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Control Which Image Shown in a Note's Thumbnail/Snippet View

marcelo

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marcelo

marcelo 66

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I do like the new layout with larger thumbnails, except for one thing: Evernote seems to choose as thumbnail the largest image within a note. But it is rather annoying, for it seldom coincides with the image which would enable me to recognize a note at once. Can I somehow force Evernote to use a specific image as thumbail?

Marcelo

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ToddinTX
ToddinTX

I think it's obvious, at this point, that Evernote users want the ability to select the default thumbnail for notes.  I agree that it seems ridiculous that this conversation started in 2013 and 4 year

marcelo
marcelo

I do like the new layout with larger thumbnails, except for one thing: Evernote seems to choose as thumbnail the largest image within a note. But it is rather annoying, for it seldom coincides with th

saintleighjess
saintleighjess

REQUEST – It would be amazing to have a feature where an image can be selected, and when you right-click (ie, the same way you rotate it, etc.) there could also be an option to override the "largest s

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Lsmith72

Lsmith72 1

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On 8/9/2017 at 7:52 AM, ToddinTX said:

I think it's obvious, at this point, that Evernote users want the ability to select the default thumbnail for notes.  I agree that it seems ridiculous that this conversation started in 2013 and 4 years later this hasn't been added to the application.  As a visual person, the thumbnail helps me quickly find what I'm looking for.  For example, when I'm looking for a recipe for pancakes, an image of the video (pertaining to the recipe) of two cooks doesn't help me find what I'm looking for.  I need to be able to select the pic of the stack of pancakes.

The whole purpose for using Evernote is to be able to organize things so that they are easily found/accessed.  I'm confused why this isn't already an option.  This seems so simple to implement.

Can we get some love on this issue?!

So I'm just starting with Evernote, it's 2020 and why is this still not an option? There are so many great things about this platform but so many agrevating things that suck all my time and energy from my projects that I end up losing my enthusiasm for them. 😐 Then I read posts from years ago like this and I am even more frustrated. 😡

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dbareis

dbareis 13

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What does it take for Evernote to provide this basic functionality.  Big demand going back at least 8 years.

A FIX: Image->Right-Click->Make Note Thumbnail, can't be more than a couple of minutes work.

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JoelArt

JoelArt 5

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This has been requested for over 10 years and with my limited programming skills I believe this could be implemented in a day or two. There could be some backend server database issues but it's not technically hard when they already can use an image, it wouldn't be that much work to make it possible for a user to select it.

Evernote is the most shi**y company when it comes to listening to it's users, frustrating and sad. I already use a couple of other services but none is as complete and they know it and just keeps on lazily surfing on their initial success. If I had an option I would leave immediately.

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NobleKen

NobleKen 0

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Could someone from Evernote please explain why this LONG-requested, seemly-quite-reasonable feature is NOT being addressed? It's hard to imagine why selecting/presenting a thumbnail–which is currently done in a naive, automated fashion–couldn't be a user-driven feature. If we missing something, please let us know.

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Nickerz

Nickerz 19

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I asked a tech about this feature to see if he can maybe move this decade long request up the developer ladder so we'll see. Below is his email reply I just got from him (Oleg-VERY nice and helpful tech!)...

 

Oleg T (Evernote Help and Learning)

Oct 28, 2020, 14:44 PDT

Hi Nick,

Thanks for writing back. The ability to control which image is shown in a note's thumbnail/snippet view has been a popular feature request for quite some time. I certainly agree that this functionality would be very beneficial to many of users.

With that being said, I'm more than happy to raise the priority of this feature request via the internal channel. I’ve gone ahead and sent a note of this to our development team. While we can’t commit to getting all feature requests into the product, we do rely on our community to tell us what they’d like to see in the future.

Please let me know if I can be of any other assistance.

Best regards,

Oleg T
Technical Support Specialist
Mon-Fri, 9:00-5:00 CST

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Nickerz

Nickerz 19

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Hmmm, I wonder how many other companies can ignore their customer's top request for a decade and still remain relevant?

Just a reminder Evernote for this kind of arrogance and mentality, as the following businesses, as well as many others, all once dominated and yet are no longer around...

