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Evernote integration with Dropbox


Corey

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I would love to see Evernote add the ability to index all the files I have stored in Dropbox. This would allow me to easily search across all my stored Dropbox files. Let's hope this feature comes to Evernote very soon.

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Hi and welcome to the forums. Thanks for the suggestion, and I'm sure the Evernote developers who read these pages will take it on board; but while this would be fantastically convenient for DB users, why would Evernote want to index files that are stored somewhere else? What about shared folders? And what about Google Drive, Skydrive and the dozens of other 'cloud' storage systems? I don't think Evernote would see any benefit in providing this feature - but I've been spectacularly wrong before!

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Additionally, Evernote doesn't index any files (attachments) other than PDFs (premium accounts only) & images. No Excel, Word, Publisher, etc files. And it doesn't index any files that are not in the EN database in notebooks that are synced to the EN servers, since the indexing occurs on the EN servers. Attempting to index PDFs & images that are stored elsewhere would be a major change to the EN service & doubtful it would be very high on the priority list, if it's on the list at all. Especially since the only way EN makes any money is through their premium service. Which means one thing they want EN users to do is utilize premium features such as more monthly upload & larger note sizes rather than farming it out to Dropbox. If you want any PDFs (if you have a premium account) or images you have in Dropbox indexed by EN, you're going to have to add them to Evernote.

Another issue would be EN would have to constantly be monitoring what's in your Dropbox, in order to know what would need to be indexed. As it is now, when you sync, EN is aware of any changes made to your database & what needs to be indexed.

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Why would Evernote want to do this? Simple the ability to index files that I use as part of my premium membership would be greatly enhanced as it would have access to more of my files other than what is current;y uploaded in Evernote directly. For the files I have uploaded including PowerPoint and PDF being able to search across them is the reason I thought of this idea in the first place. As Evernote works to promote it's Business services I would think this feature would become even more important to their success as it's the path of least resistance by allowing it's customers to index files in locations like Dropbox and yes Box and others.

The question is, would Evenote users pay a little bit for this feature, I would.

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Why would Evernote want to do this? Simple the ability to index files that I use as part of my premium membership would be greatly enhanced as it would have access to more of my files other than what is current;y uploaded in Evernote directly. For the files I have uploaded including PowerPoint and PDF being able to search across them is the reason I thought of this idea in the first place. As Evernote works to promote it's Business services I would think this feature would become even more important to their success as it's the path of least resistance by allowing it's customers to index files in locations like Dropbox and yes Box and others.

First, EN doesn't index Powerpoint files.

Second,

Why would Evernote want to do this? Simple the ability to index files that I use as part of my premium membership would be greatly enhanced as it would have access to more of my files other than what is current;y uploaded in Evernote directly.

Like I said, even if all other things were equal (and they are not), EN would prefer you add the files to THEIR database, rather than farming it out to Dropbox. Even if you're already a premium user, you can add up to four extra gigs per month.

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  • 9 months later...

Old topic I know, but I was recently searching for ways to integrate dropbox with Evernote and came across this thread. I have a few comments...

 

Not to stray too off topic, but it seems like every time someone has a feature request or some sort of criticism toward Evernote, these so-called "Evernote Evangelists" jump in and just question why someone would want EN to be any different than it currently is. More like Evernote Apologists... Sorry if I am offending anyone.

 

That being said, I know this isn't what Corey was requesting, but you always have the ability to add Dropbox links to Evernote's, which is handy if you need to reference something stored in Dropbox.

 

To BurgersNFries; why would someone want to use up a pretty limited amount of space in Evernote to attach files??  Dropbox (and other similar service) are much better suited to the task.

 

I can see the appeal of having your Dropbox index sync'ed to Evernote; it would extend the reach of EN and further the agenda of being the first place you go for everything you need to remember in your life.

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@Colin: Since you bring it up, you apparently haven't been around for long enough to have seen where Evernote evangelists also ask for features, complain about bugs, or generally act just like other users on the forum. You single out BurgersNFries, but you may not be aware that she's helped literally hundreds of users on the forum to use Evernote better, on her own time. So no, your name-calling ("Apologists") isn't actually offensive, since you don't really understand how this all works, but just so you know, name-calling is probably not in the best interest of the constructive discussion that the forum wants to encourage, so you may want to tone that down a bit.

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Old topic I know, but I was recently searching for ways to integrate dropbox with Evernote and came across this thread. I have a few comments...

 

Not to stray too off topic, but it seems like every time someone has a feature request or some sort of criticism toward Evernote, these so-called "Evernote Evangelists" jump in and just question why someone would want EN to be any different than it currently is. More like Evernote Apologists... Sorry if I am offending anyone.

 

That being said, I know this isn't what Corey was requesting, but you always have the ability to add Dropbox links to Evernote's, which is handy if you need to reference something stored in Dropbox.

 

To BurgersNFries; why would someone want to use up a pretty limited amount of space in Evernote to attach files??  Dropbox (and other similar service) are much better suited to the task.

 

I can see the appeal of having your Dropbox index sync'ed to Evernote; it would extend the reach of EN and further the agenda of being the first place you go for everything you need to remember in your life.

 

I have no idea why you are posing this question to me.  The answer is...some people do.  WRT "limited", some people have premium accounts & use the EN ability to add up to 4 extra gigs per month to add their files.  But as far as Evernote indexing your Dropbox files, I doubt that's on the radar for reasons mentioned above. 

