Clicking Notes in Shortcuts Now Changes Search Focus & Active Notebook. How can I disable it?

[saturnine23 2]

Hi there,

 

With the recent Beta release of Evernote (I'm running 5.6.4.4632 [272632] Public), I'm experiencing a new behavior that's been a major annoyance.

 

When I click the link to one of my notes in the Shortcut bar, the Note List now auto-updates to display only the notes in the same notebook as the one I clicked. The Search bar also auto-updates to show this new context.

 

For example, let's say I'm displaying All Notes. I then click the shortcut for my "To Do" note, which lives in my "Active Lists" notebook. The Note Panel opens the "To Do" note, as it should -- that's the same as always. But now, the Note List will now display the "Active Lists" notebook, and the search bar displays "Active Lists" as the search context.

 

I don't want Evernote to do this. It didn't used to, and it's driving me nuts -- I feel second-guessed. I just want to keep viewing the All Notes context -- I'll open up notebooks if and when I want to.

 

Is there any way to disable this behavior?

[gazumped 11,664]

Looking through my own shortcuts,  I found that some appear to be 'all notes' and some are specific notebook related.  Not sure how the distinction is made.  I don't know of any way to control this behaviour,  other than the possibility that it may reflect the prevailing situation at the time the link was made.

[saturnine23 2]

Not sure how the distinction is made.  I don't know of any way to control this behaviour,  other than the possibility that it may reflect the prevailing situation at the time the link was made.

 

Good theory, Gazumped! I just put it to the test and sadly it doesn't work for me here in the Win 8.1 client. Which is to say, I tried deleting and re-creating my "To Do" note shortcut, and regardless of the context of its creation, clicking it will always switch the context to that of the note's parent notebook (in this case, "Active Lists").

 

Which is to say, I can't seem to create any of the "All Notes"-context shortcuts you mention having.

 

Perhaps do you remember creating some of those shortcuts across mutiple platforms? I see in your sig that you also use Evernote on Android. Perhaps different platforms create the shortcuts differently w/r/t this "context" stuff we're talking about?

[gazumped 11,664]

Hmmn.  I'm sure I didn't create any shortcuts on Android - just created a new one (after an all notes search) and got an all notes shortcut. Then went to a specific notebook and created another shortcut from one of the available notes,  back to all notes view...  and jumped back to the single notebook view again.  It may be significant that the all notes shortcut came via the search menu drop-down,  and the notebook-specific one came from right-clicking on the note.  It does seem to be possible to get those all-notes links.  (I'm in Win 8.0 at the moment.)

[saturnine23 2]

Well now I'm really confused. I tried your solution step-for-step, and couldn't replicate your results.

 

Just to be extra sure I'm not ***** it up, here are the exact steps I took:

1. Deleted "To-Do List" shortcut
2. Synced, just to be sure
3. Selected "All Notes" as the context/view
4. Ran a search for "To-Do List" (quotes included) to pull up that specific note
5. Tried two different methods for creating a shortcut from this point:
   • Right clicking the "To-Do List" note and selecting "Add to Shortcuts"
   • (After doing steps 1-4 from scratch) Dragging and dropping the note to the Shortcuts area

Both times, the shortcut sets the context to the "Active Lists" notebook, rather than "All Notes."

 

Crazy, right? It sounds like I'm doing exactly what you suggested. Are there any steps of mine that differ from how you approached it?

 

Again, I'm using the latest Win client Beta, and getting the same result on two different Win OSes (XP and 8.1).

[jefito 5,589]

OK, for a single note shortcut. I'm seeing the same behavior (to get one in the Windows client, drag a note to your  shortcuts list, either in the left panel or up onto the toolbar). Click on the shortcut, and the notebook filter changes to that of the selected note. Or rather, kinda sorta changes; in my case, I was filtering on a different notebook, clicked on my single note shortcut, and I could see both the old and new notebooks highlighted in the notebook list, though only notes from the notebook that the note lives in were present in the resulting note list. Seems a little weird, but not too onerous, I guess.

 

Anyways, workarounds: to get back to an unfiltered note list, just use the F6 shortcut key. To get back to your previous state, just use the Back History shortcut, Alt+ArrowLeft.

[saturnine23 2]

Thanks for the workarounds, Jefito. That F6 will come in handy -- I wasn't in the habit of using that.

 

My ideal, though, is still to figure out how to edit the notebook filters embedded in the shortcuts. That seems to be a new data layer that wasn't there before. I can see it being useful to me in certain contexts, but I want the power to edit it so I can deploy it on my own terms, you know? I still want most of my shortcuts to show "All Notes."

 

Has anyone else gotten to the bottom of why Gazumped seems to be able to create shortcuts with an "All Notes" context while I can't? I'm willing to test just about anything. Thanks for reading.