  • Border's Books
  • PanAm
  • Toy's R Us
  • Tower Records
  • Blockbuster Video (technically, I think there's still 1 store-lol)
  • Sears
  • Lehman Brothers

...only time will tell!

 

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Coolohoh

Coolohoh 2

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+1 to this. Is this really all that hard to implement? Just let us have an option when we right click on a picture to set it as the thumbnail image. This makes searching and locating my notes much easier!!! 

I love evernote but the speed at which basic updates/features are implemented is appalling! 

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highchairdrama

highchairdrama 14

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Yikes, I used to be able to solve this by deleting all the irrelevant images in a note until I got one I liked - but now THAT doesn't even work anymore! Now this most recent "update" is apparently caching the original image it deemed thumbnail-worthy so I can't change it no matter what. After 8 years of struggling with thumbnail images I am at my wit's end!!!!

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johnortt

johnortt 26

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Dear Evernote Admins.

Please take not of how few people are saying this is a bad idea (Zero at last count) and how many are in support of this feature.

I really am getting so fed up of waiting ten years for basic functionality!

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agsteele

agsteele 1,879

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7 hours ago, Eduardo Estefano said:

 Now that they have re-implemented the encryption edition, I have a feeling that this long lasting feature will be implemented soon. 

Well this thread had been going since 2011. No change in a decade so I'm not holding my breath even though the image thumbnail is broken in v10.

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carolinj2010

carolinj2010 7

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This feature would be particularly useful when you have an audio attachment that is quite big. It shows you the 'audio' icon. In order to overrule this I had to add an image that is even bigger than the attachment which blows the note size unnecessarily up. 

Found WORKAROUND:
So - size doesn't matter apparently. Whatever your algorithm is doing it has nothing to do with file size when there are audio & image files present.

First: insert the image you want to see in the snippets view for example.
Second: add your audio file.

P.S.: This is for the PC version

Edited by carolinj2010
Found workaround
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SSPOZ

SSPOZ 1

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This is a feature that needs to be implemented asap. The algorithm doesn't make sense at all. Why would the biggest image be the most important?

For example, I want YouTube thumbnails or book covers to be the main image preview after I have captured them with my screenshot tool.

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Theodor With

Theodor With 2

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I can edit the metadata of my notes. I've been working with IT development and databases since before this bug (being unable to edit the thumbnail metadata field) was reported, and it is no reason this couldn't be added an half a day's work, and tested in the next half - or say a whole new day to be generous (the documenting could be done here). And give it yet another day to write a simple if/then clause to select either the automatically created thumbnail or the manually added one for display. So, in less than a week this could be fixed. It's not even complicated, it's simply another field in the metadata!

And, by the way, if functionality is not enough: the automatic thumbnail often detracts from the experience of the product. Truncated titles for those who don't need thumbnails, and eyesores for the visual needs some of us have.

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highchairdrama

highchairdrama 14

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1 minute ago, gazumped said:

technically unable

I understand how the sausage is made. They're not technically unable to make this happen.

As paying customers, we're fully within our rights to make noise about a feature we want in the company-provided forum for just that purpose.

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PinkElephant

PinkElephant 5,563

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No dev team will ever fulfill „all“ wishes of users, subscribers, wanna-bes and other stakeholders. If they did, the software would simply become unusable.

A couple of features get implemented over time, others not, some never. There must not even be any logic behind it. It is normal that in every dynamic project things happen in a non linear chain of events. What it hip and top notch today may fall to new priorities tomorrow.

What I found interesting: In this quite extensive thread there is little talk about other apps allowing to pick thumbnails for notes. Putting it negatively, the feature seems pretty low priority for all in the market.

Putting it positively, EN has a real chance to set itself apart with a very limited technical effort. It can’t be difficult to allow a user to select a piece of content and make the thumbnail from it.

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gazumped

gazumped 9,827

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23 hours ago, jrryj said:

Seems like I'm not the only one experiencing this problem,

Hi.  It doesn't seem like the worst issue Evernote users have to deal with, but you have 449 votes and 8 pages of agreement. However this isn't a democracy,  and (AFAICS) Evernote aren't amazingly stupid - they're not obliged to honour requests here,  but they normally try to accommodate users where they can.  If they can add thumbnail choices,  they'll do it when the task fits their schedule.  Meantime - if you didn't already - please vote at the top left of this page...

