New Version Changes

[secolburn 5]

Just wanted to say a big THANK YOU to the Evernote Development Team for the best new build, ever, of an already great application!  I updated my version this morning and have been happily playing with all the new features.  Well done!

-Steve Colburn

[gazumped 11,652]

...but which new version - iOS / Windows / Mac / Android ???

Sorry - just read the tag.  Windows,  uh - always good to make pro or con comments in the release thread:

It's usually referenced on the main Forum page - and I'm sure the team like to get positive feedback! 

[DTLow 5,736]

28 minutes ago, secolburn said:

Just wanted to say a big THANK YOU to the Evernote Development Team

Nice to see a positive post.

I also appreciate the work of the Development team.  The apps are getting better over time as features are developed and bugs are fixed

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

9 hours ago, DTLow said:

The apps are getting better over time as features are developed and bugs are fixed

That has not been my observation with Evernote Mac, and certainly not with Evernote iOS.  But don't take my word for it, just review the many bug reports in EN Mac 7 Release thread, and in EN Mac 6.14 Beta threads.

I'm still running Evernote 6.11.1 (455059) on macOS 10.12.6 because of the many new bugs in all releases since then.

But then I'm an Evernote old-timer.  I still remember the days of yesteryear when I never hesitated to update to the latest version of Evernote, and that included the Beta versions.  Those days are long, long, gone.

There are many, many people calling for Evernote to revert EN iOS 8.x to the last stable Version 7.

[DTLow 5,736]

15 hours ago, JMichaelTX said:

I'm still running Evernote 6.11.1 (455059) on macOS 10.12.6 because of the many new bugs in all releases since then.

Not upgrading, or even downgrading works for me.

Yes, there are bugs,  and the bugs and features differ in importance for users.  And sometimes you have to take the bad with the good.

I downgraded from the latest version (beta) and am waiting for an Applescript bug to be fixed.  I'm confident the developers will resolve this issue in future releases.

[s2sailor 2,184]

15 hours ago, JMichaelTX said:

But then I'm an Evernote old-timer.  I still remember the days of yesteryear when I never hesitated to update to the latest version of Evernote, and that included the Beta versions.  Those days are long, long, gone.

That about sums it up for me as well.

I use to be excited to try new beta versions to see what enhancements or new features were being added.  Now I cross my fingers when loading a new (public only now) version and hope that nothing important to me breaks.

14 hours ago, DTLow said:

Not upgrading, or even downgrading works for me.

I agree that is a valid approach when considering the beta versions, but one should never have to be concerned with an upgrade breaking function, or removing function, which does seem to be the norm lately.  Defects always escape but we are seeing way more than we should with Evernote.

[DTLow 5,736]

16 hours ago, JMichaelTX said:

I still remember the days of yesteryear when I never hesitated to update to the latest version of Evernote, and that included the Beta versions.  Those days are long, long, gone.

 

57 minutes ago, s2sailor said:

one should never have to be concerned with an upgrade breaking function, or removing function, which does seem to be the norm lately.

I also wish upgrades were bug free, and have my desired features; but it is what it is.  

I'm cautious about upgrades, and pick and chose what software versions to run on my devices.

If wishes were horses, all men would ride.

[s2sailor 2,184]

1 hour ago, DTLow said:

I also wish upgrades were bug free, and have my desired features; but it is what it is.

Bug free would be nice but I'm just asking for upgrades not to be one step forward and two steps back ... and many times it is really hard to even find the one step forward.

[TK0047 422]

Always good to see a positive post, especially if a developer is reading these (which we know some do). It would be a tough job for me if I am only hearing the bad all the time. 

I think we all demand perfection from anything tech related these days as if everything we do at our jobs or in our daily lives are SO PERFECT! It is a very unrealistic demand. 

Like Louis CK's bit about the guy on the airplane who was pissed off about the WIFI being shut down although he did not even know about it until 5 minutes prior. We automatically feel entitled when it comes to tech. I know we pay for the service etc. but it will never get perfect. Although, I do hope for less bugs and more features that have been requested here for years such as dark theme etc.

Happy Monday everybody !

[s2sailor 2,184]

3 hours ago, TK0047 said:

I think we all demand perfection from anything tech related these days as if everything we do at our jobs or in our daily lives are SO PERFECT! It is a very unrealistic demand. 

