(Archived) Automatic Tag Filter

[crane 40]

I notice that when I imported some categories, their automatic filters came with them, e.g., my @next category, filtered on @next.

But I can't see a way of modifying tags to either add a filter to them, or remove a filter. Will this be coming in the future.

And please, don't tell me to use the "saved searches"

[marcclarke 0]

I notice that when I imported some categories, their automatic filters came with them, e.g., my @next category, filtered on @next.

[attachment=0]automatic.png[/attachment]

But I can't see a way of modifying tags to either add a filter to them, or remove a filter. Will this be coming in the future.

And please, don't tell me to use the "saved searches"

We appear to have lost the essence of what used to make EverNote be EverNote. We now appently have hierarhchical manually-assigned Tags and flat-list-only Saved Searches, and never the twain shall meet (at least so far in my experimentation).

To me the primary value proposition of EverNote 2.2 was its hierarchical category tree with a mixture of manually-assigned categories and automatic keyword catagories, combined with the ability to transform a manually-assigned category into an automatic keyword category by assigning a textual search pattern.

But the Beta code is still very young...

[iafanasyev 1]

But I can't see a way of modifying tags to either add a filter to them, or remove a filter. Will this be coming in the future.

This is a bug. Tag has no notion of filter (it can be manually assigned only). We'll remove this misleading hint that came from EN2.

[crane 40]

But I can't see a way of modifying tags to either add a filter to them, or remove a filter. Will this be coming in the future.

This is a bug. Tag has no notion of filter (it can be manually assigned only). We'll remove this misleading hint that came from EN2.

Sad users :cry:

So, tags become our old manually assigned categories, which, nicely enough, can be kept in a hierarchy.

On the other hand, our lovely automatic categories turn into the new Saved Searches. Nicely enough, they can be more powerful. Unfortunately, we're currently stuck with a flat alpha list of these.

Can we have:

1. the ability to store the saved searches in a hierarchy

2. better still, the ability to mix tags and saved searches in the same hierarchy

3. even better, the ability to sort the way we want, not just alphabetically

?

[marcclarke 0]

But I can't see a way of modifying tags to either add a filter to them, or remove a filter. Will this be coming in the future.

This is a bug. Tag has no notion of filter (it can be manually assigned only). We'll remove this misleading hint that came from EN2.

Sad users :cry:

So, tags become our old manually assigned categories, which, nicely enough, can be kept in a hierarchy.

On the other hand, our lovely automatic categories turn into the new Saved Searches. Nicely enough, they can be more powerful. Unfortunately, we're currently stuck with a flat alpha list of these.

Can we have:

1. the ability to store the saved searches in a hierarchy

2. better still, the ability to mix tags and saved searches in the same hierarchy

3. even better, the ability to sort the way we want, not just alphabetically

?

+1 to all of Crane's requests, with maximum emphasis on #3, please.

[crane 40]

But I can't see a way of modifying tags to either add a filter to them, or remove a filter. Will this be coming in the future.

This is a bug. Tag has no notion of filter (it can be manually assigned only). We'll remove this misleading hint that came from EN2.

I'm coming back to this issue.

The automatic categories that I imported into EN3b still work. In other words, if I create a new note, and type @next into it, it will show up under the @next tag. So, obviously, the functionality is available in EN3b to recognize text from a note and tag it with an appropriate tag (tag, not saved search). I would like to keep this functionality, and indeed have it translate to the web version as well.

[salgud 12]

But I can't see a way of modifying tags to either add a filter to them, or remove a filter. Will this be coming in the future.

This is a bug. Tag has no notion of filter (it can be manually assigned only). We'll remove this misleading hint that came from EN2.

I'm coming back to this issue.

The automatic categories that I imported into EN3b still work. In other words, if I create a new note, and type @next into it, it will show up under the @next tag. So, obviously, the functionality is available in EN3b to recognize text from a note and tag it with an appropriate tag (tag, not saved search). I would like to keep this functionality, and indeed have it translate to the web version as well.

[attachment=0]nextstillworks.png[/attachment]

I want to chime in here. In my opinion, without this feature, it's not Evernote anymore.

[iafanasyev 1]

Can we have:

1. the ability to store the saved searches in a hierarchy

2. better still, the ability to mix tags and saved searches in the same hierarchy

3. even better, the ability to sort the way we want, not just alphabetically

?

