Best desktop linux experience--what app (or web version)?

[prr 5]

I am not interested in starting a debate on what OSes Evernote should support with native clients.

I am just interested in asking Linux users here, what the best experience has been. I am primarily interested in doing work on my laptop. I can live with using a web version, but occasionally I do work without an internet connection and would want at least the ability to work offline (temporarily) until I could sync them, although I'll be moving over from an installed version of OneNote, so I really don't want/need the online sync, and quite frankly would prefer to avoid it if I could. Anyways, I have heard of Everpad, Tusk, NixNote2, Whatever. Has anyone here tried them, or any other Linux clients? Thoughts or pitfalls? Again, I'd prefer the one that does allow me to work offline. Also, at least 3 levels of hierarchy are also important to me. I would prefer a quick & easy import process from OneNote, but I could live without that and manually paste in my notes, if I could just have offline capabilities.

[DTLow 5,736]

37 minutes ago, prr said:

Also, at least 3 levels of hierarchy are also important to me

We get two metadata fields for organization
- Notebooks provide two levels
- Tags provide unlimited levels of hierarchy 

Unfortunately the tag hierarchy can not be accessed on all platforms (yet)

[prr 5]

1 minute ago, DTLow said:

Notebooks only provide two levels
Tags provide unlimited hierarchy

OK, I see tags now in the web interface that I opened up today. I'm ok with tags.

 

[gazumped 11,652]

I use Linux (some of the time) - haven't found anything better than Evernote Web (and purely online) as yet... though Web gives you a choice of two or three different UI's (in settings) which can be useful...

[LaFlamme 79]

I just jumped over to Linux Mint from Windows and the lack of Evernote client is my only real discomfort in making the adjustment. At the same time, using Evernote Web has been easier than I expected it to be and then new Beta version even more so. I'm actually fairly content with using the web version now. Before I came to that conclusion, I tried Nixnote2. I thought the interface was pretty good and enough like the Evernote Windows Client to be familiar. But for me, it was buggy as hell, to the point where I couldn't WAIT to uninstall the thing. So close and yet so far. I looked at Tusk, but it doesn't seem to offer anything that you can't get in the web client already. I'm starting to feel like I can let it go and settle in with Evernote Web and stop searching for some magical solution. I simply keep it open in a tab at all times and use it as needed. I've also experimented with opening ENWeb in its own window and using it that way. Kind of FEELS like an Evernote client that way. I slide it over to my second monitor to keep it separated from the riff raff. Good enough for me. I read a few articles proposing that us Linux users should just think about replacing Evernote with some other note application. That's lunacy, I say! Madness!

[gazumped 11,652]

3 hours ago, LaFlamme said:

I just jumped over to Linux Mint from Windows

Another Mint user here (part time) - my main 'home base' laptop is still on Windows 10,  but the backup was increasingly getting out of breath on Windows so I tried Linux,  which does everything I need on the go,  as well as waking up almost instantly when I open the lid.  I likewise went through all the Evernote alternatives that claim Linux clients... and came back to Evernote Web.  It's far from perfect,  but one version or another does most of what I need it to.  Anything else can wait until I get back to base.

[prr 5]

You said "one version or another"--does that mean there is a beta or an alternate view for Evernote Web? Or is this just something I read into your comment that you didn't intend?

[DTLow 5,736]

8 hours ago, gazumped said:

... came back to Evernote Web.  It's far from perfect,  but one version or another does most of what I need it to.  Anything else can wait until I get back to base.

 

14 minutes ago, prr said:

You said "one version or another"--does that mean there is a beta or an alternate view for Evernote Web? Or is this just something I read into your comment that you didn't intend?

"back to base"  for me is a Mac, running Evernote/Mac    
I also use an Evernote/IOS and Evernote/Web

There are three web versions   
Previous     
New (Classic)    
New (Beta)

[prr 5]

4 minutes ago, DTLow said:

There are three web versions   
Previous     
New (Classic)    
New (Beta)

OK, I logged in and found a setting that says something like "New" evernote for firefox. I'm not sure if this is your classic or beta. I guess what I had before was previous? Yes, it would have to be. After choosing the new view, I clicked on my account icon and found an option to "Switch to previous version of evernote." How do I get the beta web version? That might be worth taking a test drive on, when I'm done with New whatever I'm in now.

[gazumped 11,652]

44 minutes ago, prr said:

does that mean there is a beta or an alternate view for Evernote Web?

Yup - check out the options in Settings - and don't worry - the Dark Side (otherwise known as Evernote Marketing) will make sure you see "try the new web experience now" messages whenever you're anywhere else...  

[prr 5]

I have tried two linux "desktop" (my how terms change their meaning!) versions so far, Tusk & NixNote2.

