, especially for educators who may (against my advice) be recording personal information about students in Evernote (test scores, homework, observations about progress, etc.), there is a big problem -- you'd be granting a third party unrestricted access to everything. The implications are quite serious ethically and legally. And, it almost goes without saying that a third party app(in beta, no less) could drop support for the feature any day without warning as well, so it is really not (in my opinion) a good solution.

There are a few issues at work here:

(1) Using a third-party app grants them unrestricted access to all of your notes -- financial records, medical records, diary, etc. (if you ignore my advice and keep them in there). There were rumors of an API change that would fix this, but I am not aware of any actual implementation.

(2) A publicly shared notebook is hosted by Evernote, which means it will be around (theoretically) as long as your account, so it is quite reliable (theoretically).

(3) A publicly shared notebook can be joined by others, which is a huge benefit, especially for educators.

(4) It isn't the removal of the feature that bothers me so much, even though I hate to see it go, but the method of doing so. This unannounced and sudden abandonment of features, even ones that appear to be core ones existing for many years, and rolling back of changes if it causes enough wailing and gnashing of teeth among users (called A/B testing by some, though the term is a little too broad in my opinion) is a loathsome pattern of behavior at Evernote (and some other services) that I think wreaks havoc with users. Personally, I am extremely unlikely to rely on a service in my professional life if it is run this way. It sounds like a harsh condemnation, I guess, but it ought to be taken as a recommendation to behave responsibly: announce and explain upcoming changes to existing features, gather feedback, evaluate it, implement changes (if there isn't a hue and cry), and evaluate the results. Is this so onerous an expectation?

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No, I don't think it's too onerous to ask. In fact, I think that if EN doesn't start being a lot more communicative with users, and vastly improve their Support department (for paying users, I mean), it's unlikely to survive another 5 years, nevermind 100!

(4) It isn't the removal of the feature that bothers me so much, even though I hate to see it go, but the method of doing so. This unannounced and sudden abandonment of features, even ones that appear to be core ones existing for many years, and rolling back of changes if it causes enough wailing and gnashing of teeth among users (called A/B testing by some, though the term is a little too broad in my opinion) is a loathsome pattern of behavior at Evernote (and some other services) that I think wreaks havoc with users. Personally, I am extremely unlikely to rely on a service in my professional life if it is run this way. It sounds like a harsh condemnation, I guess, but it ought to be taken as a recommendation to behave responsibly: announce and explain upcoming changes to existing features, gather feedback, evaluate it, implement changes (if there isn't a hue and cry), and evaluate the results. Is this so onerous an expectation?

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Thank you for returning this feature.  I understand security risks of sharing information in a public fashion and hope that this feature will not be going away.  If security is a concern, perhaps just one additional "Are you sure" message would suffice to give the user one last out before committing the share.  One can also be reminded that the share can be removed just as easily.  

This is a feature that is invaluable.

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What an excellent compromise idea! Kudos for proposing it. I hope EN seriously takes it under consideration.

If you think about the kerfuffle raised when the link behaviour changed earlier this years - *again wuthout notice* and explained only *after the fact and in response to complaints*... - where all links, unless specifically identified using the *correct* (and *not* rerribly obvious to new & green users) Note Link function to create *internal* Note Links "evernote://..." - were changed to automatically become full web addresses "http://..." because they behaved better 'out there in the wild' - the sudden change to Public Note Links for *security purposes,* makes little sense. At least in my opinion.

Thank you for returning this feature. I understand security risks of sharing information in a public fashion and hope that this feature will not be going away. If security is a concern, perhaps just one additional "Are you sure" message would suffice to give the user one last out before committing the share. One can also be reminded that the share can be removed just as easily.

This is a feature that is invaluable.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...

So this feature has been revoked again? For good?

 

Afrodiva, as far as I can tell, you can still share a PERSONAL notebook using a public link by right-clicking and hitting the "publish" button, as Scott said. However, I haven't been able to find a way to create a public link to a BUSINESS notebook. I'm hoping I'm wrong though.  :)

 

If anyone has found a way to create a public link to a business notebook please share. Thanks! 

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  • 2 months later...

What is going on ?  I NEED to share one of my notebooks publicly that i've spent years researching.  This is very important to me.  How can I do that now?  I see no right click mechanism.  Please tell me how to get my notebook "back"  How can you just take away a key feature from users?  Is this China?

