Evernote for Mac v6.0 and v6.0.1

[SoftwareMarcus 388]

Today we released version 6.0 for the Mac App Store and 6.0.1 for direct download customers.

 

First off, Mac App Store customers are going to get all of the really cool benefits and features that direct download customers have had for a month.  This means faster sync, improved note editing with resizable tables and images, work chat, presence, context where one can see content related to their notes, and great new presentation mode features.

 

The other huge update is a sleek new Yosemite look for Evernote.  We previewed some of this at the Evernote Conference last month.  This means we’ve taken out the black side bar and changed it to the cool translucent Yosemite look and feel, took out all of the textures and big icons and switched them to clean and simple designs and in addition everything has higher contrast and is easier to read.  Overall the word “clean” comes to mind when you see the new design.  I really like it and we hope you do to.

 

We also continue to fix issues and improve existing features.

 

Work Chat Improvements

• We now have pop-ups and some visuals to educate customers about work chat.
  
• Fixed a number of bugs with the chat window and continue to polish the look.
  
• Added support for sharing notebooks via work chat.
  

Bug Fixes

• Improved handling of really long URLs which used to make the note extend off the screen.
  
• Lots of other miscellaneous bug fixes
  

 

Why is the Mac App Store version different?

• We had to submit the Mac App Store version of Evernote to Apple some time ago for their review and approval so we could release it today.
  
• The direct download version includes the changes we've made in the last week.
  
• We'll submit 6.0.2 to Apple today for release next week.
  

 

As always, please post feedback to this new release on this thread to make it easier for me to spot issues.  Also state whether you’re using the Mac App Store version or the Direct Download Version since they are different.

 

You can also download the software at: http://bit.ly/14SxwPz

[JeanVis 5]

I really REALLY don't understand why the Evernote green has totally disappeared. Even the new beta of the web version of Evernote still has the green, why on earth did you turn to blue in the mac version? This totally beats me.

 

Suggestion: just turn all that is blue now into "Evernote green", and it would be a nice update for me. However, the way it is now is very alien to me. The pleasure of using it has largely diminished. I know this may sound weird to some who prefer function above aesthetics - luckily we are not all the same. To me aesthetics is an important part of the user experience.

[wrobertdavis 7]

Regarding contrast

This is our highest contrast release ever. We've had this app reviewed by text accessibility experts. This was done for our users who have complained about legibility (including you JM ) 

 

Were all of the text accessibility experts under 40 (no need for reading glasses)?

[SoftwareMarcus 388]

 

My main concern is the hiding of "All Notes".  Just a few versions back, this was an (optional) button on the toolbar.

IMO, it should be on the toolbar and always prominent.  Otherwise it is too easy to get confused about what Notebook, tag filter, and/or search is active.  The "All Notes" button allow us to quickly make sure that, well, all notes are being shown.

 

Got it.  Let me give that more thought.  

 

While I'm talking about toolbars, can you explain why EN Win has a user-configurable toolbar, but EN Mac does not?  Configuring toolbars has been a long-standing feature of the Mac -- almost all apps support this.

 

 

Well the simple answer is that it's entirely different code so what is available in Windows is unrelated to what is in Mac and vice-a-versa but I think your more important point is why doesn't the Mac team make it a priority to add a customizable toolbar.  Quite honestly I don't know the specific answer for Evernote because I just joined but I do have some experience with this at Microsoft.  For Word, Excel and PowerPoint we had crazy levels of customization with every single menu item as part of the toolbox to add and customize on a toolbar.  As a software developer it's extremely difficult and time consuming to maintain and test.  If you add a new feature then you have to add a new customizable button and then you have to test it.  If you change a feature you have to go back and fix all of the buttons related to this feature.  If you change the look of your icons, you have to change all of the millions of icons in all of these custom toolbars.  At Office even with all of the resources we had, we couldn't test all of these custom buttons for every release.  This wouldn't be bad if people used them but the vast majority of people don't.  Most don't even know the feature exists.  It's a lot of work for a really really small percentage of people.

 

For Evernote I think we should have a discussion about what level of customization customers want and I think the answers will vary?  For some they just want a Print button or they want to remove the Work Chat button or they want to add Strikethrough.  For others they want a way to prioritize features that we de-prioritize.  For example, you may want the All Notes button but for others it might be Email Note.  It's kind of a slippery slope.  My guess is we would all like to say we are talking about a handful of features but I think in the end we would quickly end up realizing that everyone's needs are different and that people end up wanting every feature.  And if we are indeed talking about strikethrough and Work Chat then we might also be talking about 2 different toolbars.  Supporting every single menu item and multiple customizable toolbars gives me nightmares.  It's also a trade off thing.  Do we spend our limited resources on features like speeding up sync that everyone will benefit from or on building a customizable toolbar for a select group of customers.   Now you could argue and I would agree that the people who customize a toolbar are hard core Evernote users and we should support them but there are also high costs that come with the feature.  

 

In any case, I'm open to a discussion but I wanted to provide some perspective from my experience.

[sarahb 3]

I made an account just so I could add my voice as I feel very strongly on this - I just downloaded the new version and sad to see there is no contrast between sections, so is uncomfortable to use and look at for even a short period. I'm a UI designer myself, and just can't understand the reasoning for making everything white/very light grey, there's no visual hierarchy as it all just blurs into each other, and it is so painfully bright! Even the line between sections is barely noticeable! Please, please make the sidebar bg darker at the very least.

[Roger Worden 11]

For those of you that would like to see higher contrast or more legibility can you tell me specifically in what parts of the app?  It doesn't help me if you say the entire app.  

 

1) Are we in agreement that the actual note has enough contrast since it's on a white background?

2) List View?  I'm hearing a lot of discussion about list view.  It sounds like it's difficult to read the text on the banding (and I'm guessing a lot of this depends on one's desktop background).  I personally don't have an issue here but I understand the point.

3) What about snippet view?

 

Anyway, it would be helpful and more constructive to provide specific areas of the product you think we should continue to refine vs having larger arguments over transparency.  The sidebar of Evernote will be transparent.  This is not negotiable because this is by definition a part of the Yosemite design aesthetic.  

 

The bottom line is I agree with the sentiment that we should build a product that works for all of our users so help me provide our design team with specific details to work with.   I'm not sure we're going to satisfy everyone but I think we may be able to make things better for some.

 

P.S. It's kind of funny because on Twitter the new design is getting generally great reviews maybe because one can't write too much  .

See the attached screen snippet. I've pointed to several visual cues that used to help the user get oriented and quickly find things. All of these cues have either gone white or have been reduced to thin gray lines that are hard to see without searching.

1. The currently selected note was highlighted.

2. The Evernote window was distinguished from the Mac desktop background.

3. The document panel was distinguished from the note list panel.

4. The note frame was distinguished from the note.

 

All of these and other UI elements help the user work quickly and easily in the app. The new UI makes all the data elements blend into each other. Plus it's just too white, leading to eyestrain.

[ScottLougheed 1,316]

 

It's not that obvious to my eyes.... 

 

And how old are you, Scott?  

 

I have no doubt that different people will view this differently.

 

The question is:  Why do ANYTHING that reduces readability for a significant number of your users?

 

First, a more relevant question would be "how good are your eyes". The answer is that they are not perfect. 

 

Second, we are talking about detecting the relative difference between two things. Relative differences should be detectable regardless of visual acuity (except perhaps for profound impairment). If we were comparing your ability to read finder text and my ability to read finder text, then visual acuity would matter, but that is not what we are discussing. Moreover, we are talking about a difference that you can detect but that I, (the purportedly young, perfectly eye-sighted whipper-snapper) have failed to detect. That is you can see a difference in contrast between Evernote and Finder, and I am unable to detect this difference. 

Shouldn't a failure to discern a difference in contract imply poorer vision? Shouldn't it suggest that I have less visual acuity? 

 

Either discerning the relative difference in contrast between Evernote and Finder is not related to visual acuity, or there is no difference in contrast. If there was a difference in contrast, wouldn't the individual with superior vision be more likely to notice than the person with less visual acuity?

Of course the alternative is that you actually have better eyes than I. But I'm younger than you, so that couldn't possibly be true, could it? 

 

(This post was largely meant to be lighthearted, not nasty, but you know, the whole text thing doesn't always convey that too well. Also, this post is really getting to the point of splitting hairs.... I'm just on my downtime and happy for some banter because in reality, whether it has higher or lower contrast than Finder is totally irrelevant, since usability is ultimately what matters, and it is questionable whether Finder is terribly "usable" from a visual standpoint!)

[CatOne 30]

 

The bands have a very slight transparency so you see the background bleed through a little.  

 

By the way, I'm older, have bifocals and the text looks sharp and easy to read to me but I think this kind of thing is very subjective.

 

 

What is the point of transparency????

If it reduces the readability by any amount, then it should NOT be used.

Do you really want to argue that being cool is better than being able to clearly read???

 

Because it's the standard set by OS X Yosemite? I like the transparency. I have it turned on. Apps in Yosemite that don't use it stick out like a sore thumb. I did not at all like Evernote 5's black sidebar.

 

If you don't like transparency, turn it off at the OS level (in accessibility). But Evernote should behave like other "well behaved" OS X applications, which includes using transparency as standard, and following the OS settings. You're really arguing that Evernote should take a stand against transparency and specifically block it in their app only?

[JMichaelTX 4,108]

Marcus, thank you for you considered response.  I'll give you and your team more time before providing any further feedback.

Again, I can't say enough how much it means to me, and I think many others, for your candor and willingness to consider our suggestions.  It is very refreshing.

[frogwell 17]

I'm one of those who find this new interface plain terrible to look at. There is so little contrast among different zones that just doesn't make any sense to me. If it's a Yosemite thing, then at least do it like iTunes/Mail/any of those native Apple apps: darker background for the side bar & give active item a darker background, please (see attached images).  I like Yosemite just fine, but I don't find "Yosemite style =  everything blend together into a giant blur". Also I personally find the translucency thing poorly implemented. The argument of "putting something dark in the background to increase contrast" sounds ridiculous. What about full-screen mode?
 
Evernote vs iTunes side menu comparison:

 
 
 
 
And another thing I don't understand is why do the menu icons (Notes/Notebooks/Tags) on the left become so tiny? Actually I don't find the new icons aesthetically pleasing or functional at all. I don't think "clean design = tiny icons with extremely thin outlines and no fill colors whatsoever." Please see the attached images (side by side comparison of Evernote & iTunes) and note the differences between the current Evernote style and the Apple Yosemite style. Apple native apps have icons that are big enough to be seen & clicked without squinting, and active items have distinct darker background that's actually functional at indicating their status. Other apps like Pages also exhibit much better usability than the current Evernote regarding icon/button styles.
 
