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Read-Only Option for Notes


alexferen

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I'd really like to see this feature return too. In EN2 you could lock individual notes but like quite a few useful features, that ability just mysteriously disappeared at some point.

It probably disappeared when V3 came around (or maybe 3.5). A lot of things changed then, and the timeline view disappeared, mourned by some, but not me...
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Hi,

my solution works only for small notes:

I have two notebooks: one contains only the original files. I'm very careful with them. These notes get exported and saved away from EN.

In EN i have a copy for daily usage. From time to time I delete the copies and replace them with my originals.

Sounds complicated, but works for me.

The second way could be realized with a second EN Account (I admit, I have one for work and one for private Issues)

Create a Notebook and invite your other account for reading only.

So content can only be added through one account.

Kind regards Olli

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I'm wondering, isn't it absolutely necessary to introduce such a button like "Toggle Edit Mode" or "Lock Edit" or whatsoever the name, in order to protect notes from unwanted changes or editings? Very often than not the notes are changed without out deliberate operation, right? Isn't that annoying? For example, when you have opened a note, and are or are'nt reading the note, but you touched the keyboards unintentionally and the note is changed -- what's worse, you may have not noticed it. Isn't it an annoiance? Further, even you can guard against mis-editing or mis-changes, isn't it a helly experience to do so? Why not introduce a "Toggle Edit Mode" or "Lock Edit" button, which is very easy to do, just like the android version EN, or other note-taking software, like myBase, the clips of the relevant interface is attached here.
 

 

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That already exists in Android - there's an Edit button for those who (like me) tend to hit random keys while trying not to drop the phone.  Don't see it's necessary on desktop clients - don't know about iOS.

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It appeared in Android because some users had a rant about how unrealistic it was to show notes in an editable state - because that led to accidentally altered and deleted notes.

 

Of course there are now the rants about how long it takes to edit a note given that extra keypress...

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 . . . Of course there are now the rants about how long it takes to edit a note given that extra keypress...

 

Ha!, Isn't that just the way?  

 

It should default to editable and  then a special key or button to lock it

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I found this thread not because I'm trying to prevent myself from messing up my notes, but a "Read-only option for individual notes and notebooks alike is useful when you need to share a note or notebook with someone but you don't want that other person or people modifying the note.

It's hard to believe when the Evernote team conceived this app that they wouldn't consider the usefulness of making some notes read only; especially shared notes and notebooks.

 

Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said: "one can't believe impossible things."

"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

 

Anyway, you can already share a single note as read-only via email. You can also share a notebook as read-only with another Evernote user; that's the default anyways.

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Hi... Tried EN many moons ago, then went with OneNote but EN's cloud and accessible anywhere features are bringing me back...Enough kudos...

Is there a way to mark a note as "read-only" so I cannot accidentally erase or modify it? Thanks. Alex

 

 
+1 agree that this is a must have. 
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The usual workaround that I suggest nowadays is to make a separate account for stuff that you are afraid that you might mess up by inadvertently editing them. Share the notebooks in that account as read-only to your main account, and you are saved from yourself.

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The usual workaround that I suggest nowadays is to make a separate account for stuff that you are afraid that you might mess up by inadvertently editing them. Share the notebooks in that account as read-only to your main account, and you are saved from yourself.

 

It's an ad-hoc thing.  Fiddling about sharing with myself from an additional account sounds a right PITA.  I just want to click a button "Make Read Only", "Protect from Changes" or whatever.

 

KD

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The usual workaround that I suggest nowadays is to make a separate account for stuff that you are afraid that you might mess up by inadvertently editing them. Share the notebooks in that account as read-only to your main account, and you are saved from yourself.

 

It's an ad-hoc thing.  Fiddling about sharing with myself from an additional account sounds a right PITA.  I just want to click a button "Make Read Only", "Protect from Changes" or whatever.

 

KD

 

 

Since there is not a way to do what you want & there is no way to know if Evernote will add this or not (since they do not discuss their roadmap), Jeff is simply offering you an alternate way to do what you are wanting to do (write protect notes).  Hence the term "workaround".

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Since there is not a way to do what you want & there is no way to know if Evernote will add this or not (since they do not discuss their roadmap), Jeff is simply offering you an alternate way to do what you are wanting to do (write protect notes).  Hence the term "workaround".

 

Yes, I know that.  I appreciate Jeff's suggestion, I was just adding my vote to Daniel's and Tom's above in the vague hope that it might get onto the roadmap.

 

KD

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The usual workaround that I suggest nowadays is to make a separate account for stuff that you are afraid that you might mess up by inadvertently editing them. Share the notebooks in that account as read-only to your main account, and you are saved from yourself.

