Evernote for Windows 6.5 Beta 1

[Chantal Leonard 213]

Hi everyone,

Today we're releasing version 6.5 Beta 1 - you can download it here. This release addresses a few key pain points and contains lots of under the hood work. The changes we've done around resource handling are pretty significant so we're keen to know if you experience any issues adding images, or other content to notes.  

Thanks,

Chantal and the rest of the Windows team! 

Evernote for Windows 6.5 Beta Notes

Improved:

• Improved handling of large resources on 32-bit systems.

Fixed:

• An intermittent error syncing when connecting to a business account for the first time.
• Issues with the printing of notes with tables.

 

 

[Sugeeth Krish 474]

@Chantal Leonard BUG IN OCR DETECTION

Hi Chantal and the Evernote team, there is a bug in the OCR detection.

When a search word is typed, the windows client is able to show only the first instance of the search word. Subsequent instances of the search word within the same note are not reflected. 

Please have a look at this problem, and an easy way of tracking multiple OCR hits of the search word within the same note. Thanks. 

 

 

 

[André 58]

The new version works pretty well on my Windows 10 systems (one W7, too).

Finally, the application is responsive as one would expect. There's almost no waiting left for Not Responding or just a spinning cursor, as has been the case for years.

Thanks a lot for the improvements!

 

[André 58]

23 hours ago, André said:

The new version works pretty well on my Windows 10 systems (one W7, too).

Finally, the application is responsive as one would expect. There's almost no waiting left for Not Responding or just a spinning cursor, as has been the case for years.

Thanks a lot for the improvements!

 

After using it a bit longer, there's certainly a big improvement in responsiveness, but the Not Responding periods are still not gone completely. In particular, while editing a text note, the editor often stops reacting after typing just one word. It may display the Not Responding message or not. Is there some indexing process going on that stops interaction?

[gazumped 11,656]

I've got 'instant sync' switched off (see image) which might help...

[CalS 5,280]

4 hours ago, gazumped said:

I've got 'instant sync' switched off (see image) which might help...

My experience with instant sync is that it only engages after you leave the note.  You may be able to see for yourself by editing a note in list view with the sync column visible.  When you exit the note an asterisk appears.  

I have also noted a slow down if you have instant sync on and do a mass change of some sort.  So in that case I turn it off and back on.  But in "my normal" use I haven't seen any slow downs with instant sync.  YMMV.

[WeCanLearnAnything 100]

On 12/9/2016 at 3:18 PM, Chantal Leonard said:

...

Evernote for Windows 6.5 Beta Notes

Improved:

• Improved handling of large resources on 32-bit systems.

Fixed:

• An intermittent error syncing when connecting to a business account for the first time.
• Issues with the printing of notes with tables.

 

 

I'm happy that Evernote is emphasizing fixing features rather than adding features. IMHO, this is the right direction.

But it may be too little too late for me. I decided to give Evernote until December 31, 2016 to fix its major editor bugs before switching note-taking programs, with the intention of coming back after the editor's basic features just work. It sounds like there is no chance of those features working any time soon and I'm out of patience with respect to Evernote's many years of: super buggy tables, random cursor leaps, unusable printing, unreliable scrolling, random font size changes/settings, unreliable copy/paste, unreliable backspace/delete, etc.

I'll miss Evernote's excellent tagging, but I'm purging persistently unreliable technology from my life which means Evernote has got to go.

Every December, as long as Evernote exists, I'll check these forums and download the most recent version of the program to see if the editor warrants switching back. I'll also be happy to receive anybody's private messages through this forum to let me know when the editor is worth trying again.

If anybody has any suggestions for Evernote alternatives, please PM me. I'll be making the switch over the next couple of weeks.

Goodbye for now!

[Krunoslav 197]

The bug that was introduced in the last update is still not fixed. Please fix it. The bug in question is that when you get to the end of the note and you click enter to create more space or rows for writing, it does not scroll automatically. This used to work, until the last update than it became broke. Still hasn't been fixed and has been reported at least few times. Please fix it. Thank you.

[gustavgi 308]

I just realized that you could drag tags from the tag picker to the note, to add the tag to the note. Would it be possible to add this function to the Ctrl+Q search window, as this would be super helpful when you are in a single note window and would partly solve the match-by-prefix problem when adding tags the regular way?

[gazumped 11,656]

OK,  here I am again...  just found what appears to be a bug.  I have a series of notes about different topics,  which link out to various web resources using the standard http://www... syntax.  I set up an index page for these notes which I intended to populate with public links so that I could email out the index note link and leave folks to fend for themselves from there.  So the deal is:

• Index Page
  • link 1
  • link 2
  • link 3 etc...

