WeCanLearnAnything

On 9/1/2019 at 2:49 PM, gazumped said:

Wow - I use a Windows device and I haven't seen any of this!  How lucky are you!!

I have made pictures/videos/posts/twitter messages/etc. about all of those bugs. None of them have gotten fixed. Evernote customer service has even - and I'm not kidding you - lost the videos I've sent them in the past. I've deleted most of the videos since then.

Overall, Evernote employees just say things like "Maybe we'll fix them one day... that whole touch-the-screen-then-Evernote-crashes-bug, well, that's on our backlog. We have other priorities..."

Should I make a bunch of short video clips and post them in these forums to demo the bugs?

On 8/30/2019 at 11:51 AM, PinkElephant said:

...

P.S. And I do not know about bugs 8 years old. Can you specify ?

I wrongly used the word "bug".

What I should have said is "basic functions" have been glitching badly or outright failing for 8+ years. For example, on a Windows device, cursors still leap around weirdly in lists, such as when you press CTRL + RIGHT ARROW while at the very end of a list. Copy/Paste still misses ultra basic things like line breaks and spaces or inserts them unexpectedly or does other weird formatting things. There are tons of posts about this in the forums. Cursors still disappear below the note if you're using tables, horizontal rules, or lists. If I use my touch screen to put the cursor in the note, there will be two blinking cursors, one of which is fake. Evernote tends to crash completely after this. Evernote is an 11-year-old note-taking app and cursors and copy/paste are still unreliable!

Just as important: Evernote's motto is (was?) "Remember everything", yet it has had all kinds of sync and data loss problems for years!

This is nuts! Especially when they've poured resources into logo redesigns and business socks.

I was relieved to hear that the CEO announced fixes rather than new features would be the priority for 2019... But it sounds a lot like previous Evernote CEOs' promises to get the core product working. According to @dcon, there's too much turnover and "shiny new object" syndrome to persevere with such promises.

I expect that, over the next few years, there will be more useless visual redesigns, a bunch of endeavors only tangentially related to note-taking, and then a 4th CEO promise to get the core product working.

Evernote: Please prove me wrong!

3 hours ago, dcon said:

Actually, I think it's the 3rd one. Maybe 4th, in the last 6 years...

I can't tell if you're serious or sarcastic.

If serious, why the heck is Evernote building 4 different common editors and how, exactly, are 8+ year-old bugs surviving all of those versions?

On 9/22/2015 at 4:53 PM, PeeJayTee said:

 

... we hear you and we do care... this is precisely why we're making it a priority to be more responsive.  Beyond that, we will just have to earn your trust by following through.  

Can an Evernote employee please give us an update on this project? This thread was all about a common editor which was started in, I think, 2013, and announced publicly in 2015. Instead of having 5 different editors for 5 different platforms, this common editor would fix a lot of bugs, make for a common experience across platforms, allow basic markdown to become a reality, make it easier to roll out new features and smooth out the kinks, etc.

Now it's 2019 and there is an announcement of - wait for it - a common editor. This will replace the 5 different editors for 5 different platforms, fix a lot of bugs, make for a common experience...

What's going on? Is the 2019 announcement a new, second common editor? Or is it just a bunch of changes to the common editor announced in this thread? What happened to the original 2015 promise of a common editor? Can an Evernote employee comment on the company's follow through?

On a related note:

On 5/23/2016 at 12:25 PM, WeCanLearnAnything said:

... I may be an extreme case, but here is

 

The Evernote Announcement I'd Love to Hear

 

Dear Evernote Users,

For the rest of 2016 and 2017, we will be introducing no new front-end features at all. There will be no new buttons, no new menus, no new interfaces, no new colors, nothing new at all. We will be launching no new products, no new services, no new marketing campaigns, no new branding, no new pricing, nothing of the sort. We are putting all new front-end ideas and feature requests on hold.

Instead, from now until 2018, ALL developers will spend ALL of their time:

1. Deleting underutilized features and
2. Making the remaining features just work. Think bulletproof. Think zero glitches. Think flawless back-end, too.

                   ...

           We're going to make Evernote just work.

Chris O'Neill [as imagined by an Evernote user]

CEO, Evernote

2.5 years after posting my dream/exaggerated announcement [directly above], a CEO of Evernote made my dream announcement come true.

Unfortunately, it sounds similar to Chris O'Neil's promises and Phil Libin's promises.

I'm really hoping that the third promise is the charm, that the CEO really means it this time, and that he will force the company to follow through and make the core product just work.

I'm seeing exactly the same problems. Evernote has struggled with copy/paste for many years, with much documentation in these very forums. I'd say that if you need to copy/paste a lot, then you should consider switching note-taking programs.

