(Archived) Everything for everyone and for developers, but nothing for power users

[Helios One 7]

Evernote is fantastic (let's not be modest here: sensational) for everyone who want to create or gather simple, easy to access everyday information without a need for consistency (unless they are willing to spend a lot of time tweaking their notes). It is concise and uncluttered. That is obviously a must as confirmed by the millions of users that have adopted Evernote.

 

Evernote is also fantastic for developers who want to create apps that connect and/or add to the native functionalities of Evernote. That is also very important.

 

However, I feel that the power user have been left out in all of this:

 

In a note that contains several images, one cannot select/crop the one image that could be used as the thumbnail. There is a very weird rule about how the thumbnail image is automatically selected and that rule produces some, well, interesting results. For example, I have an article about Vint Cerf that has many images in it. The thumbnail that was created was automatically selected from a black and white image of him in the 60's. That thumbnail showed only his chest area   Might as well have been an image of my father or one of Richard Feynman. I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference if someone else had done this, titled it "A Great Man", then share it with me. As a matter of fact, I had to delete the black & white image from the article to make Evernote choose a better thumbnail (one where I could actually see his face). Bummer.

 

Remember: an image is worth a thousand words.

 

As a developer, I know it wouldn't be very complex to implement a contextual menu that when we click on an image, if we select, say, "Set as thumbnail..." a little window à la Google Chrome would appear to let us crop/center the image, then click Save. I believe that this option has been requested many times on these forums and one that would probably be very welcomed, even by the casual user.

 

I feel Evernote also lacks other neat features that could be set in preferences like remembering Title fonts and colours (H1, H2, H3, etc.) As of now, it can only remember one text font, one font size and one colour (sometimes it forgets the colour). Without necessarily delving into CSS, a few new basic options could make for a better experience overall and give many power users that consistency they crave (as I do). If you think this may complicate the lives of the everyday, busy busy user, by all means hide the power user features. Don't worry, we will find them  .

 

Finally, I notice that while Evernote expands in many directions by adding more and more features, some bugs seem to have been left behind. For instance: The experience with the Snippet views between a MacBook Pro or any OS X device , the iPhone 5 and the iPad 4th generation is inconsistent - 3 devices, 3 different experiences. In other words, what I see in OS X should be exactly what I see on all my iOS devices. Also, that skeuomorphic picture frame over the thumbnails in iOS robs us of precious pixels. Not a big deal but I thought I'd put it in as well.

 

Best Regards.