 

Your comment wrt evangelists...I have pretty tough skin, so it's not offensive to me.  I've had much worse said about me.  It just goes with the territory.  But I would say that your whole approach with posting your criticism & ending with 'sorry if I am offending anyone' comes across as pretty lame.

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Look, I don't want to start an internet pissing match, but I think it speaks volumes that the handful of times I've posted here (on separate topics), both BurgersNFries and jefito have jumped on my own and others comments basically criticizing why we would want to use the product the way we do, or questioning our comprehension of the productevery time. 

 

I can tell these folks are enthusiastic about the product, and I'm sure they've helped hundreds too. But justifying every criticism or feature request on behalf of Evernote is not helpful.

 

I like Evernote too, I just wish it worked differently sometimes and I'd like to think that if enough folks feel the same way on these forums, perhaps the team would take that into consideration.

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Look, I don't want to start an internet pissing match, but I think it speaks volumes that the handful of times I've posted here (on separate topics), both BurgersNFries and jefito have jumped on my own and others comments basically criticizing why we would want to use the product the way we do, or questioning our comprehension of the productevery time. 

"Every time"? Really? That seems to be a little hyperbolic on its face, seeing as how I actually didn't jump all over your use of Evernote in this topic, or any that I can find elsewhere. What I did object to was the name-calling that you engaged in with your very first contribution to the topic (and followed with a somewhat unconvincing apology in the the very next breath), to which I offered some advice that it's probably not in the spirit of the forums here.

As it is, I read BnF's comments here as being directed towards how Evernote actually operates, with some opinion as to why Evernote may have made the choices that they did, and not being critical of anyone. Regardless, disagreement on matters concerning Evernote is perfectly acceptable forum fodder, provided it's done in a constructive manner; see the forum code of conduct.

 

I can tell these folks are enthusiastic about the product, and I'm sure they've helped hundreds too. But justifying every criticism or feature request on behalf of Evernote is not helpful.

I don't think that that means quite what you think it does. :) I'll take it that you meant somewhat the opposite: that we decry "every criticism or feature request" (if we justified every criticism you'd probably not be complaining), and remind you, again, that we often offer our own criticisms and suggestions for Evernote and its services, right here in the public forums. You're welcome to them search out on your own, which I hope that you'll do rather than continuing to make assumptions about our roles here in the forums.

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Look, I don't want to start an internet pissing match, but I think it speaks volumes that the handful of times I've posted here (on separate topics), both BurgersNFries and jefito have jumped on my own and others comments basically criticizing why we would want to use the product the way we do, or questioning our comprehension of the productevery time. 

 

I can tell these folks are enthusiastic about the product, and I'm sure they've helped hundreds too. But justifying every criticism or feature request on behalf of Evernote is not helpful.

 

I like Evernote too, I just wish it worked differently sometimes and I'd like to think that if enough folks feel the same way on these forums, perhaps the team would take that into consideration.

 

 

In addition to what Jeff said, I also have never jumped on you or criticized how you use the product.  That's a pretty broad brushed statement you made.  So let me get specific. 

 

In the smart folder thread, you complained about the lack of a feature (saved searches existing and/or syncing across various platforms) that I pointed out did indeed exist.  So I actually helped you.  You then made an opinion that the fact that you had to hunt for it meant it (saved searches) was not successful.  To which I said that is no gauge. Because it's not.  In fact, like your unconvincing apology above), it sounded more like you simply had to come up with something to gripe about Evernote since what you were originally griping about already existed & you just weren't aware of it.

 

http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/9977-smart-folders-yes-or-no/

 

And in this thread (also regarding smart folders), I pointed out that what you wanted (smart folders) exists with tags.  The net result of our interaction in that thread is basically that you want different terminology for something that already exists in Evernote.  I can't help that you don't like the terminology Evernote uses. For myself, I don't care what they're called.  I didn't pick the name.  I know what they do & I use them when I need them.  (shrug)

 

http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/22117-feature-request-smart-folders-lists-bundles/

 

So please stop with your broad brushing, generalizing of other users.  Thank you.

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Old topic I know, but I was recently searching for ways to integrate dropbox with Evernote and came across this thread. I have a few comments...

 

Not to stray too off topic, but it seems like every time someone has a feature request or some sort of criticism toward Evernote, these so-called "Evernote Evangelists" jump in and just question why someone would want EN to be any different than it currently is. More like Evernote Apologists... Sorry if I am offending anyone.

 

That being said, I know this isn't what Corey was requesting, but you always have the ability to add Dropbox links to Evernote's, which is handy if you need to reference something stored in Dropbox.

 

To BurgersNFries; why would someone want to use up a pretty limited amount of space in Evernote to attach files??  Dropbox (and other similar service) are much better suited to the task.

 

I can see the appeal of having your Dropbox index sync'ed to Evernote; it would extend the reach of EN and further the agenda of being the first place you go for everything you need to remember in your life.

If you are on a Mac, your Dropbox folder and your Evernote notes are both indexed and easily searchable, though I prefer the HoudahSpot front end for Spotlight. Another alternative is DevonThink, which you can point to folders, even external drives, to index and search. All combined, they offer many ways of searching for data.

Because Evernote is based on a model with their server, I doubt they'll ever index anything else on your drive, including Dropbox. It would be interesting if they did, but if/until it happens. there are some phenomenal options already available.