The current CEO says he'll make sure the company fixes super basic things like this, but Evernote CEOs have made similar promises in the past... and now it's 2019 and users still cannot rely on copy/paste functions in a note-taking application.

If you'd like to be more proactive about this bug, contact Evernote Support on Twitter.

In 2015, Evernote said they were going to make a common editor which would fix a lot of the ultra basic features and functions, such as typing, cursors, font sizes, etc. Bug fixes and new features would be easy to roll out. I vaguely remember them working on this since 2013, though my memory is hazy.
 

The blog post linked in that thread appears to have, quite ironically, vanished. I guess Evernote doesn't want anyone to remember it?

Now it's 2019 and now this thread appears to represent a second pledge to create a common editor that will fix a lot of the bugs in the basic features... of course prior CEOs have promised to fix bugs and UX weirdness in the past (Phil Libin, Chris O'Neill) and my cursor still jumps around and basic touchscreen functions don't work and tags and fonts and alignment are still wonky. I do greatly appreciate the fixes that have been implemented, though...

Can someone tell me what's going on with respect to:

• What happened to that first common editor project?
• Is this a continuation of that first common editor project or is this really a second common editor?
• Will this pledge from Evernote to fix basic bugs and UX really happen? Or should we expect a similar announcement in 2022 where the CEO says "Yup, we sure need to fix bugs and we will. This time is different. We really mean it this time... But first we're going to work on a superficial brand refresh."

This bug is about 3 years old now, so i don't know if Evernote will ever ACTUALLY fix it, even though the company claims to have fixed it already.

Check out this thread, especially the posts near the end of it.

On 9/7/2018 at 7:35 AM, ScottAG said:

As the title says, using the Windows client the cursor will sometimes randomly jump to the beginning of the note while typing. I have experienced this on three separate machines, all running 6.14.5.7671. This bug has made the program basically unusable.

I have recorded a short video clip of the bug happening and posted it here: https://youtu.be/OjiWbD7w6nE

Evernote staff seems far more responsive to Twitter messages than to this forum. Try contacting them there and hopefully an employee will file a bug report and get back to you.

Evernote on Twitter

Unfortunately, as Dave-in-Decatur said, Evernote frequently allows bugs like this to live for many years. If this is a real show stopper for you, then you should seriously look for another note-taking program instead of waiting for the staff to fix the bug. The company has always spent money on the ultra superficial while telling users to endure these bugs, and the recent past was no exception. I've migrated a lot of my stuff to Simple Note and just plain text files within Dropbox and haven't run into a single bug in those applications, ever. Typing letters, backspace, enter key, cursors, focus, etc. all just work!

11 minutes ago, JerrySNB said:

I've noticed that things have gotten much better over the last year, but there are still some weird little nits.

In the Android app, when you are working on a list of check-marked items, sometimes a new line will be capitalized automatically and sometimes it won't. I haven't figured out the pattern, if there is one.

Some Windows versions, too, have had some improvements (e.g. tables) but many other massive, show-stopping steps backwards as well. For example, I literally cannot type anything into V6.11.

1 hour ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

Over the last year or so, Evernote has been working on redesigning the editor across all platforms (so I have read on posts in these forums). One hopes that ultimately this issue will get addressed in that process. But it may that in fact the older code has been ditched and the new code still hasn't been put completely right. Some updates to the Windows program (paste the ancient, well-functioning version I still use) have changed the pasting functions, but complaints about about formatting issues.

It has been well over a year!

The first public announcement was in September 2015 and they said they had already been working on it for a little under two years. Before that were CEO announcements in 2014 that quality would be a top priority.

So, we're rapidly approaching the fifth year of promises to fix bugs to the extremely basic features, such as not crashing when you open the program or try to type something, copy/paste, and having only one cursor that doesn't jump all over the program, etc.

It's fairly sad to think about how much greater Evernote would be if the company focused more on bug fixes and less on shockingly redundant buttons and branded business socks.

Can someone with a technical background explain to me why such ultra basic features would take 5+ years to fix?

22 hours ago, chezpaul said:

Man, years later, this is still not fixed. Does anyone from Evernote even read this forum or care?

I was going to move my new company to Evernote but we then realized we couldn't copy paste our templates from within Evernote into a web browsers window using zen desk without loosing the formatting. 

We'll try OneNote then.

I'm not a programmer or anything like that, so I can only guess.

