Evernote for Mac 6: Sharing Notes and Notebooks

[SoftwareMarcus 388]

The following covers the various ways to share your notes from within Evernote.

 

Work Chat

The best way to share your notes is to use the new Work Chat feature.  Don’t think of Work Chat as another chat client.  We didn’t design it to replace other chat apps.  Work Chat's focus is to allow you to quickly and easily discuss and share Evernote notes and notebooks.  If you’re viewing a note you want to share, just click the Share button to pop-up a Work Chat window.  In the Work Chat address field, type in the email addresses of the people you want to share with.  Next to the note you can set permissions.  You control who and how people can view and interact with your note.   Click Send and you’re now sharing your note.

 

Probably the biggest misconception about Work Chat is that you have to worry about whether or not the people you’re sharing with have Evernote or not.  People will get an email with a link to see the note in a web browser.  Like Google docs or other collaboration tools, they will need to sign in or create an Evernote account before seeing the note so we can enforce your sharing permissions but they don’t have to download an Evernote client or even use Evernote ever again.  If they are already an Evernote user they will see your Work Chat in their Evernote app.

 

Sharing a note and allowing someone else to edit the note is an entirely new feature in Evernote.

 

If you’re collaborating on a project you may also want to share a notebook so that everyone on your team can collaborate and share their notes with each other.  Just like a note, you share a notebook using Work Chat.

 

To sum things up, Work Chat is used to discuss and share notes or notebooks.  These conversations stay within Evernote so they are easy to find and follow. It also provides you control over who can see and interact with your notes or notebooks.  And finally, Work chat allows people to see your notes exactly how you formatted them, get the latest updates and even edit and collaborate on notes if you've given them those rights.

 

Email Note

The email note feature is a way of sharing a note via email.  Your note is converted to HTML and put into an email message.  Sometimes this works great and at other times the conversion to email is less than stellar with image stretching and other formatting issues.  This is useful if you don’t want people to get updates or you don’t care if they email it to others.  We have deemphasized this feature in favor of Work Chat. This feature can be found by right clicking (CTRL+Click) a note in the note list or clicking the Note menu in the menu bar and going to More Sharing.

 

Public Link

The public link is a way to create a URL that you can share with others to see your note.  Like email note you don’t have any control of who sees your note because the URL is public and anyone can see the note without restrictions.  But unlike email note, you will see the note exactly as you formatted it.

 

Copy Note Link

A note link is really an internal link that you create for your own use to open up Evernote notes from within Evernote or other applications.  You will need to log in to your Evernote account to see the note.  If you paste the note link in Evernote it will create a special "evernote:///“ link which will open the note in Evernote Mac.  If you paste the note link into another application, social media site or web page you’ll get a standard HTML URL and clicking this link will bring up the web version of Evernote. The Copy Note Link feature can be found by right clicking (CTRL+Click) on a note in the note list or by selecting the Note menu in the menu bar and selecting Copy Note Link. 

 

As you can see there are lots of ways to share notes or notebooks from within Evernote. We hope this helps! 

[c-mac 0]

Hello jvojordo, c-mac,

 

Sorry for the frustration and confusion you've been experiencing.  

 

We are looking into changing the sharing flows to emphasize sharing more than chatting and these should be trickling out across the desktop clients in the next few releases. 

 

• > When sharing a note, it's not intuitive where that note actually "lives" - does the end user need to copy or move the note to a different notebook to save a copy?

Currently shared notes are references that show up in work chat.  You can see all the notes and notebooks shared by viewing chat details the (i) icon.  All of the clients are undergoing changes to expose this in a more accessible manner.  For example the Windows client now has a paper clip icon that shows all the notes and notebooks that were shared via that chat.  http://note.io/1wpXpms

 

We are also looking at ways to better curate information that is shared without copying because copying creates a static version of the content that gets stale over time.  One of the benefits of sharing notes via work chat is that the note link is live and each time you view it you get the latest version of the content.

 

• When sharing a notebook with 5 people, only 3 of them were successfully granted permission to access the notebook - the others received the notebook invite via email but the link would not do anything when they clicked it to access the notebook.

This is unchanged from the old style of sharing via email.  The recipient MUST click through the link and either create an account or login to access the notebook.  The primary difference is that the the email may have changed enough so that your recipients were confused with the email and didn't follow through all the way.  If this is the case, we'd like to hear the comments about what made the email confusing so that we can improve it.

• The chat-sharing concept is supposed to aid collaboration, but when sharing a note its only editable by only one person at a time (at least that's what I think) while the others are locked out and can only view the note. This is understandable because of syncing conflicts, but there is nothing to explain that upfront and the small lock icon on the top right of the note isn't very apparent or informative. When can another person regain access to editing the note, if multiple people are viewing it? 

The faces both represent the people viewing the note at the same time as well as the current editor.  The current editor is usually the person on the farthest right and the one with the circular animation around their profile picture.  If you aren't the editor, clicking on the note should give you an indication of who is editing the note.  If not this is probably a bug with the specific client.  Regardless if you click on the note and aren't able to make changes it means that someone else has the lock on the note.  Currently the only method to release the lock is to have that person click out of the note.  

 

We are looking at improving this experience and making it more consistent across all clients.

 

Thanks for the feedback.

Nope ... this is GREAT from my end team.  For whatever reason, I didn't initially see some of your more focused responses to the issue.  Sorry for the BARK - and glad to hear you're on it )

[BungledB 2]

@m_fiorentino I disagree with your first assertion - Work Chat is not a nice feature. It's a ham-fisted confusion engine that pretends to look a bit like twitter or skype or any of the actually quite capable social media communication tools.

I agree with all the other things you say - but my biggest concern is the security. If people don't really know whether something is shared, or with who, then they can never have confidence in the Evernote brand.

 

To be honest, the Evernote guys would probably be better off canning the whole "chat" thing, and concentrating on addressing basic usability problems which are often raised on the forum - things like forcing people to use low-contrast fonts, not being able to customise the toolbar, Text resizing issues in notes, tags not syncing from the windows client properly etc. 

 

I should add that I work in a very wired environment, running an IT department in a highly technical science company, and we frequently interact via computer tools (like skype) using Instant Messages, as well as frequently sharing documents and stuff. In short, we actually know what we're doing with this stuff. We all find Evernote Work Chat useless and unwelcome. Trust us, it's a bad idea and really, really doesn't bring anything useful to the product; in our work environment, we rely on tools to perform their main function reliably and really don't give two hoots about "value added" features since these things usually remove value.

[Macradoo 0]

I have to add my voice to those asking for the old straight forward notebook sharing feature back as it was and have work chat as a seperate feature.

