(Archived) The Death of Evernote 2.2 Features

[jttpost 0]

More responses from Dave Engberg:

viewtopic.php?f=30&t=6039&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=25#p22461

Everyone, I would suggest you definitely read the entire Crisis in Confidence thread.

There is a suddenly a lot of dialogue over there.

[wsp 11]

His latest response is sweetly reasonable (just be patient, he says, we're working on it), but I still don't understand you can reconcile his reassurances with the jaunty remarks of the CEO:

But, he [Liben] says, his company realizes that most people don't want to tag, categorize, annotate, or otherwise file their notes. They just want to jam information into a bin and be able to find it later. "I'm happy with the lazy slob market," he said.

It certainly doesn't sound as though Phil Liben envisions a resurrection of the EN 2.2. features. I think he and Dave Engberg need to talk to each other so that they're both conveying the same message to users.

[engberg 89]

While I hesitate to speak for Phil (he's a lot better at it than I am ... you can hear an extended discussion with John Udell here: http://blog.jonudell.net/2008/04/07/a-c ... new-memex/) ...

Phil wasn't saying that we want "lazy slobs" instead of organized people, he was saying that we want to offer tools for both people who like to organize-and-find and people who just want to dump-and-search.

While it's clear that the Evernote Beta does not (yet) include all of the advanced organizational features of 2.2, he was speaking to the majority of people who have never read a GTD book and never bothered to install a desktop note-taking app before. I.e. "Give it a shot ... you don't have to spend 2 hours a day organizing your data if you don't want to."

Once they get their toes wet with simple stuff like pictures from camera phones and browser-based web clipping, they can gradually discover and use the advanced organizational tools as their pool of notes grows. (Rather than starting with a pile of organizational metaphors first.)

[ThomasStraten 0]

PLOP !!!!

Dengberg......what is this......

Once they get their toes wet with simple stuff like pictures from camera phones and browser-based web clipping

EVEN WITH THAT you need some tagging-labeling

How many photos do you have with a legible text in it???? They will do it three times and stop!!! (Unless they loved to be remembered and look for "Esso-Shell-Mc Donald and are exactly placed where the text can be seen) And wasting 2MB or 359 KB on a beverage ticket or a diner bill just to have it show slowly on the web? Its best to write a note on the phone!!!!

They will need tags for their pictures.

The browsing of the WEB: believe me.... after loosing info because your search word is not in the text or because the text is related to an author not mentionned, or....most of the cases, they will use tags. (BECAUSE WE DON'T NEED UNORGANIZED MEMORY...it is helpless.... just read about cognition, memory etc......

Now if the tags of Beta 3 remain what they are, they don't need much effort to master them....(nothing to learn really). And the beauty of EN 2.2.1 was that the learning curve was incredibly smooth and the support of this forum incredible....so your quote there is not that accurate! There are no

pile of organizational metaphors

. PLain simple.

But they will use beta 3 as crazy for a while....that is for sure and I grant you that.....What comes next? Who knows but I wouldn't bet they will stick to EN the way we guys from 1.5, 2.1, 2.2.1 did.... And perhaps lots of EN users are keeping just some simple templates or expenses, todos and notes...nothing else... But they can do it! And organize it all the way up to PhD kindof work if they want to.

Because its 2.2.1 that should get on the WEB (and local)...but its a lot of TIME (and money).

I'll still wait.....and test.......and wait........and wait.......and test.....and.......a.......

[Toodle 0]

The browsing of the WEB: believe me.... after loosing info because your search word is not in the text or because the text is related to an author not mentionned, or....most of the cases, they will use tags. (BECAUSE WE DON'T NEED UNORGANIZED MEMORY...it is helpless.... just read about cognition, memory etc......

I'm not sure you can really say most people would use tags or that tags are required for browsing the web. Google seems to be doing quite well for itself using the search paradigm. There's a reason that the category-based listing of early Yahoo (et al) days fell under the sheer volume of info on the web.

That said, I sure would love to see auto-tagging and the ability to properly organize our tags and searches implemented ASAP in Evernote 3b!