If you are reading my comments above as a request for perfection, then you are very mistaken.  Evernote can and should do a better job with their releases.

[TK0047 422]

1 hour ago, s2sailor said:

If you are reading my comments above as a request for perfection, then you are very mistaken.  Evernote can and should do a better job with their releases.

I wasn't. I was talking about the general comments and how we all sometimes look like we are demanding perfection. That was it. There is always some feature someone will want or complain about something missing etc. That was my point.

[JackiB 0]

On 3/19/2018 at 3:12 PM, TK0047 said:

I wasn't. I was talking about the general comments and how we all sometimes look like we are demanding perfection. That was it. There is always some feature someone will want or complain about something missing etc. That was my point.

I'm not demanding perfection but I hardly call it an "improved" when there are new features and gone are some very useful ones that I bet didn't have complaints. I can't center my tables anymore, the "options" button is gone from the tool tab or at least I can't find it in the new version. I can't print preview my notes, can't set the font/size or preferences I had in the old one. The title now is the actual note when its much better separated to organize the notes themselves. If these things are available please let me know, because it isn't user friendly nor is the help when asking about these features

[TK0047 422]

2 hours ago, JackiB said:

I'm not demanding perfection but I hardly call it an "improved" when there are new features and gone are some very useful ones that I bet didn't have complaints. I can't center my tables anymore, the "options" button is gone from the tool tab or at least I can't find it in the new version. I can't print preview my notes, can't set the font/size or preferences I had in the old one. The title now is the actual note when its much better separated to organize the notes themselves. If these things are available please let me know, because it isn't user friendly nor is the help when asking about these features

I hear ya. I am not a fan of V10 at all. What you quoted above was from my post in 2018.

V10 wasn’t even a possibility back then. Those were the good times....before the dark times.....before the empire (some Star Wars reference for non-fans)

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

I think the design team for the Mac has made a beautiful app with some interesting features that I am seeing for the first time. For example, there is a new feature link in the sidebar (sorry, working with Japanese version, so not sure what the precise English wording is) that brings up helpful mini videos showing how things work. I imagine this will be helpful in the days to come. The feedback button at the bottom is also convenient, though... if Evernote was listening to the feedback (at least, my feedback), they wouldn't have gone in this direction, or made a public release of a half-baked app.

PROBLEMS

I say half-baked because, as of this moment, I cannot view my notes at all (must be some indexing going on in the background--I have several thousand and lots of gigabytes). Literally. It is basically a blank screen where my notes should be. For a brief time, while I could view the content of just one note and see a list of the others in the middle pane, the shortcuts were empty, and I could only select fifty notes at time. Given these limitations, even if I could see my notes, I guess it wouldn't do me much good. I think it is fair to say without exaggeration that I went from 100% to 0% productivity after installing the app. I doubt this is the experience they wanted me to have. My guess is that they had in mind someone with fewer notes, less data, and no need to select more than a handful of notes at a time (to create note links, export, etc.). And, it is slow (at least, at the moment). It may be a wonderful experience for these users.

FEEDBACK

The thing is, for at least a decade now, I've been asking Evernote (especially with major releases) to be very careful about suddenly (without notice) removing features, and to release something with as few bugs as possible.  It seems obvious, but I think it bears repeating. Again, we seem to be circling back to the philosophy of throwing something out there and working on it as we go along. That doesn't fit my productivity model. I suppose it is a useful way to generate and test new features (something I have also said is not high on my list of priorities). What is the team planning to leave abandoned? What is the team planning to add back into the app? It'd be nice to know. In my opinion, if we are talking about existing features, it seems fair to expect a roadmap for them to be implemented, or some warning that they are now obsolete.

FEEDBACK vs FUTURE DIRECTION

It's the app we have, though, not necessarily the app we want. I'm a premium user, and despite the bugs (for example, a long-standing iOS problem losing focus on the last note opened if you navigate by note links somewhere and then close the app), and the lack of interest in the improvements I've suggested (for example, encrypted notebooks), I've been satisfied.  I'll probably just re-install the legacy version for a while. I am afraid that if this is the shape of things to come, though, it is difficult to see a way forward with my workflow. I need to be able to select more than 50 notes. That's really a deal-breaker, I'm afraid. Surely, that has occurred to the designers, so it'd be nice to know if / when this is going to be possible to use again. I don't remember anyone complaining about wanting to be able to select fewer notes, have fewer (no?) options in the toolbar, etc., so I don't know why time was spent removing features. I do hope that the design team's priorities will shift from the new features (that new link I mentioned, for example) to the "old" stuff that I actually need to get stuff done. Rather than tell me how those fancy new features are supposed to work, I'd prefer to have an app that actually does work.

