Evernote for Windows 6.5 Beta 2 Released

[Chantal Leonard 106]

Today we're releasing version 6.5 Beta 2 - you can download it here. We're excited to announce two new features.

• Shared view: can now quickly browse all notes you've received via Work Chat from the "Shared" section in the left panel.

 

• On demand sync: an option if you want note content to be downloaded only when you see the note in the note list. This is ideal for users with many thousands of notes who want to save some disk space. You can enable this by checking the "Enable on demand sync" option under Tools>Options>Synchronization. If you do not check this option, Evernote will download all the notes content in advance. 

 

In addition we've fixed many bugs between Beta 1 & Beta 2. We continue to work on stability and fixed 4 crashes and addressed a few localization issues. Let us know what you think about the above capabilities and if you spot any issues. 

Thanks,

Chantal and the rest of the Windows team! 

Evernote for Windows 6.5 Beta Notes

New:

• Easily browse notes and notebooks you've received via Work Chat from the "Shared" section in the left panel.
• Choose to only download recently and frequently used notes using on demand sync by checking the "Enable on demand sync" option under Tools>Options>Synchronization.

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.

[GiacomoLaw 118]

7 hours ago, Chantal Leonard said:

Easily browse notes and notebooks you've received via Work Chat from the "Shared" section in the left panel.

This is awesome! If the work chat is deleted, can I still access the notes? 

Thanks for the awesome work!

[gazumped 5,579]

On demand sync should make a lot of users very happy!  Thanks!

[DTLow 1,976]

4 hours ago, gazumped said:

On demand sync should make a lot of users very happy!

Demand sync certainly caught my interest; the description reads On demand sync: an option if you want note content to be downloaded only when you see the note in the note list.

Can someone add more detail to this

[gazumped 5,579]

Yeah - just getting my head around the idea that I have 30,000 notes already in my database.  Obviously the majority of those won't be frequent flyers.  What's the effect of my ticking the option now?  Will the disk size of my database go down,  or will only new notes be affected...?

[GiacomoLaw 118]

Is there an option to hide/unhide the shared notes block? Some people may want to hide it.

[Rob van Vliet 13]

Can the icon for "shared" remain in the sidebar when it is collapsed ("hidden")?

[jefito 4,099]

4 hours ago, gazumped said:

What's the effect of my ticking the option now?

Obviously it's too late for you...  

[DTLow 1,976]

21 hours ago, jefito said:

Obviously it's too late for you...  

How about deleting and letting the app rebuild your database?  To anyone trying this be warned the rebuild does not include Local Notebooks or unsynced notes

I'm thinking you may never look at many of your ancient notes

Each year, do the rebuild again

I'm really excited about this.  

If only I had a Windows device to play with  
However this gives me hope the feature will make it to the other platforms

[gazumped 5,579]

30 minutes ago, DTLow said:

How about deleting and letting the app rebuild your database?

Interesting... and a nice workaround.  I'm thinking I might try this on my 'backup' laptop first though.  (Travelling at the moment so it'll be a few days...)

[s2sailor 539]

17 hours ago, Chantal Leonard said:

On demand sync: an option if you want note content to be downloaded only when you see the note in the note list.

Would really like to understand this one better.  Specifically, what determines if a note will be downloaded or not?  Once it is downloaded, does it stay for good or is it removed after some duration of inactivity or other criteria?

[Austin G 110]

7 hours ago, DTLow said:

Can someone add more detail to this

When on demand sync is enabled, only the meta data of the note is initially downloaded (titles, tags, etc.). As you select the notebooks on the left panel, the notes that appear in the note list will "request" to download the remaining content (note text, attachments, snippet thumbnail image, etc). If you open a note that has not been downloaded, that note's request for content will take priority over other pending requests. 

The goal is to decrease the time of the initial sync and only give you the notes you need at the time you need them.

7 hours ago, gazumped said:

What's the effect of my ticking the option now?