Something makes me think you are describing EN2 here... 8)

The reason we moved away from this mixed scheme is that it is understandable only to power users. Most users whcih primary goal is to quickly *find* the note, not spend time *organizing* notes, are likely to understand the separate approach (pure tags / pure attributes / pure saved searches) better than EN2 categories (which can be assigned manually, have additional filters, can be excluded from filter matches, be links to other categories, etc.). I admit that new EN3 scheme is more rigid than EN2, but this was done on purpose.

[wsp 11]

Something makes me think you are describing EN2 here 8)

The smiley at the end of that sentence did not make me smile. I'm sorry to sound like my usual grumpy self, but I find this and other similar responses that have been coming from the EN developers the last few days a bit unsettling.

I have been following this "Evernote 3 Beta" thread very carefully, even though I haven't tried the beta yet myself. The appropriate response to the comment above is yes, we did expect EN 3 to retain all the best features of EN 2 and of course add some new ones; we never imagined that some of its strongest elements would be thrown overboard. In its pursuit of a massive user base -- somewhere up in the cloud, so to speak -- EN now seems cheerfully prepared to ignore the needs of its most loyal and sophisticated users, many of whom participate in this forum. I'm very sorry to see this happening.

[iafanasyev 1]

The appropriate response to the comment above is yes, we did expect EN 3 to retain all the best features of EN 2 and of course add some new ones; we never imagined that some of its strongest elements would be thrown overboard. In its pursuit of a massive user base -- somewhere up in the cloud, so to speak -- EN now seems cheerfully prepared to ignore the needs of its most loyal and sophisticated users, many of whom participate in this forum. I'm very sorry to see this happening.

EN3 is pretty much different from EN2. This is not EN2 plus several handy additions and should never be treated as such. Our direction with EN3 is "making it easier for most regular users to capture and access imformation", and not "making it even more powerful for power-users". We do hear what our fellow forum users are saying and try our best to make EN3 powerful enough while making it a lot simpler for the rest of the user base (which may even be not represented on this forum). So some features which have narrow target audience are candidates to be removed or not implemented, if they stay on the way to the primary direction described above.

[crane 40]

EN3 is pretty much different from EN2. This is not EN2 plus several handy additions and should never be treated as such. Our direction with EN3 is "making it easier for most regular users to capture and access imformation", and not "making it even more powerful for power-users". We do hear what our fellow forum users are saying and try our best to make EN3 powerful enough while making it a lot simpler for the rest of the user base (which may even be not represented on this forum). So some features which have narrow target audience are candidates to be removed or not implemented, if they stay on the way to the primary direction described above.

And I guess this is what it boils down to. EN3 and EN2 are two completely different products. It may be that EN3 is what the EN folks wanted EN2 to be, when they first dreamt it up. Unfortunately, in the interim, EN2 became a very powerful tool, beloved by at least a handful of us. I'd actually love to see the numbers - it's probably something like: EN Power users: 12 vs. Desired user base: all people who like using web services with names that end in 'r = many. Perhaps it should be renamed to Evrnte, you know, to fit in with the whole "cool" thing.

And I can see why the EN team would like to appeal to that particular audience. There's $$$ to be made, especially with some kind of subscription model. After all, the competition's already running its betas, e.g., http://shifd.com/

From my perspective, it would have been better for EN to launch a separate product line, instead of changing their flagship product.

[wsp 11]

Our direction with EN3 is "making it easier for most regular users to capture and access imformation", and not "making it even more powerful for power-users". We do hear what our fellow forum users are saying and try our best to make EN3 powerful enough while making it a lot simpler for the rest of the user base (which may even be not represented on this forum). So some features which have narrow target audience are candidates to be removed or not implemented, if they stay on the way to the primary direction described above.

Well, that response speaks for itself. I now realize that we on this forum are part of a "narrow target audience."

I will continue to follow these developments with much curiosity, and I will certainly download EN 3 eventually. But a flat assertion from the developers that we belong to a trivial demographic group -- merely because we use it a lot -- is not reassuring.

[marcclarke 0]

Can we have:

1. the ability to store the saved searches in a hierarchy

2. better still, the ability to mix tags and saved searches in the same hierarchy

3. even better, the ability to sort the way we want, not just alphabetically

?

