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Feature Fix: Fix Outline formatting issues


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I use evernote a lot for not taking and to-do lists. Virtually everything I do in Evernote is in outline format (bulleted usually), unfortunately there seems to be a lot of formatting issues.

Cutting and pasting for one section of the outline to another will often cause a double bulletted outline, or it will add a blank line creating 2 separate outlines that you can't get rid of.

Sometimes inserting a line into a pre-existing outline will cause the bullets to disappear on the new line, or disappear if you bring in the indentation.

Evernote is such a great program and I would love to see a fix for this.

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Hi and welcome to the forums. Evernote isn't a very good word-processor and the editor has a lot of room for improvement. There's no native 'outline' format though - I assume you're applying bulleted lists and going from there.

This is a 'down from an Elephant' problem (almost literally) and the answer is - use another app for creating, then save the final note to Evernote - as text, and/ or embed the file so you can change it again when necessary.

Evernote doesn't do down, or outlining - or much editing - nature's way of saying "you need a duck"..

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Outlining ducks are available all over - depends what OS you're using, what hardware etc. My personal current favourite is Workflowy - which is online, so cross-platform (as long as you are online and can run a browser). I also use MindMapping (more visual) and MSWord. Although I worship the ground that Evernote walks on for it's 'file and don't forget' functionality, there's a row of other software ducks that do stuff I use for creative shenanigans before the output gets dumped you-know-where.

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  • 1 month later...

This is an area of Evernote that's driven me crazy for years.

 

I don't buy the "get another duck" answer. I also do almost all of my note taking in EverNOTE - and LOVE the tagging, multiple notebook abilities, sharing, saved searched, platform independence (cloud), etc. We use it heavily where I work, and I've recommended it to literally hundreds of people.

 

HOWEVER - basic, dependable outlining needs much improvement. I don't want to have to launch Word or something else, and then copy/paste back and forth every time I want to make a simple update or change to an outline. I use outlines heavily for agendas, meeting summaries, etc - and I shouldn't have to go elsewhere to do it.

 

I try to insert a number in a list, and get new lists starting over. Indent/out-dent drops list numbers sometimes. I've spent 30 minutes sometimes trying to fix a very simple, stupid formatting problem. This shouldn't be so hard - PLEASE fix it!

 

Lots of reasons to love Evernote - NOTHING else is as powerful. But this problem is a gut-wrencher when you just need them to work, and want/expect to keep it simple without integration between other toolsets.

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This is an area of Evernote that's driven me crazy for years.

 

I don't buy the "get another duck" answer. I also do almost all of my note taking in EverNOTE - and LOVE the tagging, multiple notebook abilities, sharing, saved searched, platform independence (cloud), etc. We use it heavily where I work, and I've recommended it to literally hundreds of people.

 

HOWEVER - basic, dependable outlining needs much improvement. I don't want to have to launch Word or something else, and then copy/paste back and forth every time I want to make a simple update or change to an outline. I use outlines heavily for agendas, meeting summaries, etc - and I shouldn't have to go elsewhere to do it.

 

I try to insert a number in a list, and get new lists starting over. Indent/out-dent drops list numbers sometimes. I've spent 30 minutes sometimes trying to fix a very simple, stupid formatting problem. This shouldn't be so hard - PLEASE fix it!

 

Lots of reasons to love Evernote - NOTHING else is as powerful. But this problem is a gut-wrencher when you just need them to work, and want/expect to keep it simple without integration between other toolsets.

 

I can understand that you feel strongly about this,  and Evernote may even have plans to launch something  soon that will fix the issue enough so you can live with a new version;  but in the grand scheme of things Evernote aren't responsible for fixing something that they never claimed would work in the first place.  They don't share route plans or delivery dates,  so any new improved version will have to be a wondrous surprise if and when it arrives.  Meantime I'm afraid it's either find a work-around or suffer the problem.

 

There may be something out there that meets your needs and exports to/ from Evernote - or given the support this issue gets,  maybe there's a developer out there who could take it on and give us an add-in?

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  • 1 month later...

This is an area of Evernote that's driven me crazy for years.

 

I don't buy the "get another duck" answer. I also do almost all of my note taking in EverNOTE - and LOVE the tagging, multiple notebook abilities, sharing, saved searched, platform independence (cloud), etc. We use it heavily where I work, and I've recommended it to literally hundreds of people.

 

HOWEVER - basic, dependable outlining needs much improvement. I don't want to have to launch Word or something else, and then copy/paste back and forth every time I want to make a simple update or change to an outline. I use outlines heavily for agendas, meeting summaries, etc - and I shouldn't have to go elsewhere to do it.

 

I try to insert a number in a list, and get new lists starting over. Indent/out-dent drops list numbers sometimes. I've spent 30 minutes sometimes trying to fix a very simple, stupid formatting problem. This shouldn't be so hard - PLEASE fix it!

 

Lots of reasons to love Evernote - NOTHING else is as powerful. But this problem is a gut-wrencher when you just need them to work, and want/expect to keep it simple without integration between other toolsets.

 

I can understand that you feel strongly about this,  and Evernote may even have plans to launch something  soon that will fix the issue enough so you can live with a new version;  but in the grand scheme of things Evernote aren't responsible for fixing something that they never claimed would work in the first place.  They don't share route plans or delivery dates,  so any new improved version will have to be a wondrous surprise if and when it arrives.  Meantime I'm afraid it's either find a work-around or suffer the problem.

 

There may be something out there that meets your needs and exports to/ from Evernote - or given the support this issue gets,  maybe there's a developer out there who could take it on and give us an add-in?

 

I must disagree with you about this.  While Evernote may have never specifically claimed to be the "ultimate outliner," it has claimed to have a list-making feature.  Unfortunately, the list-making feature is riddled with problems.  If Evernote offers buttons that allow you to have bulleted lists, numbered lists, and changes in the indentation levels of lists, it is part of the software that it is responsible for fixing.  Evernote even advertises how useful it could be to college students using an image of a bulleted, multi-level list (check out http://evernote.com/evernote/).  To me, this definitely counts as something they have "claimed to work in the first place."

 

Trying to compose a bulleted note in Evernote is so time-consuming and frustrating that it is making Evernote much less appealing to me. The numbers keep changing, the indentations don't work properly, and copying and pasting a list is a mess.  Also there is no customization for what the bullets should be, and evernote won't allow me to put a space between bullets without restarting the whole list. 

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  • Level 5*

 

This is an area of Evernote that's driven me crazy for years.

 

I don't buy the "get another duck" answer. I also do almost all of my note taking in EverNOTE - and LOVE the tagging, multiple notebook abilities, sharing, saved searched, platform independence (cloud), etc. We use it heavily where I work, and I've recommended it to literally hundreds of people.