I hadn't realised they were now combined until for the first time in a while I tried to share another notebook with someone. Not sure if it was successful but no share thingie in the corner of the notebook suggests not. With multiple chat lines in the box I have no idea what i have ended up sending them.

[Grateful_user 2]

I like the chat feature, but I would like it to be separated/complimentary to the sharing feature. I would prefer the sharing feature be the primary vehicle and then if people wanted to 'chat' around a particular note or notebook, that would be functional. Right now, the blended function does not allow discrete discussions around the shared notebook or content, which limits the value of the chat feature. Further, I agree with others-- sharing is NOT the same as chatting in concept or in action.

[jvojordo 2]

I just spent half an hour attempting to share a notebook. Eventually I gave up and used google, then read about 3 screenfuls of instructions before I finally figured it out.

 

The sharing/work chat interface is APPALLINGLY bad.

 

1. When you click "share" you get thrown into some kind of hybrid contacts/chat window. It seems that this window IS the sharing window. Totally non-obvious. I must have opened it fifty times thinking the app was buggy and was throwing up the wrong window.

 

2. It is entirely unclear who I'm sharing the note with. Really that little slot at the top where I jam in the emails is it? So horrible.

 

3. It took me ages to find where to click to share a notebook (instead of a note). Even though I've now done it once I've forgotten so next time I will have to google how to again.

 

4. Each time I tried to share something and thought it was not working because the hybrid contacts/chat window does not have anything to say you've shared anything or not, it creates another chat "room" in the "work chat" window. So I ended up with *heaps* of them. That is a bizarre side effect to have when you thought you were just adding some share permissions to a note.

 

I think it's sort of like this, maybe:

- To share something you create a chat room with your buddies, and this gives them permission to access it.

- If you forget to add somebody you create *another* chat room with the original people and the new one?

- If you delete the chat room perhaps they lose access? (this is unclear)

- You can also modify the access via the permission menu on the note (maybe deletes the chat room??)

- You can right-click on a notebook and open a  manage-sharing panel to delete people (maybe kicks them from the chat room??)

 

Anyway I've managed to share something and we are collaborating so am not game to touch it now or experiment any further.

 

So, so SO very confused. Please have the devs sit down WITH AN EXPERIENCED UX PERSON and re-deisgn this.

 

This concisely captures my experience with the new sharing interface. I've been trying incorporate Evernote into collaborative work as part of a professional degree program and the sharing interface has been thoroughly confusing to use. Some points of friction I've experienced:

• When sharing a note, it's not intuitive where that note actually "lives" - does the end user need to copy or move the note to a different notebook to save a copy?
• "So is this a shared note or notebook?" - the sharing interface feels unintuitive for new users (who signed up for Evernote to access notes shared via chat) who are disoriented when trying to navigate the chat room (board?) and the shared content with in that.
• When sharing a notebook with 5 people, only 3 of them were successfully granted permission to access the notebook - the others received the notebook invite via email but the link would not do anything when they clicked it to access the notebook.
• The chat-sharing concept is supposed to aid collaboration, but when sharing a note its only editable by only one person at a time (at least that's what I think) while the others are locked out and can only view the note. This is understandable because of syncing conflicts, but there is nothing to explain that upfront and the small lock icon on the top right of the note isn't very apparent or informative. When can another person regain access to editing the note, if multiple people are viewing it? 

 

And to make matters worse, I submitted a support ticket (#943571) on February 7 and just received a reply from Evernote support today, 18 days later. Sure, I was working with others on the weekend and support was closed, but two and a half weeks is too long. How am I to trust Evernote to contain my life's work, if they aren't there to help me when the tools stop functioning? Not to mention how foolish I feel when I convince almost a dozen people to create accounts and then be unable to understand or explain why the sharing process is so difficult.

[c-mac 0]

Is anyone from EverNote reading this feedback ?  Will we ever get a decent response on this one (as in "it's here to stay, shut up" ... or "we hear you .... we're working on it")?

 

I see a lot of your non-amateur / power users took a lot of time to share thoughtful, specific examples & feedback around this chat / sharing fiasco.  I'm starting to feel like EverNote's not valuing the gift of legitimate feedback from their most passionate followers.

 

EverNote .... can we at LEAST have a real response that doesn't duck the gist of 3-months of consistently negative feedback here ?  Or .... would you suggest we start sharing better tool options in your forums ?

 

Please just share a thoughtful reply ... as we have with you !!!

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

Evernote is responding actually.  And it looks pretty good.

It started with this post:  https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/72556-introducing-work-chat/?p=346635

in the Work Chat thread.

 

I have had several excellent exchanges with Evernote.

Please take a look, and feel free to join in there.

 

[mcheng 106]

Hello jvojordo, c-mac,

 

Sorry for the frustration and confusion you've been experiencing.  

 

We are looking into changing the sharing flows to emphasize sharing more than chatting and these should be trickling out across the desktop clients in the next few releases. 

 

• > When sharing a note, it's not intuitive where that note actually "lives" - does the end user need to copy or move the note to a different notebook to save a copy?

Currently shared notes are references that show up in work chat.  You can see all the notes and notebooks shared by viewing chat details the (i) icon.  All of the clients are undergoing changes to expose this in a more accessible manner.  For example the Windows client now has a paper clip icon that shows all the notes and notebooks that were shared via that chat.  https://www.evernote.com/l/AAzEPCSZO0BGFKjJvUwwPe7fU1rvWrDhHgI

 

We are also looking at ways to better curate information that is shared without copying because copying creates a static version of the content that gets stale over time.  One of the benefits of sharing notes via work chat is that the note link is live and each time you view it you get the latest version of the content.

 

• When sharing a notebook with 5 people, only 3 of them were successfully granted permission to access the notebook - the others received the notebook invite via email but the link would not do anything when they clicked it to access the notebook.

This is unchanged from the old style of sharing via email.  The recipient MUST click through the link and either create an account or login to access the notebook.  The primary difference is that the the email may have changed enough so that your recipients were confused with the email and didn't follow through all the way.  If this is the case, we'd like to hear the comments about what made the email confusing so that we can improve it.

• The chat-sharing concept is supposed to aid collaboration, but when sharing a note its only editable by only one person at a time (at least that's what I think) while the others are locked out and can only view the note. This is understandable because of syncing conflicts, but there is nothing to explain that upfront and the small lock icon on the top right of the note isn't very apparent or informative. When can another person regain access to editing the note, if multiple people are viewing it? 