 

It's an ad-hoc thing.  Fiddling about sharing with myself from an additional account sounds a right PITA.  I just want to click a button "Make Read Only", "Protect from Changes" or whatever.

 

Yes, that's what a workaround is. You have to work with the software as it is while you're waiting on the feature you want (if it's it's ever implemented).

 

Anyways, sharing accounts is actually not all that bad, if you have a fairly stable organizational scheme -- I use it myself, though in my case, it's to keep separate personal and work accounts: my personal account has all of my software development reference articles (which I want at work), and sometimes I work at home, so I want my work stuff available to my personal account. I don't have a lot of churn in my notebooks and tags, so it's no big deal.

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A few days ago I wrote copy pasted a web page...

While browsing through the page today I was trying to copy the text from this note to another note on my pc through the  desctop when accidentally instead of pressing the copy button i pressed the paste button. The entire note just vanished. I had to retrieve the whole note from web again.

How such mishaps can be prevented.

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Evernote can only go so far to protect you - your OS will help too;  Ctrl+Z or Cmd+Z should undo a careless keystroke,  if you have a backup for your database you could retrieve that,  or if you're a premium user you'll have Note History.  As here,  if you lost a web page you can - usually- just go back and re-clip it using the URL in the note.  Editing a page though always carries the risk that you'll make unwanted changes by mistake.  If your data is important,  you could always use a copy of the original note...

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I support having an "EDIT" and "SAVE" button on Notes, just like we have for files.  Autosave to temp location could provide protection in case of crash or the user forgets to save.

 

Today, large monitors are cheap, and many users have two or more monitors.  With so many apps/documents open at once, It is not hard to mistake which app/document is current, and start typing/deleting/pasting when you did not intend to make any changes to Evernote.

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There’s so much to appreciate about Evernote, and the Web Clipper is a great companion to it.

 

Oh but the inability to mark notes as read only is huge negative for me. It’s even more disappointing that a fairly simple addition to the UX (which is available to third-party developers or enterprising hackers) has been known about but put off for over five years. That’s a lifetime!

 

I would have considered a paid account at some point too.

 

I would contact Evernote directly, but I wouldn’t expect anything other than a non-comital brush off.

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+1 for me on this as well.

 

In fact, in the Android version you do have to go into edit mode to edit your notes. I like this because I don't want to be thumbing through my notes and accidentally editing notes. The desktop version needs this because I too, like so many apparently, do accidentally delete attachments or notes. I don't like the idea at all that if I have any note selected and accidentally brush up against the delete button on my keyboard - BAM! There goes that note and if I don't notice it before I empty my trash, it's too late. It's the same with attachments. If you have an attached document and the cursor is located right after the document, if you accidentally brush up against the backspace key on your keyboard then your attachment has been deleted and it is not sitting in your trash at all! It's just gone.

 

It's design choices like this that puzzle me about the Evernote design team and why they make certain design choices, to be honest. Just too easy to lose work in Evernote. Evernote NEEDS something like this.

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This would be a huge help for me too.

 

Among other things, I use EN for code snippets and long commands. Almost daily, I'm toggling between EN and a command prompt, copy/pasting as I go. Invariably, I'll start typing while the Note still has the focus and mess up it up. 

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Really needs read-only mode. People do accidentally press something when reading in EN, especially when alt-tab switching back and forth.

Can not understand why such a function is so hard to be added, it is already there for Android for a long time, what is wrong with the desktop version?

EN, your user usually have hundreds or thousands of notes, they do need to make sure their precious content will not be destroyed by a cat walking on a keyboard.

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>>Really needs read-only mode.

I agree - its and odd omission - I would have expected it as a beginning point in the UI. I've seen other products requiring a click on an edit button to make changes.

I up voted this request - it;s now at 1 (top left corner of the thread)

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Is there a way or can there be a way to make a note not editable?  Here is my use case.  I have a note with important log in information that is shared with the team.  Some copies that info and somehow pastes over the info.  This has happened twice in this note.  The info in this note should never change.  I'd like to freeze it as is.  It could have a password or not but it really should be an available feature to lock in content.

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41 minutes ago, ChrstnMchl said:

Is there a way or can there be a way to make a note not editable?  Here is my use case.  I have a note with important log in information that is shared with the team.  Some copies that info and somehow pastes over the info.  This has happened twice in this note.  The info in this note should never change.  I'd like to freeze it as is.  It could have a password or not but it really should be an available feature to lock in content.

Evernote has not implemented this feature - it's been requested.

fwiw. I usually convert my notes to PDF format - it helps prevent accidental updates

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58 minutes ago, ChrstnMchl said:

 

Is there a way or can there be a way to make a note not editable?  Here is my use case.  I have a note with important log in information that is shared with the team.  Some copies that info and somehow pastes over the info.  This has happened twice in this note.  The info in this note should never change.  I'd like to freeze it as is.  It could have a password or not but it really should be an available feature to lock in content.

