"Conflicting Changes" idea

[Infinite Identity 8]

Hey there, first of all, thanks to Evernote for making such an amazing product, which I use on the daily!   

This morning, I had an idea for a feature request: I often switch between my iPhone and Macbook Pro while using Evernote, and it usually handles it great. Sometimes, however, the iPhone and the Macbook Pro don't sync at the right times, and I'll get an extra note added called "Conflicting Changes". It doesn't happen THAT often, so it's not usually an issue, but it is a bit frustrating when it does.

My idea was that instead of separating the content into two notes, what if it consolidated it into one? It could take the "potentially deleted" text and highlight it in red, and the "potentially added" text and highlight it in green. That way it would be easy to tell the differences between the notes, rather than spending time manually looking over both of them to figure out which one is more relevant. (Even worse is if there's new relevant info in both!)

Thanks for listening!

InfiniteIdentity

[gazumped 11,652]

Hi - That doesn't necessarily sound like a practical result - it would require a great deal of development work to make it happen - and that might or might not be practical on mobile devices particularly.  he best way to avoid Conflicting Changes is to sync both before and after any changes,  and make sure that you don't leave your MBP logged into Evernote while editing on the phone.  EN MBP will automatically sync every half hour whether you're there or not,  and some of those syncs might wipe out work you want to save from the phone.

[Infinite Identity 8]

I respectfully disagree. Yes, it would be work for Evernote to develop it, but I think it would be a better system for conflicting changes - even on mobile devices. (Double tap on red or green highlighted text to select Keep or Delete)

I know how to avoid conflicting changes, but that doesn't mean I always have the foresight to quit out of Evernote / sync when I'm in the middle of an idea.

[gazumped 11,652]

I don't know whether it will be cost-effective for Evernote,  but staffers do read these posts so your suggestion is made...

[Wilf Forrow 15]

Conflicting changes are still a big problem - I lost a lot of confidence in Evernote because I thought it was losing major edits, which turned out to be conflicts that I didn't spot for a long time, because they were hidden.

 

An easy change would be to flag the conflicting note clearly,  eg prefix the note title with "!Conflict!", so that you see it IMMEDIATELY, while the edits are fresh in your memory, and easy to correct.  That would be a small development, leaving developers to focus on the big issues, while eliminating the lost confidence of hidden conflicts.

 

Appending conflicting versions to the end of the note is a BAD default - it just hides the problem.  I only found one conflict 3 months later.  My own preference is to keep the conflicting versions as separate notes, (which used to be the default), rather than append them.  Then I can see each one in a separate window, and do a manual 'Diff' to see which bits I want to keep.  With appended conflicts, the first thing I have to do is split the two versions anyway - that's wasting my time.  If other people prefer the 'append' option, then make it a user preference.

[gazumped 11,652]

On some clients any conflicting changes pop up in their own notebook,  which makes it clear that you have some sort of a problem.  The best option is not to make changes in such a way as to cause conflicts in the first place.

 

I'd bet flagging the note is just as 'easy' a change as marking the  note in pretty colours.  It will be up to Evernote to decide which method,  if any,  they prefer,  and which -if any- it's cost effective to implement in the reasonably near future...