I copied the public link from the first note* and pasted it into my table (Ctrl+K),  then went back for the second note link.  When I pasted that into the index,  I noted that the first link had gone.  I went back to copy the first link again - this time with Ctrl+/ - checked that I had the correct link and went back to my table.  The second link was now gone.

I clicked away from the index note and back,  and sure enough all the pasted links were gone again.

Not sure what's going on here,  but I don't seem able to save these links in my note.  I'll try again tomorrow,  with less stuff running on my laptop.

* right-click note title > Share > Modify Sharing > Enable Public Link.  Gives a link in the format http://www.evernote.com/l/AAJizLYe3FRCbq22_............................/     (that's no longer a valid link,  obviously...)

 

EDIT:  Update::

OK so I restarted - no change.  Then I retyped the visible link I had created and added a URL as before.  The links I pasted from the ToC are light green,  but had their URL's removed,  so all that was left was standard text with an applied color.  Adding the public URL just added an underline in the same color.

My new links are standard text with no formatting at all - standard black / underlined blue.  And they now work perfectly,  and are safe from syncing and switching views.  Very odd. 

[gustavgi 308]

The keyboard shortcut for copying a note link Ctrl+Alt+L haven't found it's way into single note view.

[pfm1040 2]

I have it running on a Windows 10 also and find the Sync very responsive over previous years.

[jefito 5,589]

29 minutes ago, gazumped said:

Edit: ...and it just occurred to me to have a look on the web,  though I've tidied up the notes and updated the correct one,  and of course "Evernote is not available right now,  please call again later..."

Bad day to buy a lottery ticket, gaz...  

[chirmer 567]

Super sorry if this is already mentioned, but I've got two minutes to post this and go do something and I don't want to forget. 

I highlighted a bunch of stuff in the current Mac client and the highlights don't show in the Windows one. They show on iOS. I've synced and closed/opened a million times. Highlights were done days ago.

[N. Lum 12]

I really wish that you all will finally update the Windows version as you have with the IOS version.  It's been two months since there has been a meaningful update.

[jefito 5,589]

13 hours ago, N. Lum said:

I really wish that you all will finally update the Windows version as you have with the IOS version.  It's been two months since there has been a meaningful update.

Uh, they already did: 

 

[N. Lum 12]

On 2/10/2017 at 2:23 PM, jefito said:

Uh, they already did: 

 

I did, also.  I really don't notice any major changes to this version, though.

I, also don't want you to make the update like with the IOS.  I have an iPad and it is taking a long time to recall notes and get it to respond the way that I want.  It is really ridiculous to use Evernote on my iPad.

[jefito 5,589]

23 hours ago, N. Lum said:

I did, also.  I really don't notice any major changes to this version, though.

I'm guessing that on-demand syncing wasn't a trivial change. It's not a big deal for me, but hopefully it will help folks who are space-challenged on their devices, like laptops with small SSDs, who do exist out there.

23 hours ago, N. Lum said:

I, also don't want you to make the update like with the IOS.  I have an iPad and it is taking a long time to recall notes and get it to respond the way that I want.  It is really ridiculous to use Evernote on my iPad.

If the "you" means me, I am not an Evernote employee. The Windows and iOS development teams are wholly separate, as far as I know, and the platform use cases and requirements are pretty different too. I'm not going to get all worried about stuff like that in advance of any possible change that hasn't actually happened, and if something objectionable about a particular release comes out, well, that's what betas are for -- to help weed out issues that the development team may not have foreseen. It's not a guarantee that everything will be beautiful or a big UI change is reversed, of course, but it's at least an opportunity to give feedback before things go out to everyone.

[macintacos 0]

Such a small, small issue that I have, but here goes:

I wish that the interface for quick search was nicer on the Windows application, bringing it more in-line with the Mac's "Switch To..." interface.

Also on the Mac, the shortcut is "CMD+J" for quick search/swtich, which makes sense since I think og J for Jumping to somewhere else, but on windows it's "CTRL+Q", which to be honest makes no sense and kills me when I'm context switching--I always forget that shortcut on Windows because I avoid that shortcut on the Mac as much as possible (since I think of "CMD+Q", which = Quit the application on the Mac).

In general, an interface refresh for quick searching would be much appreciated, and the ability to modify keyboard shortcuts for everything would be awesome. Just my 2cents.

[EdH 1,670]

On 3/24/2017 at 9:17 AM, macintacos said:

Such a small, small issue that I have, but here goes:

I wish that the interface for quick search was nicer on the Windows application, bringing it more in-line with the Mac's "Switch To..." interface.