 

If you're using shared notebooks, then you can put things that you don't want editable into a shared notebook that has view-only rights. Or you can share individual notes as view-only. That's about the best you can do at the moment.

If you're not using shared notebooks, then you probably should be in a team situation.

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1 hour ago, ChrstnMchl said:

It is in shared notebook that is the most relevant place for it.  Can I modify that individual note within the notebook by individually sharing it?  Will it override the notebook sharing options?

Good question. You should be able try it out yourself (I can't at the moment). But on the surface (and without knowing how your team workflow works), it just seems as though if you have multiple notes you're going to want as viewable only, it would be easier in the long run to set up a notebook explicitly for that purpose, rather than sharing note by note.

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It would be great to be able to lock a note so it can only be copied and nothing gets deleted by accident until you turn off the lock and then can make changes. We copy a lot from notes into other apps and sometimes when in full screen mode with multiple monitors you think you're typing in one app and overwriting data in evernote. Seems like an easy implementation.

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Was not aware this was asked before I posted mine (I was going to call mine non edit mode).  The Android version has this by default, though I suspect it maybe a platform feature, since many Android apps have it.

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Odd that my topic was merged with this one without sending me any notification, no wonder I could not find it!!  I understand the need to keeping the forums organized, but really, administrators, notify me at least, I thought my topic was deleted!

Anyways, while the two ideas are closely related, they are not identical.  Setting an optional read only flag on each note is not good enough for me, I need it as a default setting for all notes under options, so that all notes are read only until I click on some predetermined part of the note, be it a flag or whatever.

Thanks for listening.

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Me as well (note read-only option). I have created a few notes as "Master Templates". I then copy the template and change appropriate values on the copy. I'm tired of inadvertently changing the template.

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Hello everyone. 

It's been some tıme I had my eye on this feature. Today I reserved some time into doing this and created a simple web app.

It works like this: you tag your notes with a tag called 'readonly' and every five minutes, the system checks your notes and makes tagged ones read-only. You can subscribe to the service via : https://ro-app.run.aws-usw02-pr.ice.predix.io/

. Plese note that this is a 2-3 hour work and I will not maintain it in terms of look etc. It simply does what it promises to do. If there's a huge interest in the project I might allocate some more time into it, though. 

Cheers,
Onat

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Hello everyone. 

It's been some tıme I had my eye on this feature. Today I reserved some time into doing this and created a simple web app.

It works like this: you tag your notes with a tag called 'readonly' and every five minutes, the system checks your notes and makes tagged ones read-only. You can subscribe to the service via : http://onat.me/readonlymaker

Plese note that this is a 2-3 hour work and I will not maintain it in terms of look etc. It simply does what it promises to do. If there's a huge interest in the project I might allocate some more time into it, though. 

Cheers,
Onat

 

EDIT after two years:

Hello everyone. It's been 2 years since I launched this small project. I didn't think it would get that much of an attention. But I guess people indeed needed it. So, I just wanted to say that the project is still active. I updated the link above to the recent page. 

Happy locking!.

----

Please checkout this comment for further details:

 

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Is Evernote going to get us the option to make a particular doc READ ONLY?

The PDF option is not available for an iPhone.   All Evernote needs to do is to block or filter user-events/page.

Simple.

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+1  the option set read only for notes or for all notes in a selected Notebook or Stack.  This option would be perfect when creating templates or archiving data - it should never be updatable - converting to pdf is not a preferable option.  

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On 3/31/2017 at 6:29 PM, onatbas said:

Hello everyone. 

It's been some tıme I had my eye on this feature. Today I reserved some time into doing this and created a simple web app.

It works like this: you tag your notes with a tag called 'readonly' and every five minutes, the system checks your notes and makes tagged ones read-only. You can subscribe to the service via : https://ro-app.run.aws-usw02-pr.ice.predix.io/

. Plese note that this is a 2-3 hour work and I will not maintain it in terms of look etc. It simply does what it promises to do. If there's a huge interest in the project I might allocate some more time into it, though. 

Cheers,
Onat

Is there a way to undo that and make notes writeable again?

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+1 I share the disappointment of those who believe that we're being ignored, despite this request kicking around for a few years. It really isn't that trivial, after all. There are some notes that are simply too important to tamper with, and the option to lock them seems like a fairly obvious feature. Sure there are workarounds (like the PDF idea), but a built-in solution would be most valuable.