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bearbecue

bearbecue 8

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On 8/10/2021 at 7:16 PM, PinkElephant said:

Anything substantial to say ? Or just venting hot air ?

You can add your vote to the request by clicking on the button top left.

Well maybe that's because it's the only rational explanation after waiting 10+ years for a seemingly basic feature.

And what's venting air seems to be voting for this feature, as user votes seeem to be completely ignored by the devs 😐

We're in 2022, still no way to do this?

As people have said, if you cannot allow the user to pick the thumbnail for whatever reason, then at least change the heuristic used to pick the thumbnail and pick the first thumbnail in the note. And if the design is so bad that you cannot find the first thumbnail of the note from wherever that code runs because they're not accessible in sorted order in the database or whatever, then do not display thumbnails in notes ! or allow to disable that broken feature. I'd much rather have no thumbnail than a random image which is both distracting, misleading, and even though inside the note, might be irrelevant to the note preview in its globality (when you have 20 images in a note, clearly, this happens)

How to frustrate users & send tables flippin 101...

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gazumped

gazumped 9,827

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3 hours ago, Steven Gauck said:

I don't get why EN has not picked up on this.

This is a feature suggestion thread,  not a request forum.  Evernote take up those requests that they can fulfil - within budgets of time and cost - and which will benefit users to the extent of (in their view) generating more business.

The existing process of choosing an image (I guess) is because

  1. Many users won't make a specific choice of image for every note,  so they need an automatic assignment of one image from the note.
  2. Since many will be clips of web pages,  it's possible that some images will be low-res icons which would not contribute to the purpose of a thumbnail.
  3. It's also possible that users will have included very large image files which would also not be useful if shrunk down too small - and which would very considerably bulk out the database if thumbnails are kept as separate files - as they'd have to be to keep the overhead of repeatedly shrinking the originals down (which would also slow things down!)
  4. So Evernote chose a process which avoids icons and large images but still selects the smallest (probably) significant image in the note.

They haven't yet found a need to change that,  and won't (usually) comment on why,  when or whether they might do something differently.  We'll just have to wait...  

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dbareis

dbareis 13

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On 3/19/2022 at 7:12 PM, gazumped said:

This is a feature suggestion thread,  not a request forum.  Evernote take up those requests that they can fulfil - within budgets of time and cost - and which will benefit users to the extent of (in their view) generating more business.

The existing process of choosing an image (I guess) is because

  1. Many users won't make a specific choice of image for every note,  so they need an automatic assignment of one image from the note.
  2. Since many will be clips of web pages,  it's possible that some images will be low-res icons which would not contribute to the purpose of a thumbnail.
  3. It's also possible that users will have included very large image files which would also not be useful if shrunk down too small - and which would very considerably bulk out the database if thumbnails are kept as separate files - as they'd have to be to keep the overhead of repeatedly shrinking the originals down (which would also slow things down!)
  4. So Evernote chose a process which avoids icons and large images but still selects the smallest (probably) significant image in the note.

They haven't yet found a need to change that,  and won't (usually) comment on why,  when or whether they might do something differently.  We'll just have to wait...  

Well they won't even fix the broken external protocol links so I'm stuck on the legacy version until they ever get around to that in any case.

 

They don't seem to give a f what users want.

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Tanja012

Tanja012 9

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On 6/2/2022 at 6:43 PM, gazumped said:

... From recent discussions where Evernote seems reluctant to change a thumbnail,  even where the image is deleted from a note,  I wonder whether it might be possible to start a new note using one chosen image,  so that the note gets a suitable thumbnail - and then copy/ paste the content of another original note including random other images into that new container with the approved thumbnail...

?

This is possible! I wrote this long time ago.. But if you start a new note.. The 1(picture for the thumbnail) should be the very first thing to put in.. Then when you 2(write the title) of the note it will update the thumbnail and then you can paste or write anything else.. The thumbnail won't change again in this note.. If you've copied and pasted from another note.. You can then delete this old one.. 

