TheMagicWombat

On 9/25/2022 at 1:16 PM, agsteele said:

Unless the admins are giving Evernote at a DNS level of might be possible to use the web browser access.

I am not sure bypassing your employer's security and exposing corporate secrets to Chinese and Russian hackers is the most prudent course of action. If it is for your own personal database, sure. But anything work related could get you terminated. 

1 hour ago, Powerfab said:

Exactly the same scenario for me. My corporate IT are blocking EN, but unware of NN at present. That said, I know that someday, and likely very soon they'll twig and NN will be blocked as well. Their locking down of the systems becomes more stringent by the day. For this reason I'm reluctant to invest too much time and information into NN. 

I'm resigned to the fact that I'm going to have to work within the IT silo and simply maintain my own personal system with no work access. What I use and how it will work I'm still actively pondering. 

Wow, I didn't know corporate America was locking out Evernote. When I got the alert for your post, I did a Google search, and it appears to be a common problem. Companies are making it impossible to even install EN on a work PC.

Does anyone know if it is because of:

1. The massive overhead of modifying records one by one?
2. Security concerns over the EN software itself?
3. Security concerns over the fact that users will be parking corporate data on a remote, unapproved, server?

I can see any of these being the reason, and I've seen speculation as to which it is--does anyone know with a high degree of reliability?

9 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

Came to the same result a while ago. While we continue dispersing troll feed, the trillers won’t stop.

Oh please--you make claims and I am still waiting for you to supply a link to support ANY of them.

YOU are the only troll on here.

2 hours ago, CalS said:

Leaving troll world. 

I am the one who posted links and references.

You are the one who claimed to know what a database program is better than the people at Oracle...

24 minutes ago, CalS said:

As a retired CIO I will leave it to your expertise.  

No, you will leave it to the expertise of the experts I have quoted.

Namely Techopedia, PC Magazine, and Oracle. 

Your mistake is in thinking that because almost all software has some level of intern database built in, all software is database software. That is akin to thinking that all software is directory maintenance software because almost all software has some level of internal directory maintenance built into it. Or, more in-line with your example, that Gmail is desktop publishing software because you can format both text and images in it.

And you can print with Gmail, so it must be desktop publishing software, right?

But, since you claim to have worked as a CIO, let me ask you this question--if you were advertising a job opening for someone experienced in working in databases and some yahoo showed up and put down as his experience with databases as:

"I've had a Gmail account for years."

Would you give him the job?

No, don't bother. It was a rhetorical question. Anyone who was that ignorant of databases to think that Gmail qualified as database experience you would throw into the circular file. 

25 minutes ago, DTLow said:

That's not correct     
Evernote uses a database structure, with unique notebook/tag id's specified in the note record   
Notebook/tag name is specified in the notebook/tag record
A tag-tag table supports tag hierarchy (parent/child); there's no notebook-notebook table    
This can be observed using an sql browser in the Evernote Legacy product

As I said--Evernote uses a flat structure. If it had a NESTED folder structure it wouldn't be a problem. 
 

25 minutes ago, DTLow said:

Unique names is a UI thing    

Correct--soft of. It is so the HUMANS don't get confused. As the "name" of a folder is simply there for the humans to identify it, it needs something unique. In terms of how the OS operates, because each folder has its own unique address it points to (and only one record/information packet can physically reside at any given address) it is impossible (not "not allowed" but physically impossible) for two folders/directories to reside in the same address. If I have 10,000 directories I have bit-edited into the same name ALL sitting in the same parent directory, and I click on the 47th instance of that directory, the OS will simply open THAT particular directory without a hitch. 

Unique names are a human convenience, and thus an OS is coded into enforcing such, but if you bypass said OS safeguards, you don't break a single thing except the HUMAN gets confused. 

25 minutes ago, DTLow said:

Without unique names, we would no longer be able to directly reference notebook/tag x   
we would always have to reference the notebook/tag tree

If you were doing a Boolean search, that would be correct. But you could still have 10,000 parent tags named 1 to 10,000 and each one has a sub-tag named "My only child" and when you clicked on the child tag in parent tag 666, you would still only get that specific "My Only Child".

And, yes, as I said with a Boolean search you would need unique tag Ids. But that misses the point--the only reason to nest tags is for ease of the human finding them, OR in a ham-footed (too kludgy even for ham-fisted) attempt to simulate nested folders. Implement nested folders, and the need for duplicate tag names disappears, thus leaving you with your Boolean search. 

