Web Client Beta Release Notes 12/10/2014

[nanphan 138]

Hello everyone!

 

Here's what we included in last night's release.  We will continue to add more functionality to the Beta each week. Thanks to those that reported bugs.  Please let us know if these issues continue to occur.   

 

RELEASE NOTES

• New Features
  
  • Moving between Notebooks - When filing a Note into a Notebook you can now
    
    • Filter the list of Notebooks to find the one you're looking for 
      
    • Move a Note into a Notebook in an existing Stack 
      
    
    
  • Work Chat Note & Notebook Shares - If you're using Work Chat you can now easily access Notes and Notebooks that have been shared to you in that thread via the Chat Info button in the chat window. 
    
  
  
• Bug Fixes
  
  • Checkbox doesn't persist on enter
    
  
  

• Features to be fixed / included in future releases but not limited to 
  
  • Editing & Inserting hyperlinks
    
  • Creating note links
    
  • Reordering reminders
    
  • Reordering shortcuts
    
  • Setting note location
    
  • Note history 
    
  • Saved searches 
    
  • Moving a Note between Business and Personal 
    
  
  

 

 

[malockin 14]

Thank you for the update :-)

 

Two things that are notably missing for me are opening attachments and viewing encrypted text.

Without those two features, the new interface is of no use to me.

 

When will these feautres be implemented?

[Aic 3]

Are there more details on the long term plans? In particular I'd like to hear what the plans are for the overall navigation. The clients and the current web ui have a static sidebar which simplifies navigation. The beta web ui doesn't include this and while it 'looks' better the navigation is more complicated.

[Hogmeister 5]

What about List View?  

 

I use a variety of Evernote versions... Web client, Windows (I stayed on v4, v5 has a showstopper bug that support couldn't fix) and IOS (phone and ipad).   Major bugbear with IOS is the lack of a list view... and now I see that this new beta for the web client also removes list view.  That one point in itself will prevent me from "upgrading" to the new version until Evernote force me to.

[Alvaius 2]

What about List View?  

 

I use a variety of Evernote versions... Web client, Windows (I stayed on v4, v5 has a showstopper bug that support couldn't fix) and IOS (phone and ipad).   Major bugbear with IOS is the lack of a list view... and now I see that this new beta for the web client also removes list view.  That one point in itself will prevent me from "upgrading" to the new version until Evernote force me to.

 

 

It is almost unfathomable that the new Web Client does not have a list view. There are many words I would use to describe the new WebClient view, none of the kind. It has become so minimalist as to be near useless. 

 

How do I go back to the old Web Client (can I), because this one is such a major step backwards I am shocked. It is enough to make me reconsider Evernote.

[Stuhrer 252]

How do I go back to the old Web Client (can I), because this one is such a major step backwards I am shocked. It is enough to make me reconsider Evernote.

 

Go to your account settings by clicking on the gear wheel icon in the lower left corner. Under "Beta" you can go back to the productive web interface. If the gear wheel is not visible make your browser window bigger (higher). Or see here.

[John in Michigan USA 129]

Note history needs to be there!  If things go sideways (i.e. I thought I changed note X but the change doesn't show up), and I start to doubt my own sanity (just for a moment!) it is TREMENDOUSLY helpful to have note history. I can look back, remind myself what I did, and usually, I then remember the why and the other context that helps me sort out whatever is driving me insane about that note (I could swear I put that URL in a note somewhere...but maybe I erased it by accident, etc, you get the idea).

 

It would be since to have it track changes to the ENTIRE note, not just the note body.  For example, if I add or remvove tags, or move a note from one notebook to another, etc, it would be nice to have an audit trail.  For example, in GTD (Getting Things Done) many evernote users use tags to show the difference between a task that needs attention, vs a task that is completed.  Note history also needs to show reminders -- when they were set, when they were marked as done, or else re-scheduled for a later reminder date, etc.

 

P.S. Note history (i.e. auditing) is one of the key features that brought me to evernote.  It would be awefully hard to explain to people that oh, they're taking away useful features but you should still use this product...

 

P.P.S. Note history is EVEN MORE important when working as a team on a shared note or notebook.  One absolutely needs accoutability for when a note was changed, who changed it, and can we roll back the changes.  Wikipedia and the other Wiki's got this 100% right.  Auditing/change logs/history are the future, not the past!

[jefito 5,589]

The web beta is known not to be feature complete. For those who need features that haven't made it into the web beta yet, you can still revert to the original version.

 

Tags apparently aren't saved in note histories, but reminders are. Reminder date and reminder order (and probably reminder done time) are stored in the <note-attributes> section of the exported note.

 

I'd like to think that tags should be part of the note history; that may be an oversight, but might also be deliberate, considering that Evernote -- by design -- doesn't update a note's updated sate when tags are changed.

 

Note history is currently a convenience, and is not a full change-log of your notes. That may change as Evernote pushes more fully into the business environment.

[John in Michigan USA 129]

[snip]

 

I'd like to think that tags should be part of the note history; that may be an oversight, but might also be deliberate, considering that Evernote -- by design -- doesn't update a note's updated sate when tags are changed.