Also on the Mac, the shortcut is "CMD+J" for quick search/swtich, which makes sense since I think og J for Jumping to somewhere else, but on windows it's "CTRL+Q", which to be honest makes no sense and kills me when I'm context switching--I always forget that shortcut on Windows because I avoid that shortcut on the Mac as much as possible (since I think of "CMD+Q", which = Quit the application on the Mac).

In general, an interface refresh for quick searching would be much appreciated, and the ability to modify keyboard shortcuts for everything would be awesome. Just my 2cents.

I hate the Windows CTRL+Q shortcut, exactly for the reasons you stated. I refuse to use it because one day I'll use it on my mac and abruptly exit an app. I know the shortcut on the Mac is CMD+Q, but CMD is the Mac equiv of CTRL, not the mac CTRL key.

Not sure why it cannot be CTRL-J on Windows too. J for Jump, Q for Quit.

[CalS 5,280]

7 hours ago, EdH said:

I hate the Windows CTRL+Q shortcut, exactly for the reasons you stated. I refuse to use it because one day I'll use it on my mac and abruptly exit an app. I know the shortcut on the Mac is CMD+Q, but CMD is the Mac equiv of CTRL, not the mac CTRL key.

Not sure why it cannot be CTRL-J on Windows too. J for Jump, Q for Quit.

God awful workaround, but create a hotkey using Ctrl-J that executes a Ctrl-Q in Windows.  Just tried with PhraseExpress and you can't tell the difference.  FWIW.

[dconnet 529]

On 3/25/2017 at 2:08 PM, EdH said:

Not sure why it cannot be CTRL-J on Windows too.

Ctrl+J is already in use - Justify (paragraph alignment)

[CalS 5,280]

11 minutes ago, dconnet said:

Ctrl+J is already in use - Justify (paragraph alignment)

Can one assume you have to be in the note body in the paragraph for it to have an effect?  IAC, I'd hate to see the table you have to keep to rationalize all these shortcuts across platforms!  

[EdH 1,670]

45 minutes ago, dconnet said:

Ctrl+J is already in use - Justify (paragraph alignment)

then what is it on the Mac? CTRL-%?

There is no reason they cannot be largely consistent across their platforms. You'd think there was a Windows team and a Mac team, and they aren't allowed to talk to each other or use the other's products.

Reminds me of how Microsoft used to do Office for Windows vs Office for Mac before they got religion and began a serious harmonization of the product lines for the 2016 product launches back in 2015.

[chirmer 567]

I thought maybe this update would fix the poor performance of GIFs in Evernote (which has coincided, perhaps, with the move to Google's cloud), but nope. Sigh. They used to perform flawlessly, but for a few months now they've been incredibly laggy and viewing a note with a GIF in it locks up Evernote.

Actually, in the time I've taken to write this post, I've noticed they perform arguably worse. Most don't even load now. DOUBLE SIGH.

Also putting my quarterly begging request in for fixes to shared tags. Please. Please please please. the Mac client DOES NOT have this issue, so I know it's possible. Please guys. This almost physically hurts to use.

[Liam Gretton 86]

If you can find time to fix the problem with printing tables, why can't you fix the main issue with printing which has been going on for years unaddressed? I see with no surprise that print rendering is still appalling in this new release.

[gazumped 11,656]

Thanks guys - I know there will be complaints about the different things you 'should have' fixed while tinkering around with the works,  and gripes about whatever's still wrong with it - but I for one am grateful you're continually looking into improving resource handling and large resources and generally making an essential app (for me,  anyway) better than ever...

[spahn 0]

Thanks for the work. However, I have several issues:

Saving pictures from a note

• When I want to save all pictures at once (I click Save attachments), nothing happens. (It worked before the upgrade.)
• When I want to save pictures one by one, It works, but.. The first picture is saved, the second one wants to save with the same name "Image" and overlays the previous one. I have to type another name. I wish it worked like the first one is "Image", the second one "Image (2)" etc. or so, like with files in explorer in Windows.
• I wish you added - when saving pictures a window of Windows Explorer appears. It would be useful it remembered the last used file.

Cursor jumps to the beginning of the note title

• When the cursor is in the note title and I switch the window to another application and return, the cursor jumps to the beginning of the note title.

Thanks

[HerbyDE 101]

Oh - now there is a shortcut for intern links on bord - STRG+Alt+L = "evernote://..." So great for macros! Thank you!!! (And maybe a little icon for this feature in the future? :-) )

[gustavgi 308]

1 hour ago, HerbyDE said:

Oh - now there is a shortcut for intern links on bord - STRG+Alt+L = "evernote://..." So great for macros! Thank you!!! (And maybe a little icon for this feature in the future? :-) )

Yes, great addition! (Ctrl+Alt+L for non-german keyboards)

[gustavgi 308]

Also you guys added auto re-sort to the left panel when renaming. Small change but that has been annoying forever, so thanks! 

