The Evernote Editor

[PeeJayTee 99]

Hey everyone,

 

This is P.J. from the Product Team at Evernote.

 

I wanted to take a moment to tell you about a project that we've been working on for quite a while. As some of you may have noticed, the note editor changed in the Windows 5.9 release. Though it introduced a relatively small number of new features, it represents a larger body of work that will significantly improve note editing in Evernote.

 

Years of writing the editors of our clients independently of one another has taken a toll on the the consistency and quality of Evernote’s editing experience. We recognize this and we’re fully committed to making it better. We’ve created a dedicated team focused on improving the note editor and we’re hoping you notice the difference. In the coming weeks and months, you’ll start to see the fruits of this labor appear in all of the things you do to create notes in Evernote—typing, bullets and lists, tables, images, copy and pasting are just a few of the things we’ll be working on to start. Bigger improvements will follow. For more on the thinking behind this project, check out this blog post.

 

We can’t promise to get everything right the first time, but we can promise to listen to your feedback and work tirelessly to make every version of Evernote’s editor better than the last. If you have feedback on the editor, we’re here to listen. Feel free to comment on this thread or DM me.

 

Thanks!

[PeeJayTee 99]

Wow.  Thanks for all of the feedback.

 

Regarding the technical details, I'll see if I can summarize here, but I think this might be better suited for a follow on blog post.  Here are the particulars:

 

In all of our clients, what you actually see, interact with, and edit is HTML.  Originally, each of the clients consumed ENML and then translated that to HTML so that you can view and edit it.  Those edits were translated back to ENML which was store locally and synced with the Evernote service.  ENML is well defined, so there was no need to standardize the ENML -> HTML conversion.  So long as each client produced and consumed valid ENML, things were fine.

 

This worked well for a while, but as the codebases and clients features diverged, inconsistencies between the converters caused inconsistent HTML rendering across clients.  Bugs started to show up on one client, then were fixed only to pop up on another.  New editor features needed to be built by each team so a new feature meant 5-7 times the work of building it once... all of this leads us to where we are today.

 

The "new" editor is a  shared, common codebase that consumes and produces ENML, just like the old ones.  The difference is that the technology we used to build the new editor (JavaScript) is cross platform, so we can build it once and share it everywhere.  No more inconsistencies.  Fewer bugs.  Better editing for everyone.

 

The complexity lies in the details. Each of the clients were not built thinking that we would just "drop in a new editor" so we needed to do some rearchitecting and refactoring.  Hence "replacing the pipes".  This work is completed on Mac and Windows, and is ongoing on the other clients.

 

@JMichael, that's why I posted this message twice.  I wanted to make sure the Mac and Windows users were aware.

 

Be expecting more detail as things progress.

[WeCanLearnAnything 100]

Is anyone at Evernote still working on this big note editor revamp? If so, is there any update?

I'd love to know when/if the "basic infrastructure/unified code base" will be in place and when/if all the notorious bugs will be squashed.

[Krunoslav 197]

9 hours ago, JMichaelTX said:

From the blog mentioned above:

It is very sad that after nearly 5 years of working on a product that "we've been working on for quite a while", the so-called "Common Editor" is still not finished, still not stable, and in many respects worse than it was before.

So true. Even back than, I was the first one to post and I posted my skepticism about it. The developer assured me this time it will be differentiate, and it seem that he was honest about his intentions, but I was told later that he was probably fired, when the new management come on board. And that was all she wrote... as they say. Sad state of affairs in Evernote. 

Also they keep on sending us emails trying to sell us the wonderful evernote tips and tricks and new features. A marketing team totally out of touch with the development team, which only is good at delivering more bugs and features no one asked for. While the CEO is doing god knows what. It would be embarrassing if it was not corporate America, which knows no embarrassment. 

[Krunoslav 197]

29 minutes ago, GrumpyMonkey said:

I don’t think there is ever a good time to try and upsell paying customers — I don’t know how the idea of inserting annoying ads into my app ever got out of any committee. And then, someone apparently thought it’d be a good idea to make it so that you get the same ad on each platform, and you have to dismiss each one individually. If I was considering spaces before, I’m not today! 

I don’t care if the editor becoms the gold standard in the industry, the marketing gimmicks will always annoy me. For reference, I’ve been around ten years now, I actually argued to keep the original ad scheme (very smart to assign it an out-of-the-way location and make it easily opt-in / opt-out). “Ads”aren’t bad, but the annoying implementation is.I think it can be done better, don’t you?

The same thing goes for the editor. On good days, it works great, and then there is a rewrite from the ground up (how many times now?), lots of broken stuff that will get fixed on the way to great things (so we are told), and yet a simple bullet list still reliably fails on multiple platforms. After ten years, I think a lot of us are expecting a more professional, measured approach that has no tolerance for ironing out the bugs after the shiny new thing has rolled out — we’re paying professionals who want to get work done. I’m actually not in the least bit annoyed or troubled by the editor at the moment . I’m working around the problems. I just think it’s long past time for Evernote to change things up a bit.

Try herding all of your cats into a room, working out the existing bugs, incorporating user suggestions, and releasing something solid that lacks any bugs (or , at least, no significant ones).Once is enough. It’ll blow our minds. I imagine the gratitude from users will also warm the cockles of your hearts. Wouldn’t you like to give it a try?

Agreed. 

[Krunoslav 197]

We can’t promise to get everything right the first time, but we can promise to listen to your feedback and work tirelessly to make every version of Evernote’s editor better than the last. If you have feedback on the editor, we’re here to listen. Feel free to comment on this thread or DM me.

 

I appreciate the attempt to implement new features, God knows Evernote is in desperate need of note editor because even note editor in forums here is better. That being said, a legitimate concern and question I have to ask, based on the quote from you posted above. I'm sure you can understand. Perhaps you personally are not responsible for any of it but you do wear Evernote banner so in a way you are part of the organization.

You said "We can promise to listen to your feedback and work tirelessly to make every version of Evernote’s editor better than the last. If you have feedback on the editor, we’re here to listen."

Evernote has a long and embarrassing, well documented history of doing precisely the opposite of what you now claim. No feedback (just browse this forums here and its really easy to see) and ignoring user requests. e.g. Evernote beta and other examples. So why should we trust you or even be excited about your promise when actions speak to the contrary? I ask this not to troll but to see if you are man of your word. And is this something worth investing time into. From testing beta to following its progress to actually sticking with your product vs alternatives such as Onenote for example. Can you please answer my question and prove that we the loyal users are not being brutally ignored once again. Thank you.

[PeeJayTee 99]

 

So why should we trust you or even be excited about your promise when actions speak to the contrary? I ask this not to troll but to see if you are man of your word. And is this something worth investing time into. From testing beta to following its progress to actually sticking with your product vs alternatives such as Onenote for example. Can you please answer my question and prove that we the loyal users are not being brutally ignored once again. Thank you.

 

I'm sorry that you feel this way, but I can tell you that we hear you and we do care... this is precisely why we're making it a priority to be more responsive.  Beyond that, we will just have to earn your trust by following through.  

[GrumpyMonkey 4,316]

We can’t promise to get everything right the first time, but we can promise to listen to your feedback and work tirelessly to make every version of Evernote’s editor better than the last. If you have feedback on the editor, we’re here to listen. Feel free to comment on this thread or DM me.

I appreciate the attempt to implement new features, God knows Evernote is in desperate need of note editor because even note editor in forums here is better. That being said, a legitimate concern and question I have to ask, based on the quote from you posted above. I'm sure you can understand. Perhaps you personally are not responsible for any of it but you do wear Evernote banner so in a way you are part of the organization.

You said "We can promise to listen to your feedback and work tirelessly to make every version of Evernote’s editor better than the last. If you have feedback on the editor, we’re here to listen."

Evernote has a long and embarrassing, well documented history of doing precisely the opposite of what you now claim. No feedback (just browse this forums here and its really easy to see) and ignoring user requests. e.g. Evernote beta and other examples. So why should we trust you or even be excited about your promise when actions speak to the contrary? I ask this not to troll but to see if you are man of your word. And is this something worth investing time into. From testing beta to following its progress to actually sticking with your product vs alternatives such as Onenote for example. Can you please answer my question and prove that we the loyal users are not being brutally ignored once again. Thank you.

i don't think we can hold one individual to blame for the sins of others (perceived or imagined), especially when it was a multiple team project undertaken over multiple years with a shifting staff of developers working under different leadership. in short, i don't think he (or anyone else) can satisfactorily respond to your question about whether they are a man (or woman) of their word. even if such a thing could somehow be demonstrated here, there is a lot more going on here -- "listening," for example. listening does not mean responding to user requests. it doesn't mean implementing them. it doesn't mean ignoring them. it means listening, which really isn't going to be very easy to observe by those doing the speaking. at any rate, as far as trust and so forth goes, it's a beta and you can give it a shot or not.

I'm sorry that you feel this way, but I can tell you that we hear you and we do care... this is precisely why we're making it a priority to be more responsive. Beyond that, we will just have to earn your trust by following through.

i'm interested in what is happening under the hood, so to speak. this is a project years in the making, but i guess that means there has been a secret team toiling away on it, so it must be big. is this still enml? will it "mess up" existing notes. what exactly does it mean to tear out old pipes and rebuild them entirely? i don't even understand this mixed metaphor. shouldn't it be "tear out the old pipes and replace them entirely" or something like that? what are you replacing here? what are you replacing them with here? what does "sharper" mean in the context of bullets? what does it mean that "typing" will be improved when other forum posts mention interest in incorporating handwriting? some technical details rather than unintelligible metaphors would be appreciated. we can handle it, especially if it has to do with the integrity of our data.

anyhow, it is good to see evernote commit to this project of improving product quality. this seems to me a fine way to approach the future and will please a lot of users. keep up the good work.

[Krunoslav 197]

 

 

So why should we trust you or even be excited about your promise when actions speak to the contrary? I ask this not to troll but to see if you are man of your word. And is this something worth investing time into. From testing beta to following its progress to actually sticking with your product vs alternatives such as Onenote for example. Can you please answer my question and prove that we the loyal users are not being brutally ignored once again. Thank you.

