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Read-Only Option for Notes


alexferen

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The new update (v. 10.5.7 for Windows) exacerbated the problem for me, unfortunately. Not only is there no read-only toggle, but now the "updated" date is not editable as it was in previous versions. I have hundreds of notes chronologically sorted by date updated (my preferred ordering as well as Evernote's default), and accidental keystrokes while referring to an old note now completely and irreversibly re-order my notebook. (As a Plus subscriber, I do not have access to Note History, so I cannot simply revert to a previous version of the note.)

I sure wish Evernote would implement this long-awaited read-only note functionality and refrain from using updates to take controls away from users.

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2 minutes ago, EWest said:

I sure wish Evernote would implement this long-awaited read-only note functionality and refrain from using updates to take controls away from users.

Hi.  I don't mean to carp,  but you're wanting Evernote to spend some thousands of $$ on development work to spare you paying an increased subscription to get Note History?  Even if they were willing to do so (which they very well may be,  no-one knows!!) that feature is not going to arrive for some months or (depending on priorities) years. 

Meantime you could be using a text expander like Phrase Express to add a date to your note titles so a simple sort will get you an accurate timeline - or go back to the Legacy app where the updated date is still editable,  or wait for EN10 to catch up and give us back the edit date option...

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3 hours ago, gazumped said:

Hi.  I don't mean to carp,  but you're wanting Evernote to spend some thousands of $$ on development work to spare you paying an increased subscription to get Note History?  Even if they were willing to do so (which they very well may be,  no-one knows!!) that feature is not going to arrive for some months or (depending on priorities) years. 

Meantime you could be using a text expander like Phrase Express to add a date to your note titles so a simple sort will get you an accurate timeline - or go back to the Legacy app where the updated date is still editable,  or wait for EN10 to catch up and give us back the edit date option...

 

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Look.
All I want is merely a toggle to lock the note.  It doesn't take a few thousands of $$ to develop.  I've been a professional software developer for about...38 years.

I'm not talking about an over-engineered history paradigm.   

Most of my notes are static legal text that should by altered; hence no history of changes.
Just lock the damn doc.  


I'm a PREMIUM subscriber.

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5 hours ago, UncleRic said:

I'm a PREMIUM subscriber.

So am I - but it doesn't buy the right to expect that requests for additional features will be met.  As users, we're invited to suggest new ideas - Evernote may or may not adopt them at some future time...

With almost as many users worldwide as the adult population of the US and 365/24/7 usage, even minor changes take a while to consider, cost. code and test - so my point about this not happening anytime soon (unless it's already in development) is still good.

Meantime - work-arounds...

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Count me among the premium users who would like this option.

I have a good number of notes which are there only for reference purpose, and where I frequently have to copy values out of the note. It's very easy to accidentally paste instead.

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41 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

If you really change it accidentally, you can always use note history to go back to a prior version of the note.

I can look at note history once I catch the error/if I catch the error, sure.

I had one case where I provisioned the wrong source image on half a dozen servers because I'd previously overwritten one UUID with another. One string of 32 base-16 characters looks like another at a glance.

Edit: Also, note history has limitations. It's only captured every eight hours, right? So values entered and destroyed within an 8 hour interval are lost unless the user hasn't closed the note and is able to find it in local undo/redo.

On the whole, "locking" just seems like a helpful feature if there are a good number of users who are using part of Evernote for reference material, not only live docs. It might even make sense to allow Notes to inherit lock status from the Notebook level.

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On 9/4/2018 at 1:03 PM, Shane D. said:

Hi All,

You may have noticed that all threads requesting the ability to lock notes and make them read only have been merged into this thread, regardless of platform specificity. 

SO.... THAT WAS 2018, WHAT  IS THE ANSWER NOW? I JUST ACCIDENTALY MODIFIED ONE NOTE.

 

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Tried edit protection (on mobile, in settings) yet ?

In general there is note history, running for all accounts. Yes, it runs on Free as well.

Just the access is a paid feature - so in case you need to recover a prior version, it is a month of Personal, and you are good to go.

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18 minutes ago, Vojkan Cvijanovic said:

10+ years and you still haven't implemented this simple, but very useful feature. Shame on you Evernote.

? According to other posts in this thread the feature is already available...