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Old topic I know, but I was recently searching for ways to integrate dropbox with Evernote and came across this thread. I have a few comments...

 

Not to stray too off topic, but it seems like every time someone has a feature request or some sort of criticism toward Evernote, these so-called "Evernote Evangelists" jump in and just question why someone would want EN to be any different than it currently is. More like Evernote Apologists... Sorry if I am offending anyone.

 

That being said, I know this isn't what Corey was requesting, but you always have the ability to add Dropbox links to Evernote's, which is handy if you need to reference something stored in Dropbox.

 

To BurgersNFries; why would someone want to use up a pretty limited amount of space in Evernote to attach files??  Dropbox (and other similar service) are much better suited to the task.

 

I can see the appeal of having your Dropbox index sync'ed to Evernote; it would extend the reach of EN and further the agenda of being the first place you go for everything you need to remember in your life.

If you are on a Mac, your Dropbox folder and your Evernote notes are both indexed and easily searchable, though I prefer the HoudahSpot front end for Spotlight. Another alternative is DevonThink, which you can point to folders, even external drives, to index and search. All combined, they offer many ways of searching for data.

Because Evernote is based on a model with their server, I doubt they'll ever index anything else on your drive, including Dropbox. It would be interesting if they did, but if/until it happens. there are some phenomenal options already available.

 

 

Not on a Mac (unfortunately), but that's pretty cool OSX indexes Evernotes. Does it index EN tags as well, or... how does it work?

 

I have this vision (hazy at best), but it would be cool if there existed a "cloud OS". One place to go with everything accessible everywhere. Like Evernote, but beyond notes. Google's probably getting very close to this ideal, but I don't think their services are adequate for my needs just yet. 

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Old topic I know, but I was recently searching for ways to integrate dropbox with Evernote and came across this thread. I have a few comments...

 

Not to stray too off topic, but it seems like every time someone has a feature request or some sort of criticism toward Evernote, these so-called "Evernote Evangelists" jump in and just question why someone would want EN to be any different than it currently is. More like Evernote Apologists... Sorry if I am offending anyone.

 

That being said, I know this isn't what Corey was requesting, but you always have the ability to add Dropbox links to Evernote's, which is handy if you need to reference something stored in Dropbox.

 

To BurgersNFries; why would someone want to use up a pretty limited amount of space in Evernote to attach files??  Dropbox (and other similar service) are much better suited to the task.

 

I can see the appeal of having your Dropbox index sync'ed to Evernote; it would extend the reach of EN and further the agenda of being the first place you go for everything you need to remember in your life.

If you are on a Mac, your Dropbox folder and your Evernote notes are both indexed and easily searchable, though I prefer the HoudahSpot front end for Spotlight. Another alternative is DevonThink, which you can point to folders, even external drives, to index and search. All combined, they offer many ways of searching for data.

Because Evernote is based on a model with their server, I doubt they'll ever index anything else on your drive, including Dropbox. It would be interesting if they did, but if/until it happens. there are some phenomenal options already available.

 

Not on a Mac (unfortunately), but that's pretty cool OSX indexes Evernotes. Does it index EN tags as well, or... how does it work?

 

I have this vision (hazy at best), but it would be cool if there existed a "cloud OS". One place to go with everything accessible everywhere. Like Evernote, but beyond notes. Google's probably getting very close to this ideal, but I don't think their services are adequate for my needs just yet.

I don't believe it indexes tags and so forth, and it naturally isn't directly integrated with Evernote, so browsing is a little cumbersome. However, if you have a bunch of data on your computer, and external drive, and other places a single search will find everything. That's pretty nice.

A Cloud OS? No thank you. I'm pleased with OSX. But that is just me :)

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Because Evernote is based on a model with their server, I doubt they'll ever index anything else on your drive, including Dropbox. It would be interesting if they did, but if/until it happens. there are some phenomenal options already available.

Yeah, it just doesn't feel like the the Evernote thing to be able to to index (as opposed to ingesting) external content. And as BnF points out, they don't really index all content types anyways. Indexing external content just seems like a case of too many moving parts. What they could do on Windows, I suppose, is to open themselves up to Windows Search, as an analogue to Mac's Spotlight. I'm pretty sure that this has been requested before.
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Because Evernote is based on a model with their server, I doubt they'll ever index anything else on your drive, including Dropbox. It would be interesting if they did, but if/until it happens. there are some phenomenal options already available.

Yeah, it just doesn't feel like the the Evernote thing to be able to to index (as opposed to ingesting) external content. And as BnF points out, they don't really index all content types anyways. Indexing external content just seems like a case of too many moving parts. What they could do on Windows, I suppose, is to open themselves up to Windows Search, as an analogue to Mac's Spotlight. I'm pretty sure that this has been requested before.

Yep. We used to have Bitqwik on Windows, but I think development is suspended for the moment (I remember reading on the forums some time ago about an issue of some kind with the Evernote updates).

http://www.bitqwik.com

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Yep. We used to have Bitqwik on Windows, but I think development is suspended for the moment (I remember reading on the forums some time ago about an issue of some kind with the Evernote updates).

http://www.bitqwik.com

Yes, I remember. Sounds like Evernote changed the (undocumented, but still) COM interface that Roschler was using. A shame.
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Yep. We used to have Bitqwik on Windows, but I think development is suspended for the moment (I remember reading on the forums some time ago about an issue of some kind with the Evernote updates).

http://www.bitqwik.com

Yes, I remember. Sounds like Evernote changed the (undocumented, but still) COM interface that Roschler was using. A shame.