 

HOWEVER - basic, dependable outlining needs much improvement. I don't want to have to launch Word or something else, and then copy/paste back and forth every time I want to make a simple update or change to an outline. I use outlines heavily for agendas, meeting summaries, etc - and I shouldn't have to go elsewhere to do it.

 

I try to insert a number in a list, and get new lists starting over. Indent/out-dent drops list numbers sometimes. I've spent 30 minutes sometimes trying to fix a very simple, stupid formatting problem. This shouldn't be so hard - PLEASE fix it!

 

Lots of reasons to love Evernote - NOTHING else is as powerful. But this problem is a gut-wrencher when you just need them to work, and want/expect to keep it simple without integration between other toolsets.

 

I can understand that you feel strongly about this,  and Evernote may even have plans to launch something  soon that will fix the issue enough so you can live with a new version;  but in the grand scheme of things Evernote aren't responsible for fixing something that they never claimed would work in the first place.  They don't share route plans or delivery dates,  so any new improved version will have to be a wondrous surprise if and when it arrives.  Meantime I'm afraid it's either find a work-around or suffer the problem.

 

There may be something out there that meets your needs and exports to/ from Evernote - or given the support this issue gets,  maybe there's a developer out there who could take it on and give us an add-in?

 

I must disagree with you about this.  While Evernote may have never specifically claimed to be the "ultimate outliner," it has claimed to have a list-making feature.  Unfortunately, the list-making feature is riddled with problems.  If Evernote offers buttons that allow you to have bulleted lists, numbered lists, and changes in the indentation levels of lists, it is part of the software that it is responsible for fixing.  Evernote even advertises how useful it could be to college students using an image of a bulleted, multi-level list (check out http://evernote.com/evernote/).  To me, this definitely counts as something they have "claimed to work in the first place."

 

Trying to compose a bulleted note in Evernote is so time-consuming and frustrating that it is making Evernote much less appealing to me. The numbers keep changing, the indentations don't work properly, and copying and pasting a list is a mess.  Also there is no customization for what the bullets should be, and evernote won't allow me to put a space between bullets without restarting the whole list. 

 

I don't think that link helps the discussion - all I can find is a 6-item to do list and a clip of a recipe page.

 

Not sure what you're taking exception to - I did say Evernote will improve things,  in the same way they've been working on everything in all current clients.  Agreed editing lists doesn't work very well - but neither does note layout,  and both have never worked.  What's there to be disappointed with?  Evernote don't do delivery promises for understandable reasons.  Better is in the pipeline,  but the timescale is unknown.

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Just wanted to contribute to this apparently loud discussion. Glad to see I'm not alone. I read an article explaining that the greatness in Evernote lies in its ability to be a one-stop source of everything. So I have jumped in, and enjoyed the ride, but would love cleaning up the outline feature (and maybe right to left text) to make me fully in love.

 

Thanks.

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  • 1 month later...

I couldn't agree more.  This forum has better outlining that EN.  I keep trying to leave Onenote and then have so many more reasons to go back.  OneNote is a fantastic outliner.  It has lousy app integration and sparse updates, but blows the socks off of EN in that dept.

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We've had 2 factor auth and reminders recently,  so I guess the guys at the pachyderm puzzle factory had other problems to stomp.  OneNote may be better for some things - anyone tried copying and pasting a list from there to here?

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  • 2 months later...

Wholeheartedly agree that formatting improvements are an important issue and are needed with some priority.  It is a basic function yes, but an important function that is heavily used.  I am a daily user of Evernote for to do's, lists, info sharing, etc... so although maybe not a power user as some others... I am a regular user and I can bet thousands of other regular users out there like me want and need better formatting.  I'm wrestling with the damn line spacing issue as I write this.  The fact that I can't simply fix the spacing between lines on a simple list (creating double spacing for some unknown reason on its own) is almost unacceptable. So if everyone can please chime in on this and share your request for a formatting fix perhaps it will get further up on Evernote's radar to fix it.  Or alternatively, Evernbot ecan chime in and confirm that basic formatting is not an important feature and stop promoting it as such and buyer beware and all is fair.  Either way we move towards a resolution.  And Gazumped, perhaps you can refrain from the rationalizations and either help solve the problem or leave it alone,  

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And Gazumped, perhaps you can refrain from the rationalizations and either help solve the problem or leave it alone,

Gazumped is not an Evernote employee, so he cannot actually fix the problems what Evernote has with various note-taking tasks. As it happens, he does spend a fair amount of time here helping other users with their problems in using Evernote (it's why he's an Evernote Evangelist), but on this topic, he's just another user like you and me, and as this is a user forum, he gets to post his opinions, rationalizations, and whatnot, so long as they're mostly topical and respectful. Which they are.

p.s. There are many other topics here belaboring various problems with outlining. Evernote are quite aware of the problem; sadly it's still not perfect; in fact it seems imperfect in different ways on different clients. Yes, we all wish it were better.

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Hmmn - I did say "Better is in the pipeline,  but the timescale is unknown."  While that seems to be fightin' talk to some,  I thought I was just stating the obvious.  I'd like to see things better.  I do know it doesn't all happen at once.

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I found this thread after trying to apply bulleting to a list I just made on my Android tablet and wasted 30 minutes trying to figure out what I was doing wrong because it just would not do some very basic things. Thus, I am adding my voice to the need to improve.

Mainly, I found, that if I make a simple list, with no formating, that I can not go back and select one item and bullet it, nor multipverle items and bullet them, let alone use varying levels of indenting. I seems I need to bullet each line as I go and then I can at least indent some, etc., but cutting and pasting to get the order to better represent my thoughts as they develop is limited to one line at a time and the rsult of pasting it uncertain all of which breaks my train of thinking. For a tool that includes the word 'notes' in its name, I find this behavior less than satisfactory. The fact that Evernote supports many platforms is not an excuse - they just need to standardized on a format, like other tools do. Consider that many apps can edit a .doc or .rft document across all platforms. Its doable, if they prioritize it.

I use evernote android when I travel (and when Evernote is an extremely important part of my day to day activities and information management) instead of the 5 x heavier laptop. Thus, I really want the android version to be not just a ' basic' version, moslty used for viewing and a bit of editing, but something that you can use for solid note taking. I believe this will be true of more and more users.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Being a recent convert from OneNote to Evernote (I used OneNote for 8 years and used it to go completely paperless at my office. I switched to EN for it's cross-platform syncing capability), one of the biggest issues I've had w/ EN is the formatting of numbered/bullted lists.  The vast majority of my notes are indented lists/outlines as mentioned here.  If you need to move any items around, reformat the list, etc, you can get into trouble.   I've completely messed up my lists as a result of the hierarchy being changed as items are moved up or down in the list.  In OneNote, which is not a word processor, all I would have to do is select the portion of the outline I wanted to move, and hit alt-shift + up/down arrow key, and the entire text moved up or down and kept the formatting/hierarchy I gave it originally.  Entire sections, and each item's relative hierarchy, could be changed as well w/ the tab key.