 

I'm sorry that you feel this way, but I can tell you that we hear you and we do care... this is precisely why we're making it a priority to be more responsive.  Beyond that, we will just have to earn your trust by following through.  

 

Fair enough. I am willing to wait for a little longer and see what happens. That being said, would it be too much to ask for you to post screenshots or even better a video showcasing what is new and what is expected for the new editor. I don't want to try beta just yet since last few betas had bugs and broke some things that worked before and I was forced to go back a version. Having many valuable notes and relaying on it of daily use, but also eager to see what is new. I would appreciate some more visual information demonstrating what are the new features. Thank you.

 

[Krunoslav 197]

 

 

We can’t promise to get everything right the first time, but we can promise to listen to your feedback and work tirelessly to make every version of Evernote’s editor better than the last. If you have feedback on the editor, we’re here to listen. Feel free to comment on this thread or DM me.

I appreciate the attempt to implement new features, God knows Evernote is in desperate need of note editor because even note editor in forums here is better. That being said, a legitimate concern and question I have to ask, based on the quote from you posted above. I'm sure you can understand. Perhaps you personally are not responsible for any of it but you do wear Evernote banner so in a way you are part of the organization.

You said "We can promise to listen to your feedback and work tirelessly to make every version of Evernote’s editor better than the last. If you have feedback on the editor, we’re here to listen."

Evernote has a long and embarrassing, well documented history of doing precisely the opposite of what you now claim. No feedback (just browse this forums here and its really easy to see) and ignoring user requests. e.g. Evernote beta and other examples. So why should we trust you or even be excited about your promise when actions speak to the contrary? I ask this not to troll but to see if you are man of your word. And is this something worth investing time into. From testing beta to following its progress to actually sticking with your product vs alternatives such as Onenote for example. Can you please answer my question and prove that we the loyal users are not being brutally ignored once again. Thank you.

i don't think we can hold one individual to blame for the sins of others (perceived or imagined), especially when it was a multiple team project undertaken over multiple years with a shifting staff of developers working under different leadership. in short, i don't think he (or anyone else) can satisfactorily respond to your question about whether they are a man (or woman) of their word. even if such a thing could somehow be demonstrated here, there is a lot more going on here -- "listening," for example. listening does not mean responding to user requests. it doesn't mean implementing them. it doesn't mean ignoring them. it means listening, which really isn't going to be very easy to observe by those doing the speaking. at any rate, as far as trust and so forth goes, it's a beta and you can give it a shot or not.

 

Sure I can, because I have little choice. I am a paying customer and I can't get any information on the problems that I am having and since the big CEO or any of the decisions makers are not responding and have decided to make the Evernote policy to retain information and infuriate millions of its users for years. If they have decided to put someone on this forum as a spokesperson for its customers than he or she is the only one I can reach and therefore he or she is responsible. That is my right as a customer especially paying customer. When they decided to treat its users with more respect, the users will be more tolerant. As for this particular individual I have clearly stated "Perhaps you personally are not responsible for any of it but you do wear Evernote banner so in a way you are part of the organization."

You said: "listening," for example. listening does not mean responding to user requests. it doesn't mean implementing them. it doesn't mean ignoring them. it means listening, which really isn't going to be very easy to observe by those doing the speaking. at any rate, as far as trust and so forth goes, it's a beta and you can give it a shot or not."

I'm sorry, but for any company and especially a leading company in its field witch prides itself with over a hundred millions users and payed subscription model, that simply is not good enough. The only reason why it is happening is because it can, (so far) but certainly not because it should.

[JMichaelTX 4,108]

@P.J.: You posted a thread in the Mac forums with the same exact text:

The Evernote Editor   -- Mac Product Feedback forum

.

Was this intentional?

 

Since your redesigned editor is supposed to work cross-platform, would it be better to have just one thread where both Mac and Windows users (some of us are both) can share our feedback?

[PeeJayTee 99]

Oh, one thing I forgot... the visual progress.  I'm happy to post some updates here, but I will warn you, most of the short term things are rather mundane (the way the return/delete keys works in lists, the copying and pasting of tables, basic formatting shortcuts)

[Krunoslav 197]

Wow.  Thanks for all of the feedback.

 

Regarding the technical details, I'll see if I can summarize here, but I think this might be better suited for a follow on blog post.  Here are the particulars:

 

In all of our clients, what you actually see, interact with, and edit is HTML.  Originally, each of the clients consumed ENML and then translated that to HTML so that you can view and edit it.  Those edits were translated back to ENML which was store locally and synced with the Evernote service.  ENML is well defined, so there was no need to standardize the ENML -> HTML conversion.  So long as each client produced and consumed valid ENML, things were fine.

 

This worked well for a while, but as the codebases and clients features diverged, inconsistencies between the converters caused inconsistent HTML rendering across clients.  Bugs started to show up on one client, then were fixed only to pop up on another.  New editor features needed to be built by each team so a new feature meant 5-7 times the work of building it once... all of this leads us to where we are today.

 

The "new" editor is a  shared, common codebase that consumes and produces ENML, just like the old ones.  The difference is that the technology we used to build the new editor (JavaScript) is cross platform, so we can build it once and share it everywhere.  No more inconsistencies.  Fewer bugs.  Better editing for everyone.

 

The complexity lies in the details. Each of the clients were not built thinking that we would just "drop in a new editor" so we needed to do some rearchitecting and refactoring.  Hence "replacing the pipes".  This work is completed on Mac and Windows, and is ongoing on the other clients.

 

@JMichael, that's why I posted this message twice.  I wanted to make sure the Mac and Windows users were aware.

 

Be expecting more detail as things progress.

This is one of the first believe it or not actual precise feedback I have seen from Evernote team. Congratulations. I'm impressed.

 

[Jbyizzle 4]

I would appreciate some more visual information demonstrating what are the new features. Thank you.

 

 

 

Funny you should ask that. Stay tuned

[Jbyizzle 4]

That is my right as a customer especially paying customer.

 

In this case, I can tell you we are here. Seriously, we appreciate your support. 

 

If there is enough interest, we can get something up on the blog about the inner workings of this project. I'll just add that personally, it's been fascinating to watch develop. 

[spip72 10]

Wow.  Thanks for all of the feedback.

 

Regarding the technical details, I'll see if I can summarize here, but I think this might be better suited for a follow on blog post.  Here are the particulars:

 

In all of our clients, what you actually see, interact with, and edit is HTML.  Originally, each of the clients consumed ENML and then translated that to HTML so that you can view and edit it.  Those edits were translated back to ENML which was store locally and synced with the Evernote service.  ENML is well defined, so there was no need to standardize the ENML -> HTML conversion.  So long as each client produced and consumed valid ENML, things were fine.

 

This worked well for a while, but as the codebases and clients features diverged, inconsistencies between the converters caused inconsistent HTML rendering across clients.  Bugs started to show up on one client, then were fixed only to pop up on another.  New editor features needed to be built by each team so a new feature meant 5-7 times the work of building it once... all of this leads us to where we are today.

 

The "new" editor is a  shared, common codebase that consumes and produces ENML, just like the old ones.  The difference is that the technology we used to build the new editor (JavaScript) is cross platform, so we can build it once and share it everywhere.  No more inconsistencies.  Fewer bugs.  Better editing for everyone.

 

The complexity lies in the details. Each of the clients were not built thinking that we would just "drop in a new editor" so we needed to do some rearchitecting and refactoring.  Hence "replacing the pipes".  This work is completed on Mac and Windows, and is ongoing on the other clients.

 

@JMichael, that's why I posted this message twice.  I wanted to make sure the Mac and Windows users were aware.

 

Be expecting more detail as things progress.

 

Hi, 

 

Thanks for letting us know! This sounds very promising. I'm getting a lot of issues with lag with the new release, and now that I understand you've switched to javascript, I'm worried if that would have a performance penalty which we can feel in larger notes?

[garygiles63 5]

hi

 

As much as I hope this is good news, my feeling is maybe to late. My confidance in using Evernotes is near zero. I'm a windows touch screen user, using Evernote now is quite frankly, dismissal. Fed up with loosing notebooks because I've drag them into another notebook. The whole touch screen experience is depressing. This needs to be fixed now, because I'm looking to replace evernote. I can't beleave I'm a loan with feeling.

 

Good luck.

 

Regards

 

Gary Giles

 

[GrumpyMonkey 4,316]

Wow.  Thanks for all of the feedback.

 

Regarding the technical details, I'll see if I can summarize here, but I think this might be better suited for a follow on blog post.  Here are the particulars:

 

In all of our clients, what you actually see, interact with, and edit is HTML.  Originally, each of the clients consumed ENML and then translated that to HTML so that you can view and edit it.  Those edits were translated back to ENML which was store locally and synced with the Evernote service.  ENML is well defined, so there was no need to standardize the ENML -> HTML conversion.  So long as each client produced and consumed valid ENML, things were fine.

 

This worked well for a while, but as the codebases and clients features diverged, inconsistencies between the converters caused inconsistent HTML rendering across clients.  Bugs started to show up on one client, then were fixed only to pop up on another.  New editor features needed to be built by each team so a new feature meant 5-7 times the work of building it once... all of this leads us to where we are today.

 

The "new" editor is a  shared, common codebase that consumes and produces ENML, just like the old ones.  The difference is that the technology we used to build the new editor (JavaScript) is cross platform, so we can build it once and share it everywhere.  No more inconsistencies.  Fewer bugs.  Better editing for everyone.

 

The complexity lies in the details. Each of the clients were not built thinking that we would just "drop in a new editor" so we needed to do some rearchitecting and refactoring.  Hence "replacing the pipes".  This work is completed on Mac and Windows, and is ongoing on the other clients.

 

@JMichael, that's why I posted this message twice.  I wanted to make sure the Mac and Windows users were aware.

