Feature Request: I strongly believe Thumbnails was great feature - Pls bring it back

[vikramsjn 7]

Earlier I used to scan numerous notes - just by glancing at the thumbnails.

 

Cards are not thumbnail - their only visual aspect is text + part image iff there is one

Cards do not help in reviewing notes.

 

Now my way of scanning notes is to literally step through the notes --- which takes lots of time.

 

I am very sure thumbnail was one of the great features of Evernote - till version 4.

I request bring it back.

 

All those who agree - please Like this post

[b3n 2]

Me too!  One of my favorite features about Evernote was the ability to look for a scanned document like I'd look for a real paper document, I'd scroll through the thumbnails looking for a particular color, shape, or layout.  This card view is pretty useless to me.

[Damian Lee 2]

Agreed - they are basically just square snippets and just as useless (for me).

[Thomas Buerki 0]

I fully agreee. It takes me way more time now to scan through notes than it did with the thumbnail view before. Please include the feature again.

[mike.ket 5]

Ditto. I think a picture is worth 1000 words.

 

To help the developers understand the seriousness of this issue, I've attached a screenshot of the thumbnails of some business cards in the card view.  

 

You can see that card view is close to unusable because the "largest-smallest dimension" algorithm produces thumbnails that just aren't relevant.  In fact none of the business cards display the person's whole name or phone number.

 

If v4 thumbnails were still around we wouldn't have this problem. Moreover, the algorithm for whatever reason tends to zoom in on different portions of similar documents. For instance, if I scan several utility bills from the same company, I find it produces snippets of different parts of each bill, making the bills from the same company inconsistent in the visible color, shape, etc  .. the implication being that it takes much longer to identify documents using this new algorithm as compared to a verson 4 style view that just showed the whole page.

 

I would strongly urge the developers to:

 

1. Create an additional view where the whole first page is visible 

2. Provide the user the ability to zoom in/out of these thumbnails

 

Both of these features existed in Evernote v4 and I'm just waiting for the developers to bring back this needed functionality!

[Damian Lee 2]

I have the exact same issue with business cards and bills. I dont need a view that 'looks cool' I need one that is instantly useful. Also as the card view is set at present it has the note title on a translucent bar at the top which if there is text underneath makes it even harder to see what is going on. I would very much like to go back to the far superior V4 or for the next version to re introduce these elements alongside these new ones so I can choose myself.

[Rural Computer Services 0]

I have over 4400 notes, mostly PDF's, and need to sort and categorise another 100-200 a month or so.  Thumbnail view made it easy to quickly grab similar notes and work on multiple notes at once.  This card view is horrible for this sort of work.  Finding PDF notes by their card view (or list or snippets previews) is impossible.  Please bring back thumbnails ASAP, or allow the card view previews to be the full PDF.

[chronistin 187]

The zoom-in may be cool and fashionable, but it is not helpful. 

 

When you add a portrait photo to a note, you get a "nice" preview of the throat or maybe a tie or some cleavage. 

 

When you scan bills, you see some numbers and maybe some letters, but not the header, which would tell where the bill is from.

 

We definiely need uncropped thumbnails back.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I have over 4400 notes, mostly PDF's, and need to sort and categorise another 100-200 a month or so.  Thumbnail view made it easy to quickly grab similar notes and work on multiple notes at once.  This card view is horrible for this sort of work.  Finding PDF notes by their card view (or list or snippets previews) is impossible.  Please bring back thumbnails ASAP, or allow the card view previews to be the full PDF.

When you scan bills, you see some numbers and maybe some letters, but not the header, which would tell where the bill is from.

 

We definiely need uncropped thumbnails back.

IMO, using a thumbnail for finding anything other than images is not helpful.  I would suggest you use a descriptive title and/or keywords.  When I scan or download/save a PDF that is say my Cox cable bill or my Nordstrom card statement, I save it with a descriptive file name.  IE Cox YYYYMMDD or Nordstrom YYYYMMDD where YYYYMMDD is the date of the bill (Cox) or the closing date of the statement (credit cards).  I put the file in my import folder where Evernote sweeps it in & gives the note title the name of the file.  I have over 62,000 notes in my main account & can find the Cox bill from May of 2011 in a matter of seconds by using the following search:

 

intitle:cox 201105*

 

That sure beats skimming through thumbnails.

