DutchPete

True, but even that I think is a nonsense because intelligence in the human sense does not exist (yet?), and neither does an external brain in the human sense. These words are just marketing hype to try to get an edge on the competition. And that's not unique to EN.

However, at the end of the day it does not really matter which qualifications one uses, we know the strengths & weaknesses of EN. And like GM says, there does not seem to be a viable, broad-based cross-platform alternative to EN & 1N out there (yet?).

Augmented Intelligence, it seems, would be easier to make a claim on. That is what Context (and Related Notes) is referred to as.

External brain sounds like an amazing feature, but anything that holds your thoughts, documents, sketches, .... can be classified as your external brain. So any note-taking app could qualify, including 1N. In fact, your whole computer could be classified as such. I know we are talking apps here, but "external brain" does not mean anything  & is therefore nonsense.

I wholeheartedly agree with your last sentence (in bold below).

OneNote, which (as far as I know) hasn't ever had this goal of an external brain in mind (poor pun intended), hasn't given any indication that they will try and become a brain in the future. If you are into creating an external brain, that leaves OS-specific apps such as VoodooPad and DEVONthink. VP doesn't appear to be under active development anymore, so you have DT, which is pretty amazing, if you are willing to live almost exclusively in the Appleverse (there is a workaround of sorts, thanks to DT's robust features, but I'll talk about that in a blog post sometime).

 

What all of this means is that "Power Users" (power procrastinators) who are into working on multiple operating systems will probably be better off sticking with EN (as I mentioned earlier in the thread), though ON might fit as well -- YMMV. Everything else mentioned is a gamble or a dead-end that wouldn't appeal to me.

 

nvAlt = Mac too

Gruber's basic Markdown will only be read by apps that support it, but, like I said, many apps only support a "flavour" (= official name for it I believe), i.e. a variation on it, and those apps therefore do not accept Gruber's markdown. I have tried a number.

If I am not mistaken, your planning ahead consisted of leaving EN altogether, except for web clippings. But if all users plan ahead like that EN would have to close shop.

GM, I am not trying to be awkward, believe me, but I contest your premise that it is easy to export from EN into a usable format & be up & running within 15 minutes. At any rate, Windows users don't have that possibility, perhaps because EN was originally designed for Mac users so easy export facilities were created for those users. A Windows UI was tacked on at a later stage, by which time easy export for them was forgotten about. Whatever the reason may be, having Windows users' notes up & running within 15 mins is pie in the sky.

Yes. For what I do, I have often found multiple solutions to any problem available in the Appleverse. In this case, nvALT is another great option. The relatively straightforward Markdown I recommend (basically Gruber's) is usually fine in any app. But, you can use whatever you like, as long as you know the app you are moving to will support it. As always, I recommend planning ahead, using the lowest common denominator of features, and testing everything out before plunging into it.

 

1. Your links are for Mac users.

2. Your use of Markdown conventions might work in Voodoo or DevonThink, but many apps use Markdown flavours, which are always slightly different.

Hi. Export as HTML. You can stop there, because the notes can be imported into anything at that point, or you can convert the resulting files into something else, like plain text. From the beginning, I set up my account for this eventuality (see other posts in this forum -- plaintext notes, attachments separate but linked, information-rich titles, etc.). YMMV.

See these links for more:

https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/37457-sharing-evernote-to-devonthink/?p=208352

http://www.christopher-mayo.com/?p=1564

http://www.christopher-mayo.com/?p=367

EN notes are portable, but only to HTML & MHT, that's not much. I am not aware that you can have plain text notes in EN.

And as for up & running in 15 mins: importing HTML into other apps is not that simple, if possible at all. Even if the app allows it, you would still have to do a lot of manual work to make those notes usable as before again. The importing bit into the other app is just the start but that does not mean they are immediately usable, so I would not call that up & running. Plain text notes woud indeed be a lot easier to import & for the user to be & running relatively quickly. But EN does not support PT does it?

I think that discontented users here have particular needs that few apps can meet, and they aren't generally criticizing Evernote, but discussing what happens when they fall outside of Evernote's target area. It sounds like the amount of control you are looking to have will probably not be met by (m)any services, and you may have simply fallen outside of the target user group.

As for leaving or signing up for Evernote, it seems like a simple and painless process to me. Even with tens of thousands of notes, you can probably be out, up, and running with something else in fifteen minutes or so. Perhaps faster if you have just plain text. I'd say portability is one of its strong points.