 

Be expecting more detail as things progress.

 

Thanks for sharing some of the details. I think it helps users to understand the challenges you face, the efforts you are making to improve it, and some of the things they can look out for in testing. My recommendation would be to continue sharing (what you can) of the "mundane" stuff as well, because for many of us, it isn't the "sexy" new stuff that attracts our attention, but the incremental improvements that help the product function better. This kind of attention to detail is much appreciated, and I feel it inspires confidence in the developers. Just my two cents. Good luck with the upgrades!

[jlfenaux 1]

The editing features have always been the weakest part in my Evernote usage. 

I use markdown every day to type notes. As your current support of that kind of notes is quite poor, I've quit using Evernote to edit notes and moved to Dropbox + sublimetext. 

Evernote now only stores my clips and my scans. 

 

But I'd be glad to come back you the new editing capabilities include Markdow editing. But why basic markdown? Github's flavour of Markdown would be a great option. I'm looking forward to testing this version. 

[Liam Gretton 86]

I wanted to take a moment to tell you about a project that we've been working on for quite a while. As some of you may have noticed, the note editor changed in the Windows 5.9 release. Though it introduced a relatively small number of new features, it represents a larger body of work that will significantly improve note editing in Evernote.

 

This, and what is hopefully the start of a new attitude of engagement with users is the best news I've heard from Evernote for years.

[vladcampos 553]

The complexity lies in the details. Each of the clients were not built thinking that we would just "drop in a new editor" so we needed to do some rearchitecting and refactoring.  Hence "replacing the pipes".  This work is completed on Mac and Windows, and is ongoing on the other clients.

 

Thanks for the detailed explanation. I'm among the first users (since July/2008) and I know how you guys evolved on this text formatting situation over the years.

 

I have a specific question though. Will the appearance, toolbar, menus etc. change a lot? At the blog post you guys wrote "And even though it represents major steps for the product, if we’ve done our job right, you’ll barely notice anything’s changed". What does it means? If one upgrade to the new version it won't even notice it is a different App? I'm working on an Evernote online course and have produced part of the videos. After yesterday's blog post I don't know what to do: wait to get the beta invitation or keep working on the vídeos. That's why knowing if there will be or not multiple cosmetic changes is important to me. Can you be more specific on this subject?

[PeeJayTee 99]

 

Thanks for letting us know! This sounds very promising. I'm getting a lot of issues with lag with the new release, and now that I understand you've switched to javascript, I'm worried if that would have a performance penalty which we can feel in larger notes?

 

 

This is definitely on our radar - I don't believe that this is a limit of the technology, but rather, something we need to do differently.

[Krunoslav 197]

 

 

Thanks for letting us know! This sounds very promising. I'm getting a lot of issues with lag with the new release, and now that I understand you've switched to javascript, I'm worried if that would have a performance penalty which we can feel in larger notes?

 

 

This is definitely on our radar - I don't believe that this is a limit of the technology, but rather, something we need to do differently.

 

Actually with the 5.9.1 release and few betas before it I had the same issues with lag on larger notes. Even if its mostly just text. Is this when you started implementing new JavaScript. I don't remember having that problem with the same notes in previous releases. I don't think I want to trade better editor for a slow performance, that is a compromise that should not be done. I like what you said. "I don't believe that this is a limit of the technology, but rather, something we need to do differently." Because I feel the same way. Hope you guys find a solution by the time you get out of beta.  

[TaskClone 51]

 

Wow.  Thanks for all of the feedback.

 

Regarding the technical details, I'll see if I can summarize here, but I think this might be better suited for a follow on blog post.  Here are the particulars:

 

In all of our clients, what you actually see, interact with, and edit is HTML.  Originally, each of the clients consumed ENML and then translated that to HTML so that you can view and edit it.  Those edits were translated back to ENML which was store locally and synced with the Evernote service.  ENML is well defined, so there was no need to standardize the ENML -> HTML conversion.  So long as each client produced and consumed valid ENML, things were fine.

 

This worked well for a while, but as the codebases and clients features diverged, inconsistencies between the converters caused inconsistent HTML rendering across clients.  Bugs started to show up on one client, then were fixed only to pop up on another.  New editor features needed to be built by each team so a new feature meant 5-7 times the work of building it once... all of this leads us to where we are today.

 

The "new" editor is a  shared, common codebase that consumes and produces ENML, just like the old ones.  The difference is that the technology we used to build the new editor (JavaScript) is cross platform, so we can build it once and share it everywhere.  No more inconsistencies.  Fewer bugs.  Better editing for everyone.

 

The complexity lies in the details. Each of the clients were not built thinking that we would just "drop in a new editor" so we needed to do some rearchitecting and refactoring.  Hence "replacing the pipes".  This work is completed on Mac and Windows, and is ongoing on the other clients.

 

@JMichael, that's why I posted this message twice.  I wanted to make sure the Mac and Windows users were aware.

 

Be expecting more detail as things progress.

This is one of the first believe it or not actual precise feedback I have seen from Evernote team. Congratulations. I'm impressed.

 

 

 

The Evenote team has been pretty good to me, but I agree this is probably one of the most straightforward and informative responses I've seen.  A suggestion would be to assume many of your users are intelligent and appreciate over-communication to silence.  We don't expect you to give us timelines, but believe we can be trusted with a roadmap and specificity of what is currently included in it.  No, don't put that stuff in the actual blog post (unless it's a technical blog), but when you link to the discussion, add as much detail as you can.  Many companies use software to have users vote on ideas and then they tell us what is planned, in progress and completed (See OneNote API team)

 

Sure, we'll complain when our pet feature or bug fix is not listed, but that's just the software business.  Most will understand as long as some progress is being made on what you actually committed to.  As was stated, trust is built by actions aligning with words.  But if the words say nothing of commitment, how do you build the trust back.  Just doing good things that don't show you were listening will not be sufficient.  It's best if you can connect the dots between feedback and action.  We know you have your own agenda and ideas about what is best for the company separate from user feedback, but we're expecting some overlap.

 

Relatedly, it has been absolutely infuriating for many that Evernote can raise that much money and still have customer support worse than most startups.  This is not new and it is not about bad people, It's been a multi-year lack of investment.  Simple things like off the shelf support software that sends auto-replies and tracks history. The number of threads in the forums that have no replies is astonishing for a company of Evernote's relative wealth.  Even if there is no answer, it's respectful to reply.  All these things suggest to many that Evernote either doesn't care or doesn't understand.  Both are fatal in tech.  I admit I have seen signs of improvement on the product and developers side, but there is much room for improvement.

 

It would benefit the company long term to make some sort of transparent commitment in this area.  I know doing so is a financial hit in the short term (especially while planning for an IPO), but it would improve the reputation which needs help at this point.

[GiacomoLaw 134]

I've signed up and everything, but I still can't get it. 

[eldrin 26]

I wonder if this change of direction means there's any chance Evernote will in future stop placing adverts / "tips" at the top of the notes list in the iOS and Android clients. I'm sick of seeing these each day when I go into the notes list in the mobile clients and have to tap the little 'x' to make these "informative" cards at the top of the notes list go away.

[Rob van Vliet 43]

JavaScript? Sounds like the turn that Spotify took to unify their client architectures. Good! Can't resist to note that a Linux client is just around the corner from there...

[Jbyizzle 4]

I've signed up and everything, but I still can't get it. 

 

There are a few things that need to happen when we add someone into the beta track. This week we've had a higher than normal volume of requests, but we will get to it as soon as we can. Thanks and stay tuned! 

[Stephen C 5]

 

That is my right as a customer especially paying customer.

 

In this case, I can tell you we are here. Seriously, we appreciate your support. 

 

If there is enough interest, we can get something up on the blog about the inner workings of this project. I'll just add that personally, it's been fascinating to watch develop. 

 

 

I'd love to hear more about the inner workings. As a software engineer myself, hearing about the technical changes would really reinforce my faith in the new system. Plus, I just really like to read about how different teams code up their solutions. 

[rztaylor 6]

For years I have been hoping that Evernote would concentrate on fixing the poor editing features and stop introducing new features that nobody asked for and strange product partnerships (Post-it notes, messenger bags, etc). Finally, it seems as though it might just happen!

 

I appreciate the detailed blog post explaining how you're planning to move forward. I'm not concerned about the choice of technology (javascript) as I currently use the following javascript editors extensively and have no problems with performance:

 

• the Wodpress (CKEditor?) editor for blog posts
• Marxico, "the missing markdown editor for Evernote" which allows me to write markdown in a split screen view, and create beautiful notes with a consistent style and appearance.
• the editor in this forum

I really think that you need to look at implementing a way for users to suggest and vote on product features. This would provide you with metrics on how your user-base feel about particular features.

 

It's important to note however that you MUST feedback on the suggestions. Perhaps it would be a good idea to set a threshold at which you guarantee more detailed feedback. E.g. if a feature gets more than 5,000 votes then a response of more than 100 words is guaranteed. Even if it's a response explaining why a feature won't be implemented, it will show respect for your users and rebuild the trust that is lacking.

 

The most important features that I would like to see in a new improved editor are fairly standard features. These are features I would use every single day.

• Better image handling. I can't believe I can't resize an image, let alone choose how text flows around it
• Better table support. Controlling borders, margins and padding... background and foreground colours and setting column sizes.
• Styles. Seriously, this would be the biggest change for me. I like my notes to look consistent. I like to format code in a particular colour and font. I like to have headings of different sizes.

This is your opportunity to do something great. Don't drop the ball on this!

[Liam Gretton 86]

• Marxico, "the missing markdown editor for Evernote" which allows me to write markdown in a split screen view, and create beautiful notes with a consistent style and appearance.

 

Crikey, I didn't know about Marxico, it looks very nice. Look at those flow charts and sequence diagrams! And syntax colouring for code!

[Krunoslav 197]

 

For years I have been hoping that Evernote would concentrate on fixing the poor editing features and stop introducing new features that nobody asked for and strange product partnerships (Post-it notes, messenger bags, etc). Finally, it seems as though it might just happen!