The faces both represent the people viewing the note at the same time as well as the current editor.  The current editor is usually the person on the farthest right and the one with the circular animation around their profile picture.  If you aren't the editor, clicking on the note should give you an indication of who is editing the note.  If not this is probably a bug with the specific client.  Regardless if you click on the note and aren't able to make changes it means that someone else has the lock on the note.  Currently the only method to release the lock is to have that person click out of the note.  

 

We are looking at improving this experience and making it more consistent across all clients.

 

Thanks for the feedback.

[Metrodon 2,184]

OK, so I kind of stopped talking about work chat and sharing because Jack made it pretty clear that you lot thought that this new solution was far easier for people to understand than what you had before. Is that no longer the case? Are you actively looking for feedback?

[jvojordo 2]

Evernote is responding actually.  And it looks pretty good.

It started with this post:  https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/72556-introducing-work-chat/?p=346635

in the Work Chat thread.

 

I have had several excellent exchanges with Evernote.

Please take a look, and feel free to join in there.

 

JMichael thanks for linking to that thread - I hadn't seen that yet as I don't think it's pinned and I wasn't sure if my post was relevant to sharing, Work Chat, or both 

I'll take a look and see if I can contribute anything worthwhile.

 

Hello jvojordo, c-mac,

 

Sorry for the frustration and confusion you've been experiencing.  

 

We are looking into changing the sharing flows to emphasize sharing more than chatting and these should be trickling out across the desktop clients in the next few releases. 

 

• > When sharing a note, it's not intuitive where that note actually "lives" - does the end user need to copy or move the note to a different notebook to save a copy?

Currently shared notes are references that show up in work chat.  You can see all the notes and notebooks shared by viewing chat details the (i) icon.  All of the clients are undergoing changes to expose this in a more accessible manner.  For example the Windows client now has a paper clip icon that shows all the notes and notebooks that were shared via that chat.  https://www.evernote.com/l/AAzEPCSZO0BGFKjJvUwwPe7fU1rvWrDhHgI

 

We are also looking at ways to better curate information that is shared without copying because copying creates a static version of the content that gets stale over time.  One of the benefits of sharing notes via work chat is that the note link is live and each time you view it you get the latest version of the content.

 

• When sharing a notebook with 5 people, only 3 of them were successfully granted permission to access the notebook - the others received the notebook invite via email but the link would not do anything when they clicked it to access the notebook.

This is unchanged from the old style of sharing via email.  The recipient MUST click through the link and either create an account or login to access the notebook.  The primary difference is that the the email may have changed enough so that your recipients were confused with the email and didn't follow through all the way.  If this is the case, we'd like to hear the comments about what made the email confusing so that we can improve it.

• The chat-sharing concept is supposed to aid collaboration, but when sharing a note its only editable by only one person at a time (at least that's what I think) while the others are locked out and can only view the note. This is understandable because of syncing conflicts, but there is nothing to explain that upfront and the small lock icon on the top right of the note isn't very apparent or informative. When can another person regain access to editing the note, if multiple people are viewing it? 

The faces both represent the people viewing the note at the same time as well as the current editor.  The current editor is usually the person on the farthest right and the one with the circular animation around their profile picture.  If you aren't the editor, clicking on the note should give you an indication of who is editing the note.  If not this is probably a bug with the specific client.  Regardless if you click on the note and aren't able to make changes it means that someone else has the lock on the note.  Currently the only method to release the lock is to have that person click out of the note.  

 

We are looking at improving this experience and making it more consistent across all clients.

 

Thanks for the feedback.

 

Hey mcheng, I appreciate your timely response and thoroughness.

 

"Currently shared notes are references that show up in work chat"

 

I think this might be where some of my friction is showing up. Please correct me if I have this understanding wrong: Work Chat collates "bookmarks" (references) that point you to notes contained on another accounts, shared with you by the users on those accounts - opposed to an inbox containing the actual notes shared with you. If that thinking is correct, it helps me understand the concept of Work Chat a bit more, but isn't consistent with how the Work Chart sharing feature is perceived to function, at least by me and others I've been trying to use it with.

 

"This is unchanged from the old style of sharing via email.  The recipient MUST click through the link and either create an account or login to access the notebook."

 

I haven't discussed this with any of them since yesterday, and with it being almost 3 weeks ago I can't remember exactly how they were trying to access the shared notebook but I was there with them and would have (I hope) had them try the link in Work Chat and the email they would have received. They are all users who I have successfully shared notes with via Work Chat just days before sharing a notebook with them. If I remember correctly, the links they received in the email and Work Chat acted as dead-links. I'll follow up with them next week though to clarify.

 

"The faces both represent the people viewing the note at the same time as well as the current editor."

 

Are the faces you're referencing the small user identifiers (profile photo or initial if they don't have an image set)? Thank you for clarifying those points for me. This could be made much more user friendly. While I was able to make sense of the lock icon - it was very confusing for the new users I was helping get set up to share notes with. It would be helpful to give function to the profile faces on shared notes. For example, clicking on a face gives that user access to edit the note. When trying to collaborate on a note and work congruently with others, it's cumbersome to make your edits, click off the note, tell another user to bring up the note, make their edit, remind them to click off the note, etc. 

 

I'm not against Work Chat fundamentally - I was actually excited by the prospect of it, which is why I waited so long to see if I would make it over the learning curve. But it started to feel like I was in a bad relationship and had to ask myself, "is it me...or you?" Again, thank you for your time in responding, I look forward to the Evernote tool set maturing and becoming better at what it's intended to do.

[mcheng 106]

Hi jvodoro

 

"Currently shared notes are references that show up in work chat"

 

I think this might be where some of my friction is showing up. Please correct me if I have this understanding wrong: Work Chat collates "bookmarks" (references) that point you to notes contained on another accounts, shared with you by the users on those accounts - opposed to an inbox containing the actual notes shared with you. If that thinking is correct, it helps me understand the concept of Work Chat a bit more, but isn't consistent with how the Work Chart sharing feature is perceived to function, at least by me and others I've been trying to use it with.

 

 

Yes, work chat is more of a communication channel rather than an inbox where you "point" to notes and notebooks as part of your discussion and provide permissions to the objects along the way to facilitate your discussion.  As I mentioned in other posts, we are looking to expose the notes and notebooks that are a part of the discussion in a more clear and concise way so that you should be able to search, sort, filter and curate (i.e. short cut, pin, etc) the these items more easily.

 

To help illustrate the idea behind work chat, this is our internal use case that spawned the idea of work chat.  