 
Evernote vs iTunes icons/buttons comparison (left: Evernote; right: iTunes):
https://www.evernote.com/shard/s68/sh/2d17bf45-fa11-4f8e-8b9b-4f54abf6bf60/4f89676648e70c8b/res/13560a5e-839c-498c-8ead-3e5f7f618dfa/Screen%20Shot%202014-11-24%20at%2012.38.54%20AM.png?resizeSmall&width=832α=
 
Pages: https://www.evernote.com/shard/s68/sh/2d17bf45-fa11-4f8e-8b9b-4f54abf6bf60/4f89676648e70c8b/res/c3fe539e-5112-4ec6-9073-03ffcaaa6d3b/F0D3CC91-ADD7-4946-88EE-26233000397D.png?resizeSmall&width=832

[Limegreen 8]

 

I'm running Evernote 6.0 on Yosemite and it's virtually unsuable!

 

Navigation is unbearably slow. Click up or down arrow and the program waits nearly 2 seconds before the key click is registered on screen. Typing is the same - Start typing and it's nearly 2 SECONDS until the characters start appearing in your note. The longer the pogram is open the worse it is but the issue is present even after a complete system restart.

 

We suspect that for some people the indexing takes a really long time.  This occurs in the background and is very computer intensive and could lead to slowness.  Please try leaving your computer on overnight to allow Evernote to finish indexing.  For some it might take a full day to fully finish.  After this Evernote will work faster than before.   Also there was a customer who rebooted his system after the indexing and that seemed to help.  Please keep in mind that most people are not running into this issue because they don't have the specific data that you have or there could be some sort of issue in your data that is causing the indexing to take longer than normal.  The forums make it sound like everyone is having the same issues and this is not true because the millions of people who have upgraded with no issues don't have a reason to come to the forums so you don't hear of an alternative view.  Please write back to this forum after a few days of indexing to let us know if this did or didn't fix the issue.  If it's not the indexing issue then we want to figure out a solution.

 

 

Hi Marcus,

Thanks for the reply. I've been having the issue that scrolling is no longer smooth like it was in 5.7. Do you think that might be an indexing problem? I have around 400 notes, mostly text but some images and pdfs. I don't think it would be that heavy. I'm running on a 2013 MBA, using the App Store version. It doesn't matter if it's a notebook with five notes, it's still a little 'laggy', so I don't think it's the performance of the machine that is the problem. 

 

I've tried to delete the Evernote app and the Evernote content in Library so that it had to resync everything from the cloud, it didn't change anything however. Is this a known issue or am I alone in this? 

[Rob Parker 17]

Dear Evernote Developers

 

I'll put my hand up and make a point about e-mail, then about UI, as this is the place to do it right?

 

==================

For a lot of people that have not discovered Evernote, they use e-mail as a sort of 'crude Evernote'. They refer to their e-mail to refer to information that others have e-mail to them, they have e-mailed to themselves, refer to pictures, dates, appointments, research, diagrams, links from past communications. It could even be argued that Evernote is a sort of E-mail 2.0, in the sense that Evernote is an evolution of E-mail in that it not only lets us send research and information to others, Evernote lets us 'send' and 'keep' information resources for ourselves. Anybody with an interest in computer networking would understand that the E-mail protocol (informally speaking) is one of the oldest and widespread protocols of the Web, and it is amazing that it actually continues to exist today, despite the various security threats and modern networking protocols that have developed in recent years. Having said that, the ubiquity of e-mail in the modern workplace and personal home space is truly global. I have rice farmer relatives in rural Philippines that do not own a computer, yet they possess (and use) an e-mail address. 

 

Do you see the point I am making? E-mail is -still- important.

 

To have a readily accessible button in Evernote to share an Evernote Note with someone that does not have Evernote provides a bridge to convey information to those that do not have Evernote. They do not have Evernote. They may never have Evernote. A lot of my clients do not have Evernote and I do not expect them to. 

 

Interesting to note, this is a two way street. Power users will note that they have a special 'Evernote E-mail Address' that they can e-mail notes to, and it will be added to their Evernote database automatically. So you can see that on some level, there is a two way mechanism that was designed into Evernote to both input, and to output information via the E-mail protocol.

 

I am sure that many (all) users see that removing the button to share a note by e-mail, and relegating it to an ostensibly hidden, (or hidden away) method seems to deprecate the above fact that Internet mail is still the protocol of choice for sharing information between people on the Internet. To replace that button with a proprietary network chat program has three effects.

 

1) It makes me waste time trying to find an essential feature which has been hidden away. It was there. Now it is gone.

2) I cannot customise the button I see so that I can put it back. So to recap, it was there. Now it is gone. I cannot put it back.

3) The two points above make me wonder what kind of hubris would make a company think that forcing me to use a proprietary chat program would be better than e-mail, which, face it, is a global standard.

 

Now, this is just e-mail. Jackalicious, thank you for clarifying that Evernote has "no plans to remove the email note feature".

 

However, the fact that "we have deprecated it", despite the above makes me pause and wonder about what kind of corporate direction has been given to the designers and coders, so that this change would be directed from on high. I would not be surprised if at Evernote Headquarters, everyone uses Evernote and thinks that a chat program is wonderful. Sure. If everyone is working in a large corporate environment (cubicle farm perhaps) where it is faster to bypass e-mail and talk to each other by Evernote ...

 

However, the rest of us -do not- live in Evernote land. Try as hard as you might, and as much as the CEO might like, you cannot force feed us changes like this.

 

This is a little change. Perhaps someone will reply, saying 'oh, nothing has changed, it is still there'. But it is little changes in course direction that make me wonder whether Evernote is arbitrarily deciding for their users, instead of listening to their users. 

 

UI - Readability - Grey Text on White

=====================================

 

Noting that later editions of version 5 have 'deprecated' the email note button, I suppose I should not have been surprised that more drastic directions were afoot. I should not have been surprised to find the UI had been drastically changed. My e-mail has exploded with criticism of the uncomfortable, grey on white, minimalist interface.

 

I have already gone on the record to say that I frankly, along with the (uncomfortably true) majority of posters (and a lot of them new posters that found their way here specifically to comment) have reacted, and then responded negatively to the new design from a readability standpoint.

 

I understand that criticism can be expressed diplomatically and constructively, or harshly and emotionally. The fact is however, criticism is criticism, and I hope that there is some deep discussion back at HQ about how to better incorporate the changes Evernote feels it wants to make, with the practical requests for readability, usability, legibility, and customisation (at least, to some extent) to show that however big Evernote might be in confidently trying to incorporate new features, it can still humbly listen to its users and accomodate, if not make the users, their priority.

 

I note that it has been said that there are budgetary considerations that prevent customisation. That makes me smile.

 

How hard can it be to provide a 'classic Evernote' color scheme that allows those that use the v5 look to keep doing so (in v6)?  (and keeps those who love 'new things' chugging along in their all grey and white world of v6)

 

How hard can it be to provide an 'accessibility option that makes headings larger and provides distinct zones of colour for the different areas of the screen'?

 

How hard can it be to provide a small amount of customisation for the buttons in various areas, such as in Omnifocus or Curio so I could decide whether I want my buttons on my notes to be either 'send by e-mail' or 'send by chat' or even none or both?

 

The resources needed to make the above possible ... hmmm ... do you really think that it would be better to spend those resources on adding sexy new features?

 

Ah yes, there are many many many things that have been going on 'under the hood' that us users do not know about and are not giving Evernote enough credit for.

 

... to which I say, if you bothered to re-write the entire program, or at least significant amounts of code for version 6, why could the above not have been done?

 

Nightstalker has made the point, I think, that towing the corporate line that the UI change to version 6 is because of Apple Yosemite, and 'we are not going back' (to paraphrase) is trying to shift the criticism towards Yosemite, and Apple (correct me if I misread that). I found it interesting that he, and others, have made the point that they are not averse to Yosemite necessarily, but that other apps like Curio seem to have managed to shift to Yosemite, retain their visual identity, update their UI, allow customisation, and still keep users happy.

 

It is not Yosemite, or Apple's fault if you make your UI the way it is, and people react adversely.

 

Version 6 could have been better than version 5. Many are saying it is great on review sites. Review sites are often marketed to those that are looking at a product for the first time. On this forum, you are getting power users that are specifically finding their way here to respond to the design changes. If anyone were to suggest we are an extraordinarily biased sample base is a bit simplistic to me, in fact, I would say that those people that find their way specifically to post here (as I am many are) would be paying premium users from a professional background that wish to dialogue with the Devs. Customers who would be especially suited as guinea pigs testing your software, and our criticism should count for something.

 

I would not raise this (at the risk of it sounding ego-driven) but I am a lawyer. I consider my real job role to be as a 'master of information'. Information flows in and out of my professional and personal workspace and my job is to efficiently, and comfortably organise, sort, process, share (by e-mail), draft, store, archive, edit, adjust, direct, cull, categorise, read, recognise text and picture and pdf information and deal with it. Point is, that is relevant to why I have loved to use Evernote. That is relevant to why I am making an impassioned request for you Evernote developers to listen, and listen hard. As a power user, I thought the later versions of version 5 were FANTASTIC. I have been in touch with an Evernote power user who is in the medical field and he is also a rational, considered person who has a similar view. Version 5 is/was great. Version 6 is ... unusable. Two professionals saying the same thing. But there is more.

 

I recognise I am not special. Take for instance, a coder. A student. An entrepreneur. A builder of websites, or buildings, of businesses, a teacher, a plumber, a carpenter, or even one of the most hardest working persons, a mother with kids. These would all be customers of Evernote that like me, can use Evernote to manage information in this day and age. How is it relevant to us that the new UI is harder to use, hides various features, does not allow customisation (Surely the above categories would have various and different priorities for customising preferred buttons here and there). How come the different ages of your users, some old, new young, not be catered for from a useability perspective in terms of making your UI easy to read. Version 5 surely was. Version 6 surely isn't. I am not even over the age of 30 and I find the new workspace difficult to comprehend compared to version 5. Why the 'one size fits all' approach?

 

Do you think that Mum would have a need for chat instead of e-mail? Get real.

 

Several users have posted screenshots showing how hard it is to comfortably visually delineate within the new grey on white workspace. How many users that 'like' the new UI have put up photos showing how much they like this or that icon? Criticism has been short and long, and many are detailed. Praise has been one or two lines here and there. 

 

I actually laughed out loud when someone said that twitter was largely positive about the new design. Twitter. Twitter was largely positive about the magazine spread of Kim Kardashian's 'newly' unveiled posterior. Fact is, people were getting excited about the unveiling of an ass. Perhaps unfair to say apropos, but some might in this case.

 

Being subscribed to this thread, my e-mail has exploded with responses that are scathing of the new UI. Sure there are teething problems, but those are expected when the engine is re-written. What is more tragic is that version 6 was supposed to be -better- then version 5, but many are complaining about the unreadability of the new UI.