 

[snip]

 

If those design choices were deliberate, they seem to me arbitrary and counter-intuitive. To me it is much more likely they are bugged, or else implemented on-the-fly or half-heartedly by the dev team. Design choices about when a note's 'state' is changed (as measured by changes to the updated date field and as tracked by history) should reflect a consistent, intuitive design philosophy.  So far, the Web Beta appears to be suffering from some of the same design problems as the current production clients (Web, Win, Android are the parts of the current production system that I can speak to).

 

For example, in the Web Beta:

1. When you move a note from one notebook to another, but make no other changes, it updates the "Date Modified" field (and presumably, would be tracked by history, though I don't have time to test this).
2. But, if you selecte a different note, and change the reminder date, but change nothing else, it doesn't update the "Date Modified" field (and presumably, would not be tracked by history?)
3. If you select yet a different note, and add a tag, but change nothing else, it does update the "Date Modified" field (and presumably, would be tracked in history?).
4. If you select yet a different note, one with a reminder set, and mark the reminder as done, it:
   1. Changes the updated date, as reflected by the sort order when the All Notes block (Snippet view) is sorted by Date Updated,
   2. But, does NOT change the modified date, as reflected by "Modified" field of the note header in the note detail block to the right.  This fourth point could be a simple bug, but my intuition suggests that the fact that such a bug could exist reflects higher level code problems (apparently, "Date Updated" and "MODIFIED" are two different note attributes?) and/or inconsistent or deferred design choices.

Bug note: see attached "Evernote Web Beta grab 1.JPG". The note titled "Reach out to Mo..." was the one I marked as done just a moment ago. As soon as I clicked "Mark As Done" (indicated by red lightening bolt), the All Notes block (center column, in which the snippets are sorted by "Date Updated", see red star) re-sorted so that this note was at the top of the list.  However, the "MODIFIED" field (see red arrow) DID NOT CHANGE.  I clicked on another note, the right column changed (as expected); clicked back on the "Reach out to Mo..." note, "MODIFIED" still hasn't changed. Reloaded the tab, "MODIFIED" still hasn't changed.

 

Design note: in any remindering system (and most certainly in GTD) due dates and the transition from incomplete to done is fundamental.  The rule should be: if any attribute of a note (body text, title, updated date, notebook membership, tags, etc.) changes, the note's updated date changes, and it will be tracked in history.  If the reminder attributes are considered attributes of a note (and why wouldn't the be), then ALL of them must, when changed, cause the updated date to change, and must be tracked in history.  If the reminder features are (like tags, apparently) NOT attributes of a note, then NONE of them, when changed, should cause the updated date to change, nor be tracked in history. Points 1-4 (above) illustrate this problem, generally, most especially, the different behavior between point 2 and point 4.

 

Feature note: I would think that capturing the history more often (1/hr? or better still, any time there is a change, like Wikipedia does), and also, which user made the change, would be hugely useful to your premium corporate clients, or anyone that uses Evernote for collaboration. Evernote is really trying to push collaboration and sharing; accountability has to be part of that wherever possible.

 

Added annoyance:  In the Web Beta, List view labels the fields "CREATED" and "UPDATED", but Snippets view labels the fields "Created" and "Modified", terminology should be the same, shouldn't it? If they are two different date attributes (but, why?), at least document the difference between a modified date and an updated date.

 

Note re user expectations: To me, beta implies a product is basically a feature complete and reflecting a disinct (although maybe not final) set of design choices, consistently implemented. In beta, the dev team is looking for bugs and design feedback. Whereas the current Web Beta seems more like an alpha release (experimental, features and design choices still very much in flux), although perhaps 'beta preview' would be a more charitable way to describe it.

 

Edit: I am using Firefox 34.0.5, Win 7.

 

Edit: For reasons beyond my understanding, I apparently reverted back to not use the Beta without noticing. I suppose I thought the Beta had finally changed in response to feedback and requests to bring back needed features.  Well I guess this is a bug report for the current Web client, not the beta.  I give up.

[jefito 5,589]

 

[snip]

 

I'd like to think that tags should be part of the note history; that may be an oversight, but might also be deliberate, considering that Evernote -- by design -- doesn't update a note's updated sate when tags are changed.

 

[snip]

 

If those design choices were deliberate, they seem to me arbitrary and counter-intuitive. To me it is much more likely they are bugged, or else implemented on-the-fly or half-heartedly by the dev team. Design choices about when a note's 'state' is changed (as measured by changes to the updated date field and as tracked by history) should reflect a consistent, intuitive design philosophy.  So far, the Web Beta appears to be suffering from some of the same design problems as the current production clients (Web, Win, Android are the parts of the current production system that I can speak to).

 

It was deliberate. There's a post by an Evernote employee somewhere on the site that stated this. "Arbitrary" I doubt; it was apparently under discussion for some time internally. "Unintuitive" is of course a relative term (it's relative to your experience with like situations); if you consider a file in a file system, changing metadata of the file may or may not changed the updated date of the file. For example, in WIndows, a file rename operation doesn't change the file date. This is not unintuitive to me.