 

Don't forget there are 3rd party apps like that already. I don't use them but this is what I have seen being talked about:

* Kanbanote - http://www.kanbanote.com/, with a report on Lifehacker http://lifehacker.com/kanbanote-organizes-your-evernote-notes-in-trello-like-1676463684

* Trello - a Kanban app that can work with Evernote via Zapier https://zapier.com/zapbook/evernote/trello/. But direct Trello - EN integration is still only a feature someone requested from Trello - see screenshot below or website https://trello.com/b/ooY1N7GP/braintoss-support-page

@jbenson2: do you know what the maximum note limit is on 1N? does it have equally powerful search operators as EN?

Office suite: I find the office suite by WPS more pleasant to use than LibreOffice. It is not open source but feels a lot more familiar to MS Office than LO does. And the WPS Spreadsheets (as it is called) app has 1 big advantage of both MS & LO: tabs.

I installed VeraCrypt on my PC a while ago & am very happy with it. For my use case it replaces the need for encryption in e.g. EN.

@Alan: there is nothing new about using Excel & EN, and you do not need to "upload" an Excel file. You can just attach an Excel file to an EN note, like you do with a PDF, JPEG, whatever. That is the beauty & ease of EN in terms of attaching files. BTW, all attachments are stored within EN itself, so you do not need to keep them as a separate copy on your hard drive. When you click to open an attachment from within a note, it is actually opened from within EN. When you subsequently amend & save it, you can close it safely. Next time you open the attachment again from within that note you'll see the amendments are there.

Perhaps JMichael had a point about language - LOL. And maybe Christine was hoping for something more intricate or even useful to her, perhaps she found my use too simple, down to earth. But maybe she will explain that personally

Me thinks she was pulling your leg @dutch and giving you a compliment.  I hope anyway.

@Christine: no I do not duplicate between the 2 apps, a note resides in either 1 or the other. My redundancy consists of back-ups.

I don't understand your remark about my comment being way too much common sense & zen for my tastes.

I answered honestly the way I use them, I cannot put a more "intellectual" or "esoteric" spin on it. Sorry.

@Christine: I use EN & 1N in parallel because in many ways they are complementary to each other. For example: tables in EN are pretty useless, whereas in 1N they are excellent. So if I don't want to use Excel to create a table I use 1N. That table can then either stay in 1N or be imported into EN, depending on the use.

OTOH tagging is far superior in EN than in 1N, so if I need a note to be tagged I will create it in EN. These are just 2 examples but there are many more situations like that.

The point that people need to bear in mind is that neither are perfect, in fact a perfect note-taking app does not exist in my modest opinion. Therefore it is pointless trying to make EN or 1N (or any other app for matter) do something it was not designed for in the 1st place. Many people go down that road & then get frustrated when it does not work out, blaming the app for its shortcomings. I just try to enjoy the best of both worlds, accepting that neither one nor the other will deliver all, but that between them they go a long way towards helping me achieve most, if not all, I need for my use case.

@JMichael: both GM & I independently understood the same from your post, so even if my so-called inferred meaning is supposedly incorrect, you expressed yourself clumsily & got the wrong message across, not just to me (English not being my mother tongue & all that) but also to GM. Unfortunately for you that is your problem, not mine.

And as for personal attacks: I have no interest in making personal attacks against you or anyone else. I only reacted to a condescending remark you made, which I take issue with. But if you don't want to stay with your feet on the ground, having lifted off at least try to get off your high horse and treat your forum colleagues with a bit more decorum. That way we would not need to go through all this & can stay with the topic.

By the way, It is not the 1st time you disregard common rules of courtesy in a post. Since I was brought up with a different set of values, I will react whenever you lack respect towards me, whether you like it or not. That's me.

And to prove that I am not beyond reproach: I have also made 1 or 2 unpleasant posts, but did 1 of 2 things. Either I apologised to the person or I withdrew my post (= deleted it). Common courtesy.

@JMichael: I don't see what the language has to do with it. Your reaction (if you guys want to debate a piece of vaporware, by all means please carry on.  I've got better things to do) was uncalled for, you sometimes seem to go off your rocker & answer in an unpleasant, if not aggressive way. And what you call a misunderstanding is not due to the use of English language. I may be Dutch, but my command of the English language is on a par with any higher educated person whose mother tongue is English - not sure if that includes you.

Both GM and I had the same appreciation of your initial comment about security/privacy, and if you think GM has a lesser command of the English language than you it is obvious you have another problem than just expressng yourself clearly. So please stay with your feet on the ground and try to have a measured discussion.

@JMichael: I don't even use Dropbox & don't intend to do so. Frankdg suggested looking @ their project so I did, as you did. You decided to comment, so you can expect to have reactions to your comment. I don't intend to waste my energy on something I don't even want, but i do react on this forum to comments I don't agree with or have a view about, without necessarily going into intricate details. If you don't want to get reactions then don't comment, then logically you should not in the 1st place. And if we misunderstood you, it's your problem if you cannot express yourself clearly.