 

Fact is, many, most of the responses here (myself included) think version 5 is better than version 6. Customers are taking active steps to revert. Customers are looking for alternatives.

 

I hope that at Evernote HQ, there is some deep thinking going on.

 

As another user 'Laooura'? (forgive me if misquoted) has said, I say myself: "I find myself paying money, and with every update - getting less features"

 

Customers are asking for more a easy to read, customisable, functional, interface. We had most of that with version 5. Version 5 didn't look too bad either. 

 

Having tried version 6, I reverted to version 5. Ironically, I felt like I had upgraded.

[NightStalker 407]

Well, now we're getting UI designers creating accounts just to air their voices about how bad this design is. Will that make Evernote actually listen?  Doubt it.

 

But to re-iterate the point made by Grumpy - if Evernote were to give us all the control we need to change the appearance, colours, skin, layout, and yes, the toolbar - then ALL of these complaints would disappear.

 

And we could concentrate on functionality, such as those who are reporting that notes take ages to appear, note titles disappear, notes are not editable, or worse still - notes getting apparently trashed, etc.  THOSE are the complaints that need to be addressed urgently - but are being swamped by the complaints about the UI and the complete lack of ability to change it or customize it.

[Socialwill 24]

Yesterday was excited to see what a new major release of Evernote would bring.   What would the new UI look like and would we start to see a merging of the new Evernote for the Web and the desktop?  Something with a minimal design and enhanced features?  Would we be able to customize the toolbar?

 

Alas NOPE...

 

What we have instead is just a new skin on the same Evernote.  

 

I have been trying and wanting to like Evernote more however the upgrades over the past year have been painful and isolated.  I have NO idea what Evernote does for product roadmaps or testing but something is wrong with their direction.  Just look at the public email/post they had to do with Penultimate and the new v6 mess.  The same is now being said of the core product.  Evernote is thinking "We have the answers!" and yet what people are saying is "No, what you have is a forced choice we do not like". Evernote, it feels like you guys live in a hole that is isolated from how the world works.  

 

What we have here is an AND/OR problem with how you make decisions. You are making decisions as if it is  Option A OR Option B and then you choose one.  However the world we live in is an AND world.  Give me BOTH options and let me choose what I want.  Give me the options to customize the toolbar and turn off context.  Start giving your customers choice and stop changing how you "feel" people should be working with your product.

 

I just started using Onenote for iOS and for Mac and while the functions are basic, they are adding stuff each month, the overall experience is pretty good.  I can not write notes or capture audio just yet but I would see that coming soon.  HOWEVER, the formatting of notes stays the same on desktop, phone, and tablet.  Try doing a table in Evernote and see how it squeezes the information on the display of an iPhone, not easy to read.

 

Anyway I would ask that you step back from whatever roadmap you have and realize people what choice and they want to have the program work the way they would like it do.

[NightStalker 407]

Excellent thoughts and points, Marcus - thank you.

 

One point from a complete non-programmer: if every function in a program has an associated button, then how hard is it to do a customizable toolbar? On almost every Mac app that I have and use, the principle of customizing the toolbars is the same.  It looks the same, it works the same way on all the apps. Right-click/Customise Toolbar - etc. It's even on Firefox that I'm using to read this forum. And the point is - Evernote USED to have it! But it was taken away.

 

Given that Evernote seem to be following Apple's dictates regarding things like translucency for Yosemite (!), why does the company seem so reluctant to follow what is virtually a Mac standard by having a configurable toolbar?  And even more to the point - although the code is different, the principle isn't, but the Windows version DOES have a configurable toolbar.

 

I appreciate your perspective, and I take your points from your experience of working the Microsoft Office apps. But I'd suggest that in Evernote, the list of options (to go under Preferences) and the list of functions (to go under Configure Toolbar) would be WAY less than the amazing number there are in the Office apps.

 

Good to hear you're open to discussion about it -maybe, just hopefully, this may progress to the point where Evernote seriously considers giving us back the customizing abilities - the more the merrier.  And as Grumpy pointed out on another thread, if we had the ability to customize most of everything from toolbars to colour schemes and fonts, then most of the complaints would simply disappear.  And everyone could then concentrate solely on matters of actual functionality. And that may make Grumpy less grumpy!

[NightStalker 407]

@AdamDWright - thanks for the very civil reply, and Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours also. The good spirit of these forums is alive and well - thank you

[jonteamere 2]

What in the world happened to 'classic' note links?! Note links within other apps now open EN web instead of opening the note with EN for Mac.

 

I also agree that the column headers should be changed; tone down the transparency.

[SoftwareMarcus 388]

 

The idea of presenting us with a list of proposed changes is excellent - why not do it before each major upgrade, and get feedback on them BEFORE you push out the upgrade and then cop a heap of complaints?

 

I'm open to more collaboration.  I'll give some thought as to how this might be possible but keep in mind that the forums represent one point of view.  It's not necessarily the point of view of all our customers even thought it might seem like it.  Like I mentioned before the twitterverse generally loves the new design.  Now it might be because they are a younger demographic but they are also Evernote users and should be part of the discussion.

 

Are you going to bring back your signature colour scheme of green and grey? Or are you going to stick with the completely bland, no-brand version with grey, grey, and more grey? 50 Shades of Grey, anyone? (Somebody had to say it!)

 

What about coloured icons, you know, like they used to be?

 

The simple answer is that we aren't going back.  We will continue to refine and improve the product but our previous design doesn't fit well with Apple's new design direction.  Many didn't like iOS7 when it shipped but I think most wouldn't want to go back because the old UI looks out of date.  If you use Yosemite everyday and use lots of apps, you'll eventually start to spot the apps that feel out of place because they have big 3D buttons and complex icons with lots of colors.  I'm not trying to convince you to like the new design but I think it grows on people.  There's an initial shock regarding change and then after repeated use it starts to feel comfortable.   It's funny because I think there was a big uproar regarding the black sidebar when Evernote shipped that design and many people expressed hatred for that look.  Now people want to bring it back.  Design is a curious thing.

[Stuhrer 251]

What in the world happened to 'classic' note links?! Note links within other apps now open EN web instead of opening the note with EN for Mac.

 

I also agree that the column headers should be changed; tone down the transparency.

 

This is a bug already known by Evernote. Here is a workaround: Click the Option button before right clicking on the note in the note list and "Copy Classic Note" will appear.

[NightStalker 407]

The simple answer is that we aren't going back.  We will continue to refine and improve the product but our previous design doesn't fit well with Apple's new design direction.  Many didn't like iOS7 when it shipped but I think most wouldn't want to go back because the old UI looks out of date.  If you use Yosemite everyday and use lots of apps, you'll eventually start to spot the apps that feel out of place because they have big 3D buttons and complex icons with lots of colors.  I'm not trying to convince you to like the new design but I think it grows on people.  There's an initial shock regarding change and then after repeated use it starts to feel comfortable.   It's funny because I think there was a big uproar regarding the black sidebar when Evernote shipped that design and many people expressed hatred for that look.  Now people want to bring it back.  Design is a curious thing.

 

OK - appreciate the response, thanks Marcus.

 

I have to admit that I'm really sorry you're not going back to what was such a recognizable colour scheme - it's even here all over this forum. And in your app icon.  And I happen to like 3D buttons and complex icons with lots of colours...

 

And on my Twitter feed, the reaction to the new version is very mixed. Lots of complaints about it being slow, a LOT who don't want Chat and who want to get rid of the Chat button, etc etc - very similar to what's been said in here many times. Of course, there are some who DO like it, and there is a heck of a lot of spam - Evernote accessories, competitions, etc etc. I'm not sure that too many constructive comments can be made in 120 characters on Twitter - but yes, you're right, they're users too. I'd suggest, though, that they are a bit less engaged with the company than most of your long term inhabitants of these forums.

 

Keep up the discussions, and yes, we would LOVE much earlier chances to give feedback - but only if there was some likelihood of the feedback not being ignored. I'm not saying for a moment that every suggestion or comment has to be implemented - of course it doesn't. But at least use the collective wisdom and comments from people like Grumpy, Metrodon, Burgers, etc etc to help steer the company direction, and not just go your own merry way regardless. In other words, it needs to be a meaningful two-way discussion, not just a token one.

[Stuhrer 251]

Actually, the program has been running non stop for nearly 4 days at this point. I have restarted the computer 3 times during that period. Evernote is still impossibly slow.

Previous version worked without issue - this is definitely somethign to do with the upgrade.

In a word. It's unusable.

My recommendation: uninstall V6.0, download V6.0.1 from the Evernote site and install it. This helped in several cases.

[Roger Worden 11]

@Roger:  Thanks for the comparison, but it is too small to really see anything.  Can you please make it larger, like 2X larger?

I updated my post with a link to an annotated image of the comparison.

[scb 3]

Classic note links are gone!  I used to be able to control click on a note in the list, hold down option, and select "Copy Classic Note Link" to get link starting with "evernote:". Now I only have access to "http:" style notes, which are useless for referring to shared notebooks.

[ammulder 2]

I upgraded to 6.0 via the Mac App Store and all my notes have been trashed.  The notes show as blank when I attempt to display them, and the titles of any ones I touched have turned to "Untitled".  And it sync'd, so I assume the server version is corrupted too.  I reported a support ticket but I would REALLY appreciate any advice for recovering my notes.  Right now it seems like a total catastrophe.

[ScottLougheed 1,316]

One gripe I have is that it is really disorienting to have no separator between the title and the note body. I think a subtle horizontal line, even in a relatively light colour, would help a great deal. It could even extend only partially across the width of the note window, or the whole thing, either way I feel like it would tidy things up nicely. Here's a screenshot showing how it is, and how I think it could be (I used a partial line, but a line the whole width might be best and easier to implement given that a partial line isn't likely to scale well when a window is resized):

https://www.evernote.com/l/ABlJAB35E0xDyq61lTTNSQrxebksJY1byVQ

[Matt Smith 1]

Notes are not showing contents for a *very* long time in all views that actually show the note contents (card view, list view, snippet view, top list view).

 

This happens upon opening Evernote, selecting notes, opening notes in a new window, etc. The note appears empty, and it takes up to two minutes or so before the contents suddenly appear. If I choose another note after the contents appear, I have to wait for that note to populate the contents area. If I quickly choose another note to view, then come back to the originally selected note (which had finally loaded the contents) the contents are gone again, and I have to wait for them to load once more

...

Evernote was upgraded via the app store on a MacBook Air running 10.9.5 (I can't upgrade the OS as this is a company owned laptop, and there are issues with Yosemite and tools we use at work at this time).

 

This is happening in Yosemite too. It's making it difficult to use Evernote when I have to wait so long for the note's content to appear.