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I find the OS 'undo' and Note History functions,  plus my own local backups more than enough anyway,  but if there's no other option,  you could always open another notebook and share the 'protected' notes from one to the other as read only.

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Probably it is more the forum software that converts us all into well behaving citizens here … the forum is provider driven.

About changes: In most cases note history allows to undo unwanted changes - especially those that may have happened a while ago.

I am not against a read-only option. I just had up to now no case ever (!) in my years of using EN where this would have done me any good. If a change went wrong, it always was in a note I would not write protect in the first place.

And again, then there is note history, to heal my fat finger syndrome.

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2 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

the forum software that converts us all into well behaving citizens here …

I may be reading a different forum...  :D

3 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

I am not against a read-only option. I just had up to now no case ever (!) in my years of using EN where this would have done me any good.

100% agree...

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On 4/1/2021 at 8:54 PM, lost_gweedo said:

I don’t think you’ll have what you’re looking for.  I think you can lock a whole section (in the classroom version) but don’t think you can protect a page. 

You definitely can. It was possible (although quite cumbersome) to do that using Filterize. But now  filterize is out of business.

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I would find this really useful - even so that when I'm presenting a seminar or teaching that I can scroll through my note and not accidentally drag something around, delete it, change it etc..   For me, I'd like this for all platforms. I'm also thinking it would be particularly useful on a mobile app, as I don't want the keyboard to appear on screen when I'm teaching from a note - and if it is locked I'm guessing that the keyboard wouldn't appear (and hopefully the toolbar would be gone too to give more space for content).

Thanks for considering!

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Just for the record,  and in case anyone is in any doubt - Filterize is now continuing with new investors,  so their note locking services are still (and will continue to be) available. 

Also for various specialised tasks like presenting @HannahP let's not forget that free accounts are freely (pun intended) available - work and personal details can be kept completely separate in different accounts,  and it's even feasible that presentations could have their own completely separate account(s). 

Not a complete answer I know,  but if you have a concern I'm sure there's more than one way to cover it.  

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18 hours ago, gazumped said:

Just for the record,  and in case anyone is in any doubt - Filterize is now continuing with new investors,  so their note locking services are still (and will continue to be) available. 

Also for various specialised tasks like presenting @HannahP let's not forget that free accounts are freely (pun intended) available - work and personal details can be kept completely separate in different accounts,  and it's even feasible that presentations could have their own completely separate account(s). 

Not a complete answer I know,  but if you have a concern I'm sure there's more than one way to cover it.  

Thanks for this. Are you referring to free accounts for Filterize (never heard of this before) or Evernote? I have one account with Evernote that I pay for. I am happy to have all my details in this one account - it's only so that when I'm teaching from my own notes I don't keep having a keyboard popping up if I'm on the app, or accidentally move text around when trying to scroll when I'm on the laptop.

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@HannahP - Sorry,  I missed out the 'Evernote' in front of Free accounts.  For information:  Filterize did have a free level,  though they have a new payment structure now so I'm not sure if it's still available.  Filterize does (kinda) what it says in the name,  in that it filters new or edited notes as they sync to your account.  I have some emails forwarded directly to my Evernote account,  as well as my own clips and copies and imported files.  Filterize now sorts all of these for me into the correct notebook(s) and tags them appropriately.  It also keeps some dashboard tables of contents updated with any new entries like my ToC's for tasks due 'today or earlier',  'next week' and 'future'.  It's like having an assistant to help keep your notes up to date.  It does lots,  including setting a lock on notes if you require it.

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+1 please I'd love to have a lock note feature, specially for those notes with task itens, because if you missclick the task(to mark as completed/not completed) it will start the edit mode bringing keyboard up and since on mobile phones screens are small it is annoying, I would love to have some read-only view of the note with the possibility to only tick/untick the task.

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18 hours ago, Alfredo Morales said:

When are we getting this option? This is too basic not to have it yet…

Hi.  Evernote don't pre-announce new features.  We don't know whether it will ever be available, and with several easy work-arounds 200M+ users have managed to cope for the last decade without it...

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You are a spokesperson for Evernote?

Just because you choose to "cope without it" doesn't mean people cannot request it. It's a highly sought after feature that has been asked for time and time again.