[ThomasStraten 0]

Toodle says

Google seems to be doing quite well for itself using the search paradigm

But you have the History, you use your favorites (and keep them organized I suppose....) etc.... (way of keeping your "memory"), you keep links in some documents of yours.... etc...

Search in Google is basic, to say the least, but Google makes a good job in the way it presents the findings. But most of the time I need to use 4, 5 words, mix "+", "-", """" to get closer to what I need

Obviously if you want a search like "Time magazine", it will bring it immediately....

But try the relevant articles or documents on consciousness or mind or mental in Xavier Zubiri or an author that writes about him in the last two years....hmmmmmm maybe with a AND and an OR, or where do I put the AND???? Do I use "-" to avoid the place near ggg in spain where there is a Zubiri village (or restaurant)???

or do I be very Zen and begin to have a look to lots of pages and when I found one I KEEP THE EXERPT SOMEWHERE or the link or the whole document...

(I used InfoHandler, Netsnippets (discontinued), and now EN 1.5, up to 2.2.1 and I cannot live without it!

Tom

[Conductor 0]

Remember when Palm was a big company? All kinds of pda's for different users. Now unless you want a smprt phone you can count palm out. I like tagging. I also need encryption that I can turst. Onenote gave me that, but at 99 bucks on sale a little pricy. I think evernote should give a basic 3.0 for a fair price for the non power users, and a pro version will all the bells from 2.2 for the power users. I have said it before, make a program I like and I will pay the price. I know one thing, in this business if you wait too long to put out a great product, some one else will, and there goes the customer base.

[cpedley 0]

Really alarmed by this thread. I had always assumed EN3 would have (at least) everything EN2 had, but the developers just hadn't got there yet. The syncing functionality in 3 is a godsend but at the expense of the so called 'high end features'? Throwing the baby out with the bathwater is indeed the perfect expression here. As it currently stands, EN3 doesn't offer much over Google Notebook, which is really disappointing.

Changing the term "categories" to "tags" is fair enough and very trendy, but why ditch the very useful and usable icons? This is a reactive change to current trends that is a backward step rather than a true usability enhancement.

Why ditch templates? I see absolutely no reason for that.

Finally, why ditch note links? These are/were incredibly useful.

I agree Charles. I have 3 beta sitting there but don't use it because I don't see an extension to put in either Firefox or IE so you can highlight and click the Evernote button and have it copied to Evernote.

Also I love the templates as you do. I think I may burn a cd today with my paid 2.2 version so I can reinstall 2.2 any time I like.

Still don't quite see where there is an improvement with 3. I think they should merge the two as others have said.

[treaclepie 0]

Hi, having been a user of EverNote I am really disappointed to learn that templates (and the template design tool) won't make it into version 3. I'm sure there are other things I'll notice, but as I can't access the program fully (for not having received an invitation yet), I can't really assess this. I've long been looking forward with great anticipation that EverNote will one day be fully speech compatible but after reading this thread, I'm now somewhat doubtful. I sincerely hope that EverNote reconsiders the path it appears to now be taking - with these sorts of fundamental changes, it's quite likely I will have to switch to another more user-friendly product. I have always recognised EverNote's potential but I'm afraid, with my particular needs, this is a backward step I cannot ignore, or hope to work around.

Have EverNote missed a trick here? If they want to go down the server route, why not keep the existing EverNote as it is and develop as originally planned, while building a new product (under a different name perhaps)? For those of us who don't need server access, we'll get a product that better meets our needs, while those who do want server access will get something more akin to their needs - or set the server access as an add-on tool/option/module to the existing EverNote base program. If I might say so, the current development does seem quite a deviation from the original. I wonder what effect this could have on your future business if current customers know that in future you might remove the rug from under their feet again - I think there may be an issue of integrity here.

And why closing the forum to people who simply want to read - why do I now have to log in each time I want to check on progress?

[Toodle 0]

Hi, having been a user of EverNote I am really disappointed to learn that templates (and the template design tool) won't make it into version 3. ...