 

This is not a word processing feature.  It's an essential note-taking feature that I sorely miss.

 

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Thanks for stating the obvious jefto and another rationalization (or maybe some expectation management)... regardless, we're looking for solutions and/or to get Evernote programmers moving.  Lots of love if you have a solution or workaround users can actually use or can help increase pressure for Evernote to improve things.

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Thanks for stating the obvious jefto and another rationalization (or maybe some expectation management)... regardless, we're looking for solutions and/or to get Evernote programmers moving.  Lots of love if you have a solution or workaround users can actually use or can help increase pressure for Evernote to improve things.

Sometimes the obvious (or what seems obvious to some) needs to be stated because until enough people hear it, it's not always obvious to everyone. As it is, I don't believe that I'm rationalizing anything here -- in fact, didn't I say "in fact it seems imperfect in different ways on different clients. Yes, we all wish it were better"? That's seems pretty factual to me.

Regarding expectations, I don't really give a fig for yours or anyone else's, and I try to keep mine to a minimum. I'm happy to report problems, or promote my favorite missing features or whatever, and also play a part in the user support system here in the forums, but beyond that, I trust Evernote to take in all of the various inputs and figure out how to best make the product that they want Evernote to be. If I couldn't trust them to do that in good faith, or if the product diverges too much from what I want it to do, then I'd cut the cord. Seems the only sensible stance, to me...

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  • 2 months later...

I am continually disappointed in Evernote's BUGGY numbered list/"outlining" features.  They should at least fix the bugs at this minimum level of functionality.

 

I know I could use an external tool and frequently use MS Word.  I don't want to use an external tool  I want Evernote to fix the bugs in numbered lists.

 

example list with "repeating #" bug showing
  1. asdfl;kjas f
    1. asdf
    1. asdfasd
  2. lkjasdf
 example list with the "extra numbers at different levels" showing
  1. asdfl;kjas f
    1. asdf
    2. asdfasd
  2. lkjasdf
    1. asdf
      1. sadf
      2. asdf
    1. asdf
  3. ljasdf
    1.  
    2.  
  4. ljasdf
    1. lkjasdf
example list with "numbered items switching to bullets automatically"
  1. asdfl;kjas f
    1. asdf
    1. asdfasd
  2. lkjasdf
    1. asdf
  3. sadf
    1. asdf
  4. asdf
  • ljasdf
  1.  
  2.  
  • ljasdf
  1. lkjasdf
  •  

 

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This is just nuts.  This one bug is stopping me from using Evernote and spending weeks and weeks looking for alternative solutions.  How hard could it be for this huge company to fix this long-term BUG in their software?   Could they at least give some feedback on it and let us users know they care what we think and that they're working on it?   The longer this drags on, and the bigger EN gets, and the more features and apps they add, the less likely it is that they'll go back and fix this and the less likely that they'll pay attention to users complaining about it since it will become a smaller and smaller part of EN.  

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hey, unfrosted,

apparently, CloudOn has overcome this formatting issue by completely emulating MS Office system, so it is not impossible to fix this bug.

They are just lazy.

 

I gave up on using Evernote for any serious notes now, small notes, yes, but anything that involves bullets, numbered lists, I use CloudOn.

 

Maybe EN team will fix this blazing bug in the next 10 years.

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I found this post because after two years I've finally lost my mind over the really quite outrageous formatting issues with Evernote.  The name of the product is EverNOTE, so it really should be able to do basic formatting of notes without essentially losing information.  Sometimes I don't even realize how much it has messed up a bulleted list until I go back to review it later and then realize that a note that I shared with someone else makes almost no sense because notes/bullets that were related to one area are in a different area of my document.  This is maddening.  I have recommended EN to many friends and found that it has made organizing my work life much better.  BUT, this has become a show stopper.  If this isn't fixed, I will have to use a different product, even if it doesn't have some of the other features that I like about EN. 

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The name of the product is EverNOTE, so it really should be able to do basic formatting of notes without essentially losing information.

Yes, the name of the product has the word "note" in it. However, Evernote has never billed itself as a note-taking program. What they say they are is program to store all your information and enable you to find it quickly and access it from anywhere. The text editing features are, at best, minimal. (And outlining is not what I would call "basic formatting".) You'll probably be happier using another program for creating your outlines. Some people have recommended WorkFlowy as working well with Evernote.

Best of luck.

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This is an area of Evernote that's driven me crazy for years.

 

I don't buy the "get another duck" answer. I also do almost all of my note taking in EverNOTE - and LOVE the tagging, multiple notebook abilities, sharing, saved searched, platform independence (cloud), etc. We use it heavily where I work, and I've recommended it to literally hundreds of people.

 

HOWEVER - basic, dependable outlining needs much improvement. I don't want to have to launch Word or something else, and then copy/paste back and forth every time I want to make a simple update or change to an outline. I use outlines heavily for agendas, meeting summaries, etc - and I shouldn't have to go elsewhere to do it.

 

I try to insert a number in a list, and get new lists starting over. Indent/out-dent drops list numbers sometimes. I've spent 30 minutes sometimes trying to fix a very simple, stupid formatting problem. This shouldn't be so hard - PLEASE fix it!

 

Lots of reasons to love Evernote - NOTHING else is as powerful. But this problem is a gut-wrencher when you just need them to work, and want/expect to keep it simple without integration between other toolsets.

 

I can understand that you feel strongly about this,  and Evernote may even have plans to launch something  soon that will fix the issue enough so you can live with a new version;  but in the grand scheme of things Evernote aren't responsible for fixing something that they never claimed would work in the first place.  They don't share route plans or delivery dates,  so any new improved version will have to be a wondrous surprise if and when it arrives.  Meantime I'm afraid it's either find a work-around or suffer the problem.

 

There may be something out there that meets your needs and exports to/ from Evernote - or given the support this issue gets,  maybe there's a developer out there who could take it on and give us an add-in?

 

I must disagree with you about this.  While Evernote may have never specifically claimed to be the "ultimate outliner," it has claimed to have a list-making feature.  Unfortunately, the list-making feature is riddled with problems.  If Evernote offers buttons that allow you to have bulleted lists, numbered lists, and changes in the indentation levels of lists, it is part of the software that it is responsible for fixing.  Evernote even advertises how useful it could be to college students using an image of a bulleted, multi-level list (check out http://evernote.com/evernote/).  To me, this definitely counts as something they have "claimed to work in the first place."

 

Trying to compose a bulleted note in Evernote is so time-consuming and frustrating that it is making Evernote much less appealing to me. The numbers keep changing, the indentations don't work properly, and copying and pasting a list is a mess.  Also there is no customization for what the bullets should be, and evernote won't allow me to put a space between bullets without restarting the whole list. 