[Roger Worden 11]

I agree with the posters complaining about the brightness and blandness. I understand that may be due to conflict between changes designed to move forward with Yosemite, not playing well with Mavericks. Maybe the testing was insufficient on Mavericks... maybe the test results were ignored. For whatever reason, the resulting display is terrible. Very hard on the eyes. Little contrast to help distinguish the different panels of data. As another poster stated: this is the first time I've tried calibrating my monitor to accommodate an app... unfortunately it did not help. I really hope EN will admit this was an error and roll back the interface changes as much as possible. I'm strongly considering reverting, though I see that is a multi-step process due to the database conversion.

I have reverted to 5.7.2, following the export-delete-import instructions posted elsewhere.

[JMichaelTX 4,108]

 

 

The bands have a very slight transparency so you see the background bleed through a little.  

 

By the way, I'm older, have bifocals and the text looks sharp and easy to read to me but I think this kind of thing is very subjective.

 

 

What is the point of transparency????

If it reduces the readability by any amount, then it should NOT be used.

Do you really want to argue that being cool is better than being able to clearly read???

 

Because it's the standard set by OS X Yosemite? I like the transparency. I have it turned on. Apps in Yosemite that don't use it stick out like a sore thumb. I did not at all like Evernote 5's black sidebar.

 

If you don't like transparency, turn it off at the OS level (in accessibility). But Evernote should behave like other "well behaved" OS X applications, which includes using transparency as standard, and following the OS settings. You're really arguing that Evernote should take a stand against transparency and specifically block it in their app only?

 

 

I'm not arguing against transparency, I'm suggesting that there is some confusing about how it is to be applied.

 

My understanding is that Yosemite transparency is to be applied on the edges of the window, not in the main body.

 

Regardless of the Apple design/guidelines, if applying transparency reduces readability, does it really make sense to use it?

[NightStalker 407]

 

Please fix the UI by allowing us to revert to the old theme or allow customization.

 

Also several of my coworkers are reporting errors (in performance and capabilities).

 

BTW Is there a better (official) place to submit complains?

 

Thank you.

 

These forums are being monitored, and therefore represent the best way to complain.

 

 

Indeed.  Jack (Jackolicious) and Marcus (Softwaremarcus) read all the posts, and respond. I have a sneaking suspicion that they may actually agree with many of the complaints, but have to toe the company line so can't say too much.  However, they ARE responsive, and they DO engage in good polite debate, for which most in here are very grateful.

 

And going on the incredible number of complaints on this LONG thread, plus all the other threads that have been started on the same topics, it would appear that they are facing a chorus of complaint about version 6. But MOST of the complaints are about the UI, and while there are a couple of posters who actually like it, the VAST majority hate it.  And so many are first time posters who have signed in here specifically to complain about that UI.

 

Which begs the question that has been put several times - why not simply make most of the UI elements customizable, from toolbar to icons, from colours to translucency, from fonts to contrast, etc etc?  If that were to happen, then ALL of the complaints about the UI would simply disappear, leaving matters of pure function and real bugs as the topics to bring up.  I'd be pretty sure that Jack and Marcus would be much less aggravated if that were the case.

[grownupboy 2]

 

Actually, the program has been running non stop for nearly 4 days at this point. I have restarted the computer 3 times during that period. Evernote is still impossibly slow.

Previous version worked without issue - this is definitely somethign to do with the upgrade.

In a word. It's unusable.

My recommendation: uninstall V6.0, download V6.0.1 from the Evernote site and install it. This helped in several cases.

 

 

anyone know when 6.01 is going to show up in the app store? chasing apps all over the web isn't exactly an ideal solution...

[laaurora 69]

Based on the varying comments in this and another thread, I'm starting to think that the washed-out color scheme is experienced differently on different monitors. On my MBP's internal screen, the lines between panels in the UI are a bit more visible. On my external monitor, even after calibrating, the UI elements are much more faded. 

 

It's definitely experienced differently. And the designers are supposed to be fully aware of it. Subtlety is often a sign of a fine work but that's also something only people with well calibrated monitors can appreciate. Unfortunately, such people are not in the majority. So while showing attention to details is great, it's not something to try on critically important elements. It's inconsiderate and will make a lot of people upset.

 

My posts in past few days had much more criticism than praise. I don't agree with a bunch of recent changes, but as a fellow designer, there are a lot of things I can relate with as well. My monitors are alright. I like subtlety. I wish I could design in confidence that everyone will see things the way I see them. And when I go to this site for example, pick a nice bright color and put my Evernote window on top of it, I can see good intentions behind some design decisions made. I could actually find a lot of excuses and explanations for the way EN looks at the moment. But it wouldn't change the fact that it doesn't work.

 

The problem is, I'll never have that kind of color as my wallpaper, because it would be very distracting. And most of the time, I will have another app window under the EN one - something white, like this forum page. A lot of people will have all that and a poor monitor to top it off. And they need to be comfortable using the app anyway, because this is not a design gallery item, it's a tool for getting work done. This is not even an edge case (though developers on such level are supposed to take care of those as well), it's a reality for a lot of people. Sometimes designer's ego has to take a back seat, no matter how sad it makes me personally as a designer.

[Carolyn V 2]

Hello Marcus. Thank you for the quick reply. That alone makes me more likely to stick with Evernote! 

 

I did a little more looking and it appears that it's mostly in my Recipes notebook (thankfully not my work notebook) and it appears to be mainly content that was pasted in from the bon appetit web site. Unfortunately, many of those are on my Thanksgiving menu, but I will just repair them as I use them. 

 

It was a bit of a shock, especially after the 6.0 (AppStore) debacle. Taken together those two incidents rocked my confidence for a little while. 

 

Thanks again for the quick reply. 

[Matt Smith 1]

Found a bug in the first 10 seconds of using 6.0.1 for the Mac. Print a note, click cancel, note title is changed to "Untitled." Do you guys test your software? I will submit a formal bug report...maybe it's fixed in 6.0.2.

 

 

This also happens if you right-click on a note and choose "Open Note in a Separate Window".

 

I am actually having trouble keep the titles of notes. Even when I revert the title back to what it was later it will return to "Untitled".

[claytonrcarter 4]

In general, I like the new design. I like the spirit of it, and where it's going. That said, I do have some qualms and issues, which I'll mention below.

 

I share similar feelings.  I like it; the update went fine and all of my notes, notebooks, tags, etc are in place.  All the parts I use are there, are usable and are readable.  As a premium subscriber, I'm happy with it.  But since there are so many suggestions going around, I'll chime it:

 

1. Some green would be great.  Just a little?

2. I use the "Side List View" and find that the blue outline of the selected note is a little inconspicuous.  Changing the background color of the selected notes in the list seems like it be clearer and easier to glance at, for me.

3. I miss the "All Notes" button.

4. +1 for customizable toolbars.  There are many buttons that I haven't used and would be happy to hide.  If this isn't possible, some option to automatically hide the toolbars above the note (the ones that include notebook name, tags, Skitch/annotate button, formatting options) until the mouse moves over them would help provide more note real estate on small monitors (like mine) and clean, clutterless workspaces.

 

Thanks!

[JMichaelTX 4,108]

It's all right here: https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/OSXHIGuidelines/index.html

 

. . .

 

Again, there is no mention of using vibrancy inside the main content windows or using a tone down effect on the toolbars to blur background content. 

 

It seems the designers were just pulling their UI choices out of thin air. This does not look like the job of a professional designer. Also, use green as a highlight colour to offer contrast and constancy with the iOS and web based apps, and to add brand recognition (not blue). This is pretty objective feedback.

 

Steve, thank you very much for posting the link to OS X Human Interface Guidelines: Designing for Yosemite.

Maybe now that the Evernote Devs know where to find it, they will actually read it. 

 

Sorry to be so harsh, EN Devs, but honestly, that's how it appears to me.

Prove me wrong, and give us a Yosemite-style design that really works, that is cool while still being very readable.

[oblomov 1]

I downloaded Evernote 6 from the Mac App Store. It took 30 seconds ti load each note! I was frantic until I tried staring restarting my computer. That worked. Evernote should make a note of this in download instructions.

[zwaldowski 8]

 

Regardless of the Apple design/guidelines, if applying transparency reduces readability, does it really make sense to use it?

 

 

That's the extremely important part to me. The HIG says you shouldn't ever use transparency in a way that reduces readability. Vibrancy effects exist solely to increase readability against a translucent background. Evernote uses it for nothing. Not any of the text, not any of the separators. If I'm dumb enough to have a dark wallpaper (I am, so thanks!), I'm SOL for reading the titles of my notes in Evernote.

[PatrickS 5]

Can you please add an option to hide the "New Chat" button in the top bar? I don't plan to ever use the work chat "feature" and that button is just huge and annoying.

[FMeu 1]

OS X 10.9.5 - Premium account - Just upgraded to 6.0 (451092 AppStore) through App Store and having issues:

- when selecting a note, it takes ages to show up

- when opening the note in a dedicated window the title goes away

- even worst: I can't edit a note! A new or an existing one ...

 

I can't say I'm happy with this update ... =(

[Frank Undall 4]

I run Evernote for Mac 6 on my iMac and MacBook Air, and on iPad 4 and iPhone 6+

Exploring the new version on my iMac made me think whether I've gone blind or not: where is the "Send Mail" button..? Some developers think that everyone wants to share everything on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, but we are many more that runs a business and DO NOT want to share a whole folder or just a single note with dozens of people. Give me back my "Email to"-button or tell me where you have buried it, so I can work with people, who does not use Evernote or FB, Twitter or any other social media..!

[macfixer 444]

when I go to this site for example,

 

 

Whoa. Trippy! 

[thelargemammal 3]

I love Evernote, it's one of the most valuable apps in my freelance design workflow. I just want to voice some dissatisfaction with some of the changes to the interface.

Here is a screenshot comparing the newest version and just before.

 

 

 

I use card view quite a bit. The main thing that is bothering me is the eye strain that is being caused by the light gray post excerpts, in which the font size appears to be slightly smaller as does the relative line height. Snippet view suffers essentially the same ailment. 

It made me think if I ever actually read those snippets anyway, and there lies the usability issue. The small gray text made me think, created a distraction where there was none before. I have to work too hard to see and read that type, and it's a problem. Can you address this please?

 

One idea that this brought up was the box size for the card view. I'd find it really useful if the user could choose between a small and large card size. On my iMac, a larger card size would play nicely with the extra real estate and could make the snippets more digestible.

[Bill Moriarty 6]

Hi all. I'm happy you keep improving your app. My requests after installing this 6.0 update...

Please bring back some of that lovely Evernote Green color. I always thought it was pleasant. I find this all white / grey color scheme disappointing and much less "fun" than your previous color schemes.

 

Please bring back a line or something to separate a note's title from a note's body.