And my guess would be that the bugs are baked so deeply into the system that fixing them would risk ruining access and ability to edit billions of notes that were made with the buggy code. Other than that, I cannot think of any reason why Evernote would still struggle so badly with ultra basic features like typing a word and having it appear on the screen, the location of the cursor, copy/pasting plain text, font sizes, blank lines, etc.

On 3/11/2015 at 9:29 AM, gbarry said:

We're regularly improving the web beta experience so I expect table functionality to improve with time. There's no delete/editing options currently within tables on web beta. 

 

For our most up to date article on table functionality, check here: https://evernote.com/contact/support/kb/#!/article/89799088

The quote above is 3 years old today.

What is your take on the last 3 years of table functionality improvements in the web client?

On 9/23/2017 at 2:03 PM, Michael McGhie said:

I'm seeing that there is still no way to delete a simple table here.  This has been going on since 2014 I see.  Well I pay for this and doesn't seem right.  Does anyone know of a more user friendly Note organization app out there

Check out Dropbox Paper and Box Notes.

On 11/27/2017 at 8:32 AM, WeCanLearnAnything said:

You should interpret it as belief they are plenty capable of fixing these bugs... but, for years, have chosen to do other things.

And they are still choosing to do other things. [Gotta move the "New Note" button.]

3 hours ago, prlange22 said:

Thanks for sharing those examples. I have never run into those situations and hope I never do! 

You're welcome.

Now, let's hope an Evernote employee responds...

1 hour ago, CalS said:

Massive irony in your username.  

You should interpret it as belief they are plenty capable of fixing these bugs... but, for years, have chosen to do other things.

On 11/24/2017 at 4:47 PM, prlange22 said:

... If I have a list of check boxes and press enter at the end of the most recent entry in the list, the next checkbox is put in place BUT YOU CANNOT SEE IT because the screen does not scroll down. Really not a BIG deal, but it should not happen.

I have not entered "tables" in Evernote so I have not experienced the issue with the TAB key mentioned by Noteworthy.

 

I made a video of most of the weird cursor behaviors that I've noticed, including the ones with check boxes and tables.

Not sure if I'm allowed to post it in a second thread... if not, I won't be offended if the mods delete it.  

12 minutes ago, WeCanLearnAnything said:

... Evernote Cursor Leap Video.

On 11/19/2017 at 2:47 PM, mikecox39 said:

I am very frustrated by the way EN text jumps around as I  edit notes. 

I appreciate that this has something to do with keeping notes sync'd, which is good, but I find myself slowed down and frustrated when it happens because every time it happens, and it happens every few seconds, I lose my place and have to stop to find it again.

I'm not sure if cursor leaps is what you meant or if you meant actual bodies of text jumping around.

I experience mostly weird cursor leaps. See my Evernote Cursor Leap Video.

Is there a particular event other than synchronization that triggers the problems you mentioned ?

3 hours ago, N Allen said:

I have been told here that this bug is fixed, but I find that it is not fixed in 6.8.1.5382.

Hitting enter on the last line of a scrolling note causes the cursor to disappear offscreen. Only after I type another character does the window scroll.

This may be true only when entering a list of checkboxes.

The cursor also disappears below the screen when you add rows to a table by pressing the TAB key.

After all these years, Evernote still fails to manage cursors properly...

15 hours ago, decon said:

My feedback is specifically on the table editor in the current version of the binary client (using mac and win). It lacks options for styling (proper!), easily selection of rows and columns like in spreadsheet software, and tables needs to be editable on Android mobile app. It is currently an awful and stressful experience working with tables in Evernote. Please let me know if I'm missing something - if so, I'm sorry for providing ignorent feedback.

The Android mobile app can't edit tables at all?!?! I guess that's not so surprising given that the browser version of Evernote can't add or remove rows or columns. Then again, I thought there was supposed to be a Common Editor now. Too bad core features are neither common nor functional across platforms yet.

Suggestion: Do not use Evernote for tables! Use Google Docs or Libre Office or something like that instead.

8 hours ago, jefito said:

...

None of the above is to suggest that bugs shouldn't go unfixed; they should if feasible. But you don't just wave your wand and bugs go away as if by magic. It can take time.

 

I think 5+ years is plenty of time for a note-taking program to make backspace work.

8 hours ago, jefito said:

Um, I think that a lot of people who complain about "bloat" are just overstating it or don't understand how programs are actually used (not that I know how David Pogue feels about it). My take is that many programs have multiple uses and while everyone may use the same core 10-20% of the application all the time,  each individual user may use only some percentage of the rest of the features. But different users use different segments outside the core. So for example, in MS Word, a program that I use reasonably frequently, and is one that's often cited as being "bloated", everyone uses the basic formatting functionality, but I might use its Review capabilities a lot (to take a top-level menu item), but never use Mail Merge (another top-level menu item). Mail Merge isn't at all useful to me, but I'd never call it "bloat", since I know that it's extremely useful to a significant number other MS Word users. Not everyone has the same use cases.