 

I don't think that link helps the discussion - all I can find is a 6-item to do list and a clip of a recipe page.

 

Not sure what you're taking exception to - I did say Evernote will improve things,  in the same way they've been working on everything in all current clients.  Agreed editing lists doesn't work very well - but neither does note layout,  and both have never worked.  What's there to be disappointed with?  Evernote don't do delivery promises for understandable reasons.  Better is in the pipeline,  but the timescale is unknown.

 

 

I have to also state that you are factually wrong on this and I'm getting tired of EN advocates around here just being apologists.

 

Here's a quote from the Getting Started With Evernote for Mac web page (http://evernote.com/evernote/guide/mac/http://evernote.com/evernote/guide/mac/#3 )

 

Formatting Text

To format text in a note, use any of the formatting tools as you would in a normal word processor:

  • Font Tools: Click to change the font, font size and font styles.
  • Layout Tools: Click to align text or create bulleted and numbered lists.

It states that EN can create bulleted and numbered lists.  This claimed feature of EN is most definitely extremely buggy.  What's the idea of your statement: "Evernote aren't responsible for fixing something that they never claimed would work in the first place". They most certainly did claim the program has bulleted and numbered lists right on their website!  And, I quickly found dozens of threads/posts in the forums from their customers complaining about this bug and giving examples of it (it's very simple to replicate).  And in response, there's no posts from EN employees in the forum about it (that I could find) or mention of it anywhere on the EN Help Topics.  Instead, there's just inevitable responses from you or GrumpyMonkey telling us that it's not a big deal and we should just deal with it or use a different program.  If that's you're attitude for yourself, fine, but I - and obviously many other customers - don't agree with this attitude.  

EN does 90% of what I need very well but I didn't recently renew my account because of this.   I've looked into and evaluated dozens of other programs and ecosystems and EN is by far closest to what I need and could probably be fixed by a decent programmer in a few days.  I'm not going to just sit and hope they fix it sometime or go to another program that is even less likely to ever meet my needs.  I'm going to keep asking EN - and encourage other to keep asking them - to fix this simple problem with an advertised feature so I can get on with the work I need to use EN for.

FYI, here's a quick list of some of the threads about this bug.  There's lots more:

 

2012-11

http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/31179-long-time-user-1st-time-poster-evernote-bullet-lists-needs-to-be-fixed-now/

 

2013-04

http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/36682-list-indent-bug-when-decreasing-existing-indent/

 

2012-01

http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/23701-bullet-points-never-seem-to-work-as-expected/

 

2011-11

http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/22042-bugsunexpected-behavior-with-bullet-lists/

 

2012-03

http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/24828-bug-sub-bullet-points-not-working/

 

2013-08

http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/41013-numbered-lists-dont-really-work/

 

2012-06

http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/26934-bug-nested-ordered-lists-do-not-number-correctly/

 

2013-02

http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/34754-evernote-for-class-notes/

 

2012-08

http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/29028-evernote-formatting/

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I've been accused of wearing rose-tinted glasses too,  as far as a certain well-known note-taking product is concerned.  I tend to think of it as being practical and getting on with my life,  but my view is hey - if a tool doesn't do what you want it to,  find a work-around or find another tool.  There's no point in complaining that your hammer doesn't paint walls too.  If there's room for improvement (and I don't think anyone has said there's not room for lots of that) the best way to support your friendly local toolmaker is to 1) pay for the product so they have the funds to do stuff (TANSTAFL) and 2) give your feedback then sit back and wait.

 

Causing a major fuss because something doesn't work just makes other people - who may not use that feature anyway - shy away from the product,  reduces the toolmaker's income and increases their costs,  and means your preferred improvement just gets further away.  It's like booing your own player when he's about to kick the ball because you think the team should be doing better than they are.  (And that's a huge over-simplification,  but go with it huh?)

 

And the Evangelists around here tend to spend the time they're not involved in discussions like this helping less experienced users (and occasional panicked ones) with tech and process queries.  Check out the meaning of the word.

 

And the improvements?  Those on this thread want lists;  there's also Win 8 functionality, reminders, Android tools, annotation,  better iOS features,  better tag handling,  themes,  colours etc,  etc...  all of which are (according to the proposers) "easy to implement" .. (without adversely affecting 75M+ users on 14+ platforms?)

 

Maybe Evernote could be a little more communicative and say "Yep - we've noted this issue and are working on it.."  but pretty soon I'd guess someone is going to ask "How far have you got?"  "When's the fix due?" and instead of complaints about their lack of feedback,  there'd just be comments about it taking too long to fix 'such a simple issue'.

 

So I don't think Evernote can please ,  whatever they do.  

 

Everyone here is perfectly free (of course) do do whatever they wish - subject to local law enforcement;  so,  I believe,  is Evernote.

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  • 1 month later...
I totally 1+++++ this.  This is perhaps the #1 thing in Evernote that drives me CRAZY CRAZY!!

 

Buggy, buggy outlining.

 

I definitely don't buy the "use another program" / "duck" answer.  I totally get that Evernote isn't supposed to be a word processor, however: it should be able to create simple bulletted lists without breaking.  Outlining is critical to task organization, which is one of Evernote's strongest use-cases.

 

For example, I use Evernote note links very extensively to organize my scuttled-away thoughts.  Put one of those suckers at the end of a line in a simple bulletted list and, BAM, list broken.  It stops "bulletting" on the next line.

 

Outlining is one of 8 very simple Word Processing items listed in a note's toolbar (bold, italic, underline, BULLETTED LIST), but use it for 2 minutes and you'll agree it just flat doesn't work right.

 

Please give the outlining some simple TLC.  I don't want to write a table of contents.  I just want to indent and make a simple list here and there.

 

Using Windows client, BTW.

 

And this back and forth with Evernote apologists is crazy and pointless.  Of course people here don't get how much actual work is involved in "fixing" EN's outlining.  They are not developers or project managers.  they are users.  Passionate enough users that they take a minute out of their day to "complain" as you put it.  I work in software.  People's "Complaints" are our bread and butter.  For every user that we're lucky enough to have write on our product's forum that something is wrong, you better bet there are 100 others out there who just curse under their breath, and we never know it.

 

So no need to get defensive...we're not saying that Evernote sucks, we're saying we LOVE it enough to rant about it.  And please fix the bullets.

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No one here is saying that you shouldn't make feature suggestions. Everyone should make feature suggestions. What some of us are saying is that everyone has a different idea of what's a "crucial", "basic", "essential", or "no-brainer to add and would make Evernote perfect" feature. And Evernote has their ideas. Feature requests/suggestions/feedback are great. Getting angry when Evernote doesn't implement your pet feature, especially when they go and add other features you think are pointless (don't get me started on reminders) is not so great.