 

Thanks for adding the ability to resize an image in a note. 

 

-Bill 

[FMeu 1]

I've downloaded 6.0.1 from the website and installed it and now I can edit notes. I agree with some comments: IMHO you are looking at too many non-related features (Work Chat ... really?). Please continue to focus on _notes_! People are used to best of breed tools, not one-fits-all.

[taguntumi 2]

I really do think that Evernote just doesn't listen to users.  I am on the lookout for a replacement and when it comes along I'm gone.

 

There have been so many comments over the years about missing features, features that nobody wants and features just ripped out with no apparent reason and they appear to have a tin ear to it.  There was some hope when that blog post went viral earlier in the year but it appears they don't learn.  It seems they just want to cram everything they think of into the app without thinking about other users.

 

With the increase in cheap cloud storage it can't be long before an app like Notesuite or One Note gets it right.  The market is opening up and Evernote still continue to mess with their users.

 

Anyway rant over.

 

Todays specific missing feature - where did the 'all notes' button go when you are in a notebook?  Gone it seems and we now have to use a keyboars shortcut.  Great that we have a clean toolbar where only Evernote can add *****.

 

Ian

[ScottLougheed 1,316]

I run Evernote for Mac 6 on my iMac and MacBook Air, and on iPad 4 and iPhone 6+

Exploring the new version on my iMac made me think whether I've gone blind or not: where is the "Send Mail" button..? Some developers think that everyone wants to share everything on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, but we are many more that runs a business and DO NOT want to share a whole folder or just a single note with dozens of people. Give me back my "Email to"-button or tell me where you have buried it, so I can work with people, who does not use Evernote or FB, Twitter or any other social media..!

It's not so much that they want you to share it on Facebook or Twitter (as those have been prominently placed for ages, so this isn't anything new), its that they want you to use the new Work Chat feature to share notes and notebooks instead of email. They've thus relegated the Email feature to a "More sharing" sub menu. 

[Mrs Mac 0]

Long term EN user & forum reader- new register to forum to highlight a crystal clear view for EN as to user experience. 

 

Laaurora has eloquently expressed how I feel also:

 

 

I’ve been your premium user for a while now, but you don’t see me on these forums making feature requests often.The reason is, I don’t feel I’m entitled to every feature I may possibly want. I paid for the app I saw, because the features it offered when I saw it were just right for me. Any new additions from that moment would be just a nice bonus. The problem is, you started to take things away. Somehow each major redesign you make adds a bunch of cool features that I don’t need and takes away something I actually care about. I keep paying same money for the app that gets progressively worse for me.

 

 

I use this product, as originally pitched, and as used by a number of 'power' users here on the forum, as my external brain. 

It concerns me that my external brain may start 'forgetting' how to do things it used to do easily; I already have my internal brain to do that!

 

Some of the new features are (currently) of no interest to me - e.g. chat, I don't want anyone else in my brain. However, provided they do not get in my way, I'm happy to ignore them and continue on, provided that the existing functionality continues to exist.  Who knows, perhaps in time I may find a use or interest in those new features, and they'll be there for me when and if that occurs.

BUT - If you remove the functionality I need/use, then your product becomes not relevant for my purpose - you lose a customer, rather than taking me with you.

[Stuhrer 251]

You now find the send-mail menu item under 'note' - 'more sharing' or something like that. I'm working with the german version.

[Brian Handscomb 19]

{{ using direct download version, 6.0.1 }}

 

So my first instant reaction was "OMG So much Helvetica!" -- I've used the preferences to change the note text font (back) to Arial 13

 

Second reaction was it looks so washed out. Using the Yosemite "Increase contrast" accessibility option improves (only) some aspects of Evernote, but IMHO makes the rest of Mac OS more ugly. Would like a bit more contrast between "dead" areas (e.g. around notes) and "live" areas (the notes themselves) for example.

 

I also really miss the horizontal dividing line between the heading/title of the note and the text of the note. For me "just" using size doesn't work as well, especially as there is no longer any gap. After all these are two different "click targets"

 

IMHO 5.7.2 looks better.

[ScottLougheed 1,316]

You now find the send-mail menu item under 'note' - 'more sharing' or something like that. I'm working with the german version.

You nailed it.

Also available from the right click contextual menu. 

[macfixer 444]

I run Evernote for Mac 6 on my iMac and MacBook Air, and on iPad 4 and iPhone 6+

Exploring the new version on my iMac made me think whether I've gone blind or not: where is the "Send Mail" button..? Some developers think that everyone wants to share everything on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, but we are many more that runs a business and DO NOT want to share a whole folder or just a single note with dozens of people. Give me back my "Email to"-button or tell me where you have buried it, so I can work with people, who does not use Evernote or FB, Twitter or any other social media..!

 

The easiest way to get to it is to right-click on a note and choose "More Sharing…" — "Email Note…" is at the bottom.

[CatOne 30]

 

 

 

The bands have a very slight transparency so you see the background bleed through a little.  

 

By the way, I'm older, have bifocals and the text looks sharp and easy to read to me but I think this kind of thing is very subjective.

 

 

What is the point of transparency????

If it reduces the readability by any amount, then it should NOT be used.

Do you really want to argue that being cool is better than being able to clearly read???

 

Because it's the standard set by OS X Yosemite? I like the transparency. I have it turned on. Apps in Yosemite that don't use it stick out like a sore thumb. I did not at all like Evernote 5's black sidebar.

 

If you don't like transparency, turn it off at the OS level (in accessibility). But Evernote should behave like other "well behaved" OS X applications, which includes using transparency as standard, and following the OS settings. You're really arguing that Evernote should take a stand against transparency and specifically block it in their app only?

 

 

I'm not arguing against transparency, I'm suggesting that there is some confusing about how it is to be applied.

 

My understanding is that Yosemite transparency is to be applied on the edges of the window, not in the main body.

 

Regardless of the Apple design/guidelines, if applying transparency reduces readability, does it really make sense to use it?

 

Yosemite transparency is in a lot of places. It's in the sidebar, it's in the toolbar (in Safari, at least), and it can be in the main window (not for the content, but for borders). Generally if an application uses standard OS "widgets" then it will put transparency where it belongs, and not where it doesn't, because the behavior comes "for free" when using these widgets. From my 15 minutes playing with Evernote 6 on Yosemite, it seems to behave appropriately.

 

As far as reducing readability: I don't find transparency reduces readability. The new design of Evernote 6 does seem a bit "hot" to me in terms of how white it is, but I'm not sure it's too much just yet. I don't think it's much whiter than other apps on Yosemite, and I think it's dependent on the screen brightness of the machine I ran it on. It definitely does have more contrast than older versions: Black on white is by definition higher contrast than black on grey ;-)

[Jackolicious 808]

I use card view quite a bit. The main thing that is bothering me is the eye strain that is being caused by the light gray post excerpts, in which the font size appears to be slightly smaller as does the relative line height. 

Good catch. We'll have a look.

 

 

One thing that has gone missing is the ability to remember the sort order when preforming a new keyword search.

 

So suppose you always sort your notes on Title. Then you make a search, the sorting will be based on Relevance, not on Title any more. 

Is this a bug?

 

For me this is annoying as I prefix my titles with a category, which makes it easier to overview my search results.

Noted. Will look into it.

 

Was Jack serious when he said that all posts were read and "listened to"?

Yes

 

Notes are not showing contents for a *very* long time in all views that actually show the note contents (card view, list view, snippet view, top list view).

This can often happen right after the migration (which is why we notify you that migration may take some time). We are doing quite a bit of reindexing for our search/speed improvements. Give it some time and let us know if the situation doesn't improve.

[Stuhrer 251]

Classic note links are gone!  I used to be able to control click on a note in the list, hold down option, and select "Copy Classic Note Link" to get link starting with "evernote:". Now I only have access to "http:" style notes, which are useless for referring to shared notebooks.

 

I saw it somewhere else: Press the Alt button before the right click! It is considered as a bug by Evernote and will be fixed.

[Calamity Man 2]

Notes are not showing contents for a *very* long time in all views that actually show the note contents (card view, list view, snippet view, top list view).

This can often happen right after the migration (which is why we notify you that migration may take some time). We are doing quite a bit of reindexing for our search/speed improvements. Give it some time and let us know if the situation doesn't improve.

 

I'm still having the issue, which renders Evernote completely useless to me now. I have 250 notes in my premium account, which I would expect to migrate/reindex rather quickly. Here it has been four days since my upgrade, and I'm still stuck with a broken Evernote.

 

This is killing my workflow to say the least, and the web UI doesn't cut it for me. Give us a way to roll back to the last 5.x version, PLEASE!!

[Squeaky Geeky 3]

FYI from a long time Evernote user that recommends the product to all my clients, the new monochrome white interface is personally unusable to me. I won't go into details as this is very much personal preference and many have posted on the forums why they hate the new color scheme. Please change the colors back to it's unbroken version or give us the ability to change the color scheme ourselves.

Luckily There are posts on how to downgrade to a previous version which I have just done.

[RicD 10]

I followed these instructions:

https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/67533-evernote-for-mac-56/page-4#entry304615

In fact, all i did was install the 5.5.2 version and let it download all my notes from EN servers. So, even easier than what was listed. SO MUCH HAPPIER back at 5.5.2. 5.7 was proving too difficult to install, so I went back and do not regret it at all. None of that context *****, etc. Just good old Evernote!

EN tricked me again. I should know to never upgrade for at least 2-3 months. My bad.

Attachments are not shown inline, performance is awful ("blazingly fast" who are you kidding?), and somebody took the Yosemite aesthetic a bit too far as many have noted.

EN has a corporate culture which abhors testing, the philosophy is to "code and release, let the customers find the bugs for us."

The product has such enormous potential, but over and over again it overreaches on features and under delivers on quality.

I cannot find the link to download the previous version. Can someone please post it again? Thanks.

 

Following your advice I did the same thing. My Evernote version now is 5.7.2.

Here are my steps:

• Using AppCleaner it uninstalled EN 6.0.1
• Then did the following steps that came from Evernote support:
• Go > Go to Folder… in the menu bar of Finder
• Copy and paste: ~/Library/Containers/com.evernote.Evernote/Data/Library/Application Support/Evernote/

  or

  ~/Library/Application Support/Evernote/

  then select Go

• Move this Evernote folder to another location, such as your desktop
• Rebooted computer.

After reboot I followed JMichael's link: 

https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/77444-how-to-completely-remove-and-reinstall-en-mac/ wherein he has the download link for 5.7.2, http://bit.ly/113zBGA. When installed immediately Evernote launched, now in the process of syncing with their servers. So far life is good.

[NightStalker 407]

Can you please add an option to hide the "New Chat" button in the top bar? I don't plan to ever use the work chat "feature" and that button is just huge and annoying.