[chronistin 187]

 

IMO, using a thumbnail for finding anything other than images is not helpful.  I would suggest you use a descriptive title and/or keywords.  When I scan or download/save a PDF that is say my Cox cable bill or my Nordstrom card statement, I save it with a descriptive file name.  IE Cox YYYYMMDD or Nordstrom YYYYMMDD where YYYYMMDD is the date of the bill (Cox) or the closing date of the statement (credit cards). 

 

I do that, of course, but recognizing one unique logo in a list is much quicker for me than reading through a list of title. We're all different, I guess. 

 

My biggest problem is not with bills, though. I have troubles remembering faces, so for years, I have added photos to my contct and meeting notes. This used to work nicely: search for a company, and get a thumbnail list of relevant faces. Now all I see is a wrong cropping (see thumbnail, sensitive information blurred out) Not helpful at all.

[mike.ket 5]

It would be nice to get an official response from Evernote to this post. Does the leadership at Evernote agree that there is a problem or not? And if so, when can we expect a fix?

 

I am hoping the examples posted here convince them that this is a problem that need to be fixed.  

[BusyBelle9 3]

 

I have over 4400 notes, mostly PDF's, and need to sort and categorise another 100-200 a month or so.  Thumbnail view made it easy to quickly grab similar notes and work on multiple notes at once.  This card view is horrible for this sort of work.  Finding PDF notes by their card view (or list or snippets previews) is impossible.  Please bring back thumbnails ASAP, or allow the card view previews to be the full PDF.

When you scan bills, you see some numbers and maybe some letters, but not the header, which would tell where the bill is from.

 

We definiely need uncropped thumbnails back.

IMO, using a thumbnail for finding anything other than images is not helpful.  I would suggest you use a descriptive title and/or keywords.  When I scan or download/save a PDF that is say my Cox cable bill or my Nordstrom card statement, I save it with a descriptive file name.  IE Cox YYYYMMDD or Nordstrom YYYYMMDD where YYYYMMDD is the date of the bill (Cox) or the closing date of the statement (credit cards).  I put the file in my import folder where Evernote sweeps it in & gives the note title the name of the file.  I have over 62,000 notes in my main account & can find the Cox bill from May of 2011 in a matter of seconds by using the following search:

 

intitle:cox 201105*

 

That sure beats skimming through thumbnails.

 

 

Then why have thumbnails?

 

Oh I know! Because this is an IMAGE INSPIRATION application/program!   

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

 

Then why have thumbnails?

 

Oh I know! Because this is an IMAGE INSPIRATION application/program!   

No idea what you're saying here.

[BusyBelle9 3]

 

 

Then why have thumbnails?

 

Oh I know! Because this is an IMAGE INSPIRATION application/program!   

No idea what you're saying here.

 

This topic is the thumbnail issue, everyone here is saying they rely on it, you were dismissing their complaints by saying skimming thumbnails was less effective, and they should use alpha numeric names to sort their tags.  

 

My point was if that is a solution, then why have thumbnails at all. Then I waxed sarcastic by saying this, Evernote, is at least in part an image inspiration application/program, and we should have more control over what we see in our notes & notebooks.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Then why have thumbnails?

Oh I know! Because this is an IMAGE INSPIRATION application/program!

No idea what you're saying here.

This topic is the thumbnail issue, everyone here is saying they rely on it, you were dismissing their complaints by saying skimming thumbnails was less effective, and they should use alpha numeric names to sort their tags.

My point was if that is a solution, then why have thumbnails at all. Then I waxed sarcastic by saying this, Evernote, is at least in part an image inspiration application/program, and we should have more control over what we see in our notes & notebooks.

I was specifically addressing an issue by Rural Computer Services in that finding a specific PDF out of hundreds/thousands is faster by using keywords rather than using thumbnails b/c keywords can more quickly isolate a single note than viewing thumbnails. That does not mean thumbnails are not useful in other instances.

[narrevernote 4]

Another vote for bringing the thumbnails back. Please.

 

I have no idea why Evernote developers just arbitrarily remove things -- this is not cool design.