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highchairdrama

highchairdrama 14

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20 hours ago, ttony said:

The way I see it is, Evernote could easily have existed without ever introducing a thumbnail feature. They could have also, in theory, never introduced a title feature as well. But they did! The title and the thumbnail are features that help organize, identify, and locate your notes; which is the entire point of this app.

Imagine if the app auto selected a random (or by arbitrary algorithm) a sentence in the body of your note to use for the title. That would be completely unacceptable; no one would ever use the app because that would make no sense. Why should it be OK for the thumbnail to be auto-selected then?
 

ttony, well said. I think you nailed why we're all so baffled this isn't important enough for them to fix.

Also, welcome to the thread. (Now it's customary to wait until PinkElephant and/or gazumped tells you why you're wrong/uninformed. It's fun!)

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Rebecca T

Rebecca T 2

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The thumbnail for one of my notes is an image that doesn't even exist in the note and there's still no way to fix it... Thanks Evernote...

(I think it was an image I accidentally added when I first made the note and later deleted.. but it's still the thumbnail).

I would honestly prefer not having the thumbnail feature than having the feature not work properly with no way to fix it. 

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Mike P

Mike P 1,827

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Here is another, relatively straightforward, workaround to change the thumbnail. I like to forward Kindle book receipt emails into EN. Unfortunately EN always chooses some marketing image, rather than the image of the book, to be the thumbnail. The workaround is to delete the other images and then simply duplicate the note. Although the content of the note is unchanged, EN regenerates the thumbnail. This has the advantage of not only being relatively quick but it also keeps the note meta data (e.g. creation date) unchanged.

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Mike P

Mike P 1,827

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I have noticed a slight change to the thumbnail behaviour. It appears that if you delete the image in the note that is being used as a thumbnail, and replace it with a different image, the thumbnail is updated, although it does take a few seconds for this to happen.  This is different from the past where, whatever thumbnail was there at the beginning was remarkably persistent.

Some other observations

  • If you have two images in a note and delete the one being used as the thumbnail the second image then becomes the thumbnail.
  • Sometimes if you add a second image to a note with one image the thumbnail is updated - but sometimes it isn't! It may be that the bigger image has priority.

Clearly, nowhere near the ability to choose the thumbnail, but a change none the less and potentially another way of hacking itl.

10.46.7-win-ddl-public (3701)
Editor: v158.2.19526
Service: v1.58.7
© 2019 - 2022 Evernote Corporation. All rights reserved

 

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winyourday

winyourday 1

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This feature has been requested for more than 10 years now! Can't believe Evernote does not even comment on why they don't add it or why it takes so long.

It's really annoying for some note collections. So I am now after many years as a loyal Evernote customer considering switching to a competitor. What are your best alternative note apps? Any recommendations?

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Woola

Woola 1

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Evernote just keep increasing fees, but still not providing the most basic of functionality like user-nomination of which image to use as the thumbnail.  This thread is 12 years old and still being ignored by Evernote.  Maybe its time to kill the business account and move to One Note.

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Amystoneus

Amystoneus 20

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The below is Evernote's response to my "support request."

It appears the only way to have control over the thumbnail once a note already exists is to create a new copy without the objectionable image and a different one top-most (from experience, this can be deleted later and the thumbnail will not change). 

It also seems clear that no one on EN's tech team (pm, dev or QA) bothers to use this forum to better understand user needs and grievances. Instead, they opted for a dedicated "user" to offend and distract from one's genuine desire to have a solid product that provides the features and functions they need to be productive. 

Hope this helps. It helped me. I now fully accept that EN will never be the product we all know it's capable of being if only it had a team of competent developers and a management team with a clear vision. 

 

Althea D. (Evernote Help and Learning) 

Feb 14, 2023, 20:28 PST 

 
EVERNOTE TIP: Meet your deadlines with Evernote by setting due dates for your tasks and adding reminders - even on the go!
 
Hello Amy,
 
Thank you for reaching out to Evernote Customer Support. My name is Althea, and I’ll be assisting you today.
 