 

I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for that, Patrick. Many of us have been asking for the return of a configurable toolbar since it disappeared over 2 years ago, to no avail.

 

The ability to get rid of buttons that we don't want, to insert buttons that we do want (eg Email note, Print, etc) and to place them at different points on the toolbar is something that was removed for no apparent reason, and with no explanation as to why.

[Darth Rubro 9]

 

3) Some people don't like the new design.  The bottom line is if you don't like Yosemite you are not going to like the new Evernote Mac design. Apple sets the design direction and all apps must follow.  As an example, some suggested we use green as a UI highlight to support our own branding and to add a little more color.  I get this and I believe it's a perfectly reasonable proposal.  I think the one thing that might not be fully understood is that Apple has decided that blue is the UI highlight color for Yosemite.  Take a look at selected checkboxes and the down arrow for drop down menus.  It's true that we don't necessarily have to follow Apple blindly but I think it's a losing battle to try to be too different than Apple's defined UX language.  Apple sets the standards and in fact if we use standard UX controls we get their look and feel whether we want it or not and Apple wants all apps to comply so that this UX language becomes well understood.  This is NOT fashion or trying to be hip.  Apple defines the Mac world our apps lives in and we can either join or be relegated to Siberia.  This is how all Mac apps are going to look within the next year.  Now you could argue we didn't do a good job of matching Apple's design aesthetic but it's not fair to litigate Yosemite's look and feel in an Evernote forum.  There are definitely tweaks we can and are making to improve readability but this is a major OS design change and we have to and want to follow Apple's lead.

 

 

Evernote devs, as a fellow designer I ask you, please understand that people here are not complaining because the new version looks like Yosemite and we simply don't like Yosemite.

Neither understate this as a case of "people afraid of new things".

 

 

Everybody looks up to Apple in terms of design, and for good reason. Yosemite is beautiful and also functional. It's totally agreeable to adhere to the new standards, and we certainly understand that Apple "dictates" that to a certain degree, but take a look at the new Finder as an example (nothing can get more "yosemitish" than their own thing right?):

 

The sidebar has contrast, selected items have the dark bar behind them which is very clear; Evernote selected items in the sidebar have just blue text and that is not enough. Small thing, still very important.

 

Finder has slightly darker lines to separate one section from another; the new Evernote separation lines are definitely too light. Transparency creates a cool effect and enough contrast between background and note cards only if the app lays on a strong coloured background. But users often open Evernote on top of some other app, very likely a web browser with white background, and there all the contrast is gone, please use darker lines.

 

The Finder is absolutely not lacking color. Look at those strong blue folders. Look at all the different icons for every different file type. It's appealing and clear. Evernote is now all light grey and white, and beyond becoming a little depressive, it's confusing and makes it difficult to instantly recognize elements. In v5 you had colored icons on the sidebar. They functioned really well. Maybe you could redesign those to be more similar to Yosemite icons (a little more stylized and rubbery) but it's so unnecessary and counterproductive to make them all small and grey (yes, in Finder sidebar icons are grey, but they have to be different from the icons of the actual content; in Evernote they are practically the only icons and it's so essential that they stand out well).

 

The panel on the right, behind the actual note, could be slightly darker again and not transparent-white, to emphasize contrast and put less strain on the eye. In Finder not everything is transparent, and they make use of grey when convenient (in Cover Flow for instance).

 

The sync and notification buttons on the top bar, as well as the previous/next arrows are so thin that they disappear, lost in a sea of grey. In Finder each button has a border and a lighter background to let them stand out, why not following that?

 

Lastly, Apple official highlight color may be blue (and that is not even an absolute, given the fact that the user can change that), but the use of Evernote green would bring back identity as well as surely NOT breaking the overall Yosemite-compliant look. Above all, it would give the application the cozy look it needs (we all know the importance of having the right color on the right thing).

 

 

Well I just wanted to drop some more detailed feedback on the issue... hope this can be useful somehow.

[Frank Undall 4]

Thanks to everyone for helping my out of this unnecessary question - should be unnecessary at least. That just saved Evernote from losing a Premium client. However, I have to understate that it is a very non-intuitive place to stick this important feature. This is at least one more click than before, and I do absolutely not understand why the email button has left it’s place. It would be logic to keep it with all other share buttons... :-/ At least it made me angry on the chat-part, so I will probably never use that facility, and it also made me aware that I have to have a backup of everything stored on Evernote. You have made yourself a crack in a previously very charming armor...

/Frank

 

 

 

 

 

I run Evernote for Mac 6 on my iMac and MacBook Air, and on iPad 4 and iPhone 6+
Exploring the new version on my iMac made me think whether I've gone blind or not: where is the "Send Mail" button..? Some developers think that everyone wants to share everything on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, but we are many more that runs a business and DO NOT want to share a whole folder or just a single note with dozens of people. Give me back my "Email to"-button or tell me where you have buried it, so I can work with people, who does not use Evernote or FB, Twitter or any other social media..!

 

The easiest way to get to it is to right-click on a note and choose "More Sharing…" — "Email Note…" is at the bottom.

 

 

[Jackolicious 808]

 

All of the "Untitled" bugs seem fixed in Ver 6.0.2.

And, after reindexing is complete, performance is very good.

 

See Evernote Mac v6.0.2 Released

 

All feedback has been read and noted through this point. Since we're on a newer version now, let's use that thread.

 

Mac App Store will get the latest version as soon as we're approved by Apple. If you don't want to wait, feel free to download the latest version directly from Evernote.com.

[Screenage 0]

One thing that has gone missing is the ability to remember the sort order when preforming a new keyword search.

 

So suppose you always sort your notes on Title. Then you make a search, the sorting will be based on Relevance, not on Title any more. 

Is this a bug?

 

For me this is annoying as I prefix my titles with a category, which makes it easier to overview my search results.

[Toph 29]

Is it me, or did the "All Notes" button disappear from the note list? This makes me sad. I know I could just click "notes" at the bottom of the sidebar, but that was always more accessible for me.

[JMichaelTX 4,108]

Yosemite transparency is in a lot of places. It's in the sidebar, it's in the toolbar (in Safari, at least), and it can be in the main window (not for the content, but for borders). Generally if an application uses standard OS "widgets" then it will put transparency where it belongs, and not where it doesn't, because the behavior comes "for free" when using these widgets. From my 15 minutes playing with Evernote 6 on Yosemite, it seems to behave appropriately.

 

As far as reducing readability: I don't find transparency reduces readability. The new design of Evernote 6 does seem a bit "hot" to me in terms of how white it is, but I'm not sure it's too much just yet. I don't think it's much whiter than other apps on Yosemite, and I think it's dependent on the screen brightness of the machine I ran it on. It definitely does have more contrast than older versions: Black on white is by definition higher contrast than black on grey ;-)

 

 

Cat, I'm glad it works for you.

 

But, clearly, for many others, the EN UI Design reduces readability.

 

I hate to repeat myself, but since Evernote has 100M+ users, they should, IMO, not do anything that reduces readability for a significant number of their users.

 

I can't see how the benefits of adding transparency outweighs the cons of reducing readability for some.

[RMansfield 10]

I miss the green links. There's no longer any green in Evernote on the Mac :-(

[NightStalker 407]

For those trying to downgrade, it may be worth checking out this thread - which may or may not be a problem for you:

 

https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/76567-sync-problem/

[Nadya De Angelis 24]

 

On the advice of an Evernote forum, I uninstalled and got 6.0.1 from direct download. Now I can see my notes but a lot of the formatting has been lost. 

 

Line breaks have been removed, so my nicely formatted notes are now a series of giant unformatted paragraphs. 

 

Carolyn, we completely rewrote our note editor from scratch so that we could support resizable tables and images and a host of stuff we have planned for the future.  However, any big change like this has some translation issues from the old to the new.  A couple of things have come up.

 

 

 

Just curious: if you completely rewrote the editor, then WHY are old bugs still there? Like the cursor thing? 

 

Another thing I'm curious about is if you can finally copy paste tables as tables, not as a plain text.

 

Thank you. 

[GrumpyMonkey 4,316]

I'm not a huge fan of the accessibility settings on Mac, because they are global, and it means that everything is affected. However, you could use them as an option to slightly improve contrast. Here are some screenshots.

 

https://www.evernote.com/l/AAE4ipX4zNpBE4qpAyOeC3JX_9rA6zGdzno

 

In the screenshots I posted, I challenge you to discern the alternating dark and light bands in the side list view. If you can find them, you have better eyes than me! I cannot imagine how this is considered a satisfactory level of contrast. 

 

As for the buttons and other indistinguishable things, I blame Apple's design language. On the iPad, I always use the accessibility settings, because it is exceedingly difficult to find buttons and the like. It is so amazingly user-unfriendly from my perspective, it astounds me that Apple thinks this is "good" design. I'd encourage Evernote folks to dust off their Tufte, depart from Apple's design language when necessary, and think about customizability / accessibility / information density to improve the experience for everyone -- "good" eyes or not.

 

Personally, I am more interested in an information density discussion, and we could start by taking cues from the Evernote Windows version -- feature parity

[laaurora 69]

In the sea of companies there are always a few that stand out from the rest and achieve something special. For designers, and especially those involved in interface design, Apple has always been one of the companies to look up to. But I actually feel that Evernote was one of those companies as well. 

 

I was never a big fan of green but you made me develop a great liking towards that particular shade because of how you used it. There was warmth to it. There was life. And it stood out. There were many applications made in compliance with Apple’s guidelines, and Evernote for Mac felt at home in Mac OS, but it also had a face of its own. It made you feel like application’s team had a vision of their own, like they developed something they took pride in and had a full control over, something that promised to last. Recognisable colors, all those patterns and textures you used, all the fun illustrations, little interactions that surprised a user in a good way – those were the parts of one big and rich experience, fun and engaging. You had the brand a lot of companies would kill for.

 

Apple have made a lot of questionable decisions with past few versions of their operational systems. In attempt to get rid of the gloss and some color excess, they also threw away a lot of individuality, engagement and old good usability. But at least they are making their own mistakes. I did not expect you to just follow.

 

When I look at EN Mac 6.0 I can surely say that it’s modern. I can definitely call this design clean. The way the elements are positioned is pleasingly balanced. But is it usable? Is it engaging? Is it recognisable? Is it something a person can possibly fall in love with? I’m sorry, I’m leaning towards a ‘No’ to all of these. It used to be a big 'Yes'.

[Boatguy 49]

EN tricked me again.  I should know to never upgrade for at least 2-3 months.  My bad.

 

Attachments are not shown inline, performance is awful ("blazingly fast" who are you kidding?), and somebody took the Yosemite aesthetic a bit too far as many have noted.

 

EN has a corporate culture which abhors testing, the philosophy is to "code and release, let the customers find the bugs for us."