He would not need multiple tags with the same name if he was using tags as tags--it is only when you try to pretend tags are folders that you wind up with duplicate tag names. 

53 minutes ago, CalS said:

Anything that we can search in some form is pretty much a database to us. 

The people in the software industry, and those who actually work on databases, disagree with you.

1 hour ago, DTLow said:

Confirmed; notebook/tag names must be unique

I use independent tags    
or reflect hierarchy in the notebook/tag name; for example; Migration-Germany-Tax   
 
I use an independent "ToDo" tag workflow

Again, only in Evernote because of its flat structure. Sort of like if your OS only allowed 1 layer of directories sitting off of the root drive, they would all have to be unique. Introduce multiple layers, and you can have the same name over and over and over again provided they all reside in different parent directories. 

BTW: As an aside, it is (or at least was) entirely possible to have multiple directories in the same parent have the same name. The OS normally won't permit you to create such a heresy via normal commands for your own protection, but if you direct edit the names it is possible. And when you click on the first one it will open with proper contents, and when you click on the second one it will open with its contents. The "no two folders with the same name" is a convention done to keep people from confusing themselves, it is NOT a computing requirement. (Note: It has been 20 years since I have seen this trick done so it might no longer work.)

Also, if you want to cheat and PRETEND two names are identical, you can always do this:
 

1 hour ago, CalS said:

Actually that is a common definition of a data base.  All databases don’t perform the same way though hence all this angst. 

"Database software is a software program or utility used for creating, editing and maintaining database files and records. This type of software allows users to store data in the form of structured fields, tables and columns, which can then be retrieved directly and/or through programmatic access."

From: https://www.techopedia.com/definition/1190/database-software#:~:text=Database software is a software,and%2For through programmatic access.

"Software that is used to manage data and information structured as fields, records and files. A database program is the heart of a business information system and provides file creation, data entry, update, query and reporting functions. The traditional term for database software is "database management system" (see DBMS). For more about database structures, see DBMS, field, record, file, database and database schema."

From: https://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/database-program

"Some examples of popular database software or DBMSs include MySQL, Microsoft Access, Microsoft SQL Server, FileMaker Pro, Oracle Database, and dBASE."

From: https://www.oracle.com/database/what-is-database/#:~:text=Some examples of popular database,%2C Oracle Database%2C and dBASE.

Evernote is database software. Gmail is Email software. Excel is Spreadsheet software. Word is word processing software. Photoshop is image manipulation software. SoundForge is audio track manipulation software. Fallout 76 is game software.

Just because each of these might use an internal database does NOT make them database software. The vast majority of programs, up to and including Chrome and iOs use internal databases, but that does not make them a database program nor does it make them "a database". 

6 hours ago, Mike P said:

So you if there were enough levels of stacks, notebooks etc to implement this using notebooks you would also need the ability to have two notebooks of the same name which is not currently allowed in EN (but is in Windows for example).

Only if Evernote had NO idea on how to implement nested folders. Every database program on the planet has the ability to have multiple folders of the same name because one is a nested folder named "Same" in the parent folder of "Mom" while the other one is the folder named "Same" in the parent directory of "Dad". 

The reason you can't have multiple folders named the same thing in Evernote is because they have one big directory that ALL folders (notebooks) sit in. 

1 hour ago, Mike P said:

You organise and file emails in any email program in just the same way as you organise and file notes in Evernote. There is functionally no difference. Gmail stores data and allows you to retrieve it through labels, search etc. A quick Google search gives lots of details of the datbases they use to provide this functionaility.

OMG--you actually believe what you wrote!!!

Just because something allows you to store and retrieve data does NOT make it a database! And their functionality is RADICALLY different! That is why one is a database program ad one is an email program! 

Using your logic, Word, Excel, To-Do, Dragon Dictate, Adobe Acrobat, Second Life, and Photoshop are all database programs!

They are not.

3 hours ago, armin3d said:

 

I am an app developer myself. you can keep internal structure as it is. just add nested folders as a new variable for each note. and perhaps add a new db table to hold name of  folders and their parents. not much of internal structure change is needed. and it will make lot of people happy. 

 

Some of the FanBoys in here have argued adding nested folders would require more programming than will be used in the next version of Elder Scrolls--despite the fact that Evernote is the only database around without nested folders. 