In response to this, and as others have said, please read the Crisis of Confidence (http://forum.evernote.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=6039&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=25) thread where issues like this have been addressed. Specifically, dengberg, the CTO, posted this:

We don't have a secret list of 2.2 features that we will never implement in any way ... our intent is to support all of the same operations in 3.0 eventually. The way each requirement is met may change from 2.2 to 3.0 in the same way that the toolbars in MS Office 2007 look different than Office 2003. We haven't figured out exactly how to do each feature correctly yet, and there's no way I can promise that you'll prefer the 3.0 implementation (in the same way that MS can't promise you'll like their new Office toolbars better than their old).

Random example feature: templates.

2.2 templates are [for a] non-portable, non-standard Windows executables. This mechanism will never work on the web, or the Mac, etc. The original requirement is important to us, however: a way to create notes in a standard format without recreating that layout from scratch every time you make a new note. We intend to implement this requirement, but want to make sure we do it right so that your notes will look correct when you sync them to the web and the Mac, etc. So, questions & answers for this sample feature:

Are templates implemented in the current beta release? No.

Do we intend to implement note templates? Yes.

Will they be 100% identical to 2.2 note templates? I don't think so.

How will they be implemented? I don't completely know yet ... we need to do more research, usability design, and prototyping to know exactly how to offer this feature in a standard, portable way.

When will it be implemented in 3.0? I don't know yet ... we don't know exactly how it will be implemented, and we're working through a very long list of things to do, so it would be foolish for me to pick a date for this.

Templates are critical to me, should I start using the EN3 beta today instead of EN2.2? No.

(These answers are basically the same for every other unimplemented 2.2 feature.)

Hope that helps...

Maybe this thread can be killed off now!

[treaclepie 0]

Well thanks for that, it does answer my questions.

But it also raises another point, that perhaps if EverNote had communicated this clearly when they released the EverNote 3 beta version, we would all be making the right choices depending on our needs - i.e. existing data compatibility, templating issues etc and not scarpering off to another product due to being slightly mislead, which I'm sure wouldn't help EverNote's consumer base stats. I can now wait for the official release knowing that EverNote will implement these features and until such time, stick with the existing 2.2. I also get the impression that the development timeline for this latest version is going to be quite long, so again communicating this clearly on the main EverNote 3 beta product pages would have been a good idea - if it's there and I've missed it, my apologies. Like a lot of people here, I am invested in EverNote's development from a user's point of view, and I'm sure vice versa applies.

I have now recieved my invitation, so one of my first aims will be to test it out using voice rcognition as I've found it a bit limited (and ocassionally physically painful) to work with in 2.2. I'll report back in the forums about it in due course. But I'm keeping my fingers crossed, all of them!!!

[ThomasStraten 0]

Apparently Dengberg said

We haven't figured out exactly how to do each feature correctly yet

Ouchy!!!! Bad feeling!!!!

Tom

[ThomasStraten 0]

And when Dengberg says

MS can't promise you'll like their new Office toolbars better than their old)

it is falacious. The Office (old and new) is working!

The fact we like its appearance or not is irrelevant......Office MUST work..period!

[melchioe 0]

I'm curious as to how that is fallacious. dengberg was using office (old and new) for illustrative purposes - both the old and new versions of Office are (theoretically) fully functional. Comparisons and analogies are slippery at best. EN3 is still in beta, and the features are not yet fully implemented. I'm extremely curious how they will be implemented, but the fact that the features are not yet implemented in an early beta does not, in my mind, make the comparison fallacious. Nor does it give me an ouchy feeling that they do not have fully fleshed out details themselves on how particular features will be implemented. That's what I call development.

A general comment (that has been made before) is that while this is being called a beta, and is extraordinarily stable compared to other betas I've seen, this process is more analogous to a series of point releases than many betas. The word 'beta' is used by a number of people in this forum in clearly different ways. We're using the word itself as a tool, perhaps unwisely when we don't all agree on the meaning. Other development efforts I've seen in other products would have this labeled an alpha project. I say let's see what happens rather than arguing more about it. YMMV.

My $0.02.

-e-

[ThomasStraten 0]

Dear Melchioe

you said

I'm curious as to how that is fallacious

Simple and logically correct.