I think I see what some have been saying, that the desktop linux clients simply reproduce the web view. That was exactly the case with Tusk.

 

NixNote2, however, so far seems to reproduce the Windows desktop client, which gives me a lot more flexibility. I have attached a screenshot below. Also--please keep in mind that this is after only a few minutes of tinkering--it appears to let me work offline, which is very important. Of course in this day & age I am almost always online, but there are times when I do want to just simply work and not worry about getting someone's wifi password, etc. So that is important. I closed out NixNote2 and then re-opened it, and found my changes still there, even though there had been no sync with evernote web. So that is good.

It appears that I will struggle to reproduce the UI experience I had with OneNote, but so far, I can move forward. I did see in NixNote the ability to work in what it called "presentation mode," which eliminates everything from your window except the note itself. I didn't see that in OneNote, but I can see if I am going to be doing a lot of typing, this would actually open up to me a lot more screen real estate for what I want to do, than the OneNote UI ever did.

Home.desktop

[chinarut 29]

I just bit the bullet over the holidays and decided Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and a few key Linux ports were stable enough to keep a 2007 MacBook humming & stay off an unsupported Mac OS X 10.7.5.  I did have to come to grips and let go of the desktop Evernote client to achieve this.  I started to realize I really only use the desktop to do large scale organization a few times a year (and even this habit is fading).

Then I just saw this in the 2020 update 🤯

The re-engineered web client (in limited release), the new mobile clients (in first preview), and the (as yet unreleased) new clients for Windows, Mac, and (yes!) Linux, along with the ongoing re-architecture and data migration we’ve been doing in the cloud, will set up Evernote to be able to innovate and ship with quality at a pace we haven’t seen in a long time.

These infrastructural changes sound very impressive & glad some of us have been patient as we know the last few years have been rough at the edges sometimes.

[shaddack 2]

On 2/5/2020 at 2:16 AM, chinarut said:

I just bit the bullet over the holidays and decided Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and a few key Linux ports were stable enough to keep a 2007 MacBook humming & stay off an unsupported Mac OS X 10.7.5.  I did have to come to grips and let go of the desktop Evernote client to achieve this.  I started to realize I really only use the desktop to do large scale organization a few times a year (and even this habit is fading).

Then I just saw this in the 2020 update 🤯

The re-engineered web client (in limited release), the new mobile clients (in first preview), and the (as yet unreleased) new clients for Windows, Mac, and (yes!) Linux, along with the ongoing re-architecture and data migration we’ve been doing in the cloud, will set up Evernote to be able to innovate and ship with quality at a pace we haven’t seen in a long time.

These infrastructural changes sound very impressive & glad some of us have been patient as we know the last few years have been rough at the edges sometimes.

I'm looking forward to a native Linux client. I use the web app on Linux whichis much better now (for me) when it works with Firefox.

I find the web app ok for working with notes but where it lacks is for organizing. AFAIK (please correct me if I'm wrong) it is not possible to select multiple notes to move them to a notebook, for example. Or to tag notes in batches. Maybe this is possible in some of the other versions of the web GUI but I don't want to move back and forth.

[PinkElephant 8,075]

There is no client for Linux, as of today. There were rumors about a native Linux client, but I think EN will first roll out the revised apps for the existing OSes before adding to the lineup.

So it is your choice of web browser and then which of the web clients (new or classic) to use.

[ehrt74 240]

The future of Evernote will probably be to implement all functionality in the web client and then move the native clients for desktop and mobile to the same code base. Once this is done, a Linux client won't require much extra work. 

I'm not sure what technology Evernote uses to write the web client. I recently found some posts on the flutter mailing list by Evernote developers, but I don't know if Evernote is using Flutter at all. It would be the perfect technology for their use case. Flutter code can be compiled to an apk for Android, a web site, a <whatever format iOS uses> and a native app for OS X, with much work going on for supporting Windows 10 and (KDE?)/Linux as native targets for compilation too. In many ways it's the future of programming rather than the present.

[gazumped 11,652]

33 minutes ago, ehrt74 said:

The future of Evernote will probably be to implement all functionality in the web client

Isn't there a fundamental problem with web-based apps though? The 'parent' browser apps (or which there are many) have a number of restrictions (which vary from app to app) to prevent bad actor client apps from invading the device space and taking over / exploiting the user in some way. So a web app,  by definition,  has to occupy the absolute mimimum of the device resource and processing assets to satisfy a random grab-bag of nanny systems.  If the client app is just a listicle or a video player that's not a problem. If it contains 50,000 notes and 30GB of storage (my use case) things start to get a bit tight around the temples. 

Plus code based on that web app won't directly transfer to an installed app where the browser limitations don't apply - but the security requirements of a different set of organisations (Hi Apple) require approaches that may sometimes be less than optimal.