7 hours ago, Mike P said:

 

Gmail uses a tagging system - they just hide it better.

You are the first person I have ever met that thought Gmail is a database program...

30 minutes ago, armin3d said:

Those who say i joined 10 years ago when it didn’t had folders and now realize it. Yes, correct. I started using evernote 10 years ago when all i needed was a simple note taking app. over years i realized evernote is actually pushing me back on getting my researches and brain dumps categorized.

There are some saying why not use tags. Let’s imagine following case of nested tags.

Research
- Migration
  - Germany
     - Tax
     - Lifestyle
     - Residency
     - Language
     - Todo
  - UK
     - Tax
     - Lifestyle
     - Residency
     - Language
     - Todo
- Travel
  - Germany
      - Language
      - Bookings
      - Todo
  - UK
      - Language
      - Bookings
     - Todo

Good luck creating this as it will complain on many levels saying a tag name is already exist with name Todo. with name Germany... 

 

We tried crating tags that were unique by making a long string of the entire hierarchy in the tag names. E.g.

Research-Migration-Travel-Germany-Language
Research-Migration-Travel-Germany-Bookings
Research-Migration-Travel-Germany-Todo,
etc...

The problem is that you ALSO need to add the sub-tags as tags. Thus a single record would be tagged with:

Research
Migration
Travel
Germany
Language
Research-Migration
Research-Migration-Travel
Research-Migration-Travel-Germany
Research-Migration-Travel-Germany-Language

With nested folders, opening the top folder alerts you to sub-folders. With Evernote, if I miss a single tag of say:

Research-Migration-Travel-Germany

That record is forever lost as being useful. It is sitting there without being tagged. When I open up that tag as my pseudo folder, it is never going to exist. 

Of course, the people who don't work with information in this structure will say, "Yes, but if you drop the record into the wrong nested-folder, it is lost anyway. What they don't realize is that every single time you add a layer of complexity to a task humans must perform, the odds of error increase exponentially.   With a nester folder, I *must* drop it into a folder. I sit and decide where it goes.

One decision.

With Tags as Folders I have almost double the amount of tags I must add for every record. It becomes far more likely I will drop a tag that should be applied because I must mentally drop the same document into *multiple* folders. 

Now add 1-2 layers to the hierarchy depth and watch the fun! We had some that were 7-8 deep, and just gave up trying to make it work. What should have been a simple record save under any other database program became a nightmare of auditing records to make sure all tags were properly applied. 

Evernote is great for flat databases. For deep ones, you are better off using a laser printer and a Steelcase file cabinet. 

7 hours ago, DTLow said:

Here's a notebook and tag example for organizing Receipts
Stacks/Notebook                Tags   
Receipts                                Receipts      
    Receipts-Car                              Receipts-Car
    Receipts-Groceries                   Receipts-Groceries     
    Receipts-House                         Receipts-House                  

If all I was working on was a shopping list, we wouldn't be having this conversation. 

Now make 75 organic tags and 75 organic notebooks. Some will have he same names, some will be radically different. 

The problem is that without nested folders, your pretend folders and real tags are all jumbled together. That means when you go in to look at your structured information, you can't because it isn't.

1 hour ago, DTLow said:

 

I use the sidebar notebook/tag trees for a hierarchical view

I tried creating a hierarchical tagging system. It just didn't work. I know that you won't understand, but the records were *always* cluttered to me. 

On 3/20/2021 at 12:17 PM, SteveJazz said:

..and, then I discovered Craft. A beautiful app. Completely rethinks note taking with a block paradigm, the ability to create nested pages and cards, and the concept of links and back links. Oh, and a folder system that easily allows for nested folders. Evernote feels like an attempt to polish an old paradigm. Evernote will do a great job at that, but I’ll take the new paradigm...and nested folders. Ironically, the ability to create sub-pages is so powerful, it enables me to flatten my hierarchy and I need fewer folder levels. Genius. No tagging yet, but I bet tags come before Evernote adds nested folders. Bought the Craft subscription; cancelled the Evernote subscription. 

Sadly, Apple only. 

21 hours ago, DTLow said:

You have no problem with remembering the folder/sub-folder used for a specific subject   
Why is there a problem remembering a tag/sub-tag?