 

Suppose you and I are working on a project and I have an note in Evernote on which I wanted your input.  Prior to work chat, I would:

- Bring up a client like Skype / Google Hangouts 

- Search for you to address the chat

- Flip back to Evernote

- Copy a public note link 

- Flip back to Skype / Google Hangouts

- Paste the link and type in a message

 

On your end, you would

- Click on the link from Skype / Google Hangouts which would launch a web browser

- If you weren't logged in, you would need to login to view the note in the browser

- If you wanted to provide feedback directly in the note, you couldn't.  You would need to describe your changes to me in Skype / Hangouts

- I would then need to figure out what you were describing and make the corresponding changes 

 

The original thought process with combining Sharing and Work Chat was to streamline the sending flow to 3 steps

- Click share from the note

- Select you from my contacts / previous chats

- Type my message and hit send

 

From there you could either edit the note directly and I would see you doing so via the profile faces in the upper right OR just type in a response to the chat window

 

We do understand now that this was a big cognitive leap for many users but during development and prior to launch we did perform usability testing and there wasn't any strong indication of this.  This is also why we didn't jump immediately to make changes when the forums heated up because we were getting mixed signals.  We issued a survey, which some of you saw, to understand people's perception and difficulties with work chat as well as tested a few changes to the flow to confirm before we began to roll out across the clients.

 

 

"The faces both represent the people viewing the note at the same time as well as the current editor."

Are the faces you're referencing the small user identifiers (profile photo or initial if they don't have an image set)?

 

 

Yes.  Here is a screen shot from my client for illustration  https://www.evernote.com/l/AAwMw8MOwANNVr6bu5bTq0fz7SaOTXkC88s

 

For example, clicking on a face gives that user access to edit the note. When trying to collaborate on a note and work congruently with others, it's cumbersome to make your edits, click off the note, tell another user to bring up the note, make their edit, remind them to click off the note, etc. 

 

 

This is an interesting suggestion to the locking issue.  We'll take that into consideration.  Thanks!

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

We do understand now that this was a big cognitive leap for many users but during development and prior to launch we did perform usability testing and there wasn't any strong indication of this.  

 

mcheng, thanks for sharing your thought process when conceiving and implementing Work Chat.

I think it's great to streamline the process so that sharing while chatting is much simpler.

 

As we have discussed elsewhere, there are many of us that have a need share without chatting.

So, while pulling the sharing feature inside of the chatting feature made one process simpler, it made another much more complex and confusing.

 

Clearly there is a need to share without chatting.

 

Thanks for your request for feedback here, and for giving our feedback serious consideration on design changes.

[mcheng 106]

understood loud and clear.  

[mcheng 106]

@jvodoro

 

> If I remember correctly, the links they received in the email and Work Chat acted as dead-links. I'll follow up with them next week though to clarify.

 

One other thing I just though of that may be causing this.  I've noticed internally there is somewhat of a race condition with shared notes.  I've seen this with notes on occasion and it may also be happening with notebooks.  

 

If someone shares a note with you via work chat and you jump into the chat via the notification and immediately click on the link, you may get an error message that says the note was moved or removed.  However if you wait 1-2 seconds and then click again, you should see the note.  This happens across clients but infrequently enough that I'm not sure people have noticed.

 

Please have your colleagues check again.  If this is the case, then I'll file a bug to have someone look into this.  

 

Thanks.

[m_fiorentino 4]

Chat or Work chat is in itself a nice feature, but it integrates two functionalities which are not obvious to integrate in people's minds. Chatting = sharing in Evernote, but a chat entry is fleeting as a concept, so no user has the ability to notice if the sharing is persistent or not. Furthermore, there is no intuitive way to un-share anything in the chat either. When you click on the chat feature you get a bunch of e-mails listed and then nothing. No way of seeing what you can do, and how you can do it. Simply put: there is no visible overview of the recipient(s), state and longevity of a shared note or notebook. This must be fixed.

[m_fiorentino 4]

As we have discussed elsewhere, there are many of us that have a need share without chatting.

So, while pulling the sharing feature inside of the chatting feature made one process simpler, it made another much more complex and confusing.

 

Clearly there is a need to share without chatting.

 

Exactly. While I see the the good intentions in chatting while sharing, sometimes you just need to share. For example, I have a bunch of family-related stuff and articles in a dedicated notebook, that I just want to continuously share with my wife. No need to chat there 

 

:-m

[Tim Hsu 0]

I am a fan of evernote, and pay for it. I will only say.  shared note between friends becomes very very very hard.  work chat is a good idea, but shared note should not together with work chat. 

 

 

I almost feel anger with the bad experience while I share notebook with friends. 

[EvernoteHakan 0]

SoftwareMarcus

 

The email function is not working for the past 2 weeks. I am loosing valuable time trying to get my notes to people. It started to defeat the purpose of using Evernote. I want to be able to simply save things as PDF and email it. I know you are pushing for WorkChat but its not up to par yet and can't force people to download Evernote. First time started to think about OneNote since started using Evernote. 

[rmahr 0]

Is there a way to take a note from work chat and save it to or attach it to or something it to your own notebook stack? Or are work chat notes only available in work chat? 

[Jackolicious 808]

rmahr, Note menu -> Copy note.

[mcheng 106]

Hello rmahr,

 

Jack's instructions show you how to take a copy of the note for your own account.  We are looking at ways to allow you to more easily find and curate notes shared via Work Chat so that they feel more a part of your account or at the very least give you quick access to them without making copies.  We want you to see all the changes that are made as you work with your colleagues.

 

How would you like to manage these notes?  Can you give me some of your use cases as to what type of information is being shared and how you want to organize the information? 

 

Thanks.

[9errie 3]

I read the docs and understand the different ways to share a note/notebook. To me, Evernote sharing is not intuitive. I use Google Drive a lot, including the sharing/collaboration features, now that is intuitive. Maybe the Evernote team should take a look again at the Google Drive implementation?

 

My common use case is that I want to share notes with friends and family, all having an Evernote account. In that case:

• A "Shared (with me)" label in the sidebar could reveal all shared notes/notebooks
• I would like organise shared notes/notebooks freely as if they were my own. E.g. I can move a shared note from "Shared (with me)" to any notebook in my account, of course the note stays shared.
• I can collaboratively edit notes (now there seems to be an exclusive lock; there is however no indication of this, very annoying)
• If you feel chat is needed (is most cases it isn't imho), than chat within a note and not the other way around.

I know these requirements are simplistic, but I hope it makes the general idea clear.

 

HTH.

[alessandro 1]

I would like just to tell how angry am I about this horrible work chat. I need to work on several shared notes and since the introduction of this feature everything has become frustrating. I am very disappointed with this. By the way, I totally agree with 9erre.