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2 minutes ago, TechGuy said:

You are a spokesperson for Evernote?

Just because you choose to "cope without it" doesn't mean people cannot request it. It's a highly sought after feature that has been asked for time and time again.

Nope,  just another user;  and since you're posting in a forum with 5 pages of requests and 282 votes I got the point that it's popular.

Lessee - assuming there are another 10 forums out there with a similar number of requests,  that would mean in total,  roughly 2 in every 100 thousand current users has expressed an interest in it so far.  It's also not the most requested feature by a long way.

It's perfectly fine to make the request - I was just taking issue with the 'too basic not to have' comment.  There is,  to be fair some protection on mobiles against accidental change,  and some third party apps like Filterize will 'lock' a note against change - but they have probably been mentioned here already.

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The focus of these requests have been on the mobile clients (maybe a cure for a special version of „fat finger syndrome“).

EN has introduced with v10 a feature called „edit protection“ in the apps settings, notes. When active you need to tap twice to switch a note into edit mode. You can activate it any time - it will affect all notes.

I don’t think they will add something other than this - and telling to „re-think your subscription“ here will do nothing to make EN „re-think“ anything - the forum is user2user …

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How come this has been continuing for years and the Developers refuse to incorporate a lock feature to allow for great user experience? 

I mean, what's the problem?  This is kind of silly at this point that it's not even being done no matter the hundreds upon hundreds (possibly thousands) of requests over the years.

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1 hour ago, GeetheReal said:

the Developers refuse to incorporate a lock feature to allow for great user experience? 

Hi.  Unless you can point to a post that I certainly haven't seen yet,  the developers haven't ever 'refused' to incorporate anything.

1 hour ago, GeetheReal said:

it's not even being done no matter the hundreds upon hundreds (possibly thousands) of requests over the years.

There appear,  from this thread,  to have been 286 requests in 11 years.  Again,  I must have missed the 'thousands' of requests somehow.

Plus - the post directly above yours points out that a 'lock' process is now available.  Is that somehow inappropriate for your needs?  Perhaps you could explain how it might be improved...

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I think the main problem is that some forum users read an interesting (click baiting) thread title, go to that thread, don’t realize that it is very old, describing a software long deprecated, jump right to the end and add their voice to the chorus of users stripped off their constitutional rights by ignorant developers / managers / other forum users (or something close to it, underline your choice).

Forgot something ? Yes, maybe to read through the thread, at least the last page, before posting themselves …

About this specific thread: It is mainly about the mobile clients, a solution has been introduced in app settings, a user just needs to activate it, problem solved, thread closed (should be).

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Forum users are asked to make contributions. A "+1" without any further content is no contribution. It just makes a thread longer and difficult to read. There is a voting function to count positive opinions without further content (and of course votes from users who added content).

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I know you guys are trying to be helpful, but come on, why not just let people speak. 

This is a feature request forum and it is very common to leave +1 in feature request boards. Actually back in 2018 in the beginning of this thread, people just left "+1" and "need it" as well. I don't know why in 2022 this had become not being "constructive". 

I appreciate that you are being helpful here, and tried to provide people workarounds, however at the same time, people aren't that dumb that they couldn't distinguist "Edit Protection" from "Note Lock". Not to mention that Edit Protection is not even implemented across platforms. 

In case you don't get it, Version History and Note Lock are two different features too, we need Note Lock not just because we are afraid messing up a note, we want a specific note being locked on demand. 

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„Let people speak“ is what the forum is all about. „+1“ is not speaking, this can be achieved by adding a vote.

You posted in parallel in another thread „+1“ - and added a few words about which use cases you have in mind. This helps other users (and maybe even EN staff, who knows) to understand the „why“.

This for me makes the difference between bloating a thread, and helping the discussion ahead.

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4 hours ago, faifaifai said:

This is a feature request forum and it is very common to leave +1 in feature request boards.

Yes, but I think what is being said, albeit without clarity, is that adding a vote in the top of the thread adds support which may be picked up by Evernote. Just saying '+1' won't get any attention. I'd be be really keen to hear your thinking or use-case and why you would like this feature. On a user supported forum that gives more chance to engage.

By all means add '+1' but it may not get you any traction or add support to the case with those able to enact change.