Something makes me think you are describing EN2 here... 8)

The reason we moved away from this mixed scheme is that it is understandable only to power users. Most users which primary goal is to quickly *find* the note, not spend time *organizing* notes, are likely to understand the separate approach (pure tags / pure attributes / pure saved searches) better than EN2 categories (which can be assigned manually, have additional filters, can be excluded from filter matches, be links to other categories, etc.). I admit that new EN3 scheme is more rigid than EN2, but this was done on purpose.

Silly me, I thought that simply renaming EN 2.2 "categories" (Are they tags? Are they folders?) to "Tags" in EN 3.0 Beta was sufficient to remove the confusion. I will therefore refer to EN 2.2 "Tags" for this brief discussion.

In EN 2.2, one could drag-and-drop a Tag onto a note to assign that Tag to the note, or drag-and-drop a note (or a group of selected notes) onto a Tag to assign that Tag to those notes. Crystal clear. No confusion for newbies.

In EN 2.2, at any time one could add a "Saved Search" to an existing Tag, creating something that EN 2.2 called an "Automatic Keyword Category". If a new user did not comprehend Saved Searches, he/she did not have to learn about them.

Tags and augmented Tags lived in the same single simple flat list (or in a hierarchical tree, if the user wanted a tree.

There was only one thing to understand, that an EN 2.2 "category" was actually a "Tag" rather than folder. Simple, sweet, short, zero context, easy-to-understand.

EN 3.0 Beta is actually MORE confusing than EN 2.2, if we call EN 2.2's categories "Tags". In EN 3.0 Beta there are now three different concepts to deal with, and the user has to understand them all: notebooks (which are some sort of weird folders); Tags (which are drag-and-drop only); and Saved Searches. These three new things each behave differently; the user has to learn three different ways of interacting; and each has a different and confusing redefinition of hierarchy. Notebooks apparently are not hierarchical (but why can't we have sub-notebooks?). Tags can be arranged hierarchically. Saved Searches can not be arranged hierarchically, even though the other things (Tags) in the same panel of the EN 3.0 Beta window can be arranged hierarchically. IMHO, EN 3.0 Beta's PC UI is exponentially more difficult to understand than EN 2.2's was, particularly if we were to rename EN 2.2's "categories" to the more understandable "Tags".

If we use the word "Tags" in the context of EN 2.2, there was one thing to understand, Tags. No other funny folders. No hierarchically or not-hierarchical things all confusingly co-existing in the same panel. Newbies were instantly operational with no Tags assigned at all, just using the textual search box to search their notes (as I gather from ENUF forum posts some people prefer to do). Tags were simple concept; just drag-and-drop a Tag to a Note or a Note to a Tag. Simple. Crystal Clear.

At any time, one could then augment (enhance? expand?) a simple drag-and-drop Tag with an associated Saved Search pattern. The one simple concept of a Tag had a completely optional textual "Saved Search" pattern, that a new user could not use or use, without having to understand anything else.

Meanwhile, the other concept and skill set the new user had to master was the textual search box's capabilities and syntax. Learning that syntax (";" for OR, etc.) meant that the new user had learned everything he/she had to know to create augmented Tags (Tags with associated Saved Search).

What confused everyone in EN 1 and 2 (including me) was that the EN 2.2 category hierarchy looked like Windows Explorer and thus many people (including me) thought that EN 2.2 categories were actually some sort of folders. Leo was kind enough and patient enough to walk us through that misconception.

The problem was the name ("categories"), not the need for even more concepts for the new user to be overwhelmed by (Notebooks? Tags? Hierarchical Tags? Saved Searches? Hierarchical Saved Searches?).

If we rename EN 2.2 "categories" to the much more meaningful and easy-for-newbies-to-understand term "Tags", the EN 2.2 newbie only had to master one concept (textual searches) or two (textual searches plus drag-and-drop tags). One could learn that in a 2 minute video and be off and running.

Later on, if the user wanted more horsepower, within that same set of the two fundamental EN 2.2 concepts one could take the concept of the textual search and put that exact same search pattern into an existing Tag to create a Super Tag (an "Augmented Tag"?). The new user got to recycle the two fundamental concepts required to learn to operate EverNote 1 and 2, without having to learn a bunch of new (and differently operated) concepts.

