Autoflow

[Milli 2]

Back in the day, you used to be able to pinch zoom a note and the text would get bigger but remain within the window width. I believe this is called 'Autoflow'. Nowadays when you pinch zoom the text runs off the right side of the window and you have to scroll over, down, and back, over, down, and back to read with larger text. Needless to say, annoying.

 

I found this old thread on the topic, but it is dead and has not been acknowledged by the Evernote team.

https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/50402-page-autoflow-not-working/

It seems that Evernote Android is using an outdated WebView component which is the core of the problem.

 

I would really like Autoflow to be repaired so I can read comfortably. If anybody has any information on fixing this or has their own experience with Autoflow working please let me know.

[gazumped 7,722]

Hi.  Are we talking typed notes,  photographs,  clipped web pages,  emails,  reminders - any and all sorts of notes?  I imagine that pictures would be exempt - it could be annoying not to be able to zoom in on the content if required,  and pics usually occupy a full screen width anyway.  The rest tend to be different source codes converted to an Evernote format,  and how about phones vs tablets?  There's a good deal less space to play with on on a phone screen,  and the purpose of zooming might be to make things bigger,  rather than reflow the existing size content..

 

Not being purposely unhelpful here,  but trying to make two points - if it was easy to fix and Evernote's user research said it was necessary,  they likely would have done something by now.  Evernote are famously silent on their plans anyway,  so I wouldn't expect more feedback on that - things work the way they do;  feature suggestions are always welcome but not always acted upon.

[Milli 2]

It doesn't really matter the origins of the text, I always see the same behavior when zooming; the entire note expands and flows off the right side of the screen. This occurs for clipped emails, plaintext, web pages, ect. Obviously autoflow is impossible for photographs, we are discussing a dynamic text property here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_wrap_and_word_wrapdoes the term 'word wrap' ring any bells?

 

Do you ever read 5000 word essays in Evernote on your phone and want the text to be bigger? That is what I'm talking about.

 

Perhaps it is just my Android Moto X phone, or my problem isn't clear to you. Will you try this: find a nice long block of text on the internet, add it to evernote  as a web clip or plain text (it doesn't matter) and then zoom in to a comfortable reading size. Does the text run off the side of the window, or does it get bigger and all stay visible?

[gazumped 7,722]

I understood what you wrote - just pointing out that Evernote may not have had the opportunity,  time or inclination to change the behaviour.

[Milli 2]

Right. Is this the right place to get some insight on the time, opportunity, or inclination of the Evernote android team?

 

What would one do to lobby effectively for this feature, or at least get some clarity as to why it will or won't be able to happen?

[gazumped 7,722]

My turn to restate stuff - "Evernote are famously silent on their plans anyway,  so I wouldn't expect more feedback on that - things work the way they do;  feature suggestions are always welcome but not always acted upon."

 

AFAIK there is no 'lobby' - some campaigns on the forums here have run for 8+ years without result.  

 

As to clarity - there are lots of reasons for software houses not to feel they have to justify themselves for policy decision they may or may not have taken... 

[Milli 2]

Thanks for your help, but it sounds like you are saying "go away and be quiet". I understand that the probability that Evernote will reply / do something about autoflow is very near zero, but if I never even mentioned it the probability would be exactly zero, right? Besides, there are thousands of regular users on here, I had hope that one of them might be helpful. Maybe I'll get lucky and some benevolent insider will enlighten me. It could just be my phone acting up. It could be autoflow works in Lollipop but not KitKat. I don't know, so I thought to ask, and yes I googled all of this before posting here. 

 

Sure "lobbying" for features is stupid, but there might have been something out there that I just didn't know about. Once again, better to ask.

 

Do you feel that autoflow on Android is important? Do you know anybody that does? Perhaps you could point me to some like-minded individuals, they might have painless workarounds.

 

I understand that I'm never going to hear from Evernote directly and who cares, I don't need to, it is completely peripheral to my original request: "If anybody has any information on fixing [Autoflow] or has their own experience with Autoflow working please let me know." Let's not get stuck on what Evernote will or won't do. Do you have any information that will be helpful to my particular problem?

[gazumped 7,722]

OK:

 

Not saying "go away and be quiet" - (I'm from the UK we're much more polite...) but trying to manage expectation,  and as one of the dozen or so volunteers responding to the majority of queries on the forum,  also reduce workload - it ain't (usually) gonna be Evernote who responds here - though they enjoy making a monkey out of me when I say stuff like that,  so there is still hope...  

 

If there was something else useful to say,  one of the others would -normally- have dived in here to say it.

 

Autoflow would be useful but IMHO not essential,  and not something I'd kill to acquire (and believe me there are a few things in that category...).  Again if someone thought it important I would think you would have had company here by now.. but there's still time...  

 

That last paragraph lost me - you know Evernote isn't going to respond,  you know Autoflow doesn't work,  but if anyone knows a way to make it work...  they're probably already working for Evernote and contractually embargoed from making any public comment until there's an official update?

 

Good luck!

[TotheMoonAlice 16]

Text re-flow would considerably enhance the user experience on Evernote mobile applications.

I'm surprised the mobile app allow pinch-and-zoom without text autoflow -- currently allowing zoom without text re-flow only highlights an app deficiency.

[TotheMoonAlice 16]

If you like this idea, please go to this created as a new feature request. Thank you!

[Dave-in-Decatur 1,391]

Apologies for posting this info in multiple threads, but it's relevant to all of them. The recently released Android app v. 7.13.1 indicates in the release notes on Google Play that we can now "Adjust the note text size for better readability." This is done by tapping the 3-lines menu at the top left or the 3-dots menu at the top right of the app's main screen, then Settings > Notes; scroll to the bottom of the dialog and, under Editor, you can adjust the scale between 50% and 200%. This scale setting applies to all notes; but the same dialog can be accessed within any note from the 3-dots menu, then Settings (a scale setting made there will be global across all notes on the app). Setting the scale larger or smaller does flow/wrap the text properly, unlike the pinch zooming action