I understand how important it is for you to have the ability to modify the image being displayed in the thumbnail/snippet view.
 
At this time, the image being displayed in the thumbnail view originates from the first uploaded image within your note. To confirm, it appears this is a Feature Request our product team is working on releasing in an upcoming fix. I'm unable to provide a definite timeframe on when this will be available. Any announcements about this feature will be made on Evernote's Release Notes.
 
I will share this information with our Team. I appreciate your honest feedback so we could improve the services we're providing.
 
In the meantime, in terms of my own experience, I've seen the following behavior will be how it works currently with Evernote's apps (below).
 
Behavior for a new notes on Evernote V. 10+ apps
 

1. Write the title of your new note.

2. Add the thumbnail you wish to have as the default thumbnail image for the note at the top of the note page.

3. Save changes to your notes

 
Behavior for an existing note on Evernote V. 10+ apps
 

1. Remove the default image you had in your existing note.

2. Make a copy of your original note content without the default thumbnail image.

3. Create a new note and add the new image to your new note.

4. Delete the original note.

5. Save changes to your notes.

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PinkElephant

PinkElephant 5,563

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The workaround to post one single image in a note, sync it, wait for the thumbnail to appear and then add the rest was posted several postings above.

We had however mixed experience that this thumbnail will stick, when more pictures are added to the note.

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chocolove

chocolove 0

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Started using Evernote after many years, surprised at how well they have worked on the design and speed, thank you for that!
However, the fact that you can't change the thumbnail of a note is very sad. Hopefully this will be fixed in the future! I'm planning to buy a yearly subscription.

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Nicole Bertsch

Nicole Bertsch 6

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3 hours ago, agsteele said:

This is a known request and had been almost forever in Evernote terms. I am pretty sure that it isn't the highest priority so enjoy your Evernote renaissance but don't hold your breath waiting for this to arrive.

It's really awful. The evernote-team should see how important the thumbnail-thing is for the users....

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s2sailor

s2sailor 1,180

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1 hour ago, gazumped said:

I think they're prioritising "make it faster and more reliable" over "make it look nice".

I think of it more as make it look “right” 😀.  Granted this isn’t the highest priority or a must have (at least for me) but there are a number of minor usability issues that I hope the new team is willing to take on that would reduce friction for many users.

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philanon

philanon 8

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12 hours ago, gazumped said:

I think they're prioritising "make it faster and more reliable" over "make it look nice".

This is about functionality, not looking pretty. They spent a bunch of time on making it look modern which IMO was not necessary. But they spent no time on making the thumbnails function the way that any normal person would think they should if you asked them.

I get that a lot of people probably use list view so they don't care, so maybe this isn't a popular request. But for those that want it, it's a big deal. There is no software that comes close to EN for what I need it for, so I'm likely not going anywhere, but it is one of the few things about EN that grinds my gears.

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caineo

caineo 5

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On 5/5/2023 at 3:25 PM, gazumped said:

I think they're prioritising "make it faster and more reliable" over "make it look nice".

This isn't about form for me, it's all about function. In my case I predominantly use Evernote as a repository for visual reference. The lack of control over how thumbnails are displayed means I have to find workarounds in order to maintain a practical visual reference archive.

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s2sailor

s2sailor 1,180

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5 hours ago, caineo said:

This isn't about form for me, it's all about function. In my case I predominantly use Evernote as a repository for visual reference. The lack of control over how thumbnails are displayed means I have to find workarounds in order to maintain a practical visual reference archive.

Until we are allowed to pick thumbnails, I currently find them essentially useless and turn off show images in the options.  I got tired of seeing images, on web clips in particular, that have nothing to do with the note, and the work around is so painful, that I rather just turn off images.

This is one of the (I think) obvious features that should, long ago, have been added.  Hopefully the new management sees fit to consider this one.

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SxWerks

SxWerks 1

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My only recourse is to

  1. create a new note
  2. Paste in the ONLY image I want for a thumbnail
  3. Copy and paste the content from original note.
  4. Trash the old note.

Once the image is set, it's fixed and cannot be changed.

Most ridiculous.