 

The product has such enormous potential, but over and over again it overreaches on features and under delivers on quality.

 

I cannot find the link to download the previous version.  Can someone please post it again?  Thanks.

[dwryu72 0]

I may have found some relief.

 

Goto System Preferences > Accessibility

I checked the next two boxes up. It seems to help a little. Thanks!

[EmileMD 3]

Evernote 6.0 Mac App Store Update:

 

The upgrade on my end has lost the option to email note in the 'Share' menu. I rely heavily on this feature and would like to know its status.

 

Thanks

[El_Flaco 0]

Love the new design.

 

Anyway, it seems like the MAS version still has bugs regarding the helper. If you activate it at boot time, you can't shut it off. Even if you deactivate it, next time you open EN it is activated again at boot time, and still runs even if you chose to close it when EN exits.

[JakiChan 3]

Selecting text seems broken.  I click in a note, everything turns blue like it's selected.  It's not working.

[maslakovic 28]

I'm glad so many people have chimed in about the horrific new interface. If they wanted to adopt a Yosemity look - I am sure there are millions of more visually pleasing ways to do this. A bunch of random people from the street could have done a better job at designing the look. Didn't Evernote mac win an award for the best designed mac app last year? To go from that to this??!!!

[zebras_in_mo 8]

And I would add to the excellent photo with examples:  the sidebar was BLACK. I could easily distinguish the 3 important areas of Evernote:  Sidebar, note list and note itself.

 

AND not so much white = less eyestrain.

 

 

 

For those of you that would like to see higher contrast or more legibility can you tell me specifically in what parts of the app?  It doesn't help me if you say the entire app.  

 

1) Are we in agreement that the actual note has enough contrast since it's on a white background?

2) List View?  I'm hearing a lot of discussion about list view.  It sounds like it's difficult to read the text on the banding (and I'm guessing a lot of this depends on one's desktop background).  I personally don't have an issue here but I understand the point.

3) What about snippet view?

 

Anyway, it would be helpful and more constructive to provide specific areas of the product you think we should continue to refine vs having larger arguments over transparency.  The sidebar of Evernote will be transparent.  This is not negotiable because this is by definition a part of the Yosemite design aesthetic.  

 

The bottom line is I agree with the sentiment that we should build a product that works for all of our users so help me provide our design team with specific details to work with.   I'm not sure we're going to satisfy everyone but I think we may be able to make things better for some.

 

P.S. It's kind of funny because on Twitter the new design is getting generally great reviews maybe because one can't write too much  .

See the attached screen snippet. I've pointed to several visual cues that used to help the user get oriented and quickly find things. All of these cues have either gone white or have been reduced to thin gray lines that are hard to see without searching.

1. The currently selected note was highlighted.

2. The Evernote window was distinguished from the Mac desktop background.

3. The document panel was distinguished from the note list panel.

4. The note frame was distinguished from the note.

 

All of these and other UI elements help the user work quickly and easily in the app. The new UI makes all the data elements blend into each other. Plus it's just too white, leading to eyestrain.

 

[jharahush 1]

I signed up specifically to comment on the fact that I hate the new Evernote 6 UI.  Luckily, I found the directions for how to downgrade so that I can use the older version until I find another app to replace Evernote.

[Stuhrer 251]

My notes were there, I clicked one of them, and now they're gone

http://imgur.com/VFu5b24

 

My recommendation: read this post: https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/76662-evernote-for-mac-v60-and-v601/page-10#entry325989, be patient, and upgrade to V6.0.1 from the Evernote site.

[laaurora 69]

Regarding contrast

This is our highest contrast release ever. We've had this app reviewed by text accessibility experts. This was done for our users who have complained about legibility (including you JM ) 

 

Were all of the text accessibility experts under 40 (no need for reading glasses)?

 

The light grey in the card and snippet view are an obvious mistake, but other than that I actually do believe that EN team saw potential readability issues with all the sacrifices made for the UI to look modern and unified and invited experts to verify that text/background contrast ratio meets at least the most modest of requirements. I do feel that the form took over the function in quite a few places, that some text reads worse than it possibly could, that icons aren't looking that good on non-retina screens (which is something I'd wait before doing as 'Retina' screens in sizes comfortable for work are still in thousands of $$), but most critical text does stand out against its background enough to be readable.

 

I do wonder if there were any checks being made regarding the contrast of the layout itself though. For example have they checked the difference in time and comfort levels between finding let's say a '3rd item from the top in the 7th column on section A' and '2nd item from the bottom in the green column in section B', because this is where this new UI fails its users the most. There is no contrast between elements, no visual hierarchy. The eye is forced to look for the target on the whole canvas every time instead of finding a smaller block intuitively and only then spending resources on the search.

 

[pgdahl 133]

 

Well spoken Mr. Parker.

I can add that I have just found another failure in the Danish version (besides the hopeless translations like: "Me press button"..etc.): I used partly clipping and saved a note. Gave it a headline and then syncronised the note. Wanted to print it, but cancelled when I came to the printing window. Then the headline disappeared..! I tried it repeatedly and it “works” every time…

Good heavens. Ironically the note I wanted to save was “How to Completey Remove and Reinstall EN Mac”. Maybe that's the reason for the "sabotage"...

/Frank Undall

 

 

I am glad I am not the only Danish (ex)-user to cringe their toes at the translation issues. Some of them are funny - until you try to convince people that Evernote is a serious multi-million dollar company.

[JMichaelTX 4,108]

Evernote Mac 6.0 ratings in the Mac App Store are also very poor, with 160 users rating it as 1-star:

 

[macfixer 444]

I'm using tinypic.com to get the url to post images here... Although I started out with 500kb allowable uploads here, I'm now down to less than 30kb... 

 

Yeah, I ran into the same problem. What I do is take the screenshot with Skitch, or drag a screenshot into Skitch. Then, use the "direct image url" option when sharing it (and switch off the short URLs). Poof "unlimited" image sharing.

 

Kinda kludgey, but it works. I hope that helps!

[mathiepe 44]

Although I agree or at least understand almost everything NightStalker says - here and on almost any other topic - I myself do not have an immediate problem with the design of version 6. But I can imagine that if your background is on the light side, it may become very heavy on the eyes, which is problematic by itself.

 

I just see it as a missed opportunity to overhaul Evernote for Mac and to set things right generally. The customisable toolbar is a Mac standard too, no? So many people have asked for it: why not bring it back? I think Evernote could use some more colour too as it still looks a bit stale now, even lacking in personality. There is simply a lot more of things to improve in Evernote for Mac and it's a bit of a letdown that it didn't happen right now. As said with many of Evernote's latest updates: please listen to your users.

 

Just like JeanVis I am one who can get extremely excited by design (as well as functionality) but this design didn't get me excited at all. It just left me...meh: it's okay, not good and not bad either. If I truly like a new design, I open the app especially for it: to see it again and to play with it, making me want to write things down. I don't have it with this redesign and many recent updates of Evernote have left me 'underwhelmed'.

[steviec 0]

Really wish I hadn't upgraded.

When I read that the new Web UI would be pushed out to the other clients, I guess I expected a little more advance notice.

 

Is color so bad?  It's just so stark.  No sign of the Evernote green I've come to love and admire except in the icon.

I really think the Android folks have nailed the design with a modern fresh look that doesn't sacrifice color.

 

I'm sure I'll get used to it.  I guess I'll have to.

 

I need to find a way to turn off the translucency though.  Either that or get rid of some wallpaper.

 

I concur. I admit I'm a Green Guy, but the starkness of the new design makes me feel I've lost a friend ... a green friend. Having an entire screen where everything is visually weighted so similarly makes my eyes work overtime.

 

Tnx,

 

S

[XMG 18]

Here's a quick before and after. (I found this image of 6.0 in Google images to make the sample)

 

Attached is a BEFORE and AFTER.

 

Basically this is a 2 minute example based on reading a few comments:

 

1. more contrast

2. add a line under the title

3. color palette (this is my request)

 

BEFORE:

 

AFTER:

 

This is a quick mockup - there's got to be at least a few UX/UI guys here. Let's show Evernote what we want no?

 

Of all the responses from Evernote on the design, I can't understand the point of Evernote's such utter ignorance and stubbornness in not listening to their user base.

 

They are not Apple. They are not Steve Jobs. Evernote needs to be agile and provide a service people will want to continue to use and especially pay for. Otherwise, as a service, people will simply go elsewhere.

 

To the UX/UI designers at Evernote: take a moment and stop trying to do something 'cool' or 'award winning' or whatever 'you' want to do. Spend time on mockups that users want. It most certainly will suck. But start with what people want. *Then* start to hack away and refine it. This should be your number one goal.

 

Ask yourselves: who asked for a Yosemite user interface? Seriously. If you go through your own forums, people are asking for simple things.

 

NO ONE IS ASKING FOR MARKET PLACE. Who buys an Evernote mug??? Who is asking for Chat features? Really?

[jjj63 0]

I can not see my notes, only the previews. If I click on a note it is empty.

I am using OS X 10.8.5 and "was" updated today to version 6.0.

For me it is horror, cause I work everyday with evernote and everything I need I write down in evernote.

A mistake???

 

What can I do now. Can I get back to the old version ?

 

JJJ

[XMG 18]

For Roger Worden,

 

Here's a version for you. In your custom version of Evernote, there is a setting in Preferences to give you an option to set the color of your choice. And save a preset. Adobe has come around (a bit) in giving options like this with interface presets.

 

 

Roger's Evernote:

[tranquilo 6]

Bug: attachment (can't) rename bug from 5.7.1 still present in 6.0.1

[Ches Martin 0]

Notes are not showing contents for a *very* long time in all views that actually show the note contents (card view, list view, snippet view, top list view).

This can often happen right after the migration (which is why we notify you that migration may take some time). We are doing quite a bit of reindexing for our search/speed improvements. Give it some time and let us know if the situation doesn't improve.

 

 

@Jack, a few others have said so since this post, but this is occurring for me as well, along with the other symptoms FMeu cited just above: several situations like simply double-clicking cause note titles to be lost (this is data loss), and I otherwise can't edit notes at all. This means Evernote is effectively unusable. To quantify the "long time", it's a minute or more for me to open each note.

 

I let Evernote run for several hours on the first run after the update, and my note library is not very large. The situation did not change with time. The initial modal progress bar of migration completed, there has been no crash or visible error. I synced, logged out and rebooted as the support Twitter account suggested to another user having the same issue.

 

Spotlight search also does not appear to work for me, searching for distinctive terms in my Evernote content never returns any Evernote results.

 

My specs are essentially the same as FMeu's: Mavericks (latest, 10.9.5), Mac App Store install. I was up-to-date with prior MAS version of Evernote.