In Evernote's case, a lot of the most recently added features that I've seen in the Windows client are ones that have been requested fairly often here on the forums (and elsewhere, since the forums are not the only way of communicating with Evernote). Notebook-specific view/sorting? Check (plus you do the same based on tag or saved search). Hierarchical tag search? check. Dark theme? Semi-check (I think this is a work in progress). I may or may not use these, but I don't call them bloat.

Perhaps there are a lot of people buying Evernote business socks and lots of people using WorkChat and lots of people using Presentation mode, but I would bet that there are far more people who use tables and need undo to just work. If Evernote has statistics on this stuff, I'm all ears. 

On 10/29/2016 at 1:24 PM, jefito said:

As a company, you want to show that you're adding features with some degree of regularity, even if you're not able to solve the tough ones quickly (if they were easy to fix, don't you think that they'd have dome it by now?). Otherwise you look completely moribund. So we've been getting a pretty good stream of nice-to-haves (mainly popularly requested features). Hopefully they'll crack the hard ones some time soon but those can take time.

How much time is reasonable? Many of the basic bugs I've been mentioning have been around for 5+ years. Isn't that an unreasonably long time, whether they are easy or hard to fix? For how many more years will Evernote employees pledge and fail to fix them?

As for adding features, I'm with David Pogue: For years, most of the added features are more bloating than useful.

15 hours ago, netstepinc said:

Whew...fortunately for you Microsoft products are bug free. Please report back.

EN function I use daily is Thunderbird email to note with #tags and specific @notebook.
I use it to stash confirmations, receipts and BCC messages I'd like to keep track of outside of email.
I use three different email accounts and frequently designate tags and notebook in the subject line.
I don't think OneNote is as flexible in this case. I also almost always clip the simplified view from Firefox so EN saves the text but not the whole web page. I can see OneNote has some great features now...but pro/con like anything else.

I don't use or need any email-related features. I just need the editor to not horribly ***** up tables, backspace, font, undo, copy/paste, etc.

If there are a ton of bugs in OneNote, I'll probably switch to Google Drive/Docs.  Maybe even SimpleNote, or Google Keep which don't even have rich text formatting.  I'm more interested in products that work rather than products that have lots of features that reduce reliability.

2 hours ago, jefito said:

Don't kid yourself, no non-trivial program is bug-free. I'll grant you that Evernote's editing has some quirks and glitches that aren't helpful -- and should absolutely be addressed -- but I use it daily, and it works for me. Anyhow, the trip to OneNote for many is not bound to be trouble-free; you first need to get your notes in there, and its architecture is not really conducive to that, see, e.g., http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/evernote-better-onenote/. I myself tried recently to import my 6000-odd note database into OneNote, and it was a disaster. The folks who wrote the OneNote importer totally mishandled Evernote tags, among other things. It was not "bug-free"..

I expect to have around ~200 notes. If the importer doesn't work, I can move the notes manually.

On 10/12/2016 at 4:59 PM, gazumped said:

While all this impassioned debate is fascinating,  the fact remains that Evernote is not a democracy.  The company alone will decide to develop what features it chooses,  and fix those bugs it can address,  at its own speed.

Yup. And when it comes to fixing formatting bugs, that speed is very slow. How many bugs from ~2009 are still around? How many promises of higher quality have they all survived?

On 10/12/2016 at 4:59 PM, gazumped said:

... The only powers that customers have to show their approval - or otherwise - is to pay and support the company,  downgrade to a lower subscription,  or vote with their metaphorical feet and use some other software. 

The company will see the effect in its figures,  and if there's enough movement to cause concern,  it will either do something about it - or their competition will swoop on more customers,  and maybe the entire company.

Yup. That's why I'm planning to switch to OneNote in early 2017 unless these formatting bugs get fixed. The Common Editor was supposed to fix them - I thought that was the whole point - but it didn't. Amazingly, it preserved them. And plenty of features, nearly all of which strike me as way less important than functioning backspace, have been added over time since then.

For example, I just downloaded a recent Evernote update. I am now able to change the left-side of my screen to a dark background. This, apparently, was a high priority. I cannot, however, rely on CTRL+Z or BACKSPACE. That must be a lower priority.

Evernote is as busy as ever allocating resources to "left-panel theme" options while those resources could have gone into bug fixes. This is not the kind of product management I want as a big part of my life. 

OneNote, here I come!