What was missing in EN 1 and EN 2 was the name ("Tags" instead of the confusing "Categories") and that 2 minute video showing a new user how to drag-and-drop a tag and how to type text into the textual search box. The problem was a confusing name choice and the lack of a short training tutorial video. The problem was not a need for three different concepts (notebooks, Tags, and Saved Searches) all in the same left-side panel and each behaving in completely different ways.

When I would introduce people to EverNote 2 face-to-face, I would start out by explaining that the EN developers were mostly Russian expatriates, that English was a second language for many of them, and they picked a poor word for Tags, mistakenly calling them "categories", but not to worry about that. I showed them web clipping, copy-and-paste into an EverNote note, a text search, dragging-and-dropping a Tag (I called them "Tags") and they were fully operational. I gave them a brief demo of putting a textual search into a Tag, if they wanted to, later on. Two minutes. Easy. Conceptually simple. They were off and running.

Oh, yes, if you wanted to arrange your Tag list in EN 2.2 you could drag-and-drop categories as you pleased, or you could have EverNote alphabetically order them for you. The newbies already got the idea of "drag-and-drop" (dragging and dropping Tags onto Notes) so dragging-and-dropping Tags in the Tag Panel was instantly understandable to them. Again, they were instantly off and running.

EN 3.0 Beta (still very young, I realize) seems to have attacked the misnaming and lack of the 2 minute training video problem by vastly obfuscating and complicating the EN 3.0 User Interface into something that will require a 30 minute training video. Huh? Now, to make EN 3 easier for newbies, we have cranked the minimum number of fundamental concepts up from 2 in EN 2 (Tags and textual search) to 4 (Tags, textual search, notebook, Saved Search), and all 4 of these EN 3 concepts interact with one another, and the interactions between any two may be influenced by the setting of a third.

The huge value proposition of EN 2.2 to the newbie was that it was so easy to learn, understand, and master in a 2 or 3 minute session (once I got new users trained to use the word "Tags" instead of "Categories"). One could even select a word in a note and then drag-and-drop that word over to the Category Panel (Oops, I meant "Tag Panel") to create a new Tag with a search associated, that instantly knew how to look for the selected word.

EverNote 2.2 was falling-off-a-log simple for a newbie to learn.

EverNote 3.0 Beta looks to me like what the winner of an "Obfuscated C" coding contest would produce if I commented that the original C code was pretty easy to understand.

EN 3.0 Beta, which I shall refer to as "Obfuscated EverNote" now requires the user to master a minimum of 4 concepts to get started, rather than 2. Obfuscated EverNote has two different kinds of Tags (drag-and-drop Tags and non-drag-and-drop Saved Searches) instead of EN 2.2's single drag-and-drop Tags (categories). In En 2.2 one could simply drag-and-drop a word from a note to the Tags Panel to create a new self-applying Tag. In EN 3.0 one can not drag-and-drop a selected word to the Saved Searches sub-Panel to automatically, simply, and easily

The underlying issue here seems to me to have been that of "overloading", compounded by a naming problem. First, EN 2.2 called Tags "categories" and people got confused thinking that EN 2.2 categories were folders instead of tags. Seemingly compounding that problem, the word "category" was an "overloaded" operator with two different meanings, either a static Tag or a Saved Search. In the EN 3.0 Beta interface, rather than fixing the naming problem and leaving a Tag as single simple concept (with an additional optional Saved Search functionality that can be turned on at any time), the developers have broken apart the concept of the Tag from the concept of a Saved Search. I think the intent, disambiguation, was laudable. I think the initial EN 3.0 Beta UI implementation is deplorable (more concepts, more interactions, more confusion, hierarchical sometimes, not hierarchical sometimes, etc.).

Helping people understand the EN 2.2 "overloading" issue (an EN 2.2 Tag could be either a static drag-and-drop word, or a Tag could be "automatically self-applying") was a training and documentation problem, not a wholesale UI redesign problem, IMHO. In EN 2.2, a Tag is a Tag is a Tag, and one can drag-and-drop a Tag (to a note, in the Tag Panel, etc.) A Tag starts out being static and manually applied, and could become self-applying at at any time (simply drag-and-drop a selected word or phrase onto an existing Tag).