I look forward to hearing more about why read-only notes would be useful to you.

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Steele askeed for use cases.

Adding a switch to "lock" a note from inadvertent editing would avoid:

  • Undetected accidental editing errors
  • Resetting the "date updated" on a note, when I touch it without actually intending to change it; the notebook then loses its characteristic sequence, which is often useful for sorting.
  • Losing the verifiability of my record. If I use a note to track the sequence a set of events, I  would like to rely on its integrity after I put it into my Evernote database.  Of course this need relates to the desire to archive notes when deisred (mentioned elsewhere  in the feature requests).

 

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I think many of us would like a straight forward answer:

Does Evernote actually care about their customers' satisfaction? 

Community (opensource) developers are able to implement simple features within a few days. 

Evernote (whom is collecting $$$) is now closing in on a decade for some requests and still nothing!

 

Check out Joplin, an open source alternative with ability to sync your data to your private storage/servers. It can also import your entire Evernote library - which btw was a great feature request by the community! 

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On 9/7/2022 at 10:24 AM, agsteele said:

Yes, but I think what is being said, albeit without clarity, is that adding a vote in the top of the thread adds support which may be picked up by Evernote. Just saying '+1' won't get any attention. I'd be be really keen to hear your thinking or use-case and why you would like this feature. On a user supported forum that gives more chance to engage.

By all means add '+1' but it may not get you any traction or add support to the case with those able to enact change.

I look forward to hearing more about why read-only notes would be useful to you.

Paying customers are not requesting features for no reason. Why should we need to explain our reasons? Clearly there's a massive demand for this feature based on the feedback here including the all the +1's. 

It seems to me like Evernote is simply ducking and diving to avoid bringing down their profits. 

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10 minutes ago, rm501 said:

I think many of us would like a straight forward answer:

Many of us would be better off contacting Support directly then,  because Evernote don't (usually) comment in this mainly user-supported Forum.

Plus - regardless of how other crowd-sourced software projects are supported,  Evernote has limited resources and their own priorities - there's ample evidence they want and use suggestions from the forums,  but this is not a democracy.  Evernote do what they think best - our choice whether or not to use it.

(And how often have you seen MS,  Adobe or any other big provider listing what they're going to be working on next year? - That's commercially valuable information to their competitors.)

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Hi

Thanks for response. 

Good point. I think I will open a support ticket and request this feature. I will provide feedback here on the outcome. 

Have to respectfully disagree with your second point. Reason is that this "Feature Request" section of this forum was put in place by Evernote themselves. Therefore shouldn't they obligated to be active on these forums? 

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47 minutes ago, rm501 said:

Therefore shouldn't they obligated to be active on these forums? 

You may think that. But it is evidently not the case. These are community based forums and I'm afraid that's what you get. I'm pleased you decided to raise a support ticket.

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Here is my two cents on some of it...

19 hours ago, rm501 said:

Does Evernote actually care about their customers' satisfaction? 

Yes -- paying customers anyway -- because that's what pays the bills.

This means they are going to care about them long-term in the way that they think is best. Implementing many all or most user requested features could quickly lead to a kitchen-sink app and isn't a good long-term solution for the health of the app (IMO).

19 hours ago, rm501 said:

Community (opensource) developers are able to implement simple features within a few days.

Then wouldn't it be possible for those open source devs to add every single feature Evernote has and they'd have it done in a few weeks (months at most!) and then you could just use that?

19 hours ago, rm501 said:

Have to respectfully disagree with your second point. Reason is that this "Feature Request" section of this forum was put in place by Evernote themselves. Therefore shouldn't they obligated to be active on these forums? 

I think the 'Feature Request' forum should be renamed to 'Feature Request Community Discussion' or something like that because there is a general assumption that Evernote staffers are going to come in and comment on every single feature request and give some feedback on it and I haven't seen that to be the case. (You see staffers comment every now and again, but that's about it.)

I like to think of the 'Feature Request' forum as a "hey let's talk about this and maybe Evernote will see it and run with it" -- and maybe they won't see it, but I think it's still fun to talk about. Submitting feature requests directly to Evernote seems kind of like submitting them to a black hole to me. I mean, I still do that too, but I've never heard anything back even once from that, whereas there has been some community discussion here in the forums when I've posted thoughts or ideas.