 

I appreciate the detailed blog post explaining how you're planning to move forward. I'm not concerned about the choice of technology (javascript) as I currently use the following javascript editors extensively and have no problems with performance:

 

• the Wodpress (CKEditor?) editor for blog posts
• Marxico, "the missing markdown editor for Evernote" which allows me to write markdown in a split screen view, and create beautiful notes with a consistent style and appearance.
• the editor in this forum

I really think that you need to look at implementing a way for users to suggest and vote on product features. This would provide you with metrics on how your user-base feel about particular features.

 

It's important to note however that you MUST feedback on the suggestions. Perhaps it would be a good idea to set a threshold at which you guarantee more detailed feedback. E.g. if a feature gets more than 5,000 votes then a response of more than 100 words is guaranteed. Even if it's a response explaining why a feature won't be implemented, it will show respect for your users and rebuild the trust that is lacking.

 

The most important features that I would like to see in a new improved editor are fairly standard features. These are features I would use every single day.

• Better image handling. I can't believe I can't resize an image, let alone choose how text flows around it
• Better table support. Controlling borders, margins and padding... background and foreground colours and setting column sizes.
• Styles. Seriously, this would be the biggest change for me. I like my notes to look consistent. I like to format code in a particular colour and font. I like to have headings of different sizes.

This is your opportunity to do something great. Don't drop the ball on this!

 

I pretty much agree with everything said and support the same requests. Its 2015, this should be a standard at this point.

 

[PeeJayTee 99]

Thanks for the suggestions and kind words, everyone.

 

As we're rolling out to all of the clients, our focus is going to be spent on making some smaller improvements to the experience along the way. In the coming months, be looking for improvements to lists, tables, and copy/paste specifically. More/larger improvements are coming, but these areas are the ones that touch the most people and need the most help.

 

We add features to the betas first, and the best way to have your feedback heard is to try out the betas and let us know what you think.  With millions and millions of people using Evernote on a given day, it's really hard to make changes without breaking someone's workflow.  We rely on the beta testers as our last line of defense to tell us if things are getting better.  Also, we're always reading the forums... forum threads often turn into bug reports and then to fixes and features, but the loop hasn't been getting closed very well.  We'll work on that.

 

Thanks again, 

P.J.

[rztaylor 6]

Already signed up for the windows Beta ...  but waiting for my request to be approved (can you give it a nudge perhaps?)

[TheGazillionthENUser 3]

Javacript, eh?

 

Does that mean it will open up new possibilities for EN add-on developers?

Having a common code base certainly is a start ... though, as integral as the text editor is to EN ... I am scratching my head a bit and wondering what took you so long...(I am an experieinced software developer, having worked in developer tools at Apple, as well as having written an API for an older version of the MacOS  -- and yes, I don't currently use Macs ... )

Create a good developer tools program and what EN is today could be a shadow of what it could be tomorrow ...

3rd party content has made many platforms & apps far more successful than they would have been, on their own.

Imagine browsers without extensions...

Get the editor handled, and I'm sure a lot more people will be excited to pick up paid, or higher paid, versions of EN ...

Fancy features are fine ... but if the basics don't work well, they tend to be a constant frustration...

Thanks for listening ...

 

P.S. Unfortunately, the "few added features" and changes which shouldn't be very noticeable have been, for me, in spades.  I do use a lot of different editing features of EN...but have had issues with tables, with copy and paste of lists and more...it's been very frustrating...

P.P.S. I'll be happy to try beta, as long as I can run a beta account and a non-beta account...is that possible?

[tavener 8]

I think the elephant in the room is more than just the editor, but the overall experience using Evernote as a Windows user. Evernote looks beautiful on Mac and iOS, but looks like ***** on any Windows laptop made since most laptops in current use were bought. It's just not a good experience, and so I have used it much less than certain other cross-platform note-taking tools. As a premium user since of over five years, and as a user who's been signed up for beta for some time, I'd really like to see some progress toward a better UX for Windows users. That's what I don't see happening in the beta process, as much as improvements to the craptastic editor.

[PeeJayTee 99]

 

I have a specific question though. Will the appearance, toolbar, menus etc. change a lot? At the blog post you guys wrote "And even though it represents major steps for the product, if we’ve done our job right, you’ll barely notice anything’s changed". What does it means? If one upgrade to the new version it won't even notice it is a different App? I'm working on an Evernote online course and have produced part of the videos. After yesterday's blog post I don't know what to do: wait to get the beta invitation or keep working on the vídeos. That's why knowing if there will be or not multiple cosmetic changes is important to me. Can you be more specific on this subject?

 

Sorry for missing this one... the answer is not super easy to give.  The UI will change gradually over time.  I wouldn't stop your videos for this release - it's not going to look or feel fundamentally different at all - almost no UI changes.  Lots of the changes in the next few versions will be to how the editor feels when you type and cleaning up some of the inconsistencies and quirks.  If you have a lesson on "stuff that's weird and unexpected in Evernote", then I might hold off

 

That said, progress and change go hand in hand, and we're promising to make meaningful progress so that necessitates some meaningful change. It's not going to happen in the next few weeks, but larger changes will likely come in a few months.  

[HerbyDE 101]

I love Markdown and it is great to see some puzzles of this in the editor. But I could live without such things if I got the possibilty to structure my text. Most important for this thing is to have headlines and sub-headlines for long texts. Would be great to have #H1, ##H2 and so on - but any button of "Heading", "Paragraph" or any font template would be okay.

 

You have had such templates in iOS Evernote (2 years ago) ...

[PeeJayTee 99]

I love Markdown and it is great to see some puzzles of this in the editor. But I could live without such things if I got the possibilty to structure my text. Most important for this thing is to have headlines and sub-headlines for long texts. Would be great to have #H1, ##H2 and so on - but any button of "Heading", "Paragraph" or any font template would be okay.

 

You have had such templates in iOS Evernote (2 years ago) ...

 

Thanks - this is absolutely on the roadmap, but not in this release.  Thanks for the feedback and stay tuned.

[cnc 0]

Will the editor changes be rolled out to all platforms, including the Windows Phone and Windows Touch clients?

[HerbyDE 101]

 

I love Markdown and it is great to see some puzzles of this in the editor. But I could live without such things if I got the possibilty to structure my text. Most important for this thing is to have headlines and sub-headlines for long texts. Would be great to have #H1, ##H2 and so on - but any button of "Heading", "Paragraph" or any font template would be okay.

 

You have had such templates in iOS Evernote (2 years ago) ...

 

Thanks - this is absolutely on the roadmap, but not in this release.  Thanks for the feedback and stay tuned.

 

 

Wow! This is really, really good message for all authors! Thank you so much!

[overthrow 0]

does an improved editing engine mean that some sort of font and size controls are in the works for mobile clients?  One of my weird editing quirks is that I can specify font size in the app, and the iOS clients merrily ignore it.  And there's no unified font family between the web and desktop and mobile versions from what I can tell -- I have a bunch of notes that start in helvetica, switch to arial, switch back to helvetica later on, based on what platform I used to edit the note.

[pirafrank 4]

 

I love Markdown and it is great to see some puzzles of this in the editor. But I could live without such things if I got the possibilty to structure my text. Most important for this thing is to have headlines and sub-headlines for long texts. Would be great to have #H1, ##H2 and so on - but any button of "Heading", "Paragraph" or any font template would be okay.

 

You have had such templates in iOS Evernote (2 years ago) ...

 

Thanks - this is absolutely on the roadmap, but not in this release.  Thanks for the feedback and stay tuned.

 

 

Hi guys.

If it's not planned for next beta of the evernote editor, are you going to support just some of markdown?

[GiacomoLaw 134]

Still haven't managed to get the new beta. 

[jtcr17 2]

Hi 

 

I don't have the beta yet. I checked the check box in Evernote but still no beta 

[charboyd 272]

Still haven't managed to get the new beta. 

The latest Windows Beta will be released shortly. Once this becomes available, we will post details in the Windows Product Feedback forum with release notes and the download. 

[Justin Street 94]

Our latest beta has just been released: https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/89014-new-evernote-for-windows-592-beta/

[charboyd 272]

Our latest beta has just been released: https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/89014-new-evernote-for-windows-592-beta/

Told you it would be shortly 

[acdc 0]

 

 

I love Markdown and it is great to see some puzzles of this in the editor. But I could live without such things if I got the possibilty to structure my text. Most important for this thing is to have headlines and sub-headlines for long texts. Would be great to have #H1, ##H2 and so on - but any button of "Heading", "Paragraph" or any font template would be okay.

 

You have had such templates in iOS Evernote (2 years ago) ...

 

Thanks - this is absolutely on the roadmap, but not in this release.  Thanks for the feedback and stay tuned.

 

 

Hi guys.

If it's not planned for next beta of the evernote editor, are you going to support just some of markdown?

 

 

Why this question was ignored?

 

I have the same interest. Will you support markdown?

[PeeJayTee 99]

 

 

 

I love Markdown and it is great to see some puzzles of this in the editor. But I could live without such things if I got the possibilty to structure my text. Most important for this thing is to have headlines and sub-headlines for long texts. Would be great to have #H1, ##H2 and so on - but any button of "Heading", "Paragraph" or any font template would be okay.

 

You have had such templates in iOS Evernote (2 years ago) ...

 

Thanks - this is absolutely on the roadmap, but not in this release.  Thanks for the feedback and stay tuned.

 

 

Hi guys.

If it's not planned for next beta of the evernote editor, are you going to support just some of markdown?

 

 

Why this question was ignored?

 

I have the same interest. Will you support markdown?

 

 

Sorry for missing this one... we had originally planned to support some "markdown-inspired" shortcuts in this version.  For example, typing **Some Stuff** would result in Some Stuff.  This was introduced in an early Mac beta last week, and it was clear that there are some shortcomings with this approach.  Here are the details if you're interested...