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What is going on ?  I NEED to share one of my notebooks publicly that i've spent years researching.  This is very important to me.  How can I do that now?  I see no right click mechanism.  Please tell me how to get my notebook "back"  How can you just take away a key feature from users?  Is this China?

 

What app are you using? The Windows 5.8 client has a SHARE menu off of the right-click menu for notebooks.

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  • 4 weeks later...

FYI: I can still get to the notebook URL on the web interface, but having to go there just to get it is still not very user-friendly.

 

I do hope Evernote will back off from this idea - I am a paying power-user and not having public URLs for my notebooks and notes would be a major game-changer.

 

And, getting to the public Notebook URL from within Evernote should be made possible (or at least be made more obvious, like on the web interface).

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It was reinstated a couple days afters they they pulled it. According to the below linked Article from the EN Knowledge Base, last updated on Feb. 17, 2015, it's now done through the Chat Feature.

https://evernote.com/contact/support/kb/#!/article/24973036/

I would suggest you create a new Notebook called, "My Public Notes & Links," or similar, then create and add Notes with any Link(s) you want to share publicly. This would give you the added benefit of being able to Title & Tag each Note, as well as provide a short blurb explaining what each Link in the Note is regarding.

FYI: I can still get to the notebook URL on the web interface, but having to go there just to get it is still not very user-friendly.

I do hope Evernote will back off from this idea - I am a paying power-user and not having public URLs for my notebooks and notes would be a major game-changer.

And, getting to the public Notebook URL from within Evernote should be made possible (or at least be made more obvious, like on the web interface).

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It was reinstated a couple days afters they they pulled it. According to the below linked Article from the EN Knowledge Base, last updated on Feb. 17, 2015, it's now done through the Chat Feature.

https://evernote.com/contact/support/kb/#!/article/24973036/

I would suggest you create a new Notebook called, "My Public Notes & Links," or similar, then create and add Notes with any Link(s) you want to share publicly. This would give you the added benefit of being able to Title & Tag each Note, as well as provide a short blurb explaining what each Link in the Note is regarding.

 

Yes, I've seen and found that much. But the problem is, the chat "feature" forces me to place an email address there and send some peculiar message I am not interested in. All I wanted to do is copy the public URL of the notebook to my clipboard, but doing that one simple thing does not seem possible with this "chat" interface. Instead, I had to go to the web interface to get a copy of the URL.

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  • 2 weeks later...

For those that might still not be able to share a notebook publicly, make sure that you choose "Publish" instead of "Share" when right-clicking on a notebook. When you go through "Publish" it does not ask you about the emails of the people to share it with.

 

Thanks Evernote for not removing this feature. It's a convenient alternative to an online blogging service.

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  • 5 months later...

I'm having trouble getting the public URLs for existing public notebooks and found this thread  - I actually had no idea this has been an ongoing battle since the thread was started in Aug 2014.   As a fellow educator (@GrumpyMonkey, I appreciate all your shares), it not only makes me sad, it makes me sad to listen to all the reactions around the removal of this feature - I feel for each and every one of you.   I'm wondering in Sept 2015, has this menu item been removed again?  I no longer see "Publish" in the right-click menu...where are we supposed to copy the URLs of existing public notebooks?

 

I have to admit, this is the kind of turmoil around a feature makes me question Evernote's commitment as well.   I have no issues with a zillion changes to the UI - as long as the underlying use case to enable Evernote users to share knowledge publicly without the use of emails and/or logins is preserved.  I could care less if I had a "publish public notebook" option through Work Chat - awkward, yes, functional, we'll live.

 

We collect, gather, and collaborate knowledge with an intent to share at some point in our lives - it is only natural as you become a subject matter expert, that at some point you will feel comfortable "going public" and make a broader impact.   This is the fundamental nature of contribution and if you take a moment to think about it, public notebooks constitute how our Evernote community, as a whole, contributes to the world - it is our way of making a mark in the world as a community!   Public notebooks enable our Evernote community to make a difference with just about any person on the planet who has access to the net and public content feasibly makes an impact well beyond the lifetime of account users.   This is the nature of the Internet, hardly a new concept.

 

Now I realize there is a need for people to keep notes private - I have plenty :)   I just believe every Evernote user has the right to share publicly.   To deny this right feels like the wrong direction and to be quite frank, a loss of freedom.