Here is how I saw the progression of skills and concepts for EN 2.2 newbies:

• 
  [*:e0d9f]Total Beginner: Clipping, copy-and-paste to a Note, typing a new note, and textual search. No understanding or use of Tags whatsoever. Turn off the Tag Panel completely and never turn it on. Turn off the Time Band and never turn it on. Turn off the Note List and never turn it on. Keep the EN window simple and uncluttered. Clip stuff into EverNote 2.2. Copy-and-paste stuff into EverNote. Type notes into EverNote 2.2. Search for what you wanted to find using the textual search box. No understanding of textual search syntax, just type in the words sought. Send a note out via e-mail.

[*:e0d9f]Beginner: Define and use static Tags in the Tags Panel. Totally manual drag-and-drop Tag assignment (drag-and-drop a Tag to a Note, or drag-and-drop a Note to a Tag). If you can play Windows Solitaire you can use EverNote 2.2 Tags. Click on a Tag to see only the notes with that Tag. Click on All Notes button to see all notes. Here is the Beginner interface, which looks just like the Total Beginner's interface with the addition of the drag-and-drop Tag Panel. Please note that I have hacked up the screen shot and properly labeled the Tags Panel.
[*:e0d9f]Intermediate: Create automatically self-applying Tags. Do this by drag-and-dropping a selected word or phrase from a Note onto a Tag in the Tag Panel.
[*:e0d9f]Advanced Intermediate: Create automatically self-applying Tags by copying-and-pasting a tested search pattern from the textual search panel into a right-click dialog for a Tag. Better still, select the tested text in the textual search box and then drag-and-drop that text onto an existing Tag (yes, EN 2.2 does support that drag-and-drop operation from the textual search box onto an existing Tag) for wonderful consistency of the ease-of-use and drag-and-drop-works-for-everything metaphor, but I haven't seen it documented or discussed on the ENUF).
[*:e0d9f]Very Advanced Intermediate: Select multiple Tags to show all the notes associated with any of those tags. Click, Ctrl+click, and Shift+click in the Tag Panel to select the desired Tags. Run searches from the textual search box against only those notes (not against the entire database). Learn search syntax. Here is a graphic of the user interface with the Tags Panel properly labeled and several Tags simultaneously selected.
[*:e0d9f]Expert (a.k.a. "Power User"): Display Notes that have more than one selected Tag. Use the Tag Intersection Panel (Intersection operator). Find relationships between Tagged Notes.

Progressing through each of these stages is as simple as watching a 2 to 5 minute training video on the web. H**l, I'll even volunteer to do the videos if we can find some place to host them that won't arbitrarily go away.

(Please keep in mind here that I have absolutely no idea what was required to permit cross-device synchronization via the web server, and so I may be all wet.)

[marcclarke 0]

From my perspective, it would have been better for EN to launch a separate product line, instead of changing their flagship product.

I concur. I think we are looking at a completely new product (that happened to recycle some existing code), not a newer and better version of EverNote 2.2.

[dstavisky 0]

From my perspective, it would have been better for EN to launch a separate product line, instead of changing their flagship product.

Well, Evernote 3 is our flagship product ... and it's in early beta. Over time we will make it serve both casual and power users. To quote our CEO (viewtopic.php?f=30&t=5572)

We do not expect the current beta to satisfy all of the day-to-day Evernote needs for every user. Evernote 2.2 is still the most current, fully supported, version and we don't have any plans to take it away from you. Our hope is that we'll reach a point very soon where it makes sense for most casual users to use Evernote 3 and then take a little extra time making sure that it's worthwhile for power users to convert.

This discussion and other threads like this greatly help us with gap analysis - identify and prioritize features needed by power users. Thank you!

[vogelap 27]

From my perspective, it would have been better for EN to launch a separate product line, instead of changing their flagship product.

I concur. I think we are looking at a completely new product (that happened to recycle some existing code), not a newer and better version of EverNote 2.2.

AMEN. You all hit that nail directly on the head. EverNote, as it currently exists (2.2.1) is a wonderful product and is very, very powerful. EverNote (3.0) is something completely different. Losing the EverNote flagship product is a bad idea.

I really like Marc's assertion that the software wasn't broken, the revenue model was. EverNote seems to be 'fixing' the wrong 'problem' with EverNot3.

I am extremely distressed that EverNote has essentially told us (the Gurus) that we are not the target demographic, and it seems that we're not the target demographic because we use the product so much. Um... Isn't that a bit backward? Most software companies I know are extremely interested in the opinions of those users who use the product a lot. Why wouldn't EverNote be interested in that, too?