 

https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/88677-evernote-for-mac-62-beta-1-released/?p=380238

[KrisGal 9]

This project is really promising. The small incremental improvements will restore confidence in the product. Even though EN is "under my skin" and I use it for everything, I have a hard time recommending the product with the current buggy editor... already the latest update for Windows did fix a few things... great.. keep it up.

 

Can't wait to do the same simple stuff on my Win / iPad combination.... just to add a simple rule and a table on the iPad would be significant progress.

[Display name: 0]

Please. All that I want is tag hierarchy on iOS. Please. I need to be able to organise my notes on my iPad!

[xdavex 0]

I miss the colored background

 

could evernote make this work again

 

http://www.intowindows.com/how-to-change-evernote-background-color-or-image/

 

Or could someone teach me the new way to make this work? Please

 

This is only reason i stopped updating evernote (currently at 5.8.8)

 

How hard is it to retain the background color in the new evernote editor?

 

I know Evernote says they are updating this for a better experience but it's not like that for me when you remove features like background color -.-

[Glyph 25]

FYI - I'm on evernote windows and have plenty of formatting problems... particularly with check boxes... you can read my experience here if you are curious. 

 

[FactMan 196]

@Glyph, no it is definitely not just you. The problem is that it is inconsistent between builds so that what works now may not work next week. Also, last night I discovered that there is no point in trying to make the note look good on screen because if I print it the original formatting looks fine - just awful on the desktop screen. Whatever is going on, they need to fix it or I will be moving to OneNote!

[idoc 317]

Interestingly enough I really don't care at all about editing on Evernote.  I use EN to store every conceivable piece of paper in my work and home life (after scanning).  I also use it to share emails with Gmail, to clip from the browser and to share notebooks with my employees.  I have almost zero interest in using it as a word processor, spreadsheet or chat program.  Those tasks I complete in Word or Excel or elsewhere and then dump them into EN.  Likewise, I am mystified when I hear about the complaints regarding bullet lists, checkmarks, To Do lists, Reminders etc etc.  I use EN as a vast depository of information that comes from every conceivable angle.  In almost 5000 notes I have never cared about editing a note other than figuring out the best way to cram in the pdf's, images and other stuff that I put there.  I would imagine that no matter how long the EN team labors at this task they will not produce a viable alternative to mainstream word processors, spreadsheets etc. and that they shouldn't even try.  On the other hand, there is no reason why EN could not become a better "tickler" or Reminder List program.  My two cents to the EN team is to focus on creating a product which functions as an effective depositary of information and the means to search simply and intuitively through this information.  Even after years of being a "poweruser" and a Premium customer I still use very few search parameters because I find them difficult to remember, unintuitive and relatively clunky.  In fact I remember a program called Infoselect which I used over 10 years ago in which searches were super easy and lightning fast.  I far prefer EN to Infoselect but sometimes wish that I could conduct searches within EN as easily as I did with that other program.

[JMichaelTX 4,108]

25 minutes ago, idoc said:

Interestingly enough I really don't care at all about editing on Evernote.

Hmm.  This topic is titled "The Evernote Editor", and is about Evernote's effort to improve the Editor on all platforms:

On 9/22/2015 at 4:35 PM, PeeJayTee said:

Years of writing the editors of our clients independently of one another has taken a toll on the the consistency and quality of Evernote’s editing experience. We recognize this and we’re fully committed to making it better.

So, I can't imagine why you are posting here, since you " really don't care at all about editing on Evernote",

30 minutes ago, idoc said:

I am mystified when I hear about the complaints regarding bullet lists, checkmarks, To Do lists, Reminders etc etc

I suppose you would be since you never use Evernote to write anything, to edit anything, to create content.

I do hope you realize that Evernote is used by a wide variety of people for a wide variety of tasks, including writing on many levels.  I think that there are many, many users (including myself) who need and expect Evernote to be a good rich text editor, but don't expect it to be word processor.

You seem to have some issues with Evernote search.  Perhaps you would be better served by starting a new topic that is focused on your issues.

[idoc 317]

I don't think that it's inconsistent that I'm posting on this topic.  We all realize that with finite resources Evernote needs to hone their focus as much as possible.  My post was to convey the notion that there may be millions of users such as myself who have no problem whatsoever with the editor.  In essence, I'm stating that the editor (as is) is good enough.  And yes I realize that there are users who would want the editor to be better, but in the grand scheme of things EN is not about editing but IS about storing, cataloging, categorizing and searching.  And yes, I'm sure that 99% of Evernote's users do not utilize even a fraction of the potential search capabilities of the program (not just me).

[macfixer 444]

10 hours ago, JMichaelTX said:

Hmm.  This topic is titled "The Evernote Editor", and is about Evernote's effort to improve the Editor on all platforms:

So, I can't imagine why you are posting here, since you " really don't care at all about editing on Evernote",

I suppose you would be since you never use Evernote to write anything, to edit anything, to create content.

I do hope you realize that Evernote is used by a wide variety of people for a wide variety of tasks, including writing on many levels.  I think that there are many, many users (including myself) who need and expect Evernote to be a good rich text editor, but don't expect it to be word processor.

You seem to have some issues with Evernote search.  Perhaps you would be better served by starting a new topic that is focused on your issues.

M-M-M-M-MULTI COMMENT COMBOOOO!

[Glyph 25]

16 hours ago, idoc said:

Likewise, I am mystified when I hear about the complaints regarding bullet lists, checkmarks, To Do lists, Reminders etc etc.  

 

14 hours ago, idoc said:

My post was to convey the notion that there may be millions of users such as myself who have no problem whatsoever with the editor.  .... I realize that there are users who would want the editor to be better, but in the grand scheme of things EN is not about editing but IS about storing, cataloging, categorizing and searching.  

On the one hand... if you want to put in your 2 cents that you don't want them to spend time on this, you have every right.  And if there are millions of users such as yourself, perhaps they can chime in and make their voices heard.  But when you start saying what ever note IS about, it sounds like you are saying the way YOU use it is the RIGHT way to use it... and everyone else is wrong... :-)  

In any case - I also mostly use evernote as a repository... (in GTD speak is my "reference material" repository)... 95% of what I have in there is scans, or web clippings I never edit... I don't use it for massive text editing... but occasionally I want a bullet list... or to type something out in evernote... I don't want to use Word or another app for this, because then I am fragmenting where all my data is... I want all of it in one place.  When I make a bullet list of questions for the doc, I don't want to have to open the note, then open a word doc attached to the note, etc.  I just want to be able to have a bullet list right there... 

In any case... I don't think evernote needs to be full fledged word processor... just a basic rich text editor that doesn't suck terribly at the simple task of minor text editing... Seriously... I've seen wiki's with better in-browser editors than what evernote has in a native app... that's sad.

 

[DTLow 5,721]

I'm more focused on Evernote as a digital file cabinet, but I do support the editor project. That covers both editor improvements, and better consistency between the platforms.

I up-voted the discussion.  The vote is now .....1  (voting buttons are at the top left corner of the discussion)

[JMichaelTX 4,108]

The horse is already out of the barn.  This thread is an announcement by Evernote of a major project and commitment to improve the Evernote Editor, and make it work the same, or very similar, across all platforms.

I highly commend Evernote for this decision and action.

On 9/22/2015 at 4:35 PM, PeeJayTee said:

This is P.J. from the Product Team at Evernote.

I wanted to take a moment to tell you about a project that we've been working on for quite a while. As some of you may have noticed, the note editor changed in the Windows 5.9 release. Though it introduced a relatively small number of new features, it represents a larger body of work that will significantly improve note editing in Evernote.

. . . has taken a toll on the the consistency and quality of Evernote’s editing experience. We recognize this and we’re fully committed to making it better. We’ve created a dedicated team focused on improving the note editor and we’re hoping you notice the difference. In the coming weeks and months, you’ll start to see the fruits of this labor appear in all of the things you do to create notes in Evernote—typing, bullets and lists, tables, images, copy and pasting are just a few of the things we’ll be working on to start. Bigger improvements will follow. For more on the thinking behind this project, check out this blog post.

[jc_jacobs 3]

With regards to the EN Windows Text Editor I would like to request some features that are standard on most other text editors.

• Adjusting Line Spacing - Ability to adjust the space between each line in a note (1.15, 1.5, 2.0, etc.)
• Format Painting - Ability to copy the color and style of text from one part of the note to another.
• Different Highlighter Colors
•  Pre-defined styles - Heading 1, Heading 2, Sub-Heading, Etc. That automatically changes the size and style of the text (Similar to Word and Others)
• Sort Function For Lists - Sort Alphabetically or Numerically the items in a bulleted list
• Buttons for supscripts and superscripts

Anyways, this is not a comprehensive list but I think these are basic features that any program used for writing should have.

Also, I know this feature request has been circulating for a while but it would be nice to see markdown support added in the future.

[dantonic 5]

On 9/23/2015 at 6:10 PM, PeeJayTee said:

The "new" editor is a  shared, common codebase that consumes and produces ENML, just like the old ones.  The difference is that the technology we used to build the new editor (JavaScript) is cross platform, so we can build it once and share it everywhere.  No more inconsistencies.  Fewer bugs.  Better editing for everyone.

When can we expect this to be the case?  It looks like currently the mac and windows editors still don't share all the same features.  For example from what I read the Mac version incorporates the basic ability to zoom in and out of notes, while the windows version still cannot do this with CTRL + scroll wheel, as of the latest version rolled out this month.

When can we expect for the windows editor functions to catch up, and why are they different if they're all being coded in javascript with one source code?  When will the inconsistencies stop?

Thank you very much in advance for your answer.

[tomahawkEN 0]

I'm gonna put some wood into the fire...

Dropbox paper introduced the text editor of the future.Clean and with the most relevant features. So I'm gonna base my contribution with some examples that I would love to have with EN.

- Code Highlighting recognition

- Comments

- Styles (headers)

- Image handling

 

- Inline Toolbar

 

Personally, what I miss the most is Styles, Code Highlighting and the possibility of placing an image wherever I want.