 

I do think Postach.io was a step in the right direction and now that the offering is no longer freemium, we've limited the ability to share our notes yet again.  I always thought Evernote should have acquired and integrated Postach.io to replace its dated public notebook interface in some way.   Something that has always been superior about the public notebook interface is how it handled note links between notes in the same notebook not to mention its search interface.

 

Thanks @GrumpyMonkey for sharing your public notebook - you are an inspiration indeed.   Here is a public notebook I built for an intentional dance community that is dear to my heart - it contains a guide written in 2011 that was put in the Creative Commons:

 

https://www.evernote.com/pub/chinarut/dancelabs-executivebinder#st=p&n=8945e4d6-14e3-4848-a1a3-9985d93c72a7

 

It make me sad the blood sweat & tears of countless volunteers over the course of over 14 years may not live publicly through Evernote's channels.   Sure, we have published to a variety of other channels like wikis and social networks - Evernote just happens to be a tool that makes the job of a community historian a near zero effort.

 

So I'm going to step off my soapbox...if you are someone who has a public notebook you feel quite passionate about, make yourself be heard.   Post the link to a public notebook (yours or perhaps even someone else's) - help us understand the impact you feel it being public makes and why Evernote is the perfect tool for the job!

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I'm having trouble getting the public URLs for existing public notebooks and found this thread  - I actually had no idea this has been an ongoing battle since the thread was started in Aug 2014...

Hi. Thanks so much for the kind words. I think you can find the public urls, but they are not published in any central location, so it is hit or miss / invited or not invited. I don't think Google indexes any of the content either. That's too bad because, as you said, there is tremendous potential here. One could also argue that the additional advertisement opportunities would add to Evernote's bottom line.

Unfortunately, though, Evernote at one point suddenly (no warning) removed the ability to make notebooks public (for free users -- they later brought it back) and has not done as much as they could have with the existing public notebooks -- in fact, it seems to me that the "hidden" nature of the sharing makes it unlikely they'll be used much from here on out, and they will continue to look like an "unpopular" feature. I consider them an insufficiently developed one. They're almost there, but like some other things, not quite...

The shared notebook you linked to for us, along with some of the many others I found and created an index for, show how exciting this could be. One of my favorite use-cases is the one for students who can handwrite notes, photograph their notes and/or the blackboard, and then share the notebooks with one another (similar to what I wrote about on my blog).

http://www.christopher-mayo.com/?p=1724

Think how great it would be for many students to be sharing their notes and comments on the lessons with one another every day. It would be a resource for them all to build upon in the future as well. Five or ten years down the line, the content they learned would still be surfacing again and again in searches or related notes. Alas! It isn't going to happen.

But, it could. I would really like to see extremely private notes (zero-knowledge encrypted notebooks) and extremely public ones (shared notebooks that not just 100, but millions or billions of folks could join) living together in an account with appropriate firewalls between them (right now, the mess of shared tags, notebooks, and unintended sharing is far from ideal). Third-party apps can do some of these things, but in the end, you have to share 100% of your content with third-party developers before you can do anything. Without any control over what they can and cannot see, and without extensive encryption, it is tough to recommend using any third-party apps with educators who handle personal data on students.

Anyhow, the potential is out there, and we are all hoping Evernote will re-consider some of their development decisions. We have 92 or so years to go with the company, so there is still some time :)

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On Windows: after right clicking on a notebook... instead of hitting "Share Notebook", you select "Modify Sharing"... and you get:

 

Sharing%20notebooks.png?dl=1

 

Hit the "Publish" button.

 

@chinarut, here's my contribution to humanity with a couple of my own shared notebooks:

 

anylineyouwant.blogspot.com - That site links to shared notebooks containing TV series subtitle files...

 

Another one - for the searching of OCRed text in Golden age (public domain) comic books:

 

https://www.evernote.com/pub/frankman777/daredevilcomics

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  • 5 months later...
  • 8 months later...

My opinion is that I, as an administrator, feel better knowing that only those on the email list I created for a notebook can view (edit) and cannot pass on the link to others I don't wish to unless I select edit+share.  

so long as when I remove someone from the list they are blocked from accessing a given notebook. 

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  • 1 month later...

This is quite ludicrous. The response "the world is moving this way" may be right, but to remove a remove without notice  and dispute everyone's use of the product is exactly why I don't touch Apple.