[gazumped 11,664]

I'm just special..

[jefito 5,589]

My ideal, though, is still to figure out how to edit the notebook filters embedded in the shortcuts. That seems to be a new data layer that wasn't there before. I can see it being useful to me in certain contexts, but I want the power to edit it so I can deploy it on my own terms, you know? I still want most of my shortcuts to show "All Notes."

OK, as far as I know, all shortcuts in the Shortcuts list (either in its own toolbar or in the left panel, depends on how you've configured it) that are based on saved searches will have a magnifying glass to their left. Those are the only ones that you can edit.

 

* Click on the search control in the toolbar (it has a magnifying glass)

* A dropdown should appear, with a list of saved searches. 

* Find the saved search that corresponds with a shortcut that you want to edit, and right click on it

* Select "Properties"

* Edit the Query field to your heart's delight (you can rename it in the Name field as well), and click OK

[gazumped 11,664]

In Windows you can also right-click the searches with the magnifying glass icon in the left hand panel and choose "edit saved search"...

[saturnine23 2]

Handy!

 

In the meantime, has anyone else observed a discrepancy like Gazumped's, where they simultaneously have "All Notes" AND notebook context based shortcuts?

[jefito 5,589]

In the meantime, has anyone else observed a discrepancy like Gazumped's, where they simultaneously have "All Notes" AND notebook context based shortcuts?

No, have you?

[saturnine23 2]

No, have you?

 

Negative, Ghost Rider. Apparently only Gazumped is authorized to bend the code of Evernote to his will.

 

Is there any way to get the attention of an official mod, or get some support attention for this? I mean, besides jumping up and down and waving.

[gazumped 11,664]

I think that's called a Support Ticket (see below)...

[saturnine23 2]

As a free user, it appears I'm not allowed to submit support tickets.

[gazumped 11,664]

I'm sorry - I thought the deal was that you at least got a ticket number,  even if it might then take a while to hear anything else.  Seems to me it would be a dumb move to choke off feedback from the majority of Evernote users - someone might have spotted a major flaw that they're never going to hear about otherwise.  Seems like all that's left then is workarounds...

[Wordsgood 526]

I've not seen anything stating us free users can't submit a Support Ticket, just that getting an actual response is very unlikely.

Despite the date of the below pinned post from GBarry, he did update it a couple months ago.

https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/51807-best-practices-submitting-a-support-ticket/#entry254984/

[s2sailor 2,191]

Hi there,

 

With the recent Beta release of Evernote (I'm running 5.6.4.4632 [272632] Public), I'm experiencing a new behavior that's been a major annoyance.

 

When I click the link to one of my notes in the Shortcut bar, the Note List now auto-updates to display only the notes in the same notebook as the one I clicked. The Search bar also auto-updates to show this new context.

 

For example, let's say I'm displaying All Notes. I then click the shortcut for my "To Do" note, which lives in my "Active Lists" notebook. The Note Panel opens the "To Do" note, as it should -- that's the same as always. But now, the Note List will now display the "Active Lists" notebook, and the search bar displays "Active Lists" as the search context.

 

I don't want Evernote to do this. It didn't used to, and it's driving me nuts -- I feel second-guessed. I just want to keep viewing the All Notes context -- I'll open up notebooks if and when I want to.

 

Is there any way to disable this behavior?

I'm using the same version as you and see the same thing.  What I have noticed is that a shortcut to a "note" (created by dragging a note to the shortcut bar) will be as you describe, i.e. the note list shows only notes from the same notebook as that note.  But, a shortcut to a "saved search" will instead show all notebooks.  To get what you want, instead of dragging the note to the shortcut bar, create a saved search using the exact note title in quotes and then save that search to the shortcut bar.  When you click on it you should get all notes in your note list.

[saturnine23 2]

Just tried submitting a Support Ticket, calling this a bug. We'll see what happens!

[CalS 5,280]

Just tried submitting a Support Ticket, calling this a bug. We'll see what happens!

Did you try s2sailor's suggestion?  Another thought would be to create a tag just for that note and put it in the shortcuts bar.  As far as I can tell tags in the shortcut bar always result in all notes context.  FWIW.

[saturnine23 2]

Did you try s2sailor's suggestion?  Another thought would be to create a tag just for that note and put it in the shortcuts bar.  As far as I can tell tags in the shortcut bar always result in all notes context.  FWIW.

 

I did try it, and it definitely works, but it's not really ideal for me. I have tons of shortcuts, and I really don't want to make a Saved Search to replace every single one. Also, I like using the icons next to the shortcuts to help me quickly identify what I'm searching for, and this workaround would trade all of those in for the little Saved Search magnifying glass. Lastly, I have almost 2,000 notes saved, so almost any Saved Search is bound to pull up notes other than the one I'm looking for, even if I use super-specific search grammar.