As far as suggesting that you use another program (and often the suggestion is for one that integrates in some way), how is that bad? Even if Evernote today said, "Yes! We're going to do outlines", it would be months at least until that feature got out to the users. Are you just going to wait and not do any outlining? Use the best available tool for the job. When a better tool comes along, switch to that one.

Best of luck.

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No one here is saying that you shouldn't make feature suggestions. Everyone should make feature suggestions. What some of us are saying is that everyone has a different idea of what's a "crucial", "basic", "essential", or "no-brainer to add and would make Evernote perfect" feature. And Evernote has their ideas. Feature requests/suggestions/feedback are great. Getting angry when Evernote doesn't implement your pet feature, especially when they go and add other features you think are pointless (don't get me started on reminders) is not so great.

 

Ok - I've been patient and understanding of other posts, but this is total *****.  Why do you keep saying "feature suggestions?"   No one is talking about new features.  We're talking about EN fixing a bug in a basic feature that's been there forever now and is supposed to work but is broken.  Your post writing about "pet features" is misleading and offensive and makes us paid customers who have been asking EN to FIX A BUG look like whining little children.  Are you just trolling or have you completely misunderstood all the posts in this thread?

 

In any case, you owe the other users here an apology for your last post!

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No one here is saying that you shouldn't make feature suggestions. Everyone should make feature suggestions. What some of us are saying is that everyone has a different idea of what's a "crucial", "basic", "essential", or "no-brainer to add and would make Evernote perfect" feature. And Evernote has their ideas. Feature requests/suggestions/feedback are great. Getting angry when Evernote doesn't implement your pet feature, especially when they go and add other features you think are pointless (don't get me started on reminders) is not so great.

 

Ok - I've been patient and understanding of other posts, but this is total *****.  Why do you keep saying "feature suggestions?"   No one is talking about new features.  We're talking about EN fixing a bug in a basic feature that's been there forever now and is supposed to work but is broken.  Your post writing about "pet features" is misleading and offensive and makes us paid customers who have been asking EN to FIX A BUG look like whining little children.  Are you just trolling or have you completely misunderstood all the posts in this thread?

 

In any case, you owe the other users here an apology for your last post!

Megsaint's post is perfectly fine. You call this a bug. Maybe EN doesn't. Maybe they do but they have other things that are a higher priority. Either way, what Megasaint said is exactly true. This is YOUR pet peave but certainly there are many others who have other issues they think are more important. Really nothing new to say here - it's all already been said. If it's a deal breaker, find another app that better suits your needs.

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Are you just trolling or have you completely misunderstood all the posts in this thread?

 

In any case, you owe the other users here an apology for your last post!

No, I completely understand these posts, have a pretty good understanding of how Evernote works and I stand by my post, which was a direct reply to Ben350's post. I'm sorry that you are unwilling to have a civil discussion on the matter.

Best of luck.

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  • Level 5*

Well, using bullets in Evernote Windows "is" buggy.  To Evernote's credit the function has improved but there are still problems.  Spend any time copying and pasting or trying to move bullets around and you'll run into situations where bullets are removed or extras are inserted.  I've trained myself to avoid some of these situations and minimize the problems and when I do run into a problem I can usually fiddle with it to get it right, but I can see where a user would just expect bullets to work and they would find this to be a pain point. 

 

There have been enough comments in the forums where I'm sure Evernote is aware of the issues and I would agree it is likely low on their list and for now they consider the function good enough.  They have hinted that improvements to the editor are in plan and I hold out hope that this will be improved.

 

I'm not sure why someone would try to pass off a user's legitimate bug complaint as a feature request.  Evernote has come a long way.  It is a great service, and their editor mostly works but it does have some problems and there is definitely room for improvement.

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I'm not sure why someone would try to pass off a user's legitimate bug complaint as a feature request.  

 

To me, a request to improve what is apparently considered a minor function (text editing) of the larger program constitutes a feature request. But whether you call it a feature request or a request for improvement strikes me as mostly a semantic quibble. And, yes, of course it's a legitimate request. Whatever you call it, yes, Evernote is, no doubt, aware of it though I won't speculate whether or not it's on their list.

 

Best of luck. 

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  • Level 5*

 

 

I'm not sure why someone would try to pass off a user's legitimate bug complaint as a feature request.  

 

To me, a request to improve what is apparently considered a minor function (text editing) of the larger program constitutes a feature request.

Ok, I guess that is where we differ.  We are delving into semantics but what was reported was a function that doesn't work correctly and I consider that a bug.

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  • 3 months later...

In case posts on this forum count as "votes" for prioritizing bugs, please consider this a loud and clear vote in favor of getting outlining fixed promptly.

 

It's a note platform and outlining is one of the primary ways people take and organize notes.

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  • Level 5*

In case posts on this forum count as "votes" for prioritizing bugs, please consider this a loud and clear vote in favor of getting outlining fixed promptly.

Evernote don't count votes as far as I know, but it's ok to make your voice heard.
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  • 1 month later...

Another disappointed everNOTE user - Please put me down for requesting a bug fix, an enhancement, or whatever language is appropriate in this community for making numbered lists feature work.

What specific issues are you experiencing? Are you on the Mac or on Windows? If Mac, try the latest beta to see if that resolves your issue, there are some fixes for lists in the current beta release. 

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Another disappointed everNOTE user - Please put me down for requesting a bug fix, an enhancement, or whatever language is appropriate in this community for making numbered lists feature work.

What specific issues are you experiencing? Are you on the Mac or on Windows? If Mac, try the latest beta to see if that resolves your issue, there are some fixes for lists in the current beta release. 

 

Thanks for the reply.

 

The same issues reported by Jim smartlumens.Frey on December 11, 2013, post #20 of this thread; https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/33973-feature-fix-fix-outline-formatting-issues/#entry247406 ,

 

Observed on Windows and Android. I do not remember if I see it on the iPad or not.

 

This has the feel of a rewrite and/or restructure class issue, so I can understand the slow going on a fix. However this seems like a fundamental feature for an Evernote type of product, so best to dig in, and get into the rear view mirror.

 

Thanks again,

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Another disappointed everNOTE user - Please put me down for requesting a bug fix, an enhancement, or whatever language is appropriate in this community for making numbered lists feature work.

What specific issues are you experiencing? Are you on the Mac or on Windows? If Mac, try the latest beta to see if that resolves your issue, there are some fixes for lists in the current beta release. 

 

Thanks for the reply.

 

The same issues reported by Jim smartlumens.Frey on December 11, 2013, post #20 of this thread; https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/33973-feature-fix-fix-outline-formatting-issues/#entry247406 ,

 

Observed on Windows and Android. I do not remember if I see it on the iPad or not.