I did try , once before to get my family to get Evernote accounts, and then had real trouble with concurrent updates of a note. So they don't want to do that any more. It is a barrier to use to require everyone I want to share a note with to get an Evernote account.

I want to use Evernote to record everything I want and then, share it with people in whatever way I see fit. The security of a public note is something I can determine.

 

Please put this feature back in or I will move to another solution.

 

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  • Level 5*
7 hours ago, AndyMarden said:

This is quite ludicrous.

I don't know what your exact issue is

On my Mac, I can publish a notebook (create a public link) and share it
My preference is to share a table-of-contents note, so the linking is done at the note level

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1 minute ago, AndyMarden said:

On Android, we have "Copy Note Link " now. It asks for an Evernote login from anyone accessing it. As this thread seems to suggest, public links seen to be demised.

My experience with public notebook links is that the user is given two options

  1. Install Evernote and log in as a user
  2. View notebook in a browser

 

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12 minutes ago, AndyMarden said:

I just want to share a single note as public to anyone who has the link  This thread send to suggest it has changed and not possible any longer.

I can share single notes as public linksScreen Shot 2016-12-12 at 9.47.34 AM.png

On my Mac, I right click on the note and get this menu

 

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I think I have it - DTLow you pointed me in the right direction. The "Copy Note Link" does not allow public access, but under More Sharing, Android does not have "Copy Public Link" but has "Post a Link" which then gives "Copy URL". That then is a public link.

So 10/10 for functionality still being there there but 0/10 for clarity of menu options and 0/10 for consistency between platforms. Who  would have thought that "Copy URL"  and "Copy Note Link" would do different things?!

Thanks again for pointing mebin that direction.

 

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  • 4 months later...
14 minutes ago, mypointofview said:

As far as I understand, sharing a notebook with a public link was reinstated. However, I cannot find this feature on my iPad. I want to share a notebook with a public link. How can I do this?

–martin

If you go to the notebook in the app, next to the notebook name at the top, you should see 3 dots. Tap that and the share option appears. 

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I have tried the 3 dots but don't see an opportunity to get a public link. Only sharing through email is provided. I need an unlisted public URL for the complete notebook that I can hand out. I can generate and customize such link on the desktop version of Evernote, but not on iOS. Am I missing something?

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Just checked on my iPhone, should be similar on iPad. While viewing a note, you should see a share icon (box with upward arrow). Tap that share icon and in the bottom row of icons (black and white) you'll see "Copy Link". Once you tap Copy Link you'll be given the option to copy a private or public link. 

 

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  • 2 months later...
On 12/12/2016 at 5:29 PM, DTLow said:

My experience with public notebook links is that the user is given two options

  1. Install Evernote and log in as a user
  2. View notebook in a browser

 

The user now appears to be only given the option of logging in with google account or joining evernote.  Is there any way in which to just send the link publicly without the recipient needing to create an account with evernote or log in via google?  This looks like a disincentive to people using public links. 

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21 hours ago, Jimble said:

Is there any way in which to just send the link publicly without the recipient needing to create an account with evernote or log in via google?

You can share notes at the note level

For example:  https://www.evernote.com/shard/s738/sh/82b2d905-365e-4f26-8838-7ad4a07d5468/8a606c0c0e1ed497

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  • 4 weeks later...

It is COMPLETELY unacceptable that Evernote would make such a decision without providing some warning to its clients. I have spent several years curating multiple (more than 50) public folders that I share with my clients and students - literally tens of thousands of people - having to invite them one at a time is just not practical - I acknowledge that security issues are a concern, but surely there is a way to resolve those issues without discontinuing publicly shared folders. I have spent a great deal of time promoting the power and simplicity of Evernote to anyone who will listen - apparently I will have to find a service to replace Evernote. I am one VERY UNHAPPY customer. 

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  • 3 years later...

I would like to be the grave digger that resuscitate this topic.
it seems that Notebook Publishing is now gone from the new Evernote for Mac and Windows as well as IOS.
I had to use the old version to be able to make a Notebook public.
Now I found out that Evernote is only mentioned Publishing Notebook for Business Users only as one of their next feature.
Are they planning to kill the features for us??

I tried publishing a notebook with lots of notes and it worked but the rendering for long list is full of bugs on Edge, Chrome, Safari and doesn't display well anymore.

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