It's fine to pilot a UI in one medium - and as it happens that's exactly what Evernote have already said they're doing - but magically transporting it to a series of independent operating system may not be a cut and paste process...

 

[ehrt74 240]

49 minutes ago, gazumped said:

Isn't there a fundamental problem with web-based apps though? The 'parent' browser apps (or which there are many) have a number of restrictions (which vary from app to app) to prevent bad actor client apps from invading the device space and taking over / exploiting the user in some way. So a web app,  by definition,  has to occupy the absolute mimimum of the device resource and processing assets to satisfy a random grab-bag of nanny systems.  If the client app is just a listicle or a video player that's not a problem. If it contains 50,000 notes and 30GB of storage (my use case) things start to get a bit tight around the temples. 

Plus code based on that web app won't directly transfer to an installed app where the browser limitations don't apply - but the security requirements of a different set of organisations (Hi Apple) require approaches that may sometimes be less than optimal.

It's fine to pilot a UI in one medium - and as it happens that's exactly what Evernote have already said they're doing - but magically transporting it to a series of independent operating system may not be a cut and paste process...

 

Certainly Web-Apps are much more secure than native apps on traditional platforms (though i'm not not sure they're more secure than Android or IOS apps). 

95% of the size of evernote should be local storage. It doesn't really matter if this is in a flat-file on disc or an indexed-db in the browser - it's going to be about the same size. A native app would just embed chromium and use the same storage as the web app, though you should hide the exact storage used behind an interface to enable testing.

[DTLow 5,736]

1 hour ago, ehrt74 said:

Certainly Web-Apps are much more secure than native apps on traditional platforms (though i'm not not sure they're more secure than Android or IOS apps). 

I don't understand why you think the apps are "secure"

[ehrt74 240]

6 minutes ago, DTLow said:

I don't understand why you think the apps are "secure"

a couple of points spring to mind:

1 Very limited access to device storage

2 No knowledge of other processes running on the system. 

3 Very limited internet access.

 

In general traditional apps are a security nightmare. Web-apps, Android apps (and to a degree iOS apps) are much safer while retaining enough power to be useful.

[gazumped 11,652]

1 hour ago, ehrt74 said:

95% of the size of evernote should be local storage

Not sure that web apps are allowed any local storage other than purely temporary workspaces that are cleared at the end of a session.  Anyhoo - Evernote are doing what they're doing - we'll get to see exactly what that is (allegedly) later this year...

[ehrt74 240]

2 minutes ago, gazumped said:

Not sure that web apps are allowed any local storage other than purely temporary workspaces that are cleared at the end of a session.  Anyhoo - Evernote are doing what they're doing - we'll get to see exactly what that is (allegedly) later this year...

Indexeddb and websql have been part of html5 and all browsers for about a decade now. That is persistent storage. A huge number of websites use it. I wrote a webpage for a company in 2011 which used indexeddb to store a product catalogue for offline-viewing.

[arkanoid 1]

I use geeknote (handy but ascetic) and Nixnote2 (more or less works but ugly as hell and full of glitches and rendering inconsistencies). Since the latest preview is apparently an Electron app, there should be no problem to make a Linux build? Yet it is slow as hell.

[gazumped 11,652]

7 hours ago, arkanoid said:

there should be no problem to make a Linux build?

Evernote have implied they're working on something,  but no release details or dates are available yet.

[LaFlamme 79]

Still waiting for that Linux client...

[gazumped 11,652]

Ian Small is apparently due to make an announcement about new updates next week.

[jameslmoser 0]

On 9/11/2020 at 9:14 PM, LaFlamme said:

Still waiting for that Linux client...

Same here.  Got tired of OneNote renaming all my notebooks... I lost notes because I deleted files I thought I renamed by accident.   Decided to give Evernote a try again, its been a long time.  I even got Evernote to "work" with wine... then heard about a native linux beta so I signed up for the program... but I don't see anything about it yet.

[gazumped 11,652]

5 hours ago, jameslmoser said:

Same here.  Got tired of OneNote renaming all my notebooks... I lost notes because I deleted files I thought I renamed by accident.   Decided to give Evernote a try again, its been a long time.  I even got Evernote to "work" with wine... then heard about a native linux beta so I signed up for the program... but I don't see anything about it yet.

Catch up with the latest from Ian S about updates - they're working hard on current packages,  so I'd imagine they'll concentrate on those until they're up to scratch.  After that the world appears to be their lobster (or any other seafood of choice) and we might see something emerge.  Meantime I'm writing this on Linux,  using the (old) Web client for reference,  which works well enough.  As the updates continue,  the new browser version may become more of a viable option.