[gustavgi 304]

a Comments feature like in Dropbox would be amazing not just for working in teams.

A lot of times when you have clipped an entire article, and you come back to that article, it's hard to see where in the text the relevant information is and quickly recognize why the portion was relevant. The highlighting function is there, but you are still required to read the text to find out why it was relevant. A quick comment placed visibly on the side would fix that.

[WeCanLearnAnything 100]

For the record, I use Evernote all the time and it has greatly improved my life.

That being said, I may be an extreme case, but here is

 

The Evernote Announcement I'd Love to Hear

 

Dear Evernote Users,

For the rest of 2016 and 2017, we will be introducing no new front-end features at all. There will be no new buttons, no new menus, no new interfaces, no new colors, nothing new at all. We will be launching no new products, no new services, no new marketing campaigns, no new branding, no new pricing, nothing of the sort. We are putting all new front-end ideas and feature requests on hold.

Instead, from now until 2018, ALL developers will spend ALL of their time:

1. Deleting underutilized features and
2. Making the remaining features just work. Think bulletproof. Think zero glitches. Think flawless back-end, too.

We're going to eliminate copy/paste weirdness.

In tables, the up key will move the cursor - you guessed it - up! And the down key will move the cursor - you guessed it - down!

Fonts will be predictable and will not randomly switch to the magical (and otherwise unobtainable) size of 13 (link 1, link 2).

Print preview and printing will prove worthy of shopping lists (i.e. they won't randomly crop out tiny slices of text while misaligning lists).

URLs that Evernote generates will work right away.

We won't make you figure out how to eliminate the double-icon in your taskbar.

That's just the beginning; a lot of great things will happen behind the scenes, too. And when the software works, we'll have earned your trust, and you'll know you can trust Evernote for your life's work, to remember everything, as a digital extension of your brain.

Nothing is going to distract us. Nothing is going to stop us. We're going to make Evernote just work.

Chris O'Neill [as imagined by an Evernote user]

CEO, Evernote

 

 

FYI, the glitches mentioned here are ones with which I've become familiar in the past few months. I bet there are a lot of other ones, too. And although there are new features I'd love to see (namely adding text boxes to ink notes), it's probably better to make old stuff work than it is to make new things.

Thoughts?

[gustavgi 304]

27 minutes ago, WeCanLearnAnything said:

For the record, I use Evernote all the time and it has greatly improved my life.

That being said, I may be an extreme case, but this is the Evernote announcement I'd love to hear:

 

 

Dear Evernote Users,

For the rest of 2016 and 2017, we will be introducing no new front-end features at all. There will be no new buttons, no new menus, no new interfaces, no new colors, nothing new at all. We will be launching no new products, no new services, no new marketing campaigns, no new branding, no new pricing, nothing of the sort. We are putting all new front-end ideas and feature requests on hold.

Instead, from now until 2018, ALL developers will spend ALL of their time:

1. Deleting underutilized features and
2. Making the remaining features just work. Think bulletproof. Think zero glitches. Think flawless back-end.

We're going to eliminate copy/paste weirdness.

In tables, the up key will move the cursor - you guessed it - up! And the down key will move the cursor - you guessed it - down!

Fonts will be predictable and will not randomly switch to the magical (and otherwise unobtainable) size of 13 (link 1, link 2).

Print preview and printing will prove worthy of shopping lists (i.e. they won't randomly crop out tiny slices of text while misaligning lists).

URLs that Evernote generates will work right away.

We won't make you figure out how to eliminate the double-icon in your taskbar.

That's just the beginning; a lot of great things will happen behind the scenes, too. And when the software works, we'll have earned your trust, and you'll know you can trust Evernote for your life's work, to remember everything, as a digital extension of your brain.

Nothing is going to distract us. Nothing is going to stop us. We're going to make Evernote just work.

Chris O'Neill

CEO, Evernote

 

 

FYI, the glitches mentioned here are ones with which I've become familiar in the past few months. I bet there are a lot of other ones, too. And although there are new features I'd love to see (namely adding text boxes to ink notes), it's probably better to make old stuff work than it is to make new things.

Thoughts?

Sure those are some of the annoying bugs that keep showing up, but it's not what makes/breaks a multi million dollar company.

Your strategy would though. EN has never been under more pressure with Apple Notes and Dropbox Paper etc. Marketing and new features are essential to the company staying relevant in the near future. Sure, there is no need for new features that tries to make EN something it's not, like what's been done in the recent past, but it needs new core-product features.

If I were EN i would invest heavily in AI and functions which would make everyone's EN experience more personlized. Maybe something similar to "Google on Tap" but for your EN content etc.

Even though I'm sceptical of the Context feature when it comes to external sources, the Context function of showing my own related notes was a step in the right direction. However it needs to be more easily accessable from anything and everywhere. Now it's just "hidden" at the bottom of a note..

And you should be careful with using other people's names, even if it's just as a hypotical example..

[WeCanLearnAnything 100]

On 5/23/2016 at 0:49 PM, gustavgi said:

Sure those are some of the annoying bugs that keep showing up, but it's not what makes/breaks a multi million dollar company.

Your strategy would though. EN has never been under more pressure with Apple Notes and Dropbox Paper etc. Marketing and new features are essential to the company staying relevant in the near future. Sure, there is no need for new features that tries to make EN something it's not, like what's been done in the recent past, but it needs new core-product features.

Again, I may not be a representative user and I get that.

The main reason I'm thinking of switching from Evernote to OneNote or DropBox Paper (or some other competitor) is because I expect those competing products to just work. I do not expect Evernote's products to just work. There are way too many glitches that, as you say, just keep showing up.

DropBox, on the other hand, has worked flawlessly for me for years now, so I trust their software a lot more than I trust Evernote.

*EDIT*. Question @ Gustavgi and anyone else, including Evernote employees. Many of us are aware of "... some of the annoying bugs that keep showing up...". Please complete this sentence. 

Evernote users should endure those bugs for ______ years while employees add new features.

  

 

On 5/23/2016 at 0:49 PM, gustavgi said:

If I were EN i would invest heavily in AI and functions which would make everyone's EN experience more personlized. Maybe something similar to "Google on Tap" but for your EN content etc.

Even though I'm sceptical of the Context feature when it comes to external sources, the Context function of showing my own related notes was a step in the right direction. However it needs to be more easily accessable from anything and everywhere. Now it's just "hidden" at the bottom of a note..

If the brakes in a car glitch out a lot and the car's integration with Siri isn't working, fix the brakes first and fix Siri afterwards.

Edited May 24, 2016 by WeCanLearnAnything
The *EDIT* section

[WeCanLearnAnything 100]

1 hour ago, gustavgi said:

...

And you should be careful with using other people's names, even if it's just as a hypotical example..

I just edited the post to make it clearer that the letter is fiction.

[Coach Wade 80]

On 5/23/2016 at 3:49 PM, gustavgi said:

Sure those are some of the annoying bugs that keep showing up, but it's not what makes/breaks a multi million dollar company.

Your strategy would though. EN has never been under more pressure with Apple Notes and Dropbox Paper etc. Marketing and new features are essential to the company staying relevant in the near future. Sure, there is no need for new features that tries to make EN something it's not, like what's been done in the recent past, but it needs new core-product features.

If I were EN i would invest heavily in AI and functions which would make everyone's EN experience more personlized. Maybe something similar to "Google on Tap" but for your EN content etc.

Even though I'm sceptical of the Context feature when it comes to external sources, the Context function of showing my own related notes was a step in the right direction. However it needs to be more easily accessable from anything and everywhere. Now it's just "hidden" at the bottom of a note..

And you should be careful with using other people's names, even if it's just as a hypotical example..

You could not be more wrong. That is EXACTLY what breaks a company of ANY size. It's called IGNORING YOUR CUSTOMERS. 

Ever hear of a tiny little multi-million dollar company called Circuit City? Fascinating corporation. Died in four years after their CEO decided in 2008 to start laying off their front-end customer support folks and customer service vanished more or less overnight. 

Evernote is NOT TRUSTWORTHY. Period. It CANNOT BE TRUSTED. They have the same sense of customer focus as a blocked nostril. The development supervisors are IDIOTS. 

It can't keep formatting. It installs UNWANTED and UNNECESSARY executable files on your computer. The BASIC FUNCTIONS OF A TEXT EDITOR, such as linewrap, cut/paste, and even friggin' BACKSPACE work randomly or not at all. 

These forums are full of YEARS of complaining customers. Last year this thread began with an Evernote employee telling a baldfaced LIE that they "listen to customers." I call BS. Evernote doesn't listen, has never listened, and with a track record like that it is obvious that they WILL NEVER LISTEN to their customers. 

If anyone wants to try to claim that they DO listen, then why did it take them FIVE YEARS  to fix the bug that was stripping spaces out of notes and jamming texttogether likethis? At one point there were TWELVE DIFFERENT THREADS complaining about that bug, and it was first reported in November of 2010 and not fixed until SEPTEMBER... of 2015! I started THREE of those threads MYSELF in 2012, 2014, and 2015!

Yeah, you sure listened well. That's why you rolled out that stupid work chat that literally NO ONE who is not in the Evernote employ actually uses. That's why you have to use obnoxious popup advertising of your "new features" over the top of the client workflow. That's EXACTLY what customer service is.

Let me be blunt because I'm sick of this, Gustavgi. I'm not interested in a flame war with you, but if all you want to do is bend a knee to a company that can't get out of their own way because they confuse innovation with actual working products, then I don't care even a little bit what you have to say. In fact, let me be even more blunt: 

If you are not an Evernote employee, I am NOT interested in ANYTHING you have to say in reply to this message. That goes for all "gurus" and fanboys and white knights who feel it necessary to defend the noble honor of this software company. 

If you ARE an Evernote employee, I'd be happy to talk to you. I'll even be polite, but I strongly doubt you're going to want to hear what I have to say.

WeCanLearnAnything is absolutely correct. Evernote has NO BUSINESS rolling out a single new feature, changing a single color, redesigning a single button, or moving a single f*ing menu until the stuff they already have ACTUALLY WORKS!