@JMichael: you say But it is way too early to start worrying about security/privacy since it is not even an announced product yet.

It is exactly at an early stage that security/privacy need to be put up on the radar screen, and not as an after-thought when the product is already at an advanced stage. If Dropbox wants to enter the PIM market, one way they could distinguish themselves from the competition, rather than being perceived as a "me too" app, is to develop a top notch security/privacy app.

It's online & it's collaborative. And what is privacy like?

Dropbox's forward march has got to pique your interest. They're clearly moving into the note-taking niche and positioning themselves for a piece of the pie:

http://m.tech.firstpost.com/news-analysis/dropbox-testing-project-composer-a-collaborative-note-taking-app-will-compete-with-google-docs-and-evernote-261824.html

Let's see whether they throw web clipping and OCR search capabilities in the mix. They may just be many peoples' answer to a decent note-taking file repository like Evernote, which employs nested folders (if that's what floats one's boat).

Also, very impressive, is their recent launching of their Carousel app, which is their gallery app for your photos and videos in Dropbox. An area which Evernote has not decided to develop.

Hello Wordsgood, no offense taken. I never take anything you write the bad way because I know you are not like that. I might not always agree with you, and might sound upset when I write, but I am not upset with you

I do think there is a lot of discussion on this forum that does not get us anywhere, particularly from those who moan. Alwayzambitious was not moaning, just asking about a feature, but, as you can see from some of the answers above, he has been redirected elsewhere because his subject was out of place in this thread.

Having said that, I am not a moderator so at the end of the day people can write here what they want - it's a free forum. That also goes for me though, as long as I don't offend people, which I am careful about.

Hi Pete, sorry if you misunderstood my intenions. I wasn't trying to imply that you represent EN or that you think you do.

I just wanted to make it clear for the sake of anyone who reads this Thread, especially new Forum Members, that they are free to suggest whatever they would like to see Evernote do or add. And your post sounded a bit like you were trying to shut down the conversation using words like, "...it's pointless because..."

Regardless of Evernote's change in direction more for the business market, it's still a great for individual users like us. As such, I don't think we should be discouraging folks from posting Feature Requests, suggestions or any other thoughts they have about anything to do with Evernote

Also, I'm not entirely sure if submitting Feature Requests directly to EN through Support Ticket, is anymore useful than posting them here on the Forum. Either way, they get them and once it's in their hands, we, as users, have done all we can. But at least on the Forum, if it's a widely desired feature and large numbers of users chime in to support it, then we can present a united front to EN so they can't later says their wasn't enough users unterest to impliment a much wanted Fearure.

But I wasn't trying to insinuate anything about you, Pete. You're opinions, insights and thoughts are every bit as valif as everyone elses!
 

Why not submit a ticket? You have a better chance of (some of) it getting picked up by the dev team.

IMO, the issue with changing the Notebook name in the Left Side Panel is just one indicator of a much larger issue.

 

In EN Mac, Evernote removed most of the actions available by a right-click on the objects in the Left Side Panel after Ver 3,  Some were removed in Ver 5, and more in Ver 6, until now there is very little functionality in the Left Side Panel.

 

I find the Notebook view and the Tags view to be very user unfriendly, especially if you have a lot of Notebooks or Tags.

Evernote advertises supporting up to 250 Notebooks, and now, and incredible 100,000 tags.  The Tag view doesn't support more than 100 Tags, much less 100K Tags.

 

By using Tag hierarchies, it is possible to have many, many Tags, but collapse them down (at the top level) to a dozen or less.

While the Left Side Panel supports expandable Tag lists, it does NOT provide any tools to make it practical to use.  For example, the more useful tree lists provide a "collapse all" and a "expand all" feature.

 

Here is what I would like to see in the Left Side Panel:

(basically all actions available in the NB or Tag view, plus more)

• All Items -- Collapse All, Expand All
• Notebooks -- right-click on any NB to (some choices depend on current state of NB)
  • Get Properties (type of NB, number of note, local storage size, shared or joined, etc)
  • Set as Default NB
  • Share
  • Sharing Info
  • UnShare
  • Move to Stack
  • Remove from Stack
  • Rename
  • Export
  • Delete
  • Any other choices not listed above but in the NB view with a right-click
• Tag List
  • Move under Parent Tag (provides Tag selection like with the Tag Filter)
  • Move to Top Level
  • Rename
  • Delete
  • Assign to Selected Notes
  • UnAssign from Selected Notes
  • Collapse/Expand All below this Tag
  • Any other choices not listed above but in the Tag view with right-click

This is NOT intended to be comprehensive, but to illustrate the type of functionality that would be very useful in the Left Side Panel.