 

Alessandro

[Chris C88 0]

At the risk of "Necro"'ing this thread a bit, I hope to bump it a little bit. After reading through the entire thread, I can see the arguments on both sides, and I, for one, appreciate your openness to correction, Dev's. I thought I might throw my 2 cents in as well, for whatever it is worth, for what I am specifically looking for that brought me to this thread. 

 

As mentioned already by a few users, I just wanted to reiterate a few things

1. While I don't expect ya'll to copy anything or reproduce something like Google Drive, I do appreciate the sharing-flow that Drive has. Sharing a document through Google Docs allows multiple users to not only simultaneously view the document, but to simultaneously make edits. I'm sure this requires an infrastructure on a level that I can't understand simply, but I love that functionality. For instance, I am in a position within the practice I work for, where I am one of two members sharing a Back-office/COO type role. We are working on implementing a shared project list that we'd both have access to, could edit, etc. It would be nice to be able to both have it open, and making edits at or near the same time. As it is right now, EN is essentially useless to us in this capacity as either only one of us can be editing the note at a time (i.e. if I'm looking at it through my phone app while she has it open on her computer), or, if both utilizing the desktop client, we run into several note-change-conflicts, which can be quite frustrating when you both may be making several changes and may have the note open throughout the day. (We ran into a note-conflict 4 times just in the first hour of trying to get it set up and collaborating.)

 

2. It would be nice to be able to have notes that are shared with me have the ability to be put into my own notebooks or systems of organization, retain their 'shared'-ness but also share functionality that other notes in that notebook would do. (I.e. if I have my note list set to organize by last-modified-date, then that note would automatically pop to the top of the notebook if I (of anyone sharing it) made an edit to it.)   I don't hate WorkChat, but I also don't love it, and at this point, it's not extremely useful to me for any reason. For shared notes to reside there exclusively, as well, is just not a comfortable UI flow either. For my partner (who is a little bit less tech-savvy), I had to create the note and copy it over on her end, and then share it with myself from her EN, so that I would be the one that had to navigate the WorkChat functionality. It is kind of obnoxious to have to exit the rest of my Evernote functionality's UI to WorkChat, and open that chat to then open that note, in an entirely separate window in and of itself.  Ideally, shared notes would have a separate shared-functionality, but would be able to be maintained within the normal note/notebook UI. 

 

3. Even if you could get the near simultaneous/instantaneous editing functionality mentioned in #1, I could see that being very difficult to achieve through the desktop client. I don't know if there could be some options added to have the auto-syncing function to be enabled (maybe for Shared notes only perhaps) on a 10- or 30-second sync, rather than the current minimum of 5 minutes. Perhaps only on shared notes, and maybe only while you had those notes actually open to edit. 

 

4. Given all of that as well, it would be nice for there to be some extra under-the-hood functionality that helped limit some of the note-change-conflicts mentioned in #2. Even at a 30-second syncing rate, if collaborates are simultaneously making edits, then you will be constantly getting hit with conflicting changes. Perhaps there is a way for the client to be able to interpret shared notes, specifically, and maybe add conflicting changes on the current note at the bottom or something. i.e. for it to be able to recognize that 80% of the note is unchanged between the two conflicting versions, but there have been 15 lines of text added on my client's end and 10 lines of separate text added on my coworker's end, for Evernote to add all of that at their respective locations in the note, possibly with some sort of UI that alerted the user of the changes/conflicts, either in a highlighting fashion, or at least in some un-intrusive UI/notification within the text of the note where the changes are. (I'm thinking something like the 'comment' system in Microsoft Word or something. 

 

I hope that those make sense (and I really hope they are achievable)! At this point, the only thing that Google Drive has for me over Evernote, really, is the collaboration functionality. I use it so I don't have to purchase Word or Excel, and I use it for cloud-storage of files/receipts/important doc's, etc, but I use Evernote for everything else. (i.e. I use drive when I have to, but Evernote all daa-ey, E'ery Daaa-ey!)   Would love to be able to use Evernote for this functionality. 

[NostradamusZen 3]

There is no notification whatsoever in Mac OSX, or iOS, or Android. Nothing audible, nothing visible, whether it is for a chat update or a change or addition to a shared notebook. Oh, OK, if you remember to go into the app and look, there's a visual alert. But who does that, in this century?! Nothing in Notifications, nothing in the Taskbar menu.

 

Can someone please buy the developers at Evernote a slide rule, or a sextant - or even a ***** packet, so they can work out the millions in market share they're losing because of this?!

 

Mark

 

(PS, yes, I'll go find the Mac, Android, iOS forums to post this in the 'right place' too - not that anyone at Evernote will get an alert about it. Probably better off with Twitter and TrustPilot . . . )

[Holger 0]

Any news regarding the notification in the Mac OS Evernote App, when somebody changed something in a shared notebook?

The lack of this functionality is rendering the Shared Notebook functionality for me nearly useless...I don't won't to have to look ever hour or so into a shared Notebook to see if some changes where made...

Kind Regards

Holger

[DTLow 5,736]

7 hours ago, Holger said:

Any news regarding the notification in the Mac OS Evernote App, when somebody changed something in a shared notebook?

The lack of this functionality is rendering the Shared Notebook functionality for me nearly useless...I don't won't to have to look ever hour or so into a shared Notebook to see if some changes where made...

There's no indication that Evernote is considering this feature.

You might look at third party alternatives
IFTTT has an option, and there's SureNotifier

[phast_geek 0]

Seems ridiculous to use another app and pay additional fees for Surenote when this seems like an easy feature to integrate.

[DTLow 5,736]

22 hours ago, phast_geek said:

Seems ridiculous to use another app and pay additional fees for Surenote

Personally, I view my notes in modification date sequence.  My notification is that updated notes appear at the top of the list

[martin_wheeler 0]

Can someone advise...?

 

I have recently sent several 'Copy Public Link' in an email to non-Evernote users.

 

They are all saying that they are not able to access my note via the link. Most recently 'Webpage not available'.

 

What's going wrong?

 

Thx. 

[scarynige 5]

First time on here after using Evernote in previous versions quite happily for months, and being very productive. Of course this will be a frustrated rant

 

Trying to share a notebook with the 'work chat' interface from Evernote for Mac is driving me crazy. I have no idea if I'm sending a message or an invite or what. Then the person I tried to share the notebook with got a work chat message from me, in the iOS Evernote app, which has a thing that looks like a button corresponding to the notebook that my Evernote for Mac app says is shared with them, but the 'button' doesn't do anything on a press. A long press just puts a Copy button up. There seems to be no way for the person I'm corresponding with to accept my invitation to the notebook.

 

[Update: turns out it was an older version of Evernote for iOS with a bug that was fixed by an update]

 

I'd ask if I'm doing something stupid, but something this non-intuitive can't possibly be my fault...

