(Archived) Bugs in user interface - Evernote v4.6.5.8353

[sor21 0]

(Evernote version:  4.6.5.8353)

Hi, these are some bugs that need to be fixed, some can be worked around but it's not ideal. What is ideal is that the UI is done separately (another thread) from the database edits completely. Or that the interaction is separate to, and not delayed by, the database operations.


1. When I apply a tag or generally make an edit, the note selection pane/window jerks back to a new entry, this interrupts my writing flow. It also has a delay on saving, which interrupts my writing flow and makes me conscious of it. What needs to happen instead is nothing, until I go to reselect that notebook. Then it can reorder the notes in order of updated. Possibly just switch off this note reordering altogether until I reselect the notebook (as an option).

     1b. Ctrl-N (New note) sometimes lags, because of the save operation, so when I then hit Ctrl-V it pastes into the note that's being saved, not the new note. Even though I hit Ctrl-N first. What should happen instead is I should immediately be given window/control focus of a new note, while the save happens in the background on a separate thread. (May be fixed in newer version?)

2. Lack of alternate window color support (by default any window, like with Firefox, supports black window & white text)
 I made an app to get around this by inverting the color of the entire window. But it's annoying to have to do that, so if you render the window using custom code at least allow it to be changed. Utility is king here, after all

3. Cannot export the entire notebook with notebooks intact. (This one really surprised me. This should be a basic given feature.) I can export notes with TAGS intact and regerating on a new install of Evernote on another PC, but not the same with the NOTEBOOKS. Meaning if I want to keep the notebooks intact I have to save every notebook and their grouping/stacking too. Pretty silly if I have it set up a complex way, which I do.

4. Cannot group/tier notebooks any further than one level. This makes it difficult to create detailed heirarchies of information. A fundamental issue and other note taking apps have it down. Not THAT important but it is something people need sometimes. Consider it seriously.

      4b. When clicking on a notebook it's very easy to accidentally stack them, taking those notebooks out of an existing stack because of the above. This needs to be changed; even just an option i.e. "freeze notebook stacks" because it is a bug and it can make using Evernote stressful.

5. When selecting tags from the tag heirarchy/tree, they don't display. (This might have been fixed in newer versions but since I have to log in with an account every time I want to use offline notes, I don't want to bother to try to install a new version.)

6. When pasting something into the editor (even over existing note content), Evernote SAVES OVER IT WITH NO UNDO HISTORY(!)  This is a major bug and I doubt it has been fixed yet. Go find the code where it saves the note and remove the reset history. There's no need to even do this. Or at least allow it us as an option in the general options/settings. It has made me lose work unfortunately!


Thanks, I hope you get these things fixed soon.




(also, a feature request-)

I want to use Evernote to write a book. I have lots of notes saved, some few 1000 of them, but I can't put them in ORDER. I have only "updated", "author", "location" and so on to order them by. I would settle with a global "order" in which I can just assign every single note a position from 0-100 or something. So I have been doing this with the "author" field, and it works, but it's annoying to have to write it in every time. What would be much better, much more intuitive, and not difficult to implement, is a graph where I can drag the notes around. That would be a very good feature and it could use an existing field like location maybe. Maybe I sacrifice one field, in this case author, to be able to have that feature active, because of the data constraints per note. Anyway, just a 2d graph, where you can zoom in/out and navigate like in Google Maps or something, and select, drag multiple notes on a 2d grid, whereby their "order" is simply their location on the x-axis relative to its length. Multiple notes at the same position end up, in the notes pane, one after the other, and when I'm done with the overall layout I should just be able to zoom in and separate them further.

Either that or Evernote needs a better, comprehensive export format, you could just use XML to accompany the ENEX file, really, with entries that tell how to read each note.. slow but doable..

If you don't provide these types of solutions then Evernote becomes unusable. Yes, it might look like you need to lock users into the format but as posts on the Evernote articles show, this is not how to make good software. Microsoft had a monopoly over its formats and got taken to court over it and had to open them up, remember. Propreitarism is not winning, because the user is most important and not the money gained from restricting the software's use. (Had to be said, because of unanswered complaints in the cited article's comments section)

[gazumped 11,667]

Hi - welcome to the forums.  Thanks for your comments - they'll be read (though not necessarily commented on) by the Evernote developers. 

 

As regards any new features,  Evernote keep their roadmap strictly to themselves so you won't know whether or when any of this may be implemented. 

 

As far as ordering your notes is concerned though - two comments. 

1. I wouldn't use Evernote for writing a book - there are other,  more specifically designed products for compiling the text.
2. If you do want to sort your notes,  a suitable naming system using yyyymmdd or CCPP (for Chapter nn and Page nn) or any other relevant variables will allow you to sort using titles and searches.  (All the pages I wrote for Chapter 4 last week forinstance...)