That sounds right. Too bad. It was a cool project. Honestly, it seems like something that ought to be inside of Evernote already... They need a Search Czar to get this kind of cool stuff done :)

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That sounds right. Too bad. It was a cool project. Honestly, it seems like something that ought to be inside of Evernote already... They need a Search Czar to get this kind of cool stuff done :)

Personally, I didn't care for the natural language approach -- too wordy for me -- but it was great to see someone pushing on search. I've thought about many ways that I'd like to extend the search grammar, but nobody seems to pick up on my hints... :)
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  • 4 months later...

Sorry for some archeological research but... I have been searching the web for the way to integrate DB and EN and was kinda shocked/surprised when I saw anyone not being able to see the obvious benefits of it. Why would I want it? The question is why wouldn't I? Simple example from 1 hour ago. I watched a short video that made me lough and wanted to keep it under "inspirations". Not the link. Entire video. Evernote does not have option to do it automatically and even if, guess how many videos like this I could archive with 1 GB monthly quota limit.... Other example - people like keeping recipies in EN - kinda trademark functionality. Why would I make an effort to keep a recipe if I can keep a video of someone preparing the  dish - start to finish. Duh.... Remember everything? I do not think so....

 

And to be honest sooner or later EN will be forced to do it or will see people switching to google keep. Sure, google keep lacks in many areas but it quickly catches up. It also scheduled to be integrated with google drive. It is almost certain it will happen seeing how google keeps integrating more and more of its service into drive... google drive has search engine that beats EN in every possible way and it is FREE... and common, you cannot keep up with google in terms of search capabilities (i.e. I can easily imagine google being able to scan your media files with speech recognition software for phrases in the future. It is not yet there, but....). Be also minded that google drive have just received a massive price reduction recently....

 

So in my humble opinion, dropbox (or some other storing service) integration is a must. 

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Why would I make an effort to keep a recipe if I can keep a video of someone preparing the  dish - start to finish. Duh....

Because being able to read a recipe is faster, more efficient than watching someone make dish from start to finish? Unless a recipe involves techniques with which I'm unfamiliar, I don't need to watch someone else do it.

But, back to the general matter at hand. Sounds as you may have greater storage needs than lots of people. I can't think of a time I've wanted to save a video. If I did, I suppose I could upload it to DropBox and put the link in Evernote with any annotations I felt necessary. Seems sufficient to me.

Best of luck.

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Because being able to read a recipe is faster, more efficient than watching someone make dish from start to finish? Unless a recipe involves techniques with which I'm unfamiliar, I don't need to watch someone else do it.

But, back to the general matter at hand. Sounds as you may have greater storage needs than lots of people. I can't think of a time I've wanted to save a video. If I did, I suppose I could upload it to DropBox and put the link in Evernote with any annotations I felt necessary. Seems sufficient to me.

Best of luck.

 

 

Nope I do not. I have something like 5 Gigs of data on my dropbox which I believe is rather low. However, if I had better tools to store multimedia I would probably expand it pretty quickly. 

As for linking movie to evernote with a link... common. You know better than this. We could do our note taking on paper as well but this is not the point. 

 

Oh and truth be told, trying to turn this around and suggesting that I have bigger needs than others is a prime example of the funboish attitude that was pointed out earlier in this thread. Truth is that our needs adjust to the tools we have. 2001 if someone told you you could transfer 1 Gig of data per month of your notes, you would be amazed... Now, a lot of people complain it is not enough.

 

I remember someone being very excited about the ability of EN to store and capture his son's art work. Why stop there? What if I wanted to store in EN my child's first steps recorded with my smartphone that is capable of capturing full HD movies?

 

In other words, times have changed. I see no reason to pretend otherwise and trying to criticize anyone who dares to point it out...  

 

P.S.

And what stops you from writing down recipie and then adding a video with someone doing it... 

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Seems to me there's some confusion of terms here - Evernote 'integrates' quite well with DropBox in terms of my being able to store data in DB and index it with direct links to clips from my Notes.  I also subscribe to OneDrive,  GDrive and Box,  Flickr and Picassa all of which 'integrate' on the same basis.  If what's being looked for here is simple access,  then I don't see the problem.  What is being requested already exists.

 

If what's being suggested is direct commercial and technical links,  then I can see several practical problems,  not least of which some of these people run services that might be considered Evernote competition,  so would be unwilling (I would have thought) to share anything.  Plus I want to be able to search Evernote to find my stored data.  I'm up to 12GB for my database,  and that's all data;  I'm careful about the size of things I add to that - skinny PDFs,  small pictures etc because I don't want my searches to take longer than they do.  Adding video is just going to bloat things.  And my video library software,  my picture software and (now you remind me) my book and DVD collection software,  all have display,  sorting and management options that Evernote is never going to have.  I still have links to them in Evernote too..

 

Evernote's core value (IMHO) should remain as storing and retrieving information as efficiently as possible without added bells and whistles - and since it's their company,  the choice of whether or not to include different file types,  or to increase storage limits is rather up to them.

 

Please don't take these comments as criticism of someone 'daring' to point out a failing of the service - I'm just sayin..

 

PS - 80M+ users x5GB..  what comes next after "Petabyte" ?