[gazumped 11,656]

Hmmn.  I think I found one bug - I'm putting together a list of events in 2017,  using the 'created date' of my note to sort them into order.  I have a template for the note layout,  which I set to 31 December 2020 for the created date,  thinking that would sort it to the top of my list and always visible.  However,  see the dates below.  Whichever way I sort by created date,  2020 somehow arrives in the middle of my list,  not at the top or the bottom.  I set the preferences for this view to sort by created,  and I've synced the database in case there's an index to update;  but this is where I stand.  Other dates are sorted OK,  why not this one?  EDIT:  OK the dates aren't sorting properly...weird. 

[ccollins0822 5]

Ink note scrolling was fixed in 6.3, broken in 6.4, and @emerick said it would be fixed in 6.5 in the discussion below, but it does not seem to be fixed in this beta...

 

[EdH 1,670]

On 12/9/2016 at 3:18 PM, Chantal Leonard said:

Improved handling of large resources on 32-bit systems.

Is there a 64 bit version in the works? I am not sure how many people, if any really, still have 32 bit platforms. Evernote is the only 32bit app I use on my Mac and one of the only 32bit apps on my Win10 machine.

 

Also, there is an editor glitch.

• Go to a new note
• open it in a new window
• create a list
• enter stuff until you get to the bottom.
• When you press ENTER at the bottom, EN will go to the next row and enter the next bullet/number, but it will not show you that new row until you type a keystroke.

It should scroll to show this new row when you press enter.

 

Oh, actually you don't have to be doing a list. Just typing and pressing enter will cause this. The cursor will vanish below the visible window until you hit a keystroke. 

[GiacomoLaw 134]

Any fixes for this?

 

[gazumped 11,656]

Reference my date sorting problem,  I logged out of Evernote and back in,  and the sort is now correct.  Much better to have that in real time as notes are edited though - keeps things in the correct order...

[EdH 1,670]

Ok @gazumped, I just tested EN Web and iOS. Deliberate conflict. The Note was modified, no "Conflicting Changes" notebook was created.

But the note has BOTH changes in it with a box that says "Conflicting modification on December blah blah blah" followed by one of the differences.

On Windows (not sure about mac, need to test at home) the conflicting changes notebook is an offline notebook, which the web and iOS cannot create. so maybe if the Win client is involved in the conflict, the Win client handles the conflict resolution. But of both clients are online only (like iOS and web) it has always been handled this way, and you just stumbled upon it.

I've been using EN for nearly 14 years and I've never seen this before, but I almost never use 2 online clients at once. it is always Win/Mac, and then one of the online clients.

[Wilkster 1]

I found one bug in the 6.5 Beta 1 on Windows. One use I have for evernote is for saving excel file attachments to move to different computers. Previously, when a file attachment was downloaded to the computer from a note (RMB Save as...), and a targe file with the same name existed, you were prompted to overwrite the file. With the beta, the file is blindly overwritten. Not sure if this is intentional but I like to be prompted if I am overwriting a file.

[gustavgi 308]

4 hours ago, gazumped said:

Reference my date sorting problem,  I logged out of Evernote and back in,  and the sort is now correct.  Much better to have that in real time as notes are edited though - keeps things in the correct order...

Could it be that you have unchecked "Search when note is updated" in Options? This applies to all changes to a note. You have to refresh the current search parameters if you want to do a reorder after the changes even though the new info is displayed in the note list.

[gazumped 11,656]

You Sir,  are a steely-eyed coding man.  I had unchecked that box - now corrected:  will play more later and see if that was the issue!

Edit.  In fact I just did and things are fine now.  Thanks for your help!

[Don Dz 165]

I installed the 6.5.1 beta, then working on Evernote windows became unbearably slow, particularly with a 900k text only note (I use almost no graphics at all in almost all my notes), the hourglass symbol would freeze for between 30 seconds to a minute sometimes.  The problem went away after returning to version 6.4.2.3788, though it still freezes for 1 or 2 seconds sometimes (simply switching between this very large note and the regular sized notes, more on searches) but at least 1 or 2 seconds or even 3 is bearable.

Would be nice if returning to a previous version could be more automated, Evernotes forces you to do a manual uninstall first if the version you are trying to install is older.

Oh, and I use the 64 bit version in Windows 10, with 16 gig of memory and a 6 core processor, if that matters.