 

This has the feel of a rewrite and/or restructure class issue, so I can understand the slow going on a fix. However this seems like a fundamental feature for an Evernote type of product, so best to dig in, and get into the rear view mirror.

 

Thanks again,

 

HMmm well we are just now starting to see the fruits of EN's labour on the text editor trickle through the beta gates on a few platforms so we will have to see where it goes. I too suspect much of this is re-write, so indeed, this isn't an overnight thing! 

 

Hope your issue is resolved sooner than later though!

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  • 4 weeks later...

I am having a hard time with formatting with bullet points. I like to skip 2 lines between bullet points, but EN puts the bullet point on the next line after I hit the return key. Is there a way to skip 2 lines between bullet points?


 


for example:


 


  • Shared stations are stations created by other Pandora listeners and have a little icon of "people" next to the station name. Shared stations can be edited, but you'll have to give a thumbs up or down to a song first. Then you'll be prompted whether you want to make this station your own. If you say yes, then the station will no longer be a shared station, and the "Add Variety" button will appear.
  •  
  • There's not currently a way to merge stations. You can always copy the Artist and Song seeds from one station and add them to another – but your Thumbs data cannot be moved.
  •  
  •  
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  • Level 5*

 

I am having a hard time with formatting with bullet points. I like to skip 2 lines between bullet points, but EN puts the bullet point on the next line after I hit the return key. Is there a way to skip 2 lines between bullet points?

 

for example:

 

  • Shared stations are stations created by other Pandora listeners and have a little icon of "people" next to the station name. Shared stations can be edited, but you'll have to give a thumbs up or down to a song first. Then you'll be prompted whether you want to make this station your own. If you say yes, then the station will no longer be a shared station, and the "Add Variety" button will appear.
  •  
  • There's not currently a way to merge stations. You can always copy the Artist and Song seeds from one station and add them to another – but your Thumbs data cannot be moved.
  •  
  •  

 

Just hit enter twice. But then you need to start up another bullet list. Or you can make up your list single-spaced, and add the empty lines afterwards.

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  • 1 month later...

Adding to the chorus of disappointed list makers who have chimed in here and elsewhere.    Most of what I use EN for is lists.   I really wish they could fix this BUG, I waste so much time trying to get formatted lists to behave (stop indenting!  stop creating extra line spacing! just cut and paste this in the same format!).  And yes, this is a bug in my opinion.   I can understand it being buggy when pasting a bulleted list from another app (MS Word, e.g.), but not within EN.

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All a moot point now.  OneNote on the Mac and iPhone are great (not 100% feature of Windows version, but close) now.  Outlining is excellent in the program including collapsing levels, etc.   Sharing, browser-based editing, clipping all work great. No need (or desire) for EN anymore.

 

And the bizarre part is that I actually trust MS more than EN with my data!

 

 David 

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I see valid points on both sides of the debate here. Personally, I tried a couple of outlining baby steps in Evernote. I know Evernote does not afford us the features of a true outliner:

 

"An outliner is a computer program that allows text to be organized into discrete sections that are related in a tree structure or hierarchy. Text may be collapsed into a node, or expanded and edited." - Wikipedia 

 

It sure is handy to collapse and expand certain nodes. Still... I reckon that even if Evernote were to give us a collapsible outlining feature, it would still not be as brilliant as some of the apps that exist - such as WorkFlowy. You do hear that name pop up quite a lot... and for good reason. There's nothing that beats one expandable, collapsible and zoomable document. Once you get sucked in to the zoom feature, no outlining tool without one will do. In other words, none other than WorkFlowy will do. I'm not sure whether the zoomable node feature can be patented... if not, I don't get why all outlining apps don't follow suit.

 

The reality is that Evernote is not going in that direction. Would we have them suck the life out of every note-taking/ list making app out there on the market, offering all their features, plus some? Even if we were to have the ability in Evernote to create a zoomable document exactly as you can in WorkFlowy, for example - one would have to return to that specific note to build on any discrete section of the outline. If not, we would have multiple disjointed outlines in their own respective notes. The power and versatility of an outliner is the ability to shuffle lists, hierarchies and sections at will and any which way you please. One consolidated outline is searchable as a whole. I'm just saying... if we're talking about having a decent outlining tool in Evernote... why not go all the way and make it as good, if not better than WorkFlowy. Better I can't imagine... but still, there is no way to house a comparative outliner within Evernote. Not within isolated notes. Why don't we let the outliners do their job, and Evernote its job? Is it really too difficult to conceive an ecosystem where one uses more than a single app to get the job done? And can not 2 or more apps live together in our mind's eye as parallel universes? Each distinctly separate, but with a semblance. 

 

Are we going to expect Evernote to take on MS Word, PDFs - the whole 9 yards? Is it not enough that we can house them in Evernote and have them be searchable? Why do we seem to be satisfied with creating much of our material outside of Evernote and importing it (or not), and not in the case of an outlining tool? Evernote can not excel at everything. Nor would I like it to. I can receive emails to my Evernote account, but would I want it to replace my Gmail account? I know that many are pushing the topic because outlines are notes... but outlining is very distinctive in itself, and one can push the boundaries therein, especially in WorkFlowy.

 

I think one needs to experience the full benefit of what an outliner can truly offer, to be satisfied with not wanting it in Evernote in the first place. My outlining tool is possibly more valuable to me than Evernote at this stage. One can work through incredibly complex workflows. I'm just saying, if you're going to do outlining, do it properly... you may be inspired to go beyond what you thought it was all about - which is all but an intuitive growing process in a "dinkum" outliner. If one has truly experienced the usefulness of an outliner itself, they would be content to cut Evernote some slack in this area, since it wouldn't really matter anymore.  

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  • Level 5*

...and I prefer MindMapping to Outlining and use MM and Evernote together.  Even with an MM extension I suspect EN would never be as good or as flexible as the specialist software I use,  and I'd always be unhappy with any differences between it and my current application.  Why stress out?  I use 30+ applications besides Evernote for different purposes and if they were all housed under one roof the menu alone would fill my workspace...

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... Even with an MM extension I suspect EN would never be as good or as flexible as the specialist software I use,  and I'd always be unhappy with any differences between it and my current application.  Why stress out?

 

You've said in 3 lines what it took me 29-odd lines to try.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I first posted on this topic almost a year ago, and am astounded that still EN is completely BUGGY with regard to bulleted and numbered lists.  If they can't make it work then they should remove the option.  This is not a new feature request, it's a serious bug in a feature that has been around for years, and one that clearly a lot of people use and are irritated with.  It's really very simple - when using bullets for more than 1 minute, EN will corrupt your document in one way or another.  No need to repeat all the ways, since many good examples have been given in this post.  I'm not asking for advanced outlining features; just basic bullet lists that have been around in many editors for over two decades.  I don't know what the argument is about on here; I just want a reply from an EN employee saying if they are EVER going to fix the very serious bugs (to me a bug is certainly serious if it corrupts the underlying data) in basic NOTE-taking features of EVERNOTE.  I understand the people taking up for Evernote - I am a premium subscriber and have recommended it to many people.  But this is simply unacceptable and it seems to me that the only possible answers are "yes we're going to fix it by next June or whatever", or "no we're never going to fix it and we're going to remove bullets from the menu"...