 

By the way, "Work chat" is a truly terrible name for a feature. Is work supposed to be a noun or a verb here? How about "chat"? So far, it doesn't 'work' and it's forced me to 'chat' here.

[pgdahl 133]

Probably the biggest misconception about Work Chat is that you have to worry about whether or not the people you’re sharing with have Evernote or not. People will get an email with a link to see the note in a web browser. Like Google docs or other collaboration tools, they will need to sign in or create an Evernote account before seeing the note

 

This is a contradictory statement (my emphasis). And one key reason why the old share by e-mail feature or even e-mailing a link to a public note is a far superior option in most cases where you just want people to view your note. 

 

Here's a couple of other issues that makes Work Chat seem a step backwards:

 

- it often takes quite a while for the recipient to get the notification. Anything from 10-15 minutes in my experiences playing around with my accounts.

- if you're sending the note/notebook to an e-mail-address which has already an account attached, the owner will not receive an e-mail. 

- what kind of notification do the recipient get if they do not have a client with Work Chat? None, at all?

 

Another thing is that "New chat" button on the tool bar. Whether you want to use Work Chat or not it serves no purpose but being an eye sore. There's references to Work Chat literally everywhere in the interface, why do we need this button at all? I also don't understand why you do not make a unified Share menu to decrease the confusion about which is where. But that would obviously not serve your efforts to doomphasise other sharing options. 

 

Running from Herod to Pilate everytime I want to achieve anything (not just sharing) in Evernote is what has slowly but steadily driven me to seek greener pastures (no pun intended). Every releases since 5.0.0 has been a new disappointment.

[mattm9 13]

 

Probably the biggest misconception about Work Chat is that you have to worry about whether or not the people you’re sharing with have Evernote or not.  People will get an email with a link to see the note in a web browser.  Like Google docs or other collaboration tools, they will need to sign in or create an Evernote account before seeing the note so we can enforce your sharing permissions but they don’t have to download an Evernote client or even use Evernote ever again.  If they are already an Evernote user they will see your Work Chat in their Evernote app.

 

 

 

Work chat is a good idea for Evernote, I think, but the trouble with the current approach is that many people don't like creating new accounts. It would be great to have email invitations to work chats using a short numeric code, like on LogMeIn's join.me service. 

 

Also, I think that users should be able to hide buttons for features they don't use, which would further the minimalist aspect of the application for those who want to simplify the screen as much as possible. 

[chirmer 567]

 

Probably the biggest misconception about Work Chat is that you have to worry about whether or not the people you’re sharing with have Evernote or not. People will get an email with a link to see the note in a web browser. Like Google docs or other collaboration tools, they will need to sign in or create an Evernote account before seeing the note

 

This is a contradictory statement (my emphasis). And one key reason why the old share by e-mail feature or even e-mailing a link to a public note is a far superior option in most cases where you just want people to view your note.

 

Yeah, I kinda feel the same. Like, I do still have to worry about it, because if they don't have Evernote, they have to go through the effort to sign up in order to see it. I won't ever use this feature unless I KNOW they use Evernote. Am I missing something?

[Socialwill 24]

I would suggest, as I have in the previous design thread, make the sharing options simple and easy.  

 

• Make the toolbar customizable for users
• Change the "New Chat" and "Share" buttons to be just icons on the toolbar that match the other icons such as sync and notifications.  Apple has a standard Share icon they use with an arrow point up
• After clicking the "Sharing" icon, list all the options directly including Email a note.
• WorkChat can be its own icon but this could be removed if someone does not use it.

[J Carswell 2]

Sharing Evernote content should not have to be associated with the Chat feature. I would like to be able to turn it completely off and still be able to send email links to people I want to share Notes or Notebooks with.

 

I agree with Socialwill above that the standard Sharing icon should be used in the content of sharing content. If Evernote the company wants to make its tool a communication platform that should be branded separately and optionally turned off.

[ScottN57 9]

Linking "Work Chat" with the sharing function for notebook is a very confusing way of doing it.  In a teacher training I think I lost a lot of my participants due the struggles of trying to share without chatting. We had a mix of people and devices using web, web beta, Mac app, iPad app (updated and non), and the drastic change in sharing behavior did not work out well.

 

Is there a way to paste or type a series of email address and share a notebook without it becoming a chat?  Most of the participants didn't get the invite, some did and got the shared class notebook, some responded to the chat without getting the notebook, etc...  Sharing from the old web version seemed to work.

 

Please separate the two functions.

[Prazkak 1]

I want to add a massive DITTO to the comments above. The change in notebook sharing protocol is not intuitive and a giant step backward for what has been a consistently great product up until now. We already have many ways to live chat our colleagues, and I see this adding nothing to our capabilities. Instead it takes what was a simple feature--sharing a notebook with colleagues--and turns it into a 30 minute time suck when I'm on deadline. 

 

[Zachster 1]

I agree with all the above statements. I spent the better part of a hr trying to figure out these new share and "work chat" features. I am an evernote business subscriber and this new update has quite frankly taken away the ease of use and functionality I had become accustomed too. Once again I am not mad evernote I am just very disappointed.

If it aint broke dont fix it! at the very least make "chat" and sharing completely separate. Dont combine the two, because sometimes people dont want to "chat" about what they are sharing. 

[AstridV 3]

The "de-emphasizing" of sharing via email is driving me crazy. Please "re-emphasize" asap.

I want to share via email. Who says work chat is an improvement in the way I work? Not me.

 

It's fine if you work chat all you want, but my clients, staff and co-workers are really not interested.

[vbretz 0]

I (used to) forward emails to non-Evernote colleagues all the time.  What was once easy is now inconvenient.

 

This comes across as a case of a company putting it's interests (i.e. force company's awkward social sharing feature to get new members) ahead of it's clients interests (i.e. hiding user's easy, previously functioning email feature).  

 

If the goal is to put users first, please simply move or add the "Email note…" link to the "Share" button menu.  Or make that menu customizable.

 

Thanks.

[theinspired615 12]

I completely agree with everything that has been said. I just updated the app two days ago and I love the new UI, but changing the share menu was a mistake. I only know of one or two people who use Evernote and hiding the email note option under two menus is not convenient for me.

 

I do not use the work chat feature and it makes more sense for Evernote Business users, not every single Evernote user. This feature should be able to be hidden or turned off. I should be able to share a note or a notebook easily without the extra hassle.

 

Please just move the email note action back into the share menu. This is very frustrating.