Howdy, Partners!

 

We're all tied to Evernote... for the moment... because there's not yet an overwhelmingly superior alternative.

 

Sooner or later... something will give!

 

 

What do these companies have in common?

• RCA
• Atari
• Oldsmobile
• E.F. Hutton
• MCI
• Pan Am
• Radio Shack
• AOL
• Montgomery Ward
• Blockbuster
• Circuit City
• Polaroid
• Zenith
• Levitz Furniture
• Tower Records
• Borders Books
• Sharper Image

 

 

Innovate or die: The stark message for big business

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28865268

 

 

 

 

LOL!  Something will give!

 

 

~ Alan

Howdy ~ Alan, an interesting & sobering thought. While this forum's title implies that some of us are looking for an alternative to Evernote, I believe that at the end of the day those same people do not really want to move away from Evernote. But what has frustrated those people is the real and/or perceived lack of Evernote's connect with its customers, its users. Of course, perception and real experience are different for everyone of us, but the minimum we probably agree on is that that connect leaves something to be desired.

This brings me to the real point I want to make with respect to the BBC article you point us to but that is not mentioned in there: apart from innovation, the other essential requisite for survival and success is customer satisfaction & customer connect. A paragon of accomplishment in this area is Apple, which has managed to make its customers emotionally connected to its products, not only because of design & innovation, but also because Apple listen to their customers & really hear what those customers say. Apple actually acts upon that. And its customers feel like they are part of a big family. How crafty !!

So, in summary I would say that none of us would like "something to give" (= break) in the case of Evernote, but Evernote certainly have to clean up their act in this area, instead of just publicly making grandiose, sweeping statements that seem out of place for many of us. They would do well to look at an Apple or other such company.

I understand your point of view, though I don't agree with your remark that I speak for Evernote. I do not pretend to speak for Evernote: I chose the word "unlikely" on purpose & it is based on the experience we have on this forum with Evernote's attitude & some of their thinking. Although they never reveal their development intentions, we do get an indicative idea of where they are headed. And in my view they are not headed, nor seem to have the inclination towards, a stripped down version. But that is just my opinion. Others are allowed to have an entirely different opinion, this is a free forum.

The misunderstanding that (a lot of) people on this forum seem to have is that by just posting about a feature it is "in the bag" in terms of appearing on Evernote's development list of features. In any case, those same users seem to think that if lots of people suggest the same thing, or complain about the same thing, Evernote will take notice. Evernote may have people following these posts (e.g. G. Barry) but I seriously doubt they have a running tally with suggestions/complaints & those with the highest score will get added to Evernote's development list. I think we have to be lucid about this.

The best way to have a bit of a chance to get your suggestion/complaint on an Evernote list is to submit a ticket, as I pointed out to JMichael recently who also believes that moaning about your frustrations will get you somewhere with EN development staff. That is why I think it is pointless to discuss/speculate/scream/..... about a stripped down version on this forum, and hence my answer to Alwayzambitious. It was not meant to be rough.

In any case, if Alwayzambitious or you or anybody believes submitting suggestions/complaints via this forum are useful, by all means go ahead.

Sorry, Pete, I have to disagree that it's pointless to discuss. Evernote provides this forum as one of the ways they get customer feedback and staff have mentioned a few times that feature requests and suggestion are welcome.

Does that mean this request or any other will actually be implemented? Probably not, but it's really not our place to summarily shut down suggestion from other users. We don't speak for Evernote. ☺
 

If we wanted a smaller essential version of Evernote what features would you want to see.

THere would be no work chat or presentation in this mind you

It's pointless to discuss this because it is unlikely Evernote will go down this path in view of the fact that they are adding features for their business users particularly, and those can be turned off.

Yeah,  read that.  Linux and Apple users rejoice...  and if you're "afraid of downloading huge setup files"..."a good reason to avoid Evernote..."?  Really?

Beebom clearly never installed EN him/herself, so with that comment about huge setup files is just shooting from the hip. What a .......

And she keeps comparing Centrallo with EN & 1N, which is a joke. Whereas Centrallo is just a glorified list app, as Roberta says herself, EN & 1N are of course much more than that. So she completely misunderstands the issues for EN (power) users, but that is part of her sales pitch I guess.

Ok... no more derailing on my part. This is a very worthwhile and serious thread that deserved to run its course.

Which it seems to have.

I guess that this is what this topic has come down to: trying to make meaningful distinction between "moaning" and "whining"...

Neither of which are a useful contribution to this forum.