Highlight Colour Changes from Mac to iOS

[supes73 1]

I've been using Evernote for the past month and one of the issues that bothers me is the inconsistent highlight colour.

 

When using Evernote for Mac it is a light yellow colour, but if I open a note on an iPhone or iPad that had highlighted text, the highlight colour changes to a darker yellow.

 

This would be fine if the highlight colour stayed device specific, but it doesn't. If I later open the same note again on a Mac, the highlight for that note stays the dark yellow colour, instead of being light yellow as it should be on the Mac. 

 

It's not a major issue, just annoying really. 

[jefito 5,589]

That could just mean highlight color may be a property of the Evernote client, and not encoded directly in the note. Or it may mean that colors are different on the two devices in general.

 

OK, so I did do a test on the Windows client, and it does embed a highlight color in the note:

<span style="background-color:rgb(255, 250, 165);-evernote-highlight:true;">

I can't verify any of this on either the Mac or any iOS devices, as I use neither. Maybe the iOS device doesn't pick up the color:rgb value or something like that.

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

@supes73:   I agree, it is annoying, and it's not necessary.

 

IMO, this is just sloppy design/coding.  Highlighting I make using other tools shows the same on both Mac and iOS, in Evernote as well as other Apps.  There is NO good reason, except poor coordination, for the EN Mac and EN iOS highlight color to be different.

The best solution is to let the highlight color (and default) be user selectable.  This is how most apps handle it.

[supes73 1]

That could just mean highlight color may be a property of the Evernote client, and not encoded directly in the note. Or it may mean that colors are different on the two devices in general.

 

OK, so I did do a test on the Windows client, and it does embed a highlight color in the note:

<span style="background-color:rgb(255, 250, 165);-evernote-highlight:true;">

I can't verify any of this on either the Mac or any iOS devices, as I use neither. Maybe the iOS device doesn't pick up the color:rgb value or something like that.

 

That's interesting. It could be the case then that iOS embeds a highlight colour in the note, but the Mac version doesn't.

[supes73 1]

@supes73:   I agree, it is annoying, and it's not necessary.

 

IMO, this is just sloppy design/coding.  Highlighting I make using other tools shows the same on both Mac and iOS, in Evernote as well as other Apps.  There is NO good reason, except poor coordination, for the EN Mac and EN iOS highlight color to be different.

The best solution is to let the highlight color (and default) be user selectable.  This is how most apps handle it.

 

The fact that Evernote only allows one highlight colour, you would have assumed they would have selected the exact same colour for all the clients, instead of letting someone choose slightly different colours. Just a lack of consistency.

[jefito 5,589]

 

That could just mean highlight color may be a property of the Evernote client, and not encoded directly in the note. Or it may mean that colors are different on the two devices in general.

 

OK, so I did do a test on the Windows client, and it does embed a highlight color in the note:

<span style="background-color:rgb(255, 250, 165);-evernote-highlight:true;">

I can't verify any of this on either the Mac or any iOS devices, as I use neither. Maybe the iOS device doesn't pick up the color:rgb value or something like that.

 

That's interesting. It could be the case then that iOS embeds a highlight colour in the note, but the Mac version doesn't.

 

Correct. We don't know for sure, so my hint would be for someone with Mac and iOS devices available to them to test out the conjectures, rather than making assumptions about how things work (or don't).

 

For example, here's what I did with the Windows and Android devices available to me: took the note with highlighted text that I had previously exported to ENEX format, pulled it up in a text editor, and changed the highlight color element to a light blue: 

<span style="background-color:rgb(165, 250, 255);-evernote-highlight:true;">

Then I imported the note back into Evernote, and verified that the highlight color in the note did change in the Windows client.

Then I synced, and checked it on my Android client, and verified that it changed to light blue there, as well.

 

Whether it's the same shade of light blue, I can't tell, but I'll wager that there are difference in the way that the same color looks on the two separate devices.

 

Exercise left for the Mac/iOS readers out there.

[forgottenboy 2]

I can verify that the iOS app is overwriting the highlight color in the note. MacOS inserts #fffaa5 and iOS changes it to #ffcc66. Here's the example I used: 

 

 

The color values are not even close, shown here as larger swatches both saturated and desaturated to compare contrast: 

 

To me this is *super* annoying, especially because it's totally unnecessary. Evernote's mobile and desktop teams need to communicate better. Consistency of customer notes should always take priority. 

 

Here's the code that changes: 

Original MacOS<span style="background-color: #fffaa5; -evernote-highlight: true;" data-mce-style="background-color: #fffaa5; -evernote-highlight: true;">followup</span>after opening in iOS<span style="background-color: #ffcc66; -evernote-highlight: true;" data-mce-style="background-color: #ffcc66; -evernote-highlight: true;">followup</span>

Was kind of happy to find this topic since it means I'm not crazy!

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

Evernote's mobile and desktop teams need to communicate better. Consistency of customer notes should always take priority. 

 

Exactly!