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Because being able to read a recipe is faster, more efficient than watching someone make dish from start to finish? Unless a recipe involves techniques with which I'm unfamiliar, I don't need to watch someone else do it.

But, back to the general matter at hand. Sounds as you may have greater storage needs than lots of people. I can't think of a time I've wanted to save a video. If I did, I suppose I could upload it to DropBox and put the link in Evernote with any annotations I felt necessary. Seems sufficient to me.

Best of luck.

 

 

Nope I do not. I have something like 5 Gigs of data on my dropbox which I believe is rather low. However, if I had better tools to store multimedia I would probably expand it pretty quickly. 

As for linking movie to evernote with a link... common. You know better than this. We could do our note taking on paper as well but this is not the point. 

 

Oh and truth be told, trying to turn this around and suggesting that I have bigger needs than others is a prime example of the funboish attitude that was pointed out earlier in this thread. Truth is that our needs adjust to the tools we have. 2001 if someone told you you could transfer 1 Gig of data per month of your notes, you would be amazed... Now, a lot of people complain it is not enough.

 

I remember someone being very excited about the ability of EN to store and capture his son's art work. Why stop there? What if I wanted to store in EN my child's first steps recorded with my smartphone that is capable of capturing full HD movies?

 

In other words, times have changed. I see no reason to pretend otherwise and trying to criticize anyone who dares to point it out...  

 

P.S.

And what stops you from writing down recipie and then adding a video with someone doing it... 

 

Just to be clear, I don't think Megsaint was trying to "turn this around" by suggesting that you have greater storage needs than many others. This isn't a criticism of you or to say you are wrong. I think the point was just that your storage needs are greater than what Evernote offers at this time, and based on anecdotal evidence, most people get by with what Evernote offers in terms of storage (perhaps, precisely because they aren't able to upload videos!).

 

Of course, one of the only limitations to adding videos is the transfer quota (I am sure that there are tons of issues around codecs and playback too, especially on mobile devices, that might creep up with compressed or more obscure video formats). As I have just tried, adding a video as an attachment to Evernote and playing it back is easy. But this is not really going to do much for people who have 100mb+ videos they are regularly adding.

 

I can imagine that being able to give a user access to a video in an Evernote note but which is stored on Dropbox's servers without simply redirecting the user to a webpage hosted by dropbox with the video embedded would be hard. It also makes offline access to this note/file impossible (at least as far as I can see) on mobile devices, as the file would have to be fetch from Dropbox and stored in Evernote's local storage, which would be a rather cumbersome thing to implement. Thus, the link-to-file-in-dropbox seems like the most feasible route still...

 

Dropbox integration could be great for some things, but I wonder if something like video needs native storage (that is, within Evernote's servers and local database). The trouble with this is that it would require 1) Evernote to increase its quota (or decrease the cost of upgrades) rather significantly (which can be done.... you can buy extra gigabyte blocks whenever you like), 2) Increase the server capacity on their end to accommodate this baseline increase. This is tough and might not be in the near future of Evernote, for better or for worse. 

 

But integrating dropbox, I have a hard time seeing how it could much more than simply generating a link to the file on Dropbox's server, which is something that could relatively easily be done manually. Most applications with "dropbox integration" do exactly this.

"Add file from dropbox"->Dropbox interface opens->Select file->link added. 

That being said, I am sure more savvy minds than me could come up with a better form of integration, but to be honest, I haven't seen it yet!

 

This isn't terribly superior to Megsaint's workaround of adding the video to Dropbox then pasting the link to an Evernote note.

You could paste the link right at the top of a note containing a recipe! 

 

Kordi, I think you express several valid needs (more storage, better video integration), but I wonder if the solutions to these issues aren't too much better than the workarounds. Evernote is still a growing company and they really do not talk about their future plans, so who knows what they have in store. For better or for worse, we'll have to wait and see!

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All above is true... but I am telling you. This functionality will be forced sooner or later upon evernote for the very reason of what Google is currently doing with its services. I am not talking 1 year, or 2 years... it make take 3 or 4 years or more for this to happen. Google is integrating everything to google drive. Gmail, youtube, chrome, Chome OS, chromecast, aorundroid (obviously) etc. and planned support for google keep and google glass in the future. There are more and more services being added. At certain point people will start asking simple questions. i.e. why would I bother with EN if google search gives me access to all these wonderfull services? By going to google now, I will be able not only to browse through my notes but also through my movies, emails, contacts, spreadsheets, calendar, tasks etc. EN will not be able to compete against it with links to external files.... common. I do not want to find external file in dropbox. I want my search engine to scan it automatically as well...

 

At the same time, I am by no means saying that this needs to be dropbox or whatever. However, adding dropbox integration seems kinda natural. It is obvious EN does not have capabilities to compete with google drive in terms of file sharing. However, dropbox does....

 

Also, the fact that people do not use their quotas in EN is precisely because there is no multimedia support. One of my first thoughts when I installed EN app on my Andorid was "how on earth can I capture a movie with this"...  Recently I really regretted there is no automated podcast support ... etc. Thinking about the notes in terms of pen and paper is really outdated approach....

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Oh and truth be told, trying to turn this around and suggesting that I have bigger needs than others is a prime example of the funboish attitude that was pointed out earlier in this thread.