Evernote wants desperately to be business class software. You cannot even ACCURATELY PRINT OUT A GROCERY LIST with their flagship product. 

I'll be perfectly clear: the ONLY reason I'm still here is that I've written 250,000 words in Evernote and I don't really want to not only change my writing system, but have to transfer all that to some other software just because the main software I use is developed by morons.

I don't even know why Evernote HAS customer forums. It's not like they listen to a frickin' thing that has EVER been posted in them. 

[gustavgi 304]

51 minutes ago, Coach Wade said:

Let me be blunt because I'm sick of this, Gustavgi. I'm not interested in a flame war with you, but if all you want to do is bend a knee to a company that can't get out of their own way because they confuse innovation with actual working products, then I don't care even a little bit what you have to say. In fact, let me be even more blunt: 

Noone is bending any knees for anyone here. If you read my post you saw that I too recognize both the bugs mentioned, but that I also know of other bugs as well.

My point was that if people like yourself stay in spite of those bugs (maybe because they are only very annoying), there is really not enough incentive to put every priority on fixing those instead of pushing the software further.

I am one of the first to say that 2012-2015 were terrible years for EN. But my reason for saying that isn't the lack of bug fixing. For me it was that there was really no effort put into making EN as a "second brain"-software better. It was all about expanding into close-by, but for me, irrelevant areas.

The only thing I could see brake EN would be bad media concerning data loss/security, but they have already had those as well and survived.

And like you said - listening to the customer is important. And if EN were to continue slacking when it comes to new RELEVANT features in the upcoming future, I am sure that the competition will come up with something that would make me consider moving.

 

 

[Coach Wade 80]

Okay. I hear you, Gustav. Please accept my apologies for my tone, then. 

I am so aggravated by Evernote's total lack of customer focus and absolutely asinine refusal to fix known problems in favor of rolling out useless, unwanted, or downright STUPID features that it's making me snarky. That probably has something to do also with the fact that I finally had four hours to actually WRITE today... and I spent THREE of them dicking around with bugs that should have been fixed weeks/months/years ago.

You're not the problem. Evernote is. And Evernote needs to look very closely at their toilet paper, because it's not clean, and users are getting sick of it.

[JMichaelTX 4,108]

2 hours ago, Coach Wade said:

That goes for all "gurus"

Just to be clear, the "Guru" label means absolutely nothing.  It is NOT something any of us picked.  It is a stupid label automatically assigned by this forum's software to ANY user who has about 300 posts or more.

[Coach Wade 80]

1 minute ago, JMichaelTX said:

Just to be clear, the "Guru" label means absolutely nothing.  It is NOT something any of us picked.  It is a stupid label automatically assigned by this forum's software to ANY user who has about 300 posts or more.

Good to know. Thank you. I assume when I reach 300+ complaints, I'll be a guru, too.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,316]

I think the label of "guru" (or whatever) is a nice one, because it is an indication to other users that you have probably been around a while, so you know something, and maybe your advice or suggestions are worth reading. A lot of forums try to provide indications like this to help folks wade through the postings. We're not employees, but we are also not trolls or noobs. Obviously, first-time posters often have posts far superior to old-timers, and they should be read as well, but it's tough for software to pick those out (I recommend old-timers link to any they find intersting in order to help people discover them). Anyhow, I wouldn't read too much into the labels, but just use them as guides.

The Evernote editor remains problematic (I don't remember bullets ever working properly on iOS, and that includes a note I made this morning), but I don't think it is worth kmaking 300+ complaints about it  One or two would be a sufficient contribution to the pile of complaints. It's one of those things everyone knows about if they have been around a while: they kind of accept it as it is and stay or reject it and move on to another app.  Over time, I've found it more productive to try and help other folks get the most out of the app (working around the chronic and acute issues) rather than spending time looking at the state of the toilet paper (using the metaphor above). 

To whit: my advice would be to find a balance between (1) using features unique to "Evernote" and (2) hewing  as close as possible to "plain text" (with markdown, separate "attachments" in their own notes, and use note links / information-rich titles as needed to tie it together). Your notes will be unaffected over the years (with some exceptions -- mysterious spaces used to occasionally crop up in my notes, and iOS still makes a mess of note conflicts, etc.).  Yes, I am aware that there ar also tags, notebooks, and other things. Use those as you wish -- please find whatever balance works best for your workflow.

The editor may get fixed someday, and I wish the developers luck with the thankless task their (skilled and dedicated) predecessors were unable to complete (is a solution possible?), but until that happens, the strategy I suggest might be worth considering.

[JMichaelTX 4,108]

On 9/22/2015 at 4:35 PM, PeeJayTee said:

Years of writing the editors of our clients independently of one another has taken a toll on the the consistency and quality of Evernote’s editing experience. We recognize this and we’re fully committed to making it better. We’ve created a dedicated team focused on improving the note editor and we’re hoping you notice the difference. In the coming weeks and months, you’ll start to see the fruits of this labor appear in all of the things you do to create notes in Evernote—typing, bullets and lists, tables, images, copy and pasting are just a few of the things we’ll be working on to start.

@PeeJayTee:  It has be almost 9 months since you wrote this.  What is your assessment on your progress in achieving the objectives you stated above?

It seems there are still many complains about the most basic capability, features of the Evernote Editor, both in EN Win and EN Mac.

You may want to carefully review this thread:

Please note these issues, in particular:

1. Editor not responding properly to either the Delete key or Backspace key
2. Format is not retained with copy/paste with other apps, like MS Word.
3. Users have to revert to using just basic plain text
4. the editor is still plagued with some of the same problems (bullet lists, for example) it has had since way back in 2008
5. Improper handling of lists (bullet and numbered), especially when a copy/cut/paste or drag/drop is done within a list.

 

[WeCanLearnAnything 100]

On 5/30/2016 at 5:20 PM, JMichaelTX said:

@PeeJayTee:  It has be almost 9 months since you wrote this.  What is your assessment on your progress in achieving the objectives you stated above?

It seems there are still many complains about the most basic capability, features of the Evernote Editor, both in EN Win and EN Mac.

...

Please note these issues, in particular:

1. Editor not responding properly to either the Delete key or Backspace key
2. Format is not retained with copy/paste with other apps, like MS Word.
3. Users have to revert to using just basic plain text
4. the editor is still plagued with some of the same problems (bullet lists, for example) it has had since way back in 2008   [This is appalling and screams for an explanation from an Evernote employee. Something like "We haven't fixed this over the past 8 years because _______________________."]
5. Improper handling of lists (bullet and numbered), especially when a copy/cut/paste or drag/drop is done within a list.

 

 

Can I make a suggestion to Evernote employees about bug fixes? For the sake of transparency, make a list of all bugs that team is aware of and post progress in this forum. You could track all the bug fixing in something like the picture below.

Lastly, you could implement a simple but strictly enforced rule: If any DRI (Directly Responsible Individual) has any unfixed bugs over 12 months old, then he/she spends 100% of their working hours on fixing that bug until it is fixed. 

Thoughts?

 

 

 

 

[DTLow 5,721]

41 minutes ago, WeCanLearnAnything said:

Can I make a suggestion to Evernote employees about bug fixes? For the sake of transparency, make a list of all bugs that team is aware of and post progress in this forum. You could track all the bug fixing in something like the picture below.

Lastly, you could implement a simple but strictly enforced rule: If any DRI (Directly Responsible Individual) has any unfixed bugs over 12 months old, then he/she spends 100% of their working hours on fixing that bug until it is fixed. 

Thoughts?

I favour the system where requests are posted in the feedback forum and users vote. This allows Evernote to devote resources to high priority items.

Also, do you have a suggestion for funding the work by the DRI, particularly when they're working 100% on a specific item

[s2sailor 1,418]

27 minutes ago, WeCanLearnAnything said:

For the sake of transparency, make a list of all bugs that team is aware of and post progress in this forum. You could track all the bug fixing in something like the picture below

I can't imagine any company ever doing this.  I'm sure internally they have some type of tracking and prioritization mechanism but nothing positive would be gained by making this available external to the company.  It would just result in endless and worthless debate over why bug #14 is not #1 or why Jim does not appear to be closing defects at the same rate as Mary.

[WeCanLearnAnything 100]

1 hour ago, DTLow said:

I favour the system where requests are posted in the feedback forum and users vote. This allows Evernote to devote resources to high priority items.

Also, do you have a suggestion for funding the work by the DRI, particularly when they're working 100% on a specific item

If Evernote users want to vote on bug fix importance, that's fine.

As for the DRI, the OP says that they have "... created a dedicated team focused on improving the note editor..." so DRIs would be selected among them since fixing the editor is already their job.

[WeCanLearnAnything 100]

1 hour ago, s2sailor said:

I can't imagine any company ever doing this.  I'm sure internally they have some type of tracking and prioritization mechanism but nothing positive would be gained by making this available external to the company.  It would just result in endless and worthless debate over why bug #14 is not #1 or why Jim does not appear to be closing defects at the same rate as Mary.

What kind of internal tracking system would allow the same bugs to exist for 7+ years? (If you search, you will find many of the same bugs being discussed in posts from 2008. The threads are eerily similar.)

Users could vote for most important bugs to fix. 

Jim and Mary could report on the difficulties they have fixing their bugs and open up a thread for each bug. If one takes longer than another, that's fine. At least we'd know the name of the person trying to fix it and what they trying.

As for nothing positive happening from a public list, I think it is the privacy of their list (or whatever tracking system they use) that's the real problem. A private note discussing a 7-year-old bug is bad, but quiet. If an official public list acknowledged that no employee was even trying to fix a 7-year-old bug, that would be mega embarrassing and would spur a lot of positive action. Maybe they'd finally focus on fixing things rather than adding new features.

 

A more general response: Can you imagine a slower way of handling bugs than what Evernote does now? How many 3, 5, or  8+ year-old bugs remain unfixed?