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I really hope they can provide "Lock note" especially for smartphoner( i.e. iphone),sometimes just read note and do not want edit  ,however sometime I'll touch screen accidentally  and then into Edit mode. I just want read not edit ,just accidentally touch screen. Hope Evernote can provide "Lock Note".

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46 minutes ago, tavor said:

Seems to me the optimal solution here is not to default to locked state for all notes (which would require an unlock step prior to editing every note - this could become very onerous very quickly for those who edit notes frequently

My vote is for an edit mode toggle; this applies to all platforms. And the default should be read mode

Locked notes is a different request.  It’s currently supported in Evernote but requires third party products.  I can use scripting on my Mac to update the note’s contentClass attribute

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56 minutes ago, annbelievesinwhales said:

What's happening with it? Is it currently in the works? Has evernote ever addressed why this hasn't been added?

This doesn't seem to be a priority item.  
Anyone wanting to indicate support for this request,  please use the voting buttons in the top left corner.  Vote count is currently  599ec9271de56_ScreenShot2017-08-24at05_39_47.png.a8d9ef78ea34b6a92a65b26ce6128148.png

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Definitely a very nice thing to have.

Nothing is more frustrating than to find out you have mangled an important note due to fumbling when you were in a hurry.


I doubt it is difficult to implement since we already have such thing for Android Evernote, why not for iOS version too? Why not across the board?

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I like this thinking as a read only.  I was thinking along the lines as a confirm to save when leaving the note.  So, if you did inadvertently change something, you have the option to back out. Or another idea is to put on an edit button to edit the note.  Like always, this can be an option in preferences.

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FYI: this is a link to my EditConfimation AHK script (for evernote on windows). For the time being it's a good work-around and we may use it to assess different solutions to prevent accidental deletion/modification.  Hopefully this info may contribute to the final implementation in EN...

https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/104215-autohotkey-scripts-for-evernote/?do=findComment&comment=487691

 

Edited by eric99
============EditConfirmation script v0.0.15
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Hello everyone. I just saw this thread and wanted to share my solution to this.

I had this exact same problem, and it looks like that's possible on the programming interface, but not in the application. So I've written an application to mark notes readonly through the API. You can use this to have read-only functionality in Evernote, it's very easy to use..

Here's the link to it. http://onat.me/readonlymaker

 

I've been using it for a while and it's gained some more users in the past year and I must say it completely changed my way of using evernote. Now whenever I have a note that's not readonly, I get restless.

 

In case anyone wants to build on this, here's the code https://github.com/onatbas/readonlytagger

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2 hours ago, onatbas said:

Hello everyone. I just saw this thread and wanted to share my solution to this.

Thanks for the post on a read-only solution for notes

I like that your solution runs in the cloud. I investigated implementing read-only by updating the contentClass field, but I could only implement on my Mac

Your unlock process is awkward.  I'd prefer a simple unlock of the note instead of: 

  • This will create a duplicate of the same note in your default notebook, which you can edit (title and content only). After you're done with it, add "makemigration" tag to this duplicate, without changing prior tags, and sync. After a minute or so, this duplicate will be deleted and your original will be updated with the content you provided in the duplicate.
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Upvoted.  I'd also like a way to automatically read only a block of notes, or notes older than a certain time frame.  I'm quite paranoid that a random keystroke (or other hickup) will result in note contents being deleted and it not being realized (for a long long time).  [Although I suppose this is a reason for versioned notes in premium]

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23 minutes ago, UncleRic said:

This has been a popular concern for nearly a half-decade.

Yet, there is apparently no movement from Evernote™ that I'm aware of.

There have been numerous suggestions expressed over the years that the EN team haven't implemented so I wouldn't feel too singled out over this one.  I can sometimes understand the direction they take, other times I'm baffled.  FWIW, I would like this too and have upvoted the topic.

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On 6/8/2015 at 8:20 AM, gazumped said:

Ctrl+Z or Cmd+Z should undo a careless keystroke ...

It should, but it doesn't.  The lack of an 'undo' feature or support for Ctrl-Z has caused me problems on both iPad and in the browser UI when I'm using Chrome on Windows.

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I've been a Premium user for years.   I have several THOUSANDS of notes from software development to legal papers.   I hadn't notice the 'i'nfo button before.

There's probably a dozen features that I'm not aware of.

Thanks for the 'i'nfo.

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2 hours ago, marc_k said:

+1

Just a simple "Lock Notebook" option would suffice. To edit any Note in that Notebook, user can "Unlock Notebook". That's it.

It would help A LOT.

Across all platforms.

Thank you guys. Great product! I love Evernote!

Please start a separate thread. What you're talking about is different. We are talking about Notes, on a per-note basis, as locked/read-only. Not an entire Notebook. Thanks.

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