No, it just an observation, maybe correct, maybe not. I'm more than willing to acknowledge that Evernote isn't the best solution for storing video. However, based on the threads I've seen here, there aren't huge numbers of people clamoring for it to be a better video storage app. Hence my conclusion.

Is Evernote perfect? Of course not? Do I think they should be spending their finite development resources on linking with DropBox or became a better video storage tool? No, I don't.

Best of luck.

(And of course I could attach a recipe to a video of someone cooking a dish. But not only do I not need to, I don't want to. I'd find such a video annoying and useless.)

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Best of luck.

(And of course I could attach a recipe to a video of someone cooking a dish. But not only do I not need to, I don't want to. I'd find such a video annoying and useless.)

 

 

 

Oh really? and what if you could on the fly capture a bookmark of the particular FRAGMENT of the video where someone would show you exactly how to fold these dumplings, or how to cut a tomato so that it has perfect shape for decoration?

 

Seriously, just because people are not complaining this is not proving anything. They simply are unaware of the possibilities that's all. 2006 iphone did not exist. No one was complaining that they could *only* call from their phone or that they had to use sticks to use their PDA. 2004 there was no youtube. No one was complaining that they couldn't broadcast themselves. 1999 there was no camera phone. No one probably even considered making photo notes... etc. Times change. That's all.

 

I can easily imagine in 10 years notes being geolocated and integrated into your google glass device. I.e. you go to a restaurant and eat something that you don't like. You could then take a note no to order it again comprising of video, text or whatever that would activate automatically upon you looking at the menu in this particular restaurant. Or a video note that would recall a particularly funny moment that happened when you were there 2 years ago.  

 

All I am saying here is that insisting on keeping the tool as it is, is the best way to make it outdated. IMO file search and integration is the way to go. For now EN is great, but it has not change much in terms of overall *ideology* since it was launched and 6 years is a long time when you think software/internet. What I am saying is that to make it really better, the *ideology* has to be changed alltogether with the product. 

 

For me a perfect example of such demise where instant massaging applications. Back in the day - early 2000 - such products that was something really cool. All my friends had it - it was called GaduGadu. The idea was very simple. You send text and someone writes back in real time. Gradually other options were added. File transfer, video calls etc. But the overall idea was always the same. Communication between two particular people. Yes it was becoming more and more sophisticated but this basic principle remained unchanged.... and then came Facebook and leveled the whole landscape. This was completely new principle. Why would you talk to one friend, when you can talk to all of them at once?.... Guess how many of my firends use GaduGadu now? ... I do not know either as I have uninstalled it long, long time ago and trust me when I say it is more perfect now than it was ever before in terms of its core capabilities. This is a kinda cautionary tale for Evernote. It may be perfect in what it was designed to do, but if its core capabilities will not evolve, it may be soon forgotten.

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All above is true... but I am telling you. This functionality will be forced sooner or later upon evernote for the very reason of what Google is currently doing with its services. I am not talking 1 year, or 2 years... it make take 3 or 4 years or more for this to happen. Google is integrating everything to google drive. Gmail, youtube, chrome, Chome OS, chromecast, aorundroid (obviously) etc. and planned support for google keep and google glass in the future. There are more and more services being added. At certain point people will start asking simple questions. i.e. why would I bother with EN if google search gives me access to all these wonderfull services? By going to google now, I will be able not only to browse through my notes but also through my movies, emails, contacts, spreadsheets, calendar, tasks etc. EN will not be able to compete against it with links to external files.... common. I do not want to find external file in dropbox. I want my search engine to scan it automatically as well...

 

At the same time, I am by no means saying that this needs to be dropbox or whatever. However, adding dropbox integration seems kinda natural. It is obvious EN does not have capabilities to compete with google drive in terms of file sharing. However, dropbox does....

 

Also, the fact that people do not use their quotas in EN is precisely because there is no multimedia support. One of my first thoughts when I installed EN app on my Andorid was "how on earth can I capture a movie with this"...  Recently I really regretted there is no automated podcast support ... etc. Thinking about the notes in terms of pen and paper is really outdated approach....

 

All above is true... but I am telling you. This functionality will be forced sooner or later upon evernote for the very reason of what Google is currently doing with its services. I am not talking 1 year, or 2 years... it make take 3 or 4 years or more for this to happen. Google is integrating everything to google drive. Gmail, youtube, chrome, Chome OS, chromecast, aorundroid (obviously) etc. and planned support for google keep and google glass in the future. 

Well, in 3 or 4 years we'll see where Evernote is at! One of the beauties of competition is that there is always the possibility of being different, rather than being the same. We'll just have to wait and see what Evernote comes up with in the next few years. 

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Well, in 3 or 4 years we'll see where Evernote is at! One of the beauties of competition is that there is always the possibility of being different, rather than being the same. We'll just have to wait and see what Evernote comes up with in the next few years. 

 

 

 

 

True... but I know where it will be if people keep implying it is perfect the way it is and that features like file syncing and file indexing are obsolete. It will be in exactly the same place it is now.... It will get a few more tweaks here and there but nothing ground breaking. 

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Best of luck.

(And of course I could attach a recipe to a video of someone cooking a dish. But not only do I not need to, I don't want to. I'd find such a video annoying and useless.)

 

 

Oh really? and what if you could on the fly capture a bookmark of the particular FRAGMENT of the video where someone would show you exactly how to fold these dumplings, or how to cut a tomato so that it has perfect shape for decoration?