[fchandler 30]

On 12/11/2016 at 3:22 PM, ccollins0822 said:

Ink note scrolling was fixed in 6.3, broken in 6.4, and @emerick said it would be fixed in 6.5 in the discussion below, but it does not seem to be fixed in this beta...

 

Same here, disappointed Ink Note scrolling issue not fixed as of yet. Hopefully very soon.

[gazumped 11,656]

Wow.  Some changes I wish Evernote would document fully,  because this just caused me much confusion.  It's related to both the Windows and the Android clients,  so I'll post a link in that forum pointing back here.  I just had a situation.

As I frequently do,  on 12 Dec I documented a process with my Android Note 4 Camera - in this case replacing my old HP laptop's hard drive for the zillionth time.  When the 3 pics synced to my desktop,  I edited them (14 Dec) - cropped them down and resized them to a standard 680p width (neat freak here) and left the note to sync back to my phone.

Unbeknownst to me,  my phone dropped off the local wifi after the original sync - it's been doing that a lot lately,  so much so that I've disabled my mobile data connection to avoid wasting the limit on routine updates,  syncs and email - and maybe to persuade the little hunkojunk to stay on wifi.  It didn't work. 

When I opened the note a day or so later I saw the uncropped photos.  Knowing the original was dated 12 Dec and the latest changes were 14 Dec,  I decided the changes would overwrite the original,  so I made sure the phone was connected to wifi and started a sync.

So when I came to add comments to my pictures on the phone a little time later,  I looked down the picture thumbnails again,  found the note and saw it was still the 'old' version with a panel that now said said "Note Conflict - a conflicting change happened".  And "View the original note?".  Heck yes.

Yep,  the 'original note' view is what I want.  Now how do I delete the other one?  No obvious option in the 'original note' menu - switch back to 'phone' (uncropped) version - Nope,  no option there either.  WTF?

OK now to the desktop - let's see my 'Conflicting Changes' notebook.  Darn!  I don't have one? - Maybe on the 'phone only? - No,  not there either.  So where are these two notes stored then?  I can see the uncropped 'old' one,  but not the one I cropped.  There are only three pictures,  and I could re-do the work - but the Principle man,  the Principle!!

Back to the desktop.  Search for HP hard drive.  Oh look:  I have TWO notes - one is "Replacing the HP hard drive. Again." and the other is "Note conflict Replacing the HP hard drive. Again."  The created dates are different,  and the titles are different,  so the two aren't side by side unless searched for. 

Thanks Evernote.  Another blood pressure excursion put to rest. 

So.  TL:DR?

1. If you dumped confllcting changes notebooks in place of flagging it with title changes,  please tell us.
2. Please explain how my 12 December picture note got a conflict with a 14 Dec change.
3. If you flag conflicting changes on mobiles,  maybe link between the two notes?  Or have a delete button for one of them?  I couldn't even find the 'other' note apart from your handy little "see note no 1 - see note no 2" see-saw.
4. When you flag note conflicts on the mobile don't just give us a way to switch between two notes without giving any explanation

And. 

Pic 1 is the screen I got when opening the mobile app; 

pic 2 is what you get when you tap 'view original' and

pic 3 is the menu with no new options and 'save' greyed out.  How do I choose which note to use?

[EdH 1,670]

1 hour ago, gazumped said:

If you dumped confllcting changes notebooks in place of flagging it with title changes,  please tell us.

I am not sure what is going on . I just deliberately caused a conflict with this Windows beta and the iOS app store version, and I got the "Conflicting Changes" notebook back with the conflicted note. Nothing new that I can tell.

[gazumped 11,656]

Hmmn.  I'm on the Android Beta,  so maybe there's a different process either for Android or for the beta. 

[EdH 1,670]

12 minutes ago, gazumped said:

Hmmn.  I'm on the Android Beta,  so maybe there's a different process either for Android or for the beta.

That would suck. I just tested it again with this Win beta and the iOS beta. Same thing. Conflicting Changes notebook was created on my PC.

[gazumped 11,656]

Weird.  It was the phone sync that caused the problem - latest note was on the laptop / original note on the phone.  Since I whinged about it,  it occurred to me that in 'looking at' the note on the phone,  I may have given it a more up to date timestamp than the note on the laptop,  though there were no real changes apart from the laptop having the same picture files as the phone,  with minor size differences where I cropped the pic.  When I checked both laptop and phone there were no 'conflicting' folders,  just two separate notes.

Edit: ...and it just occurred to me to have a look on the web,  though I've tidied up the notes and updated the correct one,  and of course "Evernote is not available right now,  please call again later..."