 

There are some ugly UI anomalies as well, note the title field and (un-editable) content in this screenshot:

 

 

I backed up my old data from:

~/Library/Containers/com.evernote.Evernote/Data/Library/Application\ Support/com.evernote.Evernote/old

So if there is any procedure you'd like to try for migrating/reindexing data again, or producing any forensic info about my system, let me know.

 

Interface matters (bugs aside) are mostly subjective, so I'll give it some time, and after running on Yosemite (haven't upgraded yet due to issues with software build environments I need working...). I agree that the text in Snippets view is too light and line spacing is too tight, but Jack and Marcus have addressed that specifically already. After using it for awhile I still don't like icon/button designs in Apple's visual language introduced in iOS 7, but Evernote is just following Apple's platform direction now so it's neither here nor there I guess.

 

As one of the heralded first-time posters, I'm disappointed with Evernote's quality control and aspects of product focus lately, but I do appreciate your candor and responsiveness here on the forums, and hope you'll get through this release without too many bruises.

[Brian Handscomb 19]

Couple of further notes regarding the Yosemite-ish-ness and trying to match Apple.

 

In Mail, select more than one email message - you will see there is FAR more contrast between the "container" (preview pane) and the "content" (email messages) than the new Evernote 6 UI provides. Also note these email "cards" have a shadow effect (a la Evernote 5 cards) so there is I think scope to "scale back" a little towards the old Evernote 5 UI here.

 

In Evernote 6 all the preference icons have gone "line art". This has NOT happened in Mail, Safari, Contacts, Calendar, Terminal, iTunes - they've kept their colourful icons in their preferences, so IMHO Evernote 6 could surely have kept the Evernote 5 preferences icons??

[Joe Hummel 4]

I'm using v6.01, and just wanted to add to the chorus of comments about the color/contrast.  

 

Ugh!  

 

Way too bright for my aging eyes.  Yosemite introduced dark mode; why not adopt that, like you adopted the flat look?  Everything looks so blended together, and with the light gray text in some areas, against the light background, I just can't read my stuff as well as I used to.  

 

[PindaRotsje 0]

There are so many issues with this latest version of EN, I can't adjust any of the notes, it's buggy, I can't write any notes, nor save them etc.etc. Please downgrade to the previous version which was obviously a lot! better. I'm a premium user, if I have to pay for this I will not extend my subscription *not a happy user atm*.

[XMG 18]

For Frogwell,

 

Here's your version with highlight of sidebar items.

 

 

Frogwell's requested change:

 

(It looks like my upload capability is being limited so images will be smaller...)

[haider 7]

I sure am glad that before pushing the upgrade button I decided to come here to read the reviews.

 

Can anyone comment on whether any of the reported Applescript defects have been fixed?  That's probably the only thing that may tip it for me.

[NightStalker 407]

I've said more than enough about the UI of the new version, which I hate, so I won't go on about it. Others are doing it for me.

 

I also read a TUAW "review" of the new version last night - it reads like an Evernote media release. But while the reviewer apparently liked it, the telling thing was that all the comments below the main article were extremely negative - just like this thread and others. Here's the link - this is the brief version - the one I read last night on my iPad had a whole load more comments, all in the same vein: http://www.tuaw.com/2014/11/24/the-new-evernote-app-for-os-x-is-a-joy-to-use/

 

But one point that seems not to have been mentioned - not only did they bury the Email Note function two deep in menus, but there is NO KEYBOARD SHORTCUT. They really are trying to make that function disappear, aren't they? They've already said they're "deprecating" that function - meaning they're phasing it out. I wonder if the chorus of complaints will make them reconsider that? It is another commonly used function that works and that many, if not most, people use. Why take away something that works - again???

[datamonger 0]

Hello,

 

Updated Evernote for Mac to 6.0. It is VERY slow, but so far does what it has to do.

I use Evernote Premium. I have no use (yet) for the Work Chat feature since I use

it privately. I would like to have the option to disable this feature - especially in the

useful "Share" menu in notes.

 

A good thing could be an option to tailor Evernote´s Mac client share function like

in iOS.

 

I´d like to have the option to have a shortcut to

share notes via good old email and not some social networks. Plain and simple

email for example for parents who are elderly and do not care about online social

networks (as do I - I am German).

 

Thanks.

 

Andreas.

[SoftwareMarcus 388]

For those of you that would like to see higher contrast or more legibility can you tell me specifically in what parts of the app?  It doesn't help me if you say the entire app.  

 

1) Are we in agreement that the actual note has enough contrast since it's on a white background?

2) List View?  I'm hearing a lot of discussion about list view.  It sounds like it's difficult to read the text on the banding (and I'm guessing a lot of this depends on one's desktop background).  I personally don't have an issue here but I understand the point.

3) What about snippet view?

 

Anyway, it would be helpful and more constructive to provide specific areas of the product you think we should continue to refine vs having larger arguments over transparency.  The sidebar of Evernote will be transparent.  This is not negotiable because this is by definition a part of the Yosemite design aesthetic.  

 

The bottom line is I agree with the sentiment that we should build a product that works for all of our users so help me provide our design team with specific details to work with.   I'm not sure we're going to satisfy everyone but I think we may be able to make things better for some.

 

P.S. It's kind of funny because on Twitter the new design is getting generally great reviews maybe because one can't write too much  .

[Torben Ibsen 10]

Panic cancelled! - My Evernote 6.0 now works as it is supposed to!

 

I made a shut-down on my iMac. When I started and opened Evernote 6.0 everything works as it should.

 

I have an iMac 2009 running newest Mavericks. And my Evernote 6.0 is downloaded from Mac App Store, not from Evernote's web account. I had the same problems as everybody else: Read-only notes, "Untitled" notes, seemingly disappearing data, slow response if any. So I started to look through my TimeMachine to find an old version of the app.

 

When I installed Evernote 6.0 I let it do it's indexing thing. But I did not guess that a re-boot was required. I know that a re-boot comes naturally to Windows users but as a Mac user I am no longer used to perform this extra step. 

 

So now my wife is happy again! - I am still somewhat annoyed by this bad experience. It could easily have been avoided by Evernote. Either by actually testing this version of the software on regular users computers or by forcing a shutdown (after asking the user for permission, of course!).

 

Sync to all my IOS devices (4) altso works as expected.

 

I have been testing business software for 25 years. I know how a software vendor's offices look like and I know something about what can go wrong. It looks to me as if there has been a lot of testing of the new functionality and the design changes to the interface. It also looks as if some version management failure has occurred. The testing of the installation process has not been done on the version of software I downloaded on the hardware and operating system I use. Someone has been a little to quick to get the job done because of a deadline, I guess.

 

And it should have been tested on my hardware/software. If the upgrade should only be used with Yosemite then the update should have been shown as incompatible software update in my Mac App Store.

 

We all (can) learn from our errors. And this means that the Evernote people now ought to be the wisest guys and dolls in the software business! (Let us not forget the Penultimate folks here!)

 

So please do not give us such a scare another time. And please make sure that you never, never change the titles on existing notes again.

 

Now that I have used the Evernote 6.0 I must admit that it has become extremely fast. When searching it finds my notes really quickly and the synchronization is also very fast. Which is nice now I get to keep my note titles again! I am sure that I also are going to love the "history" function. Evernote makes a copy of my changed notes 4 times a day and I can get the old version back!

 

Of course the interface takes some getting used to. But that is OK. I was warned about that. No complaint there. We'll all get used to it, love it and miss it terribly when they make the next major design change! Just like we always do.

[jefito 5,586]

@Marcus: absolutely nailed it in your last two posts. Programming & design are easy unless you actually have to do it, particularly on a high-wire in front of 10's of millions of users. You have to listen to your users, of course, but in the end, if you can't please yourself as a user of the tools you produce for others, then you're probably in the wrong game

Choice quotes/snippets:

As a software developer it's extremely difficult and time consuming to maintain and test.  If you add a new feature then you have to add a new customizable button and then you have to test it.  If you change a feature you have to go back and fix all of the buttons related to this feature.  If you change the look of your icons, you have to change all of the millions of icons in all of these custom toolbars.  At Office even with all of the resources we had, we couldn't test all of these custom buttons for every release.  This wouldn't be bad if people used them but the vast majority of people don't.  Most don't even know the feature exists.  It's a lot of work for a really really small percentage of people.

A favorite reading on this dynamic: Minus 100 Points. Often quoted by Raymond Chen.
 

...everyone's needs are different and that people end up wanting every feature.  And if we are indeed talking about strikethrough and Work Chat then we might also be talking about 2 different toolbars.  Supporting every single menu item and multiple customizable toolbars gives me nightmares.  It's also a trade off thing.  Do we spend our limited resources on features like speeding up sync that everyone will benefit from or on building a customizable toolbar for a select group of customers.   Now you could argue and I would agree that the people who customize a toolbar are hard core Evernote users and we should support them but there are also high costs that come with the feature.

I've often felt that 100% of say, Word's users use the same 10% of its functionality for 90% of their work, and the other 10% of their work is spread around the other 90% of Word's functionality. Being all things to all people is a lot of work, even for a company with Microsoft's seeming inexhaustible resources.
 

In any case, I'm open to a discussion but I wanted to provide some perspective from my experience.

That's always welcome, from any of the Evernote staff, actually.
 

I'm open to more collaboration.  I'll give some thought as to how this might be possible but keep in mind that the forums represent one point of view.  It's not necessarily the point of view of all our customers even thought it might seem like it.

The forum world is fairly self-selected for people who have issues or problems with Evernote,a fair amount of negativity is built-in. It's a rare day that a topic starts with someone singing "Evernote Everything is Beautiful" and showering hosannas on Evernote. It's OK for the forums to be like that, you just need to understand that that's a common slant.
 

The simple answer is that we aren't going back.  We will continue to refine and improve the product but our previous design doesn't fit well with Apple's new design direction.

Baldly stated, but entirely appropriate. Moving a mature code base to a new design/approach can be a lot of work. Going back to an old design and then iterating forward to the place where you've gotten with the new design is also a lot of work and is also a morale killer. A lot of folks didn't like the Windows V5 design, but I've found it to be cleaner and easier to use overall, and Reminders are a great addition to my day-to-day workflow. I'm sure that V6 is right around the corner, so we'll see.
 

Design is a curious thing.

Truer words...

[SoftwareMarcus 388]

 

Can anyone comment on whether any of the reported Applescript defects have been fixed?

 

We did not get to AppleScript issues in this release.  

[Darth Rubro 9]

I have to second the complaints about the new interface/color scheme.

 

It is really too bright, it tires the eyes.

 

It is really too low in contrast, it doesn't look clean, it looks confused.

 

It is really too minimalist, it doesn't look cool, it looks cheap.

 

Sorry if the words are a bit harsh, you make a great piece of software, but please fix this, it IS important. Even just reverting back to the old interface would be fine.