Tags are super-awesome--when used in conjunction with nested folders. I know you don't get it, but part of the process of synthesizing information for some of us requires looking at information and deciding what it *means* or relates to. It then gets filed in appropriate folder/sub-folder. I now understand and have properly filed that snippet of information. I might then also go add tags galore to it, but those are there to add snippets of information that might be useful. 

The folder decision is what the information relates to our research. The tag information is secondary associations that might be worth recalling down the road. 

It is theoretically possible to use tags/nested tags as pretend folders. God knows I tried to make make it work, but it never clicked. 

You don't understand why some of us need nested folders, and some of us can't understand how you operate without them. By analogy, some people need silence when they study, and others require death-meatal on at least 5 when they hit the books.   

I prefer to store my Word documents by main subject theme/sub-subject/individual (alphabetical)/date. I know other people who store their word documents on their desktop. As in--their desktop is littered with icons that are shortcuts to word documents. When they are looking for a document, they "know" where it is, and when they invariably can't find it, resort to the "Find" function.

Nested are the former, tags are the latter. 

And yes, I *know* you won't get it. I understand your work-around of pretending tags are folders, but it just doesn't work for some of us. And those whom it does not work for have to just accept that fact Evernote is a quirky little off-brand database that some people swear by while we need find something else. 

Oh--your question--I still didn't answer it! Because mixing your tags and nested folder pretend tags means you never, ever, get to review your information database in a hierarchical pattern--they non-hierarchical tags are muddying up the water. We don't NEED to remember a sub-folder hierarchy--it presents itself when when we open it.  It is crisp, clean, and minimalist. Now add in 40-50 tags scattered throughout the structure, and you have caltrops on the paved road...

23 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

 

There has never been even the slightest hint that nested folders would be considered (there are technical reasons why not).

Do you have a link for that? I'd would love to see someone in a position of authority state why Evernote cannot implement what every other database program on the planet considers to be an entry level requirement. 

Please... share  a link so we can all know these technical reasons.

23 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

 

OK, here is the solution: Go find another app that does, export your stuff, switch over.

 

Indeed. I actually tried using Evernote with my work. Paid subscription and all of that. I quickly found that the tag system was not a replacement for nested folders, and had to abandon it for work. 

I still use Evernote for personal data like the lightbulb size and wattage for the kitchen lights, so I don't have to climb up and re-read it before I drive to Lowe's, or my MIL's address for when I am addressing a package. For stuff like that, Evernote actually is useful!

On 6/11/2022 at 1:56 AM, armin3d said:

Why isn't evernote is not adding such simple functionality. It is not even complicated. Folder don't need to be really a folder. it can be a tag in background. it can be a string. as long as it work like a folder.

 

Because Evernote is convinced everyone else on the planet is, and has been since the beginning of time, doing it wrong.

And, all a nested folder is is a variable stored in that record's information.  When reading the record it looks to see which folder/sub-folder it should be displayed with, and there you are. 

If you use Evernote in a linear pattern of storing information and rarely reclassifying it or moving said information records around, this probably does not apply to you.  If, however, you do a lot of research, and your work method has you reclassifying and retagging or mass moving and deleting, the new version of Evernote runs at roughly 1/190th the speed of the older Evernote Legacy.  (At least that was my number when I tested bulk actions on New Evernote and legacy.)

Perform this simple test yourself:

In Evernote Legacy:

1.    Create a TEMP tag
2.    Select 1,000 records. 
3.    Retag the 1,000 records with a timer running.
4.    When it is done retagging, stop the timer, and record how many seconds it took.

In New Evernote:

1.    Create a TEMP tag
2.    Select 1,000 records. 
3.    Except you can’t tag 1,000 records at a time. Because new Evernote is so slow at any bulk actions, the developers have made it impossible to work with more than 50 records at a time for bulk actions. That means to retag 1,000 records, you will have to manually retag 50 records 20 times. So….
4.    Select 50 records.
5.    Retag the 50 records with a timer running.
6.    When it is done retagging, stop the timer, and record how many seconds it took.
7.    Take than number and multiply it by 20—that is how long in Evernote time it would take to retag those 1,000 records. (And that is NOT counting your overhead in manually performing what should be a single select action 20 times!)

Divide the Legacy results into the New version results. That is how much slower new Evernote runs for bulk actions.

My results are that for bulk actions new Evernote runs at 1/190th the speed of Legacy.