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jefito

jefito 5,586

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OK, got it. I think anything else would have too many words, and "largest smallest" probably works because it's short and easy to remember (and apparently self-contradictory). Cool.

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jbenson2

jbenson2 2,146

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Yeah. For example, if you have 3 images with the following dimensions:

75x100

100x400

200x300

The "smallest" dimensions are 75, 100, and 200, respectively. We're going to use the image with the largest of those "smallest" dimensions (i.e., 200).

There are probably better ways to describe that algorithm, but that's how we've been describing it internally.

Thanks for the explanation. I guess if someone really wanted to promote a specific image, they could use a photo editor to re-size the photos. That's too much work for me.

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Owyn

Owyn 457

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An alternative is the image with the largest number of pixels. This is a good predictor of importance of the image to the note's content.

e.g.

75x100=7500

100x400=40000

200x300=60000

250x150=37500

Largest -> 200x300=60000

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emerick

emerick 155

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One way to express this in a more definitive way is the image with the largest width, assuming that your example you gave is in the order of width x height.

My list is ordered by increasing size of smallest dimension. We don't want to pick the image with the largest width, since that would result in us selecting things like graphical horizontal lines (e.g., 600x1) for some notes, which isn't very useful.

For example, what if we add an image that is 250x150?

Then the list would be:

75x100

100x400

200x300

250x150

Does that mean that EN would now select the last image (250x150) for the thumbnail?

No, we choose the image with the largest smallest dimension. To keep my list sorted by increasing size of smallest dimension, your new entry should be third:

75x100

100x400

150x250

200x300

So we're going to pick the last one again (200x300), because it's still the image with the "largest smallest" dimension.

does it make sense to anyone at Evernote to choose the first image in the Note for the thumbnail?

It does make sense sometimes, but it doesn't make sense a significant number of times too. Some part of the algorithm needs to factor in the dimensions and/or sizes of the images or else you end up with non-useful thumbnails (see 600x1 example above).

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emerick

emerick 155

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An alternative is the image with the largest number of pixels. This is a good predictor of importance of the image to the note's content.

e.g.

75x100=7500

100x400=40000

200x300=60000

250x150=37500

Largest -> 200x300=60000

Yeah, that's probably another good algorithm (and note that in this specific case, that is the image we choose). I think we're reasonably happy with the algorithm we're using; they're all subject to false positives, unfortunately, but I think our algorithm ends up choosing a fairly representative image a lot of the time.

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Owyn

Owyn 457

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Well, it does have the advantage of being easier to explain. Which usually results in a more likely to be correct implementation.

The best, and most likely, implementation of either algorithm would pick the first "largest" in the event of a tie.

My guess is that in most cases (>90%) either algorithm would pick the same image for the thumbnail.

Hmmm.

Not sure which algorithm is more likely to pick the squarer image. Squarer usually results in a more recognizable thumbnail. Probably a toss up.

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jefito

jefito 5,586

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Well, it does have the advantage of being easier to explain. Which usually results in a more likely to be correct implementation.

Hmmm, bubble sort is easy to explain, and it's not hard to get a correct implementation of a bubble sort, but so what? Implementation is not usually the problem, it's choice of algorithm, and bubble sort is of course notoriously poor for anything but the most trivial uses.

The best, and most likely, implementation of either algorithm would pick the first "largest" in the event of a tie.

My guess is that in most cases (>90%) either algorithm would pick the same image for the thumbnail.

Hmmm.

Not sure which algorithm is more likely to pick the squarer image. Squarer usually results in a more recognizable thumbnail. Probably a toss up.

I think you're right -- there are probably fail cases in any algorithm that will be used to pick a thumbnail candidate out of a collection of images. I think that making a good guess is fine, but the best case for users would probably be to allow them to designate which image to use if the guess is not the one that they want.

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Owyn

Owyn 457

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bubble sort
:lol:

Nah. This is a single pass scan. No sorting. Just compares.

And, bubble sort, can NOT be fully described in a single, non-compound, sentence.

----------

Ummm. Re-read your comment. Never mind my comment about single pass. You were using it as an general example, not a specific example. :?