Edited by Boot17
changed 'many' to 'all or most'
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It is obviously not ignoring customers if a feature request is not implemented. It would be a clear path into an unusable piece of bloated software if all customer wishes would be implemented - often enough they contradict each other.

My personal opinion is that EN does not need to comment either. Forum threads have a long life, and posting an official comment today may lead into a wrong direction some time later when the software has evolved. Nobody can redact the whole forum to weed out older posts that could be misunderstood. I think not posting in the forum by staff is a logical restriction.

Anybody who wants an official answer (and is eligible for support), can post a ticket. These will be answered.

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...On the general subject of Evernote listening and/ or taking notice,  may I mention Version 10 - the company went away and worked for a few years investigating how to realise a number of customers' frequently expressed greatest wishes including (in no particular order...)

  1. Same functions on all devices including Web
  2. Same fonts on all devices
  3. Text styles
  4. Calendars
  5. Task lists
  6. Dashboards
  7. Pinned notes
  8. Boolean Search
  9. Repeating reminders
  10. Emojis

They're offering all that and (effectively) 365/ 24 infinite online storage and retrieval to 200+ MILLION users.

Making any kind of a 'quick' change to any of that is inadvisable - it makes a lot of sense that they schedule specific suggested updates in a year so that they can avoid the need to rewrite that part of the code repeatedly as new and different suggestions get posted.

Just sayin'

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I have received a response to my ticket. Essentially they informed me that locking a note to make it readonly is not possible currently and it may be implemented in the future. 

In response to some of the recent posts, please bear in mind we not requesting some sort of AI DeepMind type of feature that requires 1000's of man/scientist hours - no - simple flag on a note to indicate its locked. Coming from software development background myself, it seems almost laughable that this is not implemented after so many years. Which is why I feel there is no real attempt by EN to listen to their customers. 

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5 minutes ago, rm501 said:

I feel there is no real attempt by EN to listen to their customers. 

Hmmn.  No matter how 'simple' an amendment to the software may appear,  thousands of other features have been requested.  Why should your preference be the next in line?  And.  Evernote now have nearly as many users as there are people in the US.  Messing up the code - even a little tiny bit - would be very very bad...

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On 12/19/2022 at 10:40 PM, gazumped said:

Why exactly?

One of the strenghts of Evernote is that you can acces notes on different devices. There no risk of accidently editing a note when you are in the desktop app or on internet. When consulting a note on a smartphone and scrolling, it's easy to accidently mess up a note.

It's not as if we demand a feature with state of the art AI or the integration of a whole new technology. It seems a third party service can do it and some notes created in EN by other apps are read only. So somewhere burried in the properties of notes, there is a read only property. We just ask for a switch somewhere to turn that read only property on or off.

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On 1/15/2023 at 4:41 PM, Guido Beelen said:

So somewhere burried in the properties of notes, there is a read only property.

Not necessarily...  the fact that Evernote is unable to edit some formats is not a 'property' - it's a missing function.  The editor software is what it is,  and can only do so much.  To guard against editing,  share notes with 'view only' attributes - or safeguard documents in password protected third party formats.  We have no idea what may be in the pipeline for new features,  but if Evernote doesn't currently have a specific feature,  it won't be added anytime soon...

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On 1/15/2023 at 4:41 PM, Guido Beelen said:

One of the strenghts of Evernote is that you can acces notes on different devices. There no risk of accidently editing a note when you are in the desktop app or on internet. When consulting a note on a smartphone and scrolling, it's easy to accidently mess up a note.

There is already a note lock in mobile.

Settings / Note / Edit Protection 

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As other have stated a little lock icon or a check box to prevent accidental editing.

It is important for me on the desktop and web app when i have a bunch of windows open and i may the wrong window selected and started deleting / typing.

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Simply opening a note in the Android version changes the Modified date and its order in the list. I hate it! It's incredibly difficult to find things based on when I last looked at them vs. when I last made an actual change. As Evernote tries to become all things to all people the interface is growing cumbersome and goofy. The old version was far easier to navigate.

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6 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

No, and looking at the low level of engagement here in this thread I wouldn’t expect any.

It is simply a feature that is not really in demand.

We better make more noise about it, then.

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