(Archived) Web Version Annoyances

[crane 40]

Just a few things that are annoying/off about the web version:

1. The default view keeps resetting, i.e., every time I log back in, all the headings are closed, the dividing line between the left and right panel is too far to the left (meaning that I can't see the numbers beside tags, or even full tag names), etc.

2. Speaking of logging in, I can't get EN3b to "remember" me. I'm using Firefox. I've tried letting firefox remember the password, not remember the password, and I've clicked many times on that "remember me" box, but every time I come back (well, at least once a day), I have to put in my username/password again. Does anybody have the remember me working?

3. I've already addressed the fact that the notebooks/tags/saved searches don't sort the same way that they do on the desktop version (see viewtopic.php?f=30&t=5584#p20146 )

4. The note list view is ugly. I find it really hard to look at with the date/time scrunched on top of each other. In addition, it's missing the newly important "Notebook" column that is useful in the desktop version.

5. My process seems to be this: look through notebooks, tags, etc. See everything in thumbnail view. Select one note, and click on it. It becomes the one note showing in the page.

5.a. First of all, I'd love a way to be able to edit the note in this view, instead of having to click twice to get to editing (click once on Note Operations, click again on edit.)

5.b. More annoyingly, after I've clicked twice and go into the editing....when I finish editing, and click done, the view doesn't switch back to the view with the one note, but rather back to the thumbnail view. So I cannot gaze adoringly on my newly edited note. (Or, even move to the next note in the list that I was working on. Notice that when you look at a single note, you can see a previous/next count. What's the point of having that if I can't edit a note, and then use those buttons to move to the next note?) See image:

6. Also, when editing a note, it would be really really nice if there were a shortcut key to say "done", instead of having to mouse over to the done button. I envision using the Ctrl+Enter to indicate Done.

7. I think the Note Operations drop-down menu is completely annoying. Never mind the fact that 1000+ tags, all sorted alphabetically in there is going to become extremely tedious. But there are operations in that list that could be better served by having their own buttons. There's a lot of wasted space in that header area. See the current layout in EN3:

Now look at some other web application, e.g., gmail:

I could see using some of the wasted space for separate buttons, e.g., have a separate (one-click) button for each of "edit", "delete", "email". Then, I would have two drop down boxes, one for "adding/removing tag", and one for "moving to another notebook". I'm not up on my UI design anymore, but I think it's bad form to jam too much functionality into one button.

8. And another thing about the Note Operations drop down list, there's no reason that it should look enabled if I can't use it. For instance, in the image below, I'm in the thumbnail view. I can't *do* any note operations, because I don't have a note selected, but I can still see that (did I mention ugly) drop-down box. But I can't click on it. How annoying.

And yes, I realize that there is actually a subtle difference in the appearance when that drop-down is enabled or not. After looking more carefully, I can see that if there's a hint of grey, it's not enabled. But that's pretty subtle. Anyway, I think if a control is not usable, it should not be seen. After all, you're able to hide the next/previous in this view, why not the drop-down as well?

9. While wandering through the web interface, I've had the view reset itself every now and then, e.g., kick me out of the notebook/tag intersection that I was looking and. I don't know what's triggering it. Some kind of reloading?

10. Last annoyance. Minor one, but I'd like to be able to print a note from the web view. Given that I think the point of the web view is so that we can access or information from anywhere, I can see being at somebody's place, and wanting to give them a recipe I found. I can see finding it, and then just wanting to print it out. No joy here. No way to print just the note. I tried print from FF itself, but it spends most of the page on the left frame.

Not Annoyances

1. I find I'm starting to really like the thumbnail view, especially for notes that have images in them, like my book collection.

[Philip Constantinou 11]

GM Crane,

Thanks for the detailed review! There are some very useful things in there that'll help us improve the web client. I'll make sure the relevant people at Evernote see this. Comments on some of your points are inline.

1. The default view keeps resetting, i.e., every time I log back in, all the headings are closed, the dividing line between the left and right panel is too far to the left (meaning that I can't see the numbers beside tags, or even full tag names), etc.

That's annoying. I'm not sure to what extent we can save local browser state like that, but we'll look into it.

2. Speaking of logging in, I can't get EN3b to "remember" me. I'm using Firefox. I've tried letting firefox remember the password, not remember the password, and I've clicked many times on that "remember me" box, but every time I come back (well, at least once a day), I have to put in my username/password again. Does anybody have the remember me working?

Works for me without any problems. Have you done anything with cookie settings on your browser?

4. The note list view is ugly. I find it really hard to look at with the date/time scrunched on top of each other. In addition, it's missing the newly important "Notebook" column that is useful in the desktop version.

Yeah, the list view could stand a serious overhaul. I almost never use it since the thumbnail view gives me so much more data and is nicer to look at.

5.a. First of all, I'd love a way to be able to edit the note in this view, instead of having to click twice to get to editing (click once on Note Operations, click again on edit.)