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  • Level 5*

You do know that they completely revamped their Mac editor, right? You're welcome to go and find the posts that are from Jackolicious t(an Evernote employee) that discuss this.

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You do know that they completely revamped their Mac editor, right? You're welcome to go and find the posts that are from Jackolicious t(an Evernote employee) that discuss this.

Thanks I did not know that.  I had checked for updates but seems the new version is not yet on the app store.  Just installed 5.6.2 beta and have my fingers crossed!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Adding my request to please fix it as well. I came here today to look for an answer after a year or more of occasional muttering. I am somewhat surprised to see a cavalier attitude toward this dysfunction. One would assume simple lists to be a primary function for almost every user. My big gripe is when I edit a list created on the PC version on my Android tablet or vice versa, and it gets trashed. Fixing it is a waste since it will just happen again. For such a great product, it seems rather silly for such a primary function to be buggy. PLEASE, PLEASE fix it.

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  • 6 months later...

I would like to request that Evernote add more configuration options to outlining.  This is a screen shot from Libre Office Writer.  You can see that a user can specify how the multiple levels are referenced.  I bet this would be one the most used features.  I work in sales and taking notes with mutliptle referencable levels helps organize ideas and thoughts.  Please consider adding this in Evernotes near term roadmap.

 

 

post-229760-0-18260500-1431458959_thumb.

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  • Level 5*

Evernote has repeatedly stated since their 2014 Conference that they want Evernote to be the app that you stay in all day, do ALL your work using Evernote.

 

Well, if they really want to achieve that then the Note Editor is going to have to greatly improved, including adding outline features like the one shown above.  This applies at a minimum to the desktop clients EN Mac and EN Win.

 

Just my 2¢.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I have been struggling with the lack of list outlining in EN for years as well. I have been using the "paragraph indent" formatting feature on EN for Mac to create the appearance of multi-level lists, but there was never any matching functionality on the Android or iOS EN apps.

 

Paragraph indent remained a feature on the Mac version of EN until recently. I am on version 6.0.13 now, and the formatting control to increase the paragraph indent is no longer present in the Mac UI, effectively removing the last work-around for outlining from the EN product suite.

 

The evidence suggests that EN will not support list outlining within notes in any way. I wonder why.

 EN toolbar Mac.tiff

 

The disappearance of this feature from EN spurred me to look for an alternative solution and I found Alternote, which is a Mac client for the EN backend. Outline lists work like you would expect in Alternote, including using tab and shift-tab to change the indent level. They say they are working on an iOS app as well.

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  • 9 months later...

I'm simply trying to make a bullet point list and EN is failing!

My platform is Win7, but I also use a Mac and Android.  For modern web-based apps, this should not matter.

If I tab after the text on a given line, EN moves the entire line over as a sub-bullet-  NOT NORMAL

I'm only trying to list three or four items and want to tab over and add some dollar figures.  Any word processor can do this.  Not EN.   I finally resorted to using the space bar to align columns.  My old Underwood typewriter did better :wacko:

Why?

Also, why don't tabs work evenly from line to line?  If I tab over three times on line 1 I can place some text, but if I tab on line 2, the text doesn't line up.

Why have tabs, if they don't advance to the same location across the page?

EN has great potential, but needs to at least be as good as WordPerfect from twenty years ago, when it comes to formatting.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • Level 5*
1 hour ago, gazumped said:

Don't rush to try it out unless you understand the risks,  but the public version should be coming out soon...

Depending on one's risk tolerance it still might be good to wait for the public version, but that said I have found the beta to be amazingly stable.  I waited a week to see what problems were posted and then decided to roll the dice and give it a try.  I've yet to find a problem that is significant to my use case.  Almost like the good ole days where I would load a new beta without a moment's hesitation.

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  • 2 months later...

Is there really no way to configure EN to use a different numbering scheme for sub-levels in an outline?  Below, Black should be labeled with a different numbering scheme than its parent.

 

  1. Misssouri
    1. Black
    2. White
  2. Kansas
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I'd love to hear what alternative outlining tools people are using on Mac. I sometimes would like to make an outline, and I go off and do a search (I found Workflowy that way as well). And every one of the tools I find has significant problems. E.g., in Workflowy, I can't have two sections of the outline open at the same time. And Workflowy seemed to be the best one the last time I looked.

So, what I do instead is make my outlines in Markdown format. I tend not to have to share my notes, so this works pretty well: They are plain text, which means Evernote has NO problems with them, they are readable by me; if I need to format them I can load them into a Markdown formatter (which I never do, actually); and I don't have to worry about multiple bullets on the same line. Which, btw, if you've dealt with other web-based editors (remember that Evernotes have to be editable on the web) you know they ALL have this problem.

This is because, fundamentally, HTML is not a robust format for word processing, even if it's OK for presentation. And make no mistake, claims earlier in this thread to the contrary, outlines *are* word processing - there is formatting meta to the content itself. If Evernote wanted to solve *that* problem, they could create an all new robust word processing module, raise the price by $100 and lose a lot of cross-platform compatibility for about 10 years (that's how long it took Microsoft to nearly get cross-platform right with Word).

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9 hours ago, s2sailor said:

At least on Windows you have bullets and numbers, one style each, AFAIK.

Thanks for the response.

I can't believe someone actually coded that behavior intentionally, but, whatever.  I live in outlines.....plenty of other options.

 

 

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  • 2 months later...

I use Evernote exclusively for taking notes in outline format, and it's still the biggest pain point for the app.  In particular, on Mac, there is no toolbar icon to change the outline indentation.  You have to go to the Format menu and select the Lists sub-menu and then select the Indent option to adjust the text.

 

 

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  • 1 month later...
Crazy:
What's up with inter-operability of formatting? I cannot cut/paste bullets numbered lists, and other formats from MS programs and Google document programs without losing all the format.
What about change in spacing. What about change in case (i.e. ALL CAPS, all small, Sentence case, Capitalize Each Word).
Crazy that we pay more and MS Note can do all this for free. I want to stick with Evernote but you need to be at least able to do what OneNote does for free.
I've sent tickets, etc. before. This stuff is common sense. I have many collegues in my institution who have the same complaints. Particularly bullets and numerical. We get agendas in MS word, MS outlook, etc. and we want to paste them in notes. Alternatively, we want to use our Evernote notes to generate documents, articles, policies, etc. Crazy that this cannot be straightend out
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I have everything in Evernote, it would be a hassle to switch to MS Note. But for Evernote to dawdle on this issue (formatting problems when cut/paste is used), when so many customers want a solution, is a sign of indifference. So many services (Spotify, LastFM, Flickr...) that provide a great product evolve into a take it or leave it attitude towards customers.