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radiantlf

radiantlf 1

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Sometimes I have multiple images in a post, and evernote seems to pretty randomly choose which one to use as a thumbnail. Is there any way to pick which one it is? Sometimes the photo chosen is no help at all, so I would like to be able to change it, either by selecting which one or being able to determine what position to put the one I want in (i.e. first or last) so it gets picked.

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dotcommer

dotcommer 8

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Can someone tell me why evernote doesn't have this ability yet? This seems incredibly near-sighted.

I read on someone else's post that evernote uses an algorithm to choose the thumbnail image depending on what the largest image is, it uses that one as the thumbnail.

I want the algorithm to conform to ME, not the other way around.

:)

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dotcommer

dotcommer 8

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But it doesn't seem like that because I can go in and edit my notes to my heart's content. So if I can edit my notes as much as I'd like, I feel like that would be even more difficult to accompany than the ability to change the note's thumbnail. It seems silly that I can have all of this customization to my note, but NOT the thumbnail image. It would be much easier to have a standard system on the servers that doesn't let you edit your note at all. Less coding to be flexible with the whims of its users.

So since this is NOT the case, it seems strange that the ability to edit the thumbnail of the note is not available, while I can edit my note to any degree I wish (something arguably more complex to account for than changing a thumbnail).

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Designology

Designology 2

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How do you assign a specific thumbnail to a note?

I have many images in many notes. When there is more than one image, EN does not always take the topmost (first) image as the note's thumbnail image. In addition, even if you "trick" EN to use a given image as the thumbnail by creating the note with only one image initially then adding others after the thumbnail has been generated, EN will sometimes reassign the thumbnail image to one of the subsequent images within the note.

This is frustrating when these thumbnails are instrumental in quickly identifying notes, but there seems to be no predictable way to control them.

Perhaps this should be a field in the note header area where you "Click to set thumbnail image" would work.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Steve & Angela

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jbenson2

jbenson2 2,146

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Here is a link to a discussion on this issue. There is no easy solution if you have several photos in one note. I guess if someone really wanted to promote a specific image, they could use a photo editor to re-size the photo to create the "largest smallest dimension".

That's too much work for me.

http://discussion.ev...dpost__p__92194

Evernote explanation:

We select the image with the largest smallest dimension. There are some other rules, but that's the main one.

Examples:

75x100

100x400

200x300

The "smallest" dimensions are 75, 100, and 200, respectively. We're going to use the image with the largest of those "smallest" dimensions (i.e., 200).

There are probably better ways to describe that algorithm, but that's how we've been describing it internally.

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soundsgoodtome

soundsgoodtome 139

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The largest smallest dimension?

Yeah. For example, if you have 3 images with the following dimensions:

75x100

100x400

200x300

The "smallest" dimensions are 75, 100, and 200, respectively. We're going to use the image with the largest of those "smallest" dimensions (i.e., 200).

There are probably better ways to describe that algorithm, but that's how we've been describing it internally.

with all due respect, what you really mean is the "largest smaller" dimension. :D

for the word "smallest" to apply, you'd have to be comparing at least 3 items -- or, in this case, dimensions (such as the 3 sides of a triangle, or 3 or more of anything, really). but images are two-dimensional; they have only height and width. therefore, neither dimension is the "smallest" of the two; it's the smaller of the two. :)

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Gimpster

Gimpster 6

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The way the system works now is completely non-intuitive. A larger image does not mean a better representation of what the note is about. I could make a strong argument that the first image in the note (above a certain size threshold) would be the most representative of the note. For example, I took a clipping of a product page. I want to capture the primary product but also the "related products". However, the images of the related products happen to be larger than the primary product so now I have a note about one product with images for a different one shown as the thumbnail. I have similar frustration for other scenarios as well. I agree, the image for the thumbnail on the note should be user-selectable. It's fine to have a default, but I should be able to override it if I wish. Right-click the image --> Set as thumbnail. Simple. Even if that is a desktop-only feature, that's fine. The product already has certain features that only exist in certain implementations of the product, so that's nothing new.