I'm waiting for additional clarification on how it will affect a fully downloaded DB. There was no change in my exb file size after enabling it, so my assumption is that it will only affect newly downloaded DBs, but I'll wait to confirm that. 

 As @DTLow mentioned, you can enable the option and rebuild your DB to try it out. 

[pepr 9]

I can't customize my note toolbar, thus, i want to drag "reminder" but there is no location where it let me put the icon...

[gazumped 5,579]

13 hours ago, pepr said:

I can't customize my note toolbar, thus, i want to drag "reminder" but there is no location where it let me put the icon...

Try dropping the icon very close to the " i " on the menu bar.  There's a very narrow window in which to drop new icons.

[JohnLongney 46]

Anybody else pleased with the latest beta? Me, I am delighted.  

When it comes to using my 10 "Win10 baby the on demand sync option is the solution.  Well done, Evernote staff!  

Now, once you get around to fixing the web part of Evernote  ?

 

[jefito 4,099]

19 hours ago, Austin G said:

I'm waiting for additional clarification on how it will affect a fully downloaded DB. There was no change in my exb file size after enabling it, so my assumption is that it will only affect newly downloaded DBs, but I'll wait to confirm that. 

Makes perfect sense; you already have all of your content downloaded, so no change. New content that's added (via web clipping, web client, shared account, etc.) will probably be subject to the on demand sync rule, if it's enabled.

[JMichaelTX 3,562]

On 2/9/2017 at 11:30 PM, Chantal Leonard said:

On demand sync: an option if you want note content to be downloaded only when you see the note in the note list. This is ideal for users with many thousands of notes who want to save some disk space. You can enable this by checking the "Enable on demand sync" option under Tools>Options>Synchronization. If you do not check this option, Evernote will download all the notes content in advance. 

This is a great option.  However, many of us have been asking (for years) for a "Selective Sync" option^[1] for the EN desktop apps that work much like the EN mobile app "Offline Notebooks".

Use Case for Selective Sync / Offline Notebooks for EN Desktop Apps

• Allows the user to download all Notes in a NB (in one action) that can be accessed without an Internet connection.
• Needed for laptops with small hard drives, or with low available disk space
• Would be ideal for laptops used for travel, where you expect Internet access to be limited.
• Using the "On Demand Sync" is NOT practical to download all Notes in a NB, if the NB has hundreds or more Notes.

Since you have already developed a type of selective sync, I would hope that simply adding a UI option to download an entire NB would be relatively easy to implement at this point.

Thanks for considering this, and please make all of this apply to both EN Win and EN Mac.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Footnotes/References:

1. Threads Requesting Selective Sync

• Selective Notebook Sync, Asked by csbrown, April 25, 2011 , 165 replies
• Please support selectively sync notebooks!, Asked by Hongbo-Miao, December 13, 2015, 63 repies

 

[AndyDent 63]

This raises questions about how Search is affected. 

1. Is searching currently implemented doing local searches on Windows?
2. Will server-side searching be used for notes you haven't downloaded?

The see the note in the note list criteria is a bit vague.

Does see equate to just the note title being visible in search results? If so, I think this needs a bit of refining or de-bouncing. Often I will do a search, realise it is either wrong or too broad, and do another one. The combination of doing many broad searches is likely to download a lot o notes, which I am not interested in reading.

[jefito 4,099]

On 2/12/2017 at 1:21 AM, AndyDent said:

The see the note in the note list criteria is a bit vague.

Most likely means that, as with the mobile apps, the note metadata is downloaded so that in whatever list type you prefer (snippet, list, card, etc.), the note can be displayed in that list (which would include search results). Then if you click on a note, you may incur a download of its content, if it's not already present on your device. 

Clarification on the local-vs-server search would be good; I'm pretty sure that Evernote maintains a local index to facilitate search-as-you-type; you'd hope that that doesn't depend on roundtripping to the service for the index parts for non-downloaded notes.