Dengberg says

The way each requirement is met may change from 2.2 to 3.0 in the same way that the toolbars in MS Office 2007 look different than Office 2003. We haven't figured out exactly how to do each feature correctly yet, and there's no way I can promise that you'll prefer the 3.0 implementation (in the same way that MS can't promise you'll like their new Office toolbars better than their old).

He is comparing "requirement" (functionality of the system) to "esthetic look" (toolbars LOOK different)

and a little further

"the 3.0 IMPLEMENTATION" (again speaking about the SYSTEM and how it works), versus "you'll like their new Office toolbars than their old" (personal esthetic apreciation).

You cannot compare the functionality and performance of your 2006 Chevy with the beauty or wether you like the new "look" of the Chevy 2008......two completely and unrelated things which lead to a perfectly defined falacy (in logic)

I know we are in Beta, I am actively participating in the testing and have sent quite a few notices of glitches and bugs. I am waiting the two months. And I wish the best for Beta3. But I won't accept explanations that are misleading or falacious (perhaps unwillingly) or bad analogies that are meant to, i guess, calm down our expectations and perhaps our disappointment.

As I said in my earlier post, i do not understand the design of a system that has to be "thought again, see how we will implement it, etc...

When Dengberg says, relative to templates (essential feature in 2.2.1)

we need to do more research, usability design, and prototyping to know exactly how to offer this feature in a standard, portable way.

it does mean to me that they are working against good design and programming habits... It had to be thought well and then simply design the system, releasing the Beta without them to give us a try, but having it prefectly clear where, how and when the templates were going to be released in the next Beta, on all and every version..... that is good design and practice!

Best regards

Tom

[J-Mac 19]

I'm not sure you can really say most people would use tags or that tags are required for browsing the web. Google seems to be doing quite well for itself using the search paradigm. There's a reason that the category-based listing of early Yahoo (et al) days fell under the sheer volume of info on the web.

Toodle,

But you couldn't search on Google without tags! How do you think Google manages to index the pages it shows in results? From the search tags - called keywords - coded into every web page. Those keywords are placed there just so people can search and find relevant pages.

Of course tagging is used for web browsing; you'd be hard pressed to do it without any tags.

Jim

[shimra 14]

A general comment (that has been made before) is that while this is being called a beta, and is extraordinarily stable compared to other betas I've seen,

-e-

This is not my experience, the Evernote windows client crashes on my PC all the time. It used to take XP down with it, but that seems to have stopped recently (even though, oddly enough, I don't recall a recent client update).

[ThomasStraten 0]

Shimra says

the Evernote windows client crashes on my PC all the time. It used to take XP down with it

I guess you have some problems with your computer, specially if behavior gets suddenly better. Just in case, make sure you have XP SP2, actualized, virus and pests checked (updated)...

I have XP SP2 and had no problem of crashing at all (and less taking XP with the crash). It seem your problem might be elsewhere and, only perhaps, EN could provoque a crash but due to other completely different problem (or program). Might be a DLL or Api corrupted call, etc....

Let us know.

Tom

[dormouse 3]

you couldn't search on Google without tags! How do you think Google manages to index the pages it shows in results? From the search tags - called keywords - coded into every web page.

I don't think that is the whole story. I don't have keywords on any of my pages, but Google has no problems in finding the pages from the content.

[J-Mac 19]

you couldn't search on Google without tags! How do you think Google manages to index the pages it shows in results? From the search tags - called keywords - coded into every web page.

I don't think that is the whole story. I don't have keywords on any of my pages, but Google has no problems in finding the pages from the content.

The major search engines claim not to use them heavily anymore, and they are wighted lightly for initial indexing. However once a site is known to be "trusted", and it is established that it is not a spam site using meta words to draw viewers, then the meta keywords on those sites again become one of the most heavily weighted factors.

According to Google, anyway...

Jim

[engberg 89]

This thread is on its way to a sixth page, and it looks like the topics are all over the place. I'm locking it, but feel free to start new threads to continue any of these topics (search rankings, tagging, Win32 crashing, etc.).