[DTLow 5,721]

8 hours ago, WeCanLearnAnything said:

If Evernote users want to vote on bug fix importance, that's fine.

Thankyou for allowing users to vote, and not just bug fixes; there are all sorts of requests for feature updates
There's just so much whining going on in the forums, with users stressing that their work is more important than other users.

Edited

constructive suggestions

[Analyst444 182]

PeeJayTee's original post on this topic was on September 22, 2015. Notwithstanding the good ideas users have posted in this forum for fixes and enhancements to the Note Editor, I'm wondering what the Evernote development team thinks is the status of the original project. Since 9/15, there have been a variety of fixes and enhancements to the Note Editor in most (all?) versions of Evernote. Does that mean all the objectives of the original project have been met / implemented?

I understand that there may be fixes or enhancements to the Note Editor in the future. My question is about the original project. - - - Is it completed?

[s2sailor 1,418]

3 hours ago, WeCanLearnAnything said:

How many 3, 5, or  8+ year-old bugs remain unfixed?

Some will never be fixed.  That is the nature of software design.  The hope is that the majority of ones causing uses grief do get fixed.  

I wasn't commenting on the effectiveness of EN's internal process just that I think the public tracking list suggestion would not make a difference.  It is up to EN to focus time, energy and resources on fixing defects.  If they do, the process shouldn't matter much and we'll see improvement.   Spending energy in public debate over the status, priority or details of the fixes could actually slow them down.

I agree that they had their eye off the ball for a while but with the rollout of the new editor and v6 for Windows, IMO they do appear to be doing better, but from the comments that others have posted, they are not there yet.

[WeCanLearnAnything 100]

3 hours ago, s2sailor said:

Some will never be fixed.  That is the nature of software design.  The hope is that the majority of ones causing uses grief do get fixed.  

 

I can't say I know a lot about software design. I can say this, though:

1. If some bugs will never be fixed, Evernote ought to ensure that every user knows what those bugs are before committing much time or data to Evernote.
2. Among the bugs discussed repeatedly in the forums over the years, can you name the ones that should never be fixed? It seems to me that the recurring threads are all about basic features (font size, copy/paste, bullet list alignment, etc.) and those should work, shouldn't they?

[JMichaelTX 4,108]

7 hours ago, s2sailor said:

11 hours ago, WeCanLearnAnything said:

How many 3, 5, or  8+ year-old bugs remain unfixed?

Some will never be fixed.  That is the nature of software design.

I know that is the conventional wisdom, but I don't accept it.  In fact, I have observed since software updates via the Internet have become commonplace, the number of bugs in software has risen considerably.   

I believe this has resulted in programmers and QA teams becoming more relaxed in their due diligence.  There doesn't seem to be any real penalty in producing and releasing software with bugs, even obvious bugs.  There doesn't seem to be much pride of authorship in producing solid code with no bugs.  Everyone seems to take the attitude of "don't worry about bugs, we can always fix them in the next update (next week)".

If you the programmer, you the QA tester, you the product/project manager, believe bugs are the norm, then they will be.

I would love for someone to prove me wrong.

[CalS 5,111]

20 hours ago, WeCanLearnAnything said:

What kind of internal tracking system would allow the same bugs to exist for 7+ years? (If you search, you will find many of the same bugs being discussed in posts from 2008. The threads are eerily similar.).

EN's issue probably has more to do with management, priority and resources than a specific tracking system.  There does not seem to be a concerted effort to fix things (management issue in my view), and hasn't been the years I have been using the product.  Personally, I have never understood why bugs aren't a sin against humanity in the eyes of software companies.

Software development by its nature creates bugs but the trick is how to keep them to a minimum and how to eradicate them as quickly as possible after they appear (preferably not in the live world).  All the voting in the world isn't going to fix it if EN management doesn't decide to devote the resources to prevention and remediation.  Let them determine the priorities for all I care, just do it and get a manageable process instituted that results in a high quality product.

[DTLow 5,721]

17 minutes ago, csihilling said:

Personally, I have never understood why bugs aren't a sin against humanity in the eyes of software companies.

Interesting perspective, and it seems to be echoed by others in this discussion.

Personally, I've never taken it that serious.  I prefer that Evernote focus on the high priority items. I'm usually able to work around the bugs.

[CalS 5,111]

You might have a good career with EN. 

[DTLow 5,721]

12 minutes ago, csihilling said:

You might have a good career with EN. 

No career, but full disclosure - I get the Evernote software for free.

I do have a good user experience with the software and service.

[ObviousBob 140]

The thing is, there are always bugs in software. Many aren't apparent to users, or are so obscure that that they are noticed by only a handful of users. Other bugs are obvious and effect lots of users. So you have to prioritize - you fix the stuff that effects the most people or have the most impact, or are easy to fix. So some of the obscure bugs stay at the bottom on the list, and never get fixed.

Of course how you prioritize isn't easy to decide. For instance, for me, the failure to give users a way to enlarge the fonts used on iOS is a deal breaker, and I no longer use Evernote for taking notes, and see no need to be a subscriber. How this isn't viewed as a high priority bug that effects lots of users - who have complained about it for years - I don't know. But I assume it is because the developers just don't see it as an issue. Not enough user interest, or it is too complicated to fix easily, who knows. Or maybe the shear number of other high priority complaints have pushed fonts to the bottom of the priority list.

[s2sailor 1,418]

Software with any degree of complexity has bugs.  The challenge for any company is to figure the best way to log and prioritize defects and then decide how to use their limited resources on fixing which ones and, or adding new features, if they feel it necessary for business success.  As an example, should resources be focused on fixing some nuisance problem that affects only a few users, or should they instead be focused on developing some new premium feature, such as zero knowledge encryption, that has the potential of adding new paying customers to the service?  How they focus their efforts will be a balancing act that Evernote management will decide.  As others have mentioned, an external tracking or voting system won't help.  Companies that get it right will succeed and those that don't will fade away.

[DTLow 5,721]

3 hours ago, Bob in NV said:

 for me, the failure to give users a way to enlarge the fonts used on iOS is a deal breaker, and I no longer use Evernote for taking notes, and see no need to be a subscriber. How this isn't viewed as a high priority bug that effects lots of users - who have complained about it for years - I don't know. But I assume it is because the developers just don't see it as an issue. Not enough user interest, or it is too complicated to fix easily, who knows. Or maybe the shear number of other high priority complaints have pushed fonts to the bottom of the priority list.

How about posting this as a separate note and ecouraging user support in the form of votes.  No guarantees, but it it gets enough support it will come to Evernote's  attention.

[JMichaelTX 4,108]

7 hours ago, Bob in NV said:

The thing is, there are always bugs in software.

 

4 hours ago, s2sailor said:

Software with any degree of complexity has bugs.

How do you guys really know this?  Do you know it, or, are you just repeating what you have heard elsewhere, or just relying you your own internal logic?

I'm not saying that Evernote has to be 100% bug-free, but that should at least be the goal.

I know of at least one, very complex piece of software that the developers assert is bug-free:

They Write the Right Stuff | Fast Company | Business + Innovation 

Quote

But how much work the software does is not what makes it remarkable. What makes it remarkable is how well the software works. This software never crashes. It never needs to be re-booted. This software is bug-free. It is perfect, as perfect as human beings have achieved. Consider these stats : the last three versions of the program — each 420,000 lines long-had just one error each. The last 11 versions of this software had a total of 17 errors. Commercial programs of equivalent complexity would have 5,000 errors.

Clearly, Evernote does not have the resources of NASA, nor the motivation and commitment.

If you accept bugs as being commonplace, then they will be.

[JMichaelTX 4,108]

11 hours ago, DTLow said:

Personally, I've never taken it that serious.  I prefer that Evernote focus on the high priority items. I'm usually able to work around the bugs.

So you would rather have new features that don't work because of bugs, and old features that no longer work because of the new feature bugs, than a solid, but more limited, feature set that is bug-free, or at least has no material bugs?

[DTLow 5,721]

18 hours ago, JMichaelTX said:

So you would rather have new features that don't work because of bugs, and old features that no longer work because of the new feature bugs, than a solid, but more limited, feature set that is bug-free, or at least has no material bugs?

As I said, I'd prefer Evernote focuses on high priority items
High priority items may be bugs or feature requests;
I have indicted my preference on individual items (there's voting system in this forum to help identify priority)

The "crime against humanity" concept has been expressed, but I'm not currently worked up about any bugs (I do like that quote - thanks @csihilling)

@WeCanLeanAnything has suggested any bug over 12 months old should be the high priority.  I don't think the user population would be in agreement.

[s2sailor 1,418]

Bugs are personal.  For some they are show stoppers and others just a slight nuisance, and others still might not experience the problem at all or easily work around it to the point where it is a non-issue.  Development has to sort through this as well as they try to understand a bug's impact and prioritize fix effort. 

To circle back to the topic there have been three times in my years of usage where I considered leaving EN.  Twice was performance related and once due to the editor.  Somewhere back in the v3 days performance was (at least for me) horrid.  10's of seconds to get a search result.  Rumors of a v4 rewrite kept me hanging on and the wait was worth it.  Search delay was back to an acceptable level.  As my database grew through v4 and v5 I started getting increasingly bothersome slow downs.  A laptop upgrade to an i7 barely helped.  I rolled the dice and replaced the HDD with an SSD, knowing that even if EN didn't improve, my overall system performance would at least be better,   That change proved to be a tremendous overall system and EN performance improvement.  Search is instantaneous again.  I have another system still with an HDD and v6 has improved that to (for me) to an acceptable level.

The editor issue was bullet related.  At one time it was truly bad.  Extra bullets, missing bullets, weirdly indented bullets, you name it and sometimes no amount of tweaking would fix it.  For a while I used a different editor for bullet notes and then copied those to EN.  They made (very) slow improvements but the switch to the new editor fixed most of the problems I was seeing and now with v6 I am not experiencing any editor or other problems whatsoever.  From my point-of-view, for how I use EN, it is working flawlessly, so let's bring on the new features .