RECOMMENDATION

Thanks to the other users on the list, I was well aware of the potential problems, I made extra backups, and I have another computer on hand. I'm OK. But, I think the fact that I had to be prepared this way says a lot about the state of what has been released as a "public" version, and I went through this experience in order to see what we are in for this year. Again, I commend the design team on creating something really nice looking, but I strongly recommend they consider productivity, especially for "power" and paying "premium" users. If this was an app I barely used or cared about, it might not matter, but I thought the point of this app was to make it part of my workflow. I know you are all certainly busy, but I suggest thinking about this "return to productivity" in terms of hours or days rather than weeks or months. 

* Why this thread? Well, it's from 2018, and it reflects the positivity that some users feel, the frustration that others feel, and the general trend by long-time users to avoid the problems in Evernote's releases. Unfortunately, Evernote has not fixed their problem with half-baked releases (there have been interface overhauls, code overhauls, etc. before as well). It is worth noting (or even "Evernoting") that many other apps, including some of their competitors, do not roll out releases like this, especially with major feature deprecations, omissions, or major bugs. In other words, releases don't have to be done this way, and releasing things half-baked undermines the hard work and innovation designers are trying to put into the app.

*UDATE

- Well, the good news is that I can see my notes now. That certainly helps productivity. Apparently, the app needed to be closed and opened again. I'll stick with it if / until I run into something insurmountable. For the moment, though, I can enjoy this experience again.

There are some things to like in here (now that I can see my notes). The layout of the style options is fine, though there must be a way to change the font somewhere, right? Or, am I restricted to a single font--it's unclear if this is a feature (nothing), a missing feature (to be added later), or just my failure to locate something obvious. The Mac shortcut doesn't work either. On the plus side, pasting in an internal note link and then writing something on the next line does not carry over the green color (a bug in the previous version), so this is a welcome improvement. A new bug (surely not a feature) is that scrolling quickly blanks out the list of notes. That's not helpful. 

Anyhow, the app works for me now. That's a start. @other users: be ready for some teething issues such as the ones I experienced above, but the new app is definitely worth a try. @ developers: keep up the good work, but please be more careful with (overly) sensitive folks like myself when rolling it out, and please take a look at the comments below.

- Things I'd like to see changed/added/returned: (1) more sort options for the list in the middle pane--are we going to lose all of them and be restricted to a paltry three? I can display the size of notes, but cannot sort them ascending or descending according to size; (2) the ability to resize the panes better, because when the window is smaller, I can apparently not increase the size of the middle pane beyond a certain point; (3) encrypted notebooks (I had to ask); (4) local notebooks (is this coming back or are we abandoning any attempt at all to make this workplace / sensitive information friendly?); (5) the nagging--I keep getting a popup of new features again, and again, and again; (6) default notebooks for note creation--is that not a thing we can do anymore?; (7) the ability to force a sync--this is really irritating not knowing if stuff is synced or not (many releases of new versions require us to request that this be added in, so can you please just leave it there, because it is needed); (8) the ability to select all notes; (9) the ability to export all notes; (10) a way to clear the searches (one app in ios just puts this as a "clear all history" option in the settings--you may not need it, but I do, because I need to display my screen to others).

- Things I'd like to see you keep: (1) the ability to resize the window to any size--finally, I can make it smaller than the old minimums (a quarter or so of my macbook's screen); (2) The ability to shrink that left sidebar--looking good

[s2sailor 2,184]

14 hours ago, GrumpyMonkey said:

(4) local notebooks (is this coming back or are we abandoning any attempt at all to make this workplace / sensitive information friendly?)

This one is on the list of items that are not returning.

https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/360047889234-What-s-new-in-Evernote-for-Windows

This was a major one for me since I keep all work related notes in local notebooks.