[design_h2 0]

I'm adding my bit of protest. With the update, sharing things has suddenly become tedious, frustrating and uncertain. I was wondering why my coworker wasn't getting tasks that I was assigning to her. Why? Because of Evernote. The UI that used to allow one to manage who is seeing a notebook was obliterated, and not even replaced. The "Work Chat" icon is trying to re-invent the wheel; and by "wheel" I mean Share, which Apple had already painstakingly rooted into our brains as a universally recognizable function. What's the difference between "New Chat" and "Share Notebook..." Beats me.

 

I'm usually for progressive change in UI, but this one I'm not so sure...

[kylek 1]

I just spent half an hour attempting to share a notebook. Eventually I gave up and used google, then read about 3 screenfuls of instructions before I finally figured it out.

 

The sharing/work chat interface is APPALLINGLY bad.

 

1. When you click "share" you get thrown into some kind of hybrid contacts/chat window. It seems that this window IS the sharing window. Totally non-obvious. I must have opened it fifty times thinking the app was buggy and was throwing up the wrong window.

 

2. It is entirely unclear who I'm sharing the note with. Really that little slot at the top where I jam in the emails is it? So horrible.

 

3. It took me ages to find where to click to share a notebook (instead of a note). Even though I've now done it once I've forgotten so next time I will have to google how to again.

 

4. Each time I tried to share something and thought it was not working because the hybrid contacts/chat window does not have anything to say you've shared anything or not, it creates another chat "room" in the "work chat" window. So I ended up with *heaps* of them. That is a bizarre side effect to have when you thought you were just adding some share permissions to a note.

 

I think it's sort of like this, maybe:

- To share something you create a chat room with your buddies, and this gives them permission to access it.

- If you forget to add somebody you create *another* chat room with the original people and the new one?

- If you delete the chat room perhaps they lose access? (this is unclear)

- You can also modify the access via the permission menu on the note (maybe deletes the chat room??)

- You can right-click on a notebook and open a  manage-sharing panel to delete people (maybe kicks them from the chat room??)

 

Anyway I've managed to share something and we are collaborating so am not game to touch it now or experiment any further.

 

So, so SO very confused. Please have the devs sit down WITH AN EXPERIENCED UX PERSON and re-deisgn this.

Crufty is right on this. It's it not clear or intuitive to try to share (collaborate) a notebook using work chat.

Honestly maybe there is a use case for chat.. I don't really see the need and fear that I'll get undesired alerts every time someone edits a note.

[c-mac 0]

Hey Team !

 

Think about the impact of "work chat" on your business owner customers who use Evernote to share information with prospects.  I'd love to share my notebook of flyers, showing all of my offerings via table of contents ... but NO WAY IN HELL ... am I asking a client to have to join Evernote to do it.  "I" ... am your customer ... should these notebooks serve me in how I'd like to use them ?  I understand marketing strategies, and the need to sell your stuff, but by demanding new accounts to view / chat around notebooks, you've now just lost the opportunity to WOW my prospect who would have seen all my flyers, table of content - in my "Evernote" notebook.

 

Keep it honest folks.  Your comment talking completely around people needing Evernote is total nonsense, and I don't care if Google Docs does the same thing - I'm not using their stuff for a reason.

 

I love Evernote ... but you're making it more difficult for me to use it.  No public links I can share .... no customer here.

[Crufty 1]

I just spent half an hour attempting to share a notebook. Eventually I gave up and used google, then read about 3 screenfuls of instructions before I finally figured it out.

 

The sharing/work chat interface is APPALLINGLY bad.

 

1. When you click "share" you get thrown into some kind of hybrid contacts/chat window. It seems that this window IS the sharing window. Totally non-obvious. I must have opened it fifty times thinking the app was buggy and was throwing up the wrong window.

 

2. It is entirely unclear who I'm sharing the note with. Really that little slot at the top where I jam in the emails is it? So horrible.

 

3. It took me ages to find where to click to share a notebook (instead of a note). Even though I've now done it once I've forgotten so next time I will have to google how to again.

 

4. Each time I tried to share something and thought it was not working because the hybrid contacts/chat window does not have anything to say you've shared anything or not, it creates another chat "room" in the "work chat" window. So I ended up with *heaps* of them. That is a bizarre side effect to have when you thought you were just adding some share permissions to a note.

 

I think it's sort of like this, maybe:

- To share something you create a chat room with your buddies, and this gives them permission to access it.

- If you forget to add somebody you create *another* chat room with the original people and the new one?

- If you delete the chat room perhaps they lose access? (this is unclear)

- You can also modify the access via the permission menu on the note (maybe deletes the chat room??)

- You can right-click on a notebook and open a  manage-sharing panel to delete people (maybe kicks them from the chat room??)

 

Anyway I've managed to share something and we are collaborating so am not game to touch it now or experiment any further.

 

So, so SO very confused. Please have the devs sit down WITH AN EXPERIENCED UX PERSON and re-deisgn this.

[case 0]

Please bring back the ease of sending a note via email. The Evernote web client does it perfectly a simple "share" drop down that has all the sharing options. 

[NightStalker 407]

Is there anyone - anyone at all - who actually LIKES and USES Work Chat? I haven't seen anyone post yet that they do.

 

For me, I keep a whole stack of Patient Information Leaflets in Evernote, and I simply email the appropriate one to a patient after a consultation. Simple, clean, and NEVER had a problem with this mythical "bad formatting" problem. It has NEVER been a problem for me.

 

This whole chat nonsense would confuse the hell out of my patients, many of whom are elderly and who are apprehensive about upcoming surgery, if they open an email, and instead of finding the information leaflet, they get a link to something that takes them out of their email program.

 

I have absolutely NO use for Chat at all. I want to get rid of the Chat button. I want to install an "Email Note" button on the toolbar. I want to install a "Print" button on the toolbar.

 

Once again, we see Evernote going off on its own crusade to force a "feature" on us that nobody seems to want. Please listen to your users. Give us back the easy way to email notes - not buried two deep, and deemphasised (your words) in a menu.

 

Surely you should be able to see from all the negative comments about ENv6 that Phil Libin's "vision" for the program is NOT what many (?most?) of the users want?  At least, not the ones who are engaged enough to come on here and comment.

 

You seem intent on killing the goose that has laid the golden egg for you. The program that made you famous and got you 100 million users, is changing into something that is quite different. And a lot of people are NOT happy...

[Jackolicious 808]

This is all great feedback. Thanks for the input. Noted til here.