I'm guessing that the selective-sync squadron aren't going to be as thrilled about the on-demand sync as if they had the ability to control things themselves.

[GiacomoLaw 118]

On 10/02/2017 at 9:57 PM, DTLow said:

If only I had a Windows device to play with  

And there I am wishing I had a Mac 

[csihilling 2,463]

On 2/10/2017 at 9:53 AM, gazumped said:

Yeah - just getting my head around the idea that I have 30,000 notes already in my database.  Obviously the majority of those won't be frequent flyers.  What's the effect of my ticking the option now?  Will the disk size of my database go down,  or will only new notes be affected...?

I guess I'm wondering if you have enough disk space why would you ever use this option on a PC?  

1. You have to wait to see the note when you select it, not bad for small notes, but a 25MB PDF could have a small lag.  
2. When you don't have an internet connection how do you know what notes are fully available and what are not?  
3. Once the note syncs does it stay synced or does space free up across time (I don't see an unsync everything option)?  
4. Sounds like eventually you end up in the same place, all notes downloaded.  
5. Selective sync I thought was always about never downloading the note content.  Different problem solved here.
6. EDIT:  per @gazumped below, how to get a complete backup of one's notes.

Or am I just missing it, as usual.  

Edited February 14 by csihilling
Add point from Gaz

[gazumped 5,579]

I have a couple of laptops with terabyte hard drives and my database is a puny 17GB as near as darn it.  I was initially tempted to try this sync thingy out on the backup laptop,  but the attraction of two laptops - one's the 'office' workhorse and the other is a carry-around that isn't quite such a hunk of junk - is that my backup laptop also backs up the database.  I keep backup copies anyways (paranoia is a wonderful thing) but by definition the backup laptop isn't in use when the main one is,  so I always have a second copy of my notes handy just in case...  although  it may be a little out of date.

For all the reasons you quote* I didn't eventually go there however - if I want to archive a chunk of database I'll export it or start another account or some such.  I'm still not clear on how (or whether) the new deal is actually a step forward.  Guess we'll find out from user comments in due course...

* and there's one more - if I don't download all my notes,  how can I get a complete backup?  They're my notes,  my precious notes... 

[csihilling 2,463]

13 minutes ago, gazumped said:

* and there's one more - if I don't download all my notes,  how can I get a complete backup?  They're my notes,  my precious notes... 

But they are on the server.    

Seriously, a complete personal backup to protect against the dumb a$$ attack of accidentally deleting notes is an excellent catch, thanks.

[tavor 252]

1 hour ago, csihilling said:

I guess I'm wondering if you have enough disk space why would you ever use this option on a PC?  

Wondering the same thing. Even a relatively large EN database is tiny by modern disk size standards. On demand sync is useful on a phone or tablet, sure, but scratching my head as to how this would be useful for 99.9% of Windows app users.

[DTLow 1,976]

10 minutes ago, tavor said:

On demand sync is useful on a phone or tablet, sure, but scratching my head as to how this would be useful for 99.9% of Windows app users.

You should post in the Selective Sync discussion; it might generate some feedback  

Seriously, some user's have SSD drives which are significatly smaller than traditional drives.

 

[tavor 252]

36 minutes ago, DTLow said:

You should post in the Selective Sync discussion; it might generate some feedback  

Seriously, some user's have SSD drives which are significatly smaller than traditional drives.

 

Sure, I get that. But even if you have a 128 GB SSD, you'd need a EN database several GB in size for this to be remotely practical, and I'd venture that less than 1% of EN users have, say, a 5GB+ database.

If we're building out features for such tiny segments of the userbase, how about full boolean search? I'd bet that even in this thread, there are more users who could make practical use of full boolean search than they could of on demand sync on their desktop.

But maybe I'm wrong about the size of average EN user databases and maybe EN attracts hoarders (the type whose homes have narrow pathways between the stacks of clutter and whose plumbing doesn't even work) who feel the need to capture everything they see on the internet into their EN database.