14 hours ago, GrumpyMonkey said:

(3) encrypted notebooks

No mention, though Ian has alluded to some big new features in the next several months.  My fingers are crossed this may be one of them, but I'm prepared for disappointment.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

3 hours ago, s2sailor said:

This one is on the list of items that are not returning.

https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/360047889234-What-s-new-in-Evernote-for-Windows

This was a major one for me since I keep all work related notes in local notebooks.

No mention, though Ian has alluded to some big new features in the next several months.  My fingers are crossed this may be one of them, but I'm prepared for disappointment.

That’s helpful. Thanks!

I will probably be able to get by with the app, but I’d trade any of the nice improvements that make them “excited” for the stuff that got lost in the “streamlining.” I guess I’m not as enthusiastic than they are about it, because (like many users) I’ve been enjoying the app for years. If I wanted a new “experience” I would have used a different app. A “better” experience wouldn’t involve giving up things that worked really well for me, or things I need to get stuff done.

No local notebooks may be a deal breaker. There was a complaint about that back in the day from one of the previous ceo’s, as I recall, so local notebooks have probably been a headache for a while on the development side. But, there is a reason people use them, and failing to address that need isn’t a solution, in my opinion. Hence, the encrypted notebook request.

No sync button is pretty irritating. Evernote has always designed their apps as if sync “just works,” but in the real world, it doesn’t work like that with any app by any company. Even Dropbox, which is basically all about sync, has issues. There are work arounds to figure it out, like checking the app on another device, but why get rid of it? We’ve been over this ground again, and again, and again.

Presentation mode has been on its way out for a while. Irritating, but OK. Context was pretty cool, but there seems to have been a lack of enthusiasm for a while, and they were peeling off partners (Nikkei, for example), so this is no surprise. I liked it, but it wasn’t a critical feature for me.

I don’t see fonts on that list. I think these are a critical feature for me, so without those, I’ll have trouble continuing with the app. 

I assume the ability to select 50+ notes will come back. Without that, I can’t see a way forward. 

I’m sure there are more good and bad things I’ll encounter as we go along. I suppose this sounds like an ultimatum, but from my perspective, I can’t really imagine even getting started with an app in this category (productivity, notes, personal information manager), much less paying for one, that doesn’t have font control or the ability to select content. This seems rather basic for 2020.

[s2sailor 2,184]

25 minutes ago, GrumpyMonkey said:

No local notebooks may be a deal breaker. There was a complaint about that back in the day from one of the previous ceo’s, as I recall, so local notebooks have probably been a headache for a while on the development side. But, there is a reason people use them, and failing to address that need isn’t a solution, in my opinion. Hence, the encrypted notebook request.

Yes, it will be for me at work.  I'm not a fan of OneNote but we use Office 365.  I've started migrating notes over to check it out.  I prefer EN but OneNote will be ok for work if they pull the legacy version and don't add encryption.  Either way I will likely stay with EN for home use.  If I do end up moving away from it for work, the question then is will I continue to pay for premium.  I renew in April.  I'll see how v10 progresses and then decide.

[ddanubian 0]

No print preview in V10? Really?!!? Can't change fonts, preferences are gone. EN metadata might appear when you print a PDF. This is a lot to want a premium customer to suddenly deal with. Any work arounds?  

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

On 10/17/2020 at 6:58 AM, GrumpyMonkey said:

I will probably be able to get by with the app, but I’d trade any of the nice improvements that make them “excited” for the stuff that got lost in the “streamlining.” I guess I’m not as enthusiastic than they are about it, because (like many users) I’ve been enjoying the app for years. If I wanted a new “experience” I would have used a different app. A “better” experience wouldn’t involve giving up things that worked really well for me, or things I need to get stuff done...

Quoting myself a couple of times to clarify what is happening. I "upgraded," found the experience of the current version 10 incompatible with my workflow, downgraded, and have now encountered an irritating bug in the "new" legacy version (7.4.1). Although the new version is disappointing (for me), I had been pleased to see that they kept a legacy version around in order to help us make the transition, but that was before I discovered the legacy app was going to impact my workflow as well. It's nothing critical, but given the circumstances, not really worth enduring, especially when other apps that accomplish the same task are just a click away for me. This will be the second day in a row (since "upgrading") of me shifting the bulk of my daily work to another app (insert name of Evernote competitor here).

