(Archived) Thing #1 that drives me crazy about Evernote :)

[burtonator 1]

OK... I clearly love Evernote but there are a lot of things that drive me crazy about it and make it much much harder for me to use.  

 

I was going to create a bunch of screen shares so that hopefully you guys can see the world from my perspective and maybe fix these issues.

 

Here's the first one...  This is the one that bothers me the most.  For now it's not a deal breaker but if an alternative product shipped that didn't have this bug I would switch immediately.. 

 

[burtonator 1]

I forgot to also point out that I can't set a title for the post that I just created. I have to switch to evernote to do it... 

[chirmer 567]

This isn't a bug — you're working under a couple of misconceptions, and that's what's leading to your problems.

• You're not selecting the text. When you get the crosshairs, you're taking an image snapshot of the text. This means it's going to go into Evernote as an image, not editable text. If you want editable text, you need to actually select the text, not take a snapshot of it. That's the reason your text is so small - the image is filling the width of the Quick Note box.
• The Quick Note functionality is just that - for jotting down a quick note. It will send to your default notebook, and does not allow for formatting or tagging in its creation. If you want to create a new note with these options, you can hit your New Note keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+Option+Cmd+N).

My suggestion for you, however, would be to use the Web Clipper. To take your example, see my image below. I highlighted the text I wished to clip, then hit the Web Clipper icon in the menubar. It opens up a menu dialog that lets you set the title, notebook, tags and any additional notes you wish, before saving to Evernote.  
 

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Chirmer is correct.

[forever-evernote 29]

+1 for chirmer's explanation. Spot on!

 

burtonator - please go to http://evernote.com/webclipper/ to download Evernote Web Clipper.

 

Give it a try and let us know if you come across any bugs or want to make some feature suggestions and requests 

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Hate to use the "you're holding it wrong" excuse...but yeah...you are. 

[burtonator 1]

I'm very well aware that it's an image that I'm clipping.  That was my goal.

 

I often clip from content like the Kindle (which may have evil DRM) or bitmap PDFs so selecting text isn't an option.

 

I also don't want to use the webclipper as I don't do this on the web often.  For the web I would just rather copy the real text.

 

My criticism still stands.  I can't edit the title... I can't select the notebook it should go to.

 

I'm 95% certain these were in the last major release and removed.  

 

And I'm aware that I can create a new note to do this but it's significantly harder and requires more time and key strokes and gets old FAST .

 

This isn't a bug — you're working under a couple of misconceptions, and that's what's leading to your problems.

• You're not selecting the text. When you get the crosshairs, you're taking an image snapshot of the text. This means it's going to go into Evernote as an image, not editable text. If you want editable text, you need to actually select the text, not take a snapshot of it. That's the reason your text is so small - the image is filling the width of the Quick Note box.
• The Quick Note functionality is just that - for jotting down a quick note. It will send to your default notebook, and does not allow for formatting or tagging in its creation. If you want to create a new note with these options, you can hit your New Note keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+Option+Cmd+N).

[Kneedeepat 8]

In a related question, I don't do exactly what Burtonator is trying to do, but I do use the web clipper, and clip images directly by right clicking. However, I have yet to figure out how to, like burtonator for his image selection, set the destination for my image. I can do it using the regular web clipping feature, but that then prevents me from selecting the image only... so what happens is that I have been clipping, then going to the notes and sorting by most recent to make sure I can then file it, because currently, its putting it in random contextual notebooks based off of previous clips.

 

Sidebar: I've been an avid Evernote user for years, but the forum has been so helpful that by the time I ever have a question or a suggestion, its already been answered or promulgated! This is the first time I've had trouble finding a solution (or at least an answer like "not possible yet").

[johnmarshall4 44]

@burtonator - I agree that this should be fixed. It seems like they could easily add some fields to the 'save to evernote' pop up.

 

I know this method isn't perfect, but since you use a Mac, here is what I do sometimes; I create the empty note first and then use the context menu option to Capture Selection From Screen. I have added a shortcut for that  under preferences, keyboard, keyboard shortcuts, services, pictures, Capture Selection from Screen to save time. So my process is:

 

1. Create the empty note first with Ctrl+Option+Cmd+N

2. Change your notebook, add your title.

3. Hit tab to go to the 'body' of the email

4. Hit your shortcut to Capture from screen. For me it is Ctrl+Option+Cmd+C

5. You may need to alt-tab to bring back up the Window you want to capture from, and then drag a rectangle to capture the image.

 

Ok, now that I wrote it all out it looks like a pain. But in practice I've gotten pretty fast at it. I use keyboard shortcuts to set the notebook and tabs btw.

[chirmer 567]

I'm very well aware that it's an image that I'm clipping.  That was my goal.

 

[snip]

 

My criticism still stands.  I can't edit the title... I can't select the notebook it should go to.

 

I'm 95% certain these were in the last major release and removed.

 

I apologize for assuming you didn't know it was an image you were clipping. You complained in the video that the text was so small, and since that's exactly how clipping an image would behave, I surmised that you didn't know it was an image 

 

Technically you CAN edit the title... the Quick Note uses the first line of your note as the title, so as long as you don't mind that line being repeated again in your note, you can set it that way. If it bothers you, then you'll just have to set the title (or remove that text) when you go in to assign its Notebook, because the Quick Note just doesn't have that functionality. IIRC (and I might be mistaken) it was never in an official release with that capability; I think a beta allowed you to set that but I don't think an official release ever had those options. It's a moot point, however, because the current release doesn't allow you to set these options. While I don't need it personally (I send everything to my !Inbox for tagging and sorting by default), I can see why it'd be handy. It'd be neat if we could use the codes used when emailing notes in to set the title. For example, anything in the first line with a #hashtag before it becomes a tag, the first item with @ in front of it becomes its Notebook, etc.

 

In a related question, I don't do exactly what Burtonator is trying to do, but I do use the web clipper, and clip images directly by right clicking. However, I have yet to figure out how to, like burtonator for his image selection, set the destination for my image. I can do it using the regular web clipping feature, but that then prevents me from selecting the image only... so what happens is that I have been clipping, then going to the notes and sorting by most recent to make sure I can then file it, because currently, its putting it in random contextual notebooks based off of previous clips.

 

Sidebar: I've been an avid Evernote user for years, but the forum has been so helpful that by the time I ever have a question or a suggestion, its already been answered or promulgated! This is the first time I've had trouble finding a solution (or at least an answer like "not possible yet").

 

This probably isn't the perfect answer you're looking for, but how I clip images where I know exactly where I want them (insert my secret GIF stash here), I right-click the image and select "Open Image in New Tab" or similar option. Then I go that that tab and use the Web Clipper. Because it's the only item on the page, it solely clips the image, while giving you the option to sort it. It's also nice in the sense that, if you wish to later share this image, it preserves its weblink so you can simply send that to a friend, as opposed to sharing your note or uploading to an image uploader. It's also nice when you do this to a lot of images — you can send them all to their tabs and then go through the tabs and quickly process them. 

[Kneedeepat 8]

@chirmer - tricky!!! I like it. I also really like that you can preserve the weblink. That had been another complaint of mine, but you solved both of them!

 

@john - Also good hip pocket for me. 

 

I do a lot of research where I simply collect a vast amount of content, and then collate and process later.

 

I use a dual screen set up with a MacBook Pro and an external monitor; I drag images from my evernote notebooks one one screen directly into Final Cut Pro, or wordpress, or whatever product or media item I'm working on, on the other screen. These two most recent tips will really be a help to my content collection process.

 

Thanks!