Not something I would want to do. Video is linear. Text and pictures can be "randomly" accessed. If it works for you, great. But this highlights my larger point. Not everyone has the same needs. The Evernote team has their idea, too. That's probably going to be the one that wins out.

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True... but I know where it will be if people keep implying it is perfect the way it is and that features like file syncing and file indexing are obsolete. It will be in exactly the same place it is now.... It will get a few more tweaks here and there but nothing ground breaking.

Perhaps you missed the part in my post where I stated that Evernote is NOT perfect?  ;)

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  • Level 5*

OK, folks. The actual feature request seems to be getting overwhelmed by discussion questioning other peoples' motives and opinions. Let's keep it simple here: make the request and state your case as to why you think it's a good idea. That's the most effective way for Evernote to try to get a handle on what's being asked for. Evtra discussion about other people and their motives just clouds the issue for them, and really isn't topical. Let's keep the discussion on track, please.

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  • 2 months later...

OK, here is my deal. I like to use EN to take down notes while discussing things with my team, and then if a more formal document arises from these discussions, I like to attach the file to the note so that it's there and I can have a record of this file. Cool? Well, normally these files reside in DB, however it seems that once you attach the file to the note, EN likes to keep a copy of the file in its own database. This would not be a major problem except for the fact that if I want to make any edits to the file, the file embedded in EN links to the copy of the file in the EN database, not to the original file in DB. Ergo, if I open the file from EN then the file in DB does not get updated with the edits and vice-versa. I found out the hard way when I had made edits to the file after opening it from EN, then going to the file in DB and discovering that this version did not have the edits.

I realize that EN keeps its own copy of the file so that the copy can propagate to my EN account on various computers/devices. However, may of us work concurrently with EN and DB and integration would be a beautiful thing. I would much rather just link to the file on DB. EN is not really built for high-capacity cloud storage, for that I use DB. 

 

Any thoughts?

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OK, here is my deal. I like to use EN to take down notes while discussing things with my team, and then if a more formal document arises from these discussions, I like to attach the file to the note so that it's there and I can have a record of this file. Cool? Well, normally these files reside in DB, however it seems that once you attach the file to the note, EN likes to keep a copy of the file in its own database. This would not be a major problem except for the fact that if I want to make any edits to the file, the file embedded in EN links to the copy of the file in the EN database, not to the original file in DB. Ergo, if I open the file from EN then the file in DB does not get updated with the edits and vice-versa. I found out the hard way when I had made edits to the file after opening it from EN, then going to the file in DB and discovering that this version did not have the edits.

I realize that EN keeps its own copy of the file so that the copy can propagate to my EN account on various computers/devices. However, may of us work concurrently with EN and DB and integration would be a beautiful thing. I would much rather just link to the file on DB. EN is not really built for high-capacity cloud storage, for that I use DB. 

 

Any thoughts?

This so the way EN has worked from day one & is no secret. (There are at least a few threads on the topic). It's really very simple. Put the file in either EN or Dropbox. It's doubtful EN would ever do what you're wanting it to do.

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I would much rather just link to the file on DB. EN is not really built for high-capacity cloud storage, for that I use DB. 

 

Any thoughts?

I no longer have dropbox installed, so can't test this, but can't you just create a link to the file in dropbox and copy that link to your note in EN?

 

There are times when I want access to a file but don't want to put it in EN.  For those times, I just create a shortcut to the file and drag the shortcut into EN.  Just wondering if you can do something similar with a dropbox file link.

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I would much rather just link to the file on DB. EN is not really built for high-capacity cloud storage, for that I use DB. 

 

Any thoughts?

I no longer have dropbox installed, so can't test this, but can't you just create a link to the file in dropbox and copy that link to your note in EN?

 

There are times when I want access to a file but don't want to put it in EN.  For those times, I just create a shortcut to the file and drag the shortcut into EN.  Just wondering if you can do something similar with a dropbox file link.

 

 

You can definitely get a link to open a file directly in Dropbox (and most other online storage providers) - and if you can get a link, you can include it in a note.

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D'oh!!!! That was some mental block and thank you for tearing it down!  I use DB links all the time for sharing large files too big for e-mail...not sure why I didn't put two and two together. Maybe I just like the aesthetics of the the document icon in the EN note instead of a meh looking link!!! ;)

 

But thank you, this is exactly what I need.

 

E

 

 

 

 

I would much rather just link to the file on DB. EN is not really built for high-capacity cloud storage, for that I use DB. 

 

Any thoughts?

I no longer have dropbox installed, so can't test this, but can't you just create a link to the file in dropbox and copy that link to your note in EN?

 

There are times when I want access to a file but don't want to put it in EN.  For those times, I just create a shortcut to the file and drag the shortcut into EN.  Just wondering if you can do something similar with a dropbox file link.

 

 

You can definitely get a link to open a file directly in Dropbox (and most other online storage providers) - and if you can get a link, you can include it in a note.

 

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  • 2 years later...
  • Level 5*
12 hours ago, BrynRedbeard said:

Despite all the naysayers above

You're right about being a message from the future.  This thread is 3 years old.  If only we'd known then...

There's precious little detail about what this recipe does - "from DropBox to Evernote" is all it says.  As one (presumably) of the 54 users,  can you give us any more details?

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12 hours ago, BrynRedbeard said:

The applet is called "from Dropbox to Evernote"  and can be found at https://ifttt.com/applets/84555p. 