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  • 1 year later...

This is disappointing. It seems like a really basic feature to have. It makes me wonder how I haven't already switched to something else... ...I guess it is because of the flawless cross device syncing. 

But there is no way I've gone this long without any hierarchical content; I think I've just been using tabs and formatting as if it is code.  

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  • Level 5*
8 hours ago, Trones said:

This is disappointing. It seems like a really basic feature to have. It makes me wonder how I haven't already switched to something else... ...I guess it is because of the flawless cross device syncing. 

But there is no way I've gone this long without any hierarchical content; I think I've just been using tabs and formatting as if it is code.  

Hi.  This is a 1yr+ old thread and formatting has improved considerably since these guys were having issues.  What exactly are yours?

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  • 2 months later...

I don't want to answer for the other user, but I imagine the same as the OP since the OP's original issues are still present.

Evernote formats numbered lists like this

  1. item
    1. item
    2. item
  2. item

This is not a standard numbered list 2-level format. The user is just asking for some standardization that would likely help all users (at least in English-speaking countries). In general, users expect indents from a numbered list to change visually as they are indented. Evernote does this with bullets:

  • Item
    • Item
    • Item
  • Item

So this is not even consistent within evernote. I don't claim to understand the technical limitations holding this back, but it certainly doesn't seem like a huge challenge to make a numbered list work like this:

     1. item
           a. item
           b. item
     2. item

Or else offer a simple outline option ala word, but I don't suspect that's the best solution here. I completely agree - if you want advanced formatting, go to a different app and don't use evernote. This isn't advanced formatting, it's a deficiency in Evernote's ability to make a simple numbered list. 3-levels would be more than enough. 2 would be a huge improvement. The ability to indent a numbered list without any style change is a problem. People indent their lists all the time, sub-points, etc. It's not that they're "outlining" in the strict sense of the word, but just organizing basic information, something that Evernote is ideal for in just about every respect except this one.

What if Evernote just added a third option for abc lists? 

     a. item
           a. item
           b. item
     b. item

It Evernote did this, users could easily manually create 3-level lists like this:

     1. item
           a. item
           b. item
                 • item

Hope this clarifies. It is frustrating (for me as a paid user) to see the tone of so many Evernote Guru's be so dismissive "oh just use another app!" It makes me wonder if the support team really understands their users. On the flip side, I imagine it's frustrating for gurus and evernote staff to have so many users demanding feature improvements. This one just seems like such a quick win - but again, perhaps not. If it's an ideological reason "like simplicity!" then let's hear that argument. If it's a technical reason, maybe a counter argument could be made, rather than the users requesting the feature being dismissed. Hope this is helpful!

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  • Level 5*
15 hours ago, Shutez said:

the tone of so many Evernote Guru's be so dismissive "oh just use another app!"

Hmmn.  Not intentionally dismissive,  but definitely a little frustrated ;) - there are actually a few issues,  including:

  1. Evernote is a Swiss Army Knife.  It does lots of stuff,  some really well and others - stones from horses' hooves (or text layout) forinstance - well enough to use if you absolutely need it,  but not well enough to start a blacksmith business.  If you're going to be sticking shoes on horses,  you need a crowbar and a hammer.  The general idea applies to lists,  pagination,  word counts,  grammar checkers,  multilingual spellcheckers and goes on,  and on...
  2. Users here and elsewhere come up with multiple thousands of suggestions - which developers look at alongside the full time day job of keeping a humongously large live database available to millions of users on multiple platforms.  The phrase 'this is an easy fix' crops up quite a lot in user comments - but when you have 10,000 easy fixes to process,  without even twitching normal operations,  there's a scheduling aspect too...
  3. For the same reason that car and phone manufacturers (and Lego!) keep their new models under wraps until they're officially launched,  Evernote doesn't -usually- say what it has in development;  so your easy-fix-of-choice might even be in the pipeline.
  4. Evernote is already complex enough that the forum is weighted down with newbie queries about how to do things that are already available.  Adding a ton more options won't help usability or intuitiveness.  Word forinstance has a dozen different list options for number style, plus variable format, font and alignment.  For bullets I can define any symbol,  picture or font in any alignment.  I guess in theory that could all be added to the existing toolbar options - but what about the text styles users want,  and the collapsible text,  and the mindmap options...  which bits do you add and which do you leave out?  Or do you stick with a simple(ish) 'basic' capability and leave users to go to their own word processor of choice if they want more options?
  5. Whatever your easy fix of choice - with 220M users and 24/7 operation,  Evernote won't be rushing into production with changes until they've been thoroughly tested out.  (Yes I did type that with a straight face - it's what they should be doing anyway!)  So: assuming you find a killer feature that Evernote really want to add into the next available version? Given time for coding (multiple OS's,  multiple platforms...),  testing (multiple etc),  beta testing etc etc...  I'm guessing the new feature could be ready in less than a year.  Probably.

Which (in a slightly longer version) is why Gurus tend to say - you want better layout?  Use a word processor!  (And add the output file to your note so you can edit the content anywhere.)  - The option being to put your work on hold for 12 months in hopes that Evernote have actually been working on your favourite feature for a while,  and it's just about to come out.

Evernote does seem to have aspirations towards the Business market,  and if they want to go down that particular rabbit-hole,  a better text layout system has to be on their radar sometime in the future.  Your list improvement (and all the rest) is probably coming along,  but in due time.  The word processor is just a work-around.  Probably...

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  • Level 5*
18 hours ago, Shutez said:

It is frustrating (for me as a paid user) to see the tone of so many Evernote Guru's be so dismissive "oh just use another app!" It makes me wonder if the support team really understands their users.

You do know that forum users labelled as 'Guru' are not Evernote employees, right?  We're users just like you are; the 'Guru' tag is applied based on post count along, not by any special qualification. We don't influence Evernote's development priorities any more than any other use does. Anyways, most sensible people would understand that 1) feature requests are important and should be heeded, but they are requests, not commands, and 2) that if a product doesn't meet your requirements, then you should consider using a product that does. The latter is not dismissive at all, it's what we all should be doing when we choose the tools that we use in day-to-day life or work.For most of us, it's a best-fit scenario: Evernote has things that I wish  were changed, but by and large, it works well for my needs. If it didn't, I be looking at the OneNotes, SImpleNotes, Keeps, NimbusNotes, or WhateverNotes of the world...

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