Good idea.

5.b. More annoyingly, after I've clicked twice and go into the editing....when I finish editing, and click done, the view doesn't switch back to the view with the one note, but rather back to the thumbnail view. So I cannot gaze adoringly on my newly edited note. (Or, even move to the next note in the list that I was working on. Notice that when you look at a single note, you can see a previous/next count. What's the point of having that if I can't edit a note, and then use those buttons to move to the next note?)

Hmmm, I can see this working either way. I'm usually in a hurry to get back into thumbnail view so I can adoringly survey a bigger part of my notescape ("Some day, all this shall be yours!"). Perhaps when you're done editing a note it should take you back to whatever view you you were in before you started? This assumes we can get your previous point working.

6. Also, when editing a note, it would be really really nice if there were a shortcut key to say "done", instead of having to mouse over to the done button. I envision using the Ctrl+Enter to indicate Done.

This would be handy, but I'm not sure if it's possible without aggravating cross-browser compatibility issues (which we're working so hard to tame right now). We'll look into it. In the meantime, I agree that the "done" button can be made a little friendlier.

7. I think the Note Operations drop-down menu is completely annoying. Never mind the fact that 1000+ tags, all sorted alphabetically in there is going to become extremely tedious. But there are operations in that list that could be better served by having their own buttons. There's a lot of wasted space in that header area.

There's a fine balance between putting too much stuff in a single control and littering the whole UI with tiny little buttons, and I think we've been swaying too far in both direction during subsequent UIs. I agree that the "note operations" menu is, let us say, somewhat lacking in grace, and needs to be redesigned. The tags have to go for sure, as I've already said, and maybe a few more operations can be made into separate buttons. We'll be discussing this internally soon.

8. And another thing about the Note Operations drop down list, there's no reason that it should look enabled if I can't use it. For instance, in the image below, I'm in the thumbnail view. I can't *do* any note operations, because I don't have a note selected, but I can still see that (did I mention ugly) drop-down box.

And yes, I realize that there is actually a subtle difference in the appearance when that drop-down is enabled or not. After looking more carefully, I can see that if there's a hint of grey, it's not enabled. But that's pretty subtle. Anyway, I think if a control is not usable, it should not be seen. After all, you're able to hide the next/previous in this view, why not the drop-down as well?

The graying out is a little subtle, although I think it looks better on some browsers/monitors than others (it looks obviously grayed out on mine). This is one of the major difficulties with making web-apps, you only have an approximate sense of how everything will look on different platform permutations. Still, now that we know that it's insufficiently grayed-out-looking for at least some users, we'll add that criteria to the redesign discussions.

9. While wandering through the web interface, I've had the view reset itself every now and then, e.g., kick me out of the notebook/tag intersection that I was looking and. I don't know what's triggering it. Some kind of reloading?

I've never had this happen personally. I've had the browser "hiccup" a few times and cause a reload of the page, but I've never lost any state because of it. We might have to contact you with more questions about this.

10. Last annoyance. Minor one, but I'd like to be able to print a note from the web view. Given that I think the point of the web view is so that we can access or information from anywhere, I can see being at somebody's place, and wanting to give them a recipe I found. I can see finding it, and then just wanting to print it out. No joy here. No way to print just the note. I tried print from FF itself, but it spends most of the page on the left frame.

I've had engineers tell me that they're rather chew off their arm than try to add cross-browser printing capabilities to another web app, but perhaps we need to look at this again. I don't think it can be done without opening up a new window (and even then, any html in the note content could ***** up printing badly), or maybe even converting the whole note to pdf on the server side. Ugly either way, but we'll think it through. Don't expect this to be a short-term fix, though. It's probably not an important enough use-case to justify the amount of effort it would take to address quickly. For now, there's always cut-n-paste.

Not Annoyances

1. I find I'm starting to really like the thumbnail view, especially for notes that have images in them, like my book collection.

[crane 40]

Quoting a bunch of things is too hard to do...I'll just address a few of Phil's comments:

1. You might be able to keep the view with cookies. I'm not a web app guru, but there seems to be other sites out there that can remember your preferences.

2. Re my cookies - they're all enabled. I even let FF remember my passwords. Most, but not all, websites behave for me. There are a few, e.g., my bank, that refuse to remember my password. In this case, the site won't even remember my login name. it's not a major issue, as I use the Secure Login extension and it just takes a key stroke to get the fields filled back in. I was just wondering if it's just me and my browser, or if anyone else has had trouble.

3. I see what you mean about cross-browser compatibility. However, I fall back on favourite - Gmail. Gmail can let me print (and yes, another window is opened, without all the dross from the top and sides of the original view) and lets me print the guts. If you were using frames, I could just select the frame to look at and then print. I wonder if there's a way with the ajaxy goodness to just "pop" the current frame/view/whatever it's called in ajax to a separate window, and then just use the browser's print functionality.

Thanks for listening