I won't say I'm leaving, because that would be silly. I've been around for 12 years now, and it's something I've always found more or less useful (depending on the state of the service, which fluctuates over time). I don't really have much patience for a legacy app that is already losing functionality, though, or a new app that is missing a lot of important features, not to mention many that have been abandoned completely. It's difficult to see how the path Evernote is on right now will produce a better experience (at least for me), so I have little incentive to keep trudging along with the legacy app. The developers who have poured so much effort into the app can take some comfort in the fact that I'm probably just an edge case and not representative of the experience the vast majority of users are having. Let's hope that the app improves and that this re-invigorates the brand, even if they may have to slough off a few of us edge cases to get there.

[PinkElephant 8,077]

To go back to legacy:

Completely uninstall the v10-app. Use the app AppCleaner, check all items down the list. This will remove EN data as well.

Do a reinstall using the version from the EN web site, make sure it has got all permissions (important under Catalina). Open the EN app, log in and wait until it has downloaded the data from the server. This will take a while, make sure you are on a good internet connection. 

If v10 is not really cleaned out, part of it may remain and block functions of the legacy installation.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

59 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

To go back to legacy:

Completely uninstall the v10-app. Use the app AppCleaner, check all items down the list. This will remove EN data as well.

Do a reinstall using the version from the EN web site, make sure it has got all permissions (important under Catalina). Open the EN app, log in and wait until it has downloaded the data from the server. This will take a while, make sure you are on a good internet connection. 

If v10 is not really cleaned out, part of it may remain and block functions of the legacy installation.

Thanks. I did completely get rid of version 10, as far as I can tell (after scouring my drive, searches for hidden files and so forth turned up nothing, so it should have been gone). Did I miss something? Maybe. That would be user error on my part. However, my conclusion to shift the bulk of my work elsewhere seems justified, given the circumstances, and Evernote's official stance that the legacy app is only available for a limited time, and they will probably not address any bugs (recommendations will be to upgrade).

[PinkElephant 8,077]

From using AppCleaner I would say it is practically impossible to find it all, including settings.

Problem: To find it, an app first needs to be installed. So if you already uninstalled, you would have to reinstall and then do a second uninstall.

[AnywhereAnyBrowser 2]

On 10/17/2020 at 11:39 PM, GrumpyMonkey said:

The developers who have poured so much effort into the app can take some comfort in the fact that I'm probably just an edge case and not representative of the experience the vast majority of users are having. Let's hope that the app improves and that this re-invigorates the brand, even if they may have to slough off a few of us edge cases to get there.

  I cry a little inside when I read this...

 

(full rant written, then deleted. This is all that needs to be said...)

 

[AnywhereAnyBrowser 2]

On 10/17/2020 at 11:39 PM, GrumpyMonkey said:

Quoting myself a couple of times to clarify what is happening. I "upgraded," found the experience of the current version 10 incompatible with my workflow, downgraded, and have now encountered an irritating bug in the "new" legacy version (7.4.1). Although the new version is disappointing (for me), I had been pleased to see that they kept a legacy version around in order to help us make the transition, but that was before I discovered the legacy app was going to impact my workflow as well. It's nothing critical, but given the circumstances, not really worth enduring, especially when other apps that accomplish the same task are just a click away for me. This will be the second day in a row (since "upgrading") of me shifting the bulk of my daily work to another app (insert name of Evernote competitor here).

I won't say I'm leaving, because that would be silly. I've been around for 12 years now, and it's something I've always found more or less useful (depending on the state of the service, which fluctuates over time). I don't really have much patience for a legacy app that is already losing functionality, though, or a new app that is missing a lot of important features, not to mention many that have been abandoned completely. It's difficult to see how the path Evernote is on right now will produce a better experience (at least for me), so I have little incentive to keep trudging along with the legacy app. The developers who have poured so much effort into the app can take some comfort in the fact that I'm probably just an edge case and not representative of the experience the vast majority of users are having. Let's hope that the app improves and that this re-invigorates the brand, even if they may have to slough off a few of us edge cases to get there.

My hope is that Evernote will stop trying to impress us: 

and will return to the original vision of the ORIGINAL founder:

"Nobody should worry ever, what to remember..."