A lot of people will state that you have an “old machine” or your broadband that is sufficient for video conferences isn’t fast enough for Evernote, or your graphics card isn’t fast enough to update New Evernote like it should. These are all excuses and not factual. New Evernote and Evernote Legacy running side by side on the same machine will show that the new Evernote is horribly slow for bulk actions, and the reason is that for every change made in a bulk action your records must be processed like this:

1.    A change is made to record #1 on your computer.
2.    Evernote program contacts the Evernote servers over the Internet and tells it of the change.
3.    Evernote server then modifies the record there.
4.    Evernote sever then sends over the Internet information to the Evernote program that the update has been made. 
5.    Change is now made to record #2 on your computer.
6.    Evernote program contacts the Evernote servers over the Internet and tells it of the change.
7.    Evernote server then modifies the record there.
8.    Evernote sever then sends over the Internet information to the Evernote program that the update has been made. 
9.    Change is now made to record #3 on your…

Oh, you get the idea—just multiply the above steps by 1000 and you have a clear picture of why new Evernote is so horrible with bulk actions compared to Legacy—Legacy does all the actions on your computer, and then processes a sync update copying your database file to the remote server as one file upload, and in the background. (And just to prove your internet speed is fine, this action normally only takes a few seconds for syncing your ENTIRE database with Legacy.)

In short, retagging or moving or any other bulk action in Evernote now treats each change as a unique Internet communication event. Retag 50 records and your computer must communicate with the Evernote servers 100 times. Retag 1,000 records and… well… You have to manually retag 50 groups of records a total of 20 times and then wait for 2,000 internet communications (1 out, 1 in) to take place, along with all the overhead that involves with your machine, the internet hops, and the Evernote servers.

But don’t take my word for it—grab a copy of Legacy and run your own test. 

If you don’t do bulk actions, as I have said, this doesn’t affect you. If you do bulk actions, then you have some deciding to do whether or not Evernote is still usable for you. 
 

1 hour ago, DTLow said:

That is incorrect    
This entire discussion is full of your incorrect statements

You a question and it was answered   
Time to close this discussion and move on

Worthless to me. In case you were confused, I was asking for MY needs.  

I was not--and this will be a big surprise--not asking for YOUR needs. 

The ONLY solution I have found FOR MY NEEDS is to have the same database running in two different database programs. The HTML files are as almost as worthless as webpage bookmarks. 

Notice the title of the post?

"I need..."

Me. MY needs. Not yours. 

2 hours ago, DTLow said:

You've changed the parameters to backing up the Evernote app

Right. Because the only non-proprietary format is.. worthless.

2 minutes ago, welcro said:

And you can do that in one go??,
i hope you found a better way than one notebook at the time, because that's completely hopeless!! 

Well, you could grab a group of nested notebooks, in which case you wind up with ONE final notebook

Otherwise, no. 

4 hours ago, DTLow said:

You're ignoring data backup with the export/html option; it's not proprietary

For my purposes, it is also not very useful. 

Having 900 HTML files is about as much a "database" as having 900 bookmarks in chrome. 

Part of the problem is WHERE I get my data, and WHAT I do with it. I normally find information on the Web, and pull it into my database, adding tags to help sort out WHY it was important to me. Oftentimes, something will have 3-4 tags. When I want all files on "Group X Spending Patterns" I simply go in and look at those tags, winnowing down as need (age group, religious background, college education) and that is my pool of 20-30 records to look at.

With an HTML format, the tags are still in there, but being inside the files themselves, as you say, I need to run some kind of search pattern to find the tags as text inside. Then... Then I need to cross-index them somehow. 

And that is where it all stops. 

The tags while in Evernote are useful. When they are exported from Evernote into HTML files, they become.. I can't figure out how to use them.

So... another database program that will preserve the tags as tags is pretty much the only thing I can think of that will preserve tags in a useful format.

And in trying to resolve the problem, I have come to the conclusion that the options of 1.) .ENEX format, which is designed for the purpose of pulling back into an Evernote (at least compatible) database program, and 2.) HTML files.. Are pretty much all the realistic options for exporting. It is just the nature of the beast because tags are kind of unique to some database programs. You can't make Notepad care about  all the Word embedded codes because, frankly, Notepad doesn't do the same things Word does. Word can import all its data, but it is the job of the OTHER program to interpret those codes.