Major design flaw in Penultimate 6 - data loss possible

[StvCdf 1]

I've discovered a major flaw in the way notebooks are managed and synced with Evernote which could cause major loss of information. This needs to be addressed by Evernote urgently. I have reported this to Support but in the meantime I hope this serves as a warning to other users.

 

In a nutshell, if you delete a notebook in Penultimate because the app says it is empty you will also throw away any non-Penultimate notes stored in there (because these are not reported in the Note Count displayed on the notebook's bade in Penultimate). You loose everything. Without warning. Disaster!

 

For example:

 

Create a notebook in Penultimate, create a new note in in and write something then save it. So far so good. Sync with Evernote and your notebook and handwritten note appear there too. Great!

Now type some notes in Evernote and save them into your new notebook (because mixing up types of notes is good - this is what EN and Penultimate is encouraging us to do with the new paradigm in Penultimate version 6 right?). Again, sync. So far so good. You have a handwritten drawing from Penultimate in your notebook and some typed notes from Evernote in your notebook.

 

BUT.... whilst in Evernote you get to see everything in the notebook, and the Note Count reflects the actual number of items in there, on Penultimate you only get to see the handwritten ones created with the app itself (no change there, really). However, the Note Count only reports the number of Penultimate-created items inside the notebook. Not the total number of items. 

 

You may well want to delete the note and the notebook it's contained within, but if you do this in Penultimate you'll be acting under misleading information. Penultimate won't warn you that there is other information in there - the items you can't see - and will carry out your request to delete the notebook. In so doing it will also throw away your Evernot typed notes, your web clippings, your PDFs, your images, your sound recordings, EVERYTHING! Bang! You've just lost a load of potentially useful stuff.

 

Remember Everything? Don't make me laugh!

 

So be warned - this could easily happen to you. If it does, for now, look in your Trash notebook in Evernote and fish out your poor discarded notes from there. But why does it have to be this way?

[SilverDragon 13]

But... Aren't those notes still available in the Evernote trash? If they are, then while annoying, this isn't the disaster you postulate.

[StvCdf 1]

Yes, as I said in my last sentence, they do end up in trash in Evernote. You're right, this is annoying, but I'd disagree there isn't the potential for disaster if you didn't know this. I panicked when this happened, merrily deleting away in Penultimate on my iPad without realising the havoc it was causing back in Evernote on my Mac. That's why I am sharing my experience with other users (isn't that one of the points of a user forum?), warning them so they can avoid disaster.