The applet description is

This Trigger fires every time any file is saved in the folder you specify. NOTE: will process up to 15 files per polling period.

Basically, new file > new note

You get a note with the filename and url

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  • 1 month later...
  • Level 5*
2 hours ago, enotetool said:

Funny how many naysayers there are.  Googled how to reference in EN a document that exists on a cloud service and came across this thread, and also EN's January 2017 announcement of just such a service.

Note  (from the linked page): "Available now on all platforms except Windows and Web on IE and Firefox". Dunno whether that's changed yet, but the lack of availability on a major desktop platform is a little awkward. A file link that travels with me and Google Drive and Evernote, that would be useful.

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2 hours ago, enotetool said:

came across this thread, and also EN's January 2017 announcement of just such a service

? This thread started originally in 2014 so it's not like any of the comments were actually wrong or misleading.  And Evernote has a pretty long history of partnering with Samsung,  Fujitsu,  Post-it,  Moleskine,  Google,  and buying into some smaller utilities like Clearly,  Skitch and Penultimate...  and like @jefito says the Google Drive thing has a ways to go yet...

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Well, I got to playing around with this tonight. I primarily keep photos and other images on GDrive. My bank, medical, etc is on Dropbox because DB is integrated with other services. 

 

Here is what some playing around found. While the GDrive integration is more fully functional, I can easily pull a DB file into Android  EN by clicking the paper clip choosing File on the presented screen. This presents the Android data sources on the left. Where you can go searching for directories on the device or on the SD card. Any cloud services that you have installed on the Android device will also be in the list. I chose DB dove down a couple of directories to a 1.2M pdf file. I didn't have a timer on it but it was in the note in less than 10 seconds. 

I'm not a EN expert but my new note was not locally stored, so when all is said and done that 1.2M pdf is going from DB to Android EN  (1.2M data xfer) and then to EN cloud  storage (another 1.2M transfer.)  

My guess is that you would not want to do a lot of big files unless you were on WiFi and even then you need to be choosy. Just my guess though. 

Cheers

Bryn 

 

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Quote

 ...(2013) why would Evernote want to index files that are stored somewhere else? What about shared folders? And what about Google Drive, Skydrive and the dozens of other 'cloud' storage systems? I don't think Evernote would see any benefit in providing this feature...

...and like @jefito says the Google Drive thing has a ways to go yet...

Well, the point is, people thought that those who were requesting this kind of functionality were somehow amiss.

It is not all there yet, but it is a capability that is desired, nontheless, and EN seem to have acknowledged it with this add.

Ultimately, it is up to EN to determine the "size" of that requirement and if there is business sense to implement it.  

The comments such as the quote from above in 2013 seem more aimed at shutting down the conversation than in helpfully digging deeper to the what and why.  Maybe the intention wasn't meant that way, but it sure comes across as such to outside observers. 

Too bad, as we love volunteer gurus who provide help.  Unhelpful editorial comments, notwithstanding. ;)

 

 

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Hi.  I'm confused.  The comment that you're quoting from 2013 was essentially me asking the question "what's in it for Evernote?" - not an unreasonable query when new features are requested,  and I asked - as you suggest -  for more feedback without intending any suggestion that there was nothing to be gained by replying. 

The end of my comment,  which you didn't quote,  was

Quote

I don't think Evernote would see any benefit in providing this feature - but I've been spectacularly wrong before!

-  which,  sadly,  is my version of joking; humorous or playful commentary.  And,  given the recent new feature,  proved absolutely correct (in that I was wrong) ... four years later.

I'm certainly sorry if my response came across to you personally as less than sympathetic,  but after all that time this is the first criticism of this post of which I've been aware.

Evernote take feedback on few features from a wide variety of sources including this forum.  They have their own development plans which (if they're anything like the IT companies I've worked for) span the next 5 years or so,  structured around the stuff which is easy to deliver and in high demand - which gets higher priority - and the features that mean major software changes and/ or cause issues in one OS or another,  which need R&D and development time before they can be added.

They'll be thinking of new killer features they can add to distance themselves from competitors if they face a future market threat,  and looking at what others offer in case they need to match them on performance.  They will be looking at thousands upon thousands of suggestions and requests from customers for features,  some of which would be mutually exclusive (make it easier/ more difficult to edit notes on mobile...) and some that would bloat the app unsustainably (text editing like MS Word / image processing / desktop publishing tools...)

But the only major tests are:  how much would it cost to develop this?  and: will we get our development costs back several (thousand) times over?

Oh - and there's the minor fact that Evernote have somewhere around 200 Million people connecting anywhere from once a year to dozens of times per day.  (That's like running all internet access for a country like,  say,  Japan!)  Messing up that status quo seriously for any reason would be a Bad Thing.

I know that you and many other forum members are fully aware of all of this,  but from some of the comments we see,  some newer posters appear to be about 12 and want their suggestion implemented yesterday.  So while I don't actually say "dumb idea,  please go away" (I'm a guest here too...)  I figure it's fair to ask for justification and/ or more information - especially where I don't see the actual point of a query.

Full disclosure - I'm only lurking around here on a regular basis,  because - though it's hard to believe - folks keep on coming up with uses for Evernote that never occurred to me!  And a lot of their suggestions go into my daily workflow...  (but don't tell anyone - let's just let them think I'm a selfless educator.. or a smarta** with too much time on his hands...)

:D

 

 

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