[Casa Canis 4]

I do coaching and consulting in brand development. I ask all of my clients to use Evernote to collect samples when we begin to conceptualize a brand direction. I take the time to set them up, get web clipper set up, get them started, and work out the shared notebooks. This data is their data, not mine, and they should be able to share it and revoke sharing as they see fit. Often these notebooks are then shared with a graphic designer, web developer, etc. The recent changes have thrown my work into chaos. It is very difficult to talk a non-user through the set up and sharing process. Hell, it is baffling for me to do it myself! I hate the chat thing, and my clients freak out and balk as soon as that thing comes up. I, too, choose not to use Google tools for a reason. Now this has become impenetrable for a new user and I don't have the prowess to talk others through it. 

 

Can anybody tell me more about how note and/or notebook origination determines what edits are available now? I thought if I moved all of an individual's notes into one shared notebook per client, I could tag them more extensively, but the tagging is blocked for me, and I'm not going to ask clients to go re-tag all of their notes. 

[sailingbikeruk 1]

I would like to add my two penneth here as a new Evernote convert.

 

I started to work with Evernote to collate all my Genealogy notes, certificates etc. I created a notebook for each family so that I could share these with people who were researching the same family, most often distant cousins and almost certainly people who don't know me well.

 

It was such a good program, such a fantastic way of working that I was able to share a notebook with a cousin in Australia by email and we have been collaborating ever since. I quickly signed up to Evernote Pro, however, since the release of V6, I cannot get anybody else to collaborate with me and I couldn't understand why. I could only share a notebook from "Work Chat" and I wasn't sure thirds was working so I shared the notebook with one of my own alternate email addresses and this is the first line of text in the mail that I received - "Ian Davies sent you a chat in Evernote" - no I didn't I sent them a request to collaborate with me on our shared genealogy - only you didn't put that bit in the email.

 

The people I am sending this two don't know me, we have probably only ever met online and exchanged some brief information and email addresses. I can't imagine their horror when they think I want to "chat online".

 

Please, please, please bring back the old sharing, let me send them an email, with my own text, not whatever you decide to send on my behalf. They don't even get to see what I've typed in the chat window, they get a generic email with your marketing message.

 

Why would you make this change its flipping awful..........and you are about to lose one of your newest customers. I may not be able to get this years subscriptions refunded, but I can make damn sure you don't get any more out of me.

 

This ongoing thread should tell you (Evernote) something - your new work chat is not wanted, what is wanted is the old Apple Sharing menu.

[Jackolicious 808]

Work Chat is the primary mechanism for sharing content in Evernote. Sending someone a note or notebook via Work Chat will send an email to the recipient notifying them of the new available content. Compared to our previous sharing mechanism (simple email): it does a much better job of onboarding new users, making sure they understand where the shared content lives, and allowing them to respond.

[AstridV 3]

Your users have just explained at length how they want to use sharing. And how we really, in a lot of situations, have no use for accounts for the recipients of our notes. I think it is bad practice to ignore these comments, we really do not care about you "onboarding new users" (lose the lingo, really) and keep going with the attitude at your own risk. It makes no sense form a business perspective to brush off our comments like this, and it makes no sense to hide a once useful sharing option.

Do we need an account to read a tweet, a public FB post, or whatever?

[Casa Canis 4]

Um, Jackolicious, there may be some under-the-hood overhauls that are a big step forward, but the UX is an unmitigated failure. Work Chat only makes sense in an environment where people are accustomed to having their train of thought interrupted on a whim for anybody's question, and even then it is a productivity-killer. Outside of those environments, people seriously resist any additional channel that they have to monitor that is one more source of chirping. The people with whom I work almost always have gate keepers expressly to avoid anything that remotely resembles chatting. They see Work Chat come across and drop it like it was contaminated. Sharing and Chatting are entirely different functions. I'm with Crufty - PLEASE get better User Interface people to fix this.

 

On top of the Work Chat feature being a barrier to use for my clients who are unfamiliar to Evernote (it has been enough for some clients to refuse to adopt the tool), I have to have access to both my system's screen and my client's screen to manipulate things awkwardly and forcibly from both positions. I thought If I just switched clients to using one notebook and leveraged the tagging more extensively, we would only have to go through this hideous conversation once, but the tagging is all messed up, too. We keep getting error messages that only tags already in the notebook can used, so once they add a note, I can't do any of the administrative clean up and re-tagging to sort it out. I tried to change ownership, add authorship, a bunch of stuff and I'm struggling to find tactics around it. I'm losing a lot of time ***** around with this and it makes me look like an idiot in front of my clients, after I convinced them that the tool would be easy to understand. 

 

If anybody has figured out some work-arounds, I'm all ears.

 

[Jackolicious 808]

Your users have just explained at length how they want to use sharing. And how we really, in a lot of situations, have no use for accounts for the recipients of our notes. I think it is bad practice to ignore these comments, we really do not care about you "onboarding new users" (lose the lingo, really) and keep going with the attitude at your own risk. It makes no sense form a business perspective to brush off our comments like this, and it makes no sense to hide a once useful sharing option.

We are definitely not trying to ignore user comments. I was just trying to provide some insight into our goals and motives. All feedback is read and greatly appreciated.

 

Do we need an account to read a tweet, a public FB post, or whatever?

As a point of comparison, you need to have a Google account to edit someone's Google doc and a Facebook account to see someone's Facebook post. Also like those platforms, we also have public mechanisms to share that do not require authentication. With the introduction of Work Chat, we have not removed any previously available sharing mechanisms that are authentication-free (Public URL, Post to FB/Twitter/Linkedin, Email a copy of a note). 

[Netopeer 4]

I am afraid, somebody is adamant about this. 

 

Any (work)chat is a loved/hated feature. Some will seek it, some will avoid it like the plague. So what!

 

The key message that comes through these posts is:  SEPARATE THE SHARING FEATURE FROM CHAT ! Got it? 

 

A note on the chat feature: I can follow the thought as this is an attempt to lure non-users into establishing an Evernote account. Whether or not this can work is beside the point. 

 

However, for existing users (and PREMIUM users for that matter) contributing to shared notes or notebooks serves a "chatting desire" quite well, unless one cannot live without a live chat. But why on earth you are trying to annoy US PREMIUM USERS and make our lives more difficult by amalgamating sharing and chat? I cannot follow... 

 

With the capacity and ease of use Evernote for Mac (prior to 6.0.5) one could live with Evernote happily ever after. Absolutely no reason to seek anything else. If things are going to move towards making our lives more complicated and not easier, one may just as well look out there, what are the alternatives. 

 

Have a good day !

 

BTW

The chat and sharing are still separated in the mobile iOS8 app. I hope every day no-one will come up with the splendid idea to merge them there too. 

[TheMartyMizer 2]

Why does it take so long for Evernote to process sharing the note? Its like watching water boil.