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jefito

jefito 5,586

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@Gimpster: Please read the discussions jbenson2 posted, it is *not* the largest image that is used. On the other hand, overriding the system-selected image used would be a nice improvement. It's not clear to me that that's something that is transferred with the note; it may be determined on-the-fly by the client (I haven't been able to figure it out by looking at an exported .ENEX file yet), though I suppose it's also possible that that's determined by a call to the server, too.

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JustStan

JustStan 3

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I wasn't searching to find out whether or not changing the thumbnail was possible, I was searching to find out how to go about changing the thumbnail. I guess that's what you get when you make assumptions! :)

I hope this will be implemented at some point soon. As Gimpster pointed out, a desktop-only option would be fine (similar to changing the added and modified dates).

As it stands now, your notes can really end up with some odd and completely illogical thumbnails!

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JMichaelTX

JMichaelTX 4,105

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As it stands now, your notes can really end up with some odd and completely illogical thumbnails!

Most of my thumbnails are so illogical that I pretty much just ignore them in the Snippet view.

It would be very cool to right-click on the Snippet View Note, and select "Choose Thumbnail".

EN could present a selection of images in thumbnail size for the user to pick from.

It would seem that EN has all of the data it needs to do this in a small popup window, since the Note images are all files which EN knows for each Note.

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Richard Beddard

Richard Beddard 6

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One of the ways I use Evernote is to store photographs (JPEGs) with notes on how I've processed them and a copies of the picture as processed by the camera (JPEG) and the original file (RAW format) . So, typically there will be three images in the post, interspersed with text:

Edited JPEG

Camera JPEG

RAW file (this is not displayed in the note, as you need specialist software to interpret RAW files, so it is just a file attachment)

I like to have the edited photo first, so you can see it straight away and then scroll down to see my notes.

I also share some of these notes in a shared notebook with fellow hobbyists, so these comments also relate to the Web version of Evernote.

In Windows.

Evernote seems to choose the last JPEG you add to a note as the thumbnail and this is invariably the camera JPEG, which doesn't look as nice.

In Web.

Evernote doesn't display a thumbnail in the snippet at all, although it does if there are only JPEGs in the note. I think it wants to make a thumbnail of the last image added to the note but it can't because it's a RAW file.

I would prefer Evernote in all cases to use the first image in the note.

Can anyone think of any way of achieving this?

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gazumped

gazumped 9,827

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AFAIK there's no way to choose which picture EN uses in snippet view where there's a choice of files. I don't think it regards RAW and as image file format though.

You could try to force your 1st picture to the head of the queue by zipping all the others, so there's only one choice; or maybe use apply two-note policy - put your headline picture in one note and add a link to another note with the rest of the details. If you're sharing these notes it would speed up page loading - the 'index' note could just be a small(er) thumbnail version of the main picture with the full detail in a linked Note.

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Richard Beddard

Richard Beddard 6

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You could try to force your 1st picture to the head of the queue by zipping all the others, so there's only one choice; or maybe use apply two-note policy - put your headline picture in one note and add a link to another note with the rest of the details. If you're sharing these notes it would speed up page loading - the 'index' note could just be a small(er) thumbnail version of the main picture with the full detail in a linked Note.

Thanks gazumped. Those scenarious would solve the problem but inconvenience me in other ways! But I appreciate you taking the time to think about it.

gazumped is basically correct; Evernote chooses the thumbnail for the snippet. The procedure used, at least the last time that anyone from Evernote commented on it is something called the 'largest smallest dimension'; it's explained here: http://discussion.ev...gest%20smallest

Thanks for the link jefito. I see now, the problem is that all my images are the same size so it's either picking randomly or using some other rule (not sure why I get no image in snippets in the Web version though). I could resize the other images to make sure my preferred image is the one that appears as the thumbnail, but that too is a faff.

I think I'll just live with it as it is.

From the other topic I see it's been suggested before that users be able to select which image appears as a thumbnail and I think that would be good. I can imagine hovering over the thumbnail and seeing alternatives to click on.

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Compton

Compton 3

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I would really like to be able to choose the thumbnail. Is there a way to make and/or support suggestions for new Evernote features (like UserVoice)? Or will people just raise these topics in the forums and hope that they get the attention of Evernote developers?

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