 

I did try your workaround for using custom tags, but unfortunately I seem to be getting different results than you. Tag-based shortcuts pull up that tag as the search context for me -- I'm not getting All Notes like you.

 

I find it really weird and confusing that different people seem to be trying the same thing and getting different results!

[CalS 5,280]

 

Did you try s2sailor's suggestion?  Another thought would be to create a tag just for that note and put it in the shortcuts bar.  As far as I can tell tags in the shortcut bar always result in all notes context.  FWIW.

 

I did try it, and it definitely works, but it's not really ideal for me. I have tons of shortcuts, and I really don't want to make a Saved Search to replace every single one. Also, I like using the icons next to the shortcuts to help me quickly identify what I'm searching for, and this workaround would trade all of those in for the little Saved Search magnifying glass. Lastly, I have almost 2,000 notes saved, so almost any Saved Search is bound to pull up notes other than the one I'm looking for, even if I use super-specific search grammar.

 

I did try your workaround for using custom tags, but unfortunately I seem to be getting different results than you. Tag-based shortcuts pull up that tag as the search context for me -- I'm not getting All Notes like you.

 

I find it really weird and confusing that different people seem to be trying the same thing and getting different results!

 

Weird indeed.  I don't have that many tag shortcuts, but with all of them i end up in all notes context.  As a test I just created a tag shortcut from a specific Notebook context and then clicked it, ended up in all notes context.  I even have an !LM tag for phone call backs in the shortcuts bar, it is assigned to only one note.  When selected it comes back in all notes context.  Don't know what to tell you.

[saturnine23 2]

Weird indeed.  I don't have that many tag shortcuts, but with all of them i end up in all notes context.  As a test I just created a tag shortcut from a specific Notebook context and then clicked it, ended up in all notes context.  I even have an !LM tag for phone call backs in the shortcuts bar, it is assigned to only one note.  When selected it comes back in all notes context.  Don't know what to tell you.

 

Word. Thank you for trying! I'm relatively sure that on my end, the problem does *not* exist between keyboard and computer. But I'd be happy to be proven wrong

[CalS 5,280]

 

Weird indeed.  I don't have that many tag shortcuts, but with all of them i end up in all notes context.  As a test I just created a tag shortcut from a specific Notebook context and then clicked it, ended up in all notes context.  I even have an !LM tag for phone call backs in the shortcuts bar, it is assigned to only one note.  When selected it comes back in all notes context.  Don't know what to tell you.

 

Word. Thank you for trying! I'm relatively sure that on my end, the problem does *not* exist between keyboard and computer. But I'd be happy to be proven wrong

 

Can't imagine what it would be, but maybe some deep dark registry entry?  It is getting close to Halloween.....

[saturnine23 2]

Well y'all, I submitted a ticket, and the response has been definitive: This is an intended feature, and not a glitch. (If anything, Gazumped, that means you're the one experiencing a glitch! ) So for those following along at home, I wouldn't expect this behavior to change anytime soon.

 

After some back-and-forth troubleshooting, Matt W. from the Support Team wrote me the following:

 

"Thank you for getting back with me on this. This does look like a feature that had been changed in an application update at least two updates back and mine is also doing this as well. What I will be doing at this point is forwarding this off to the development team as a suggested change back to the way it was. While I can not promise that this will be changed back to the way it was previously, the development team does consider all feedback when coming out with future updates."

 

Matt was very helpful, and I responded by actually asking that the Dev Team not roll it back, but rather give users control over what context they want their Shortcuts to display. I also pitched the best, simplest way I can envision pulling that off. I'm pasting in my proposal below. If you have constructive feedback (or respectful counter-arguments), I'd love to hear it.

 

Anyway, thanks for your help and recommendations along the way, everyone!

 

-Dan

 

---

 

My proposal for editing individual Shortcut context behavior:

 

"Since this was intended as a feature, I'm sure there are people becoming used to it -- if not fond of it -- at this very moment. And while I mostly find it cumbersome, I can also see that I might find it useful in certain applications.

"Therefore, I wouldn't ask the Dev Team to consider rolling it back. Rather, I'd ask them to consider giving users the ability to edit this behavior of their individual Shortcuts (much like one can right-click on and edit Saved Searches when they're dragged to the Shortcuts bar). Then users like me who want more granular control over their Shortcuts could still have it. And perhaps if there were an option in the Options menu that lets users select a default behavior for all new Shortcuts (e.g. whether they display the context of their "home notebook" or All Notes), then those inclined to leave that sort of setting alone wouldn't have to fret, and they would still have the same UI experience they're having now. (The Devs could just have it default to the "home notebook" context upon install, and this aspect of Evernote would work just as it has for the past couple of updates.)"