 

The thumbnails were an excellent way to scan for recently entered items, when you 'know they are there'.. Finding by search is possible, but much more hit or miss -- and then you need the visual to spot the one you want out of what's returned any3ay.

 

Visual recognition is one of the strongest powers of the human brain. Let's go back to using it, please!

 

Thank you.

[almejin 1]

I agree with this 100%

 

I downgraded version to 4 again, and I won't be upgrading again until the true thumbnails are back. And if they don't come back, well, to put it bluntly, I'd rather use another software that using the card view.

 

Bring it back!

[Damian Lee 2]

How do you downgrade? I would love to go back to version 4!

[BusyBelle9 3]

How do you downgrade? I would love to go back to version 4!

I'd like to know about this too!

[mike.ket 5]

Hi BurgerAndFries

 

Just to let you know, I am using descriptive tags and keywords. I consider myself at the expert user level. I've produced scripts that automate tag creation at time of scanning. Someday I will post them online. My videos on how to use evernote have had more than 300,000 views on YouTube.  I only say this so you understand that I probably have above-average knowledge on how to use the platform and I still think that thumbnails are essential.

 

Even when one narrows down what one wants via the tags and keywords -- the thumbnails are still helpful as that last and final step to jump to what you want. Also, sometimes you may not have anticipated the type of search you are doing and accordingly did not create the tag classification to support that search. One cannot make a type of tag for every possible situation (otherwise you will end up with a very large set of tags). In situations like this one needs to appeal to keywords, notebooks, date ranges, etc.   This is where thumbnails are especially useful.

 

The bottom line is Evernote, for whatever reason, eliminated a feature that many people in the community found useful. It seems like a pretty basic and fundamental feature, and we just want that view added back as an OPTION. How difficulty would it really be to add one additional type of view -- a view that existed before?

 

Regards

 

Mike

[BusyBelle9 3]

I've added hundreds of recipes to a notebook in the last week, most of the notes deigned to use an acceptable photo to represent themselves, while others, not so much.  I have two that decided to use the pictures of raw chicken breasts included in the step by step instructions of the recipe.

 

Very, very, disappointing

 

 

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Hi BurgerAndFries

Just to let you know, I am using descriptive tags and keywords. I consider myself at the expert user level. I've produced scripts that automate tag creation at time of scanning. Someday I will post them online. My videos on how to use evernote have had more than 300,000 views on YouTube. I only say this so you understand that I probably have above-average knowledge on how to use the platform and I still think that thumbnails are essential.

Even when one narrows down what one wants via the tags and keywords -- the thumbnails are still helpful as that last and final step to jump to what you want. Also, sometimes you may not have anticipated the type of search you are doing and accordingly did not create the tag classification to support that search. One cannot make a type of tag for every possible situation (otherwise you will end up with a very large set of tags). In situations like this one needs to appeal to keywords, notebooks, date ranges, etc. This is where thumbnails are especially useful.

The bottom line is Evernote, for whatever reason, eliminated a feature that many people in the community found useful. It seems like a pretty basic and fundamental feature, and we just want that view added back as an OPTION. How difficulty would it really be to add one additional type of view -- a view that existed before?

Regards

Mike

No where have I said thumbnails are not useful. To reiterate...

I was specifically addressing an issue by Rural Computer Services in that finding a specific PDF out of hundreds/thousands is faster by using keywords rather than using thumbnails b/c keywords can more quickly isolate a single note than viewing thumbnails. That does not mean thumbnails are not useful in other instances.

As to the difficulty of adding it back in as an option...I don't know. Only those with intimate knowledge of EN under the hood do. It may simply be a design choice. There will always be choices a software vendor makes that some users will disagree with. That's just life.

[almejin 1]

 

How do you downgrade? I would love to go back to version 4!

I'd like to know about this too!

 

 

I simply uninstalled Evernote (which I believe will erase your database from your hard disk) and then installed the version 4 and let it sync again from zero.

 

I don't remember where I got version 4, but I suppose I just googled it... although I did a quick search and I can't easily find any. Beware of malware/unwanted installers if you are going to download it from a place other than evernote's server.

 

You know, they should really, at the very least, add a "previous versions" option in the download page 

[Matt960 5]

+1 please.