I hereby label "EverNote 3" as "EverNot3".

[wsp 11]

This discussion and other threads like this greatly help us with gap analysis - identify and prioritize features needed by power users.

Thanks for this response. Obviously many of the problems described are just the usual glitches associated with a beta. But it also appears from the comments in this forum that there are two particular areas of concern among us power users (which I hope has not now become an unflattering term at the EN headquarters!):

(1) We want to be able to arrange our tags in some sort of custom hierarchical fashion. A long, flat, alphabetical list is seriously inadequate. (Though I suppose it would be fine for a notebook consisting of a few wine labels; like crane, I'm having some difficulty envisioning the approaching great swarm of new EN users madly snapping photos of their wine bottles.) Surely it wouldn't be that difficult to introduce a toggle that would permit manual arrangement of the tags.

(2) Many of us are worried about the new saved searches, which sound powerful and excellent in their own right, but at the moment they are presented in another flat, alphabetical list that will become extremely difficult to navigate once the list becomes longer. Is there no way at all of re-integrating the saved searches with the main list of tags? Couldn't they just have a distinctive icon or font style to differentiate them visually from other tags? In EN 2.2 I certainly don't think of my manual and automatic categories as fundamentally distinct from each other; they are simply two slightly different ways of giving some intellectual structure and coherence (through the category list) to a huge collection of miscellaneous notes.

[dstavisky 0]

Most software companies I know are extremely interested in the opinions of those users who use the product a lot. Why wouldn't EverNote be interested in that, too?

We are very interested. That's exactly what this forum is for. We are listening.

[Clollin 0]

It sounds to me like EN 3 is getting less powerful and more confusing to use. I havn't downloaded the beta version but will give it a try sometime. However the screenshots of it with the three tier Notebook, Tag and Saved searches system is definately more confusing than the current system. I still cannot figure out what the notebook thing is about - maybe I will get a better understanding of this when I download the beta.

I have been down this track before where a great product has been developed then the software company has headed off in a direction for their software which, in my opinion, made it worse than a previous version. Launchy is a prime example - it is a great program launcher but 1.25 is much superior to version 2 for speed and stability. Quite frankly, if EN 3 is as bad as it sounds from this forum I will not be 'upgrading' and will stick with v2.2 and start looking for some other similar software which is going in the right direction for my needs.

[glinkot 0]

I agree with marcclarke's long but accurate summary! The EN model has found a sweet spot between making information easy to find, but allowing the user latitude for how they'll store it.

New user -> You want to consider tags as folders? Fine. Just apply one tag/(category) to each note. Folder list is flat, but later on you can make that a 'tree' of folders, or do more filtering.

Intermediate -> Yep, you can assign multiple tags to a note, and start filtering by as many dimensions as your data is categorised for.

Power user -> setup some keyword categories, normally by noticing you've forgotten to 'tag' all your items of a certain subject so you pull those in using a keyword. A logical next step which doesn't require a separate tag or section.

I understand the EN team's objective here - separate the concepts to make them more obviously understandable by users. They could maintain the simplicity they're after by letting the saved searches be dragged up into the tag list. Basic users won't even try that and the concepts stay separate, power users can drag away.

Let's not forget features like this could certainly be available in the options menus so they default to off, but I can tick the "allow saved searches in tag hierarchy" in options and away I go. You don't have to break your paradigm to allow different people to use different knowledge management models.

Cheers all

[dctoedt 0]

I downloaded and tried EN3b. I won't be switching to it unless the automatic tag filter features get implemented. That feature is THE reason I use EN2.2 for tracking to-do items and random notes, as opposed to OneNote 2007 or even Outlook 2007.

[aggieryan 0]

As my first post, let me start by saying that I have been a long-time Evernote user and have followed these forums closely over the past six months (most notably the posts by vogelap, crane, and marcclarke). I purchased EN 2.2 and use it on two computers at home. I'm an avid EN 2.2 user, and I believe EN 2.2 does what it should do very well although it could use a few improvements.

Recently I downloaded the new EN 3.0 beta. I absolutely cannot agree more with these posts regarding preserving the foundations of EN 2.2. I feel like we have a forked EN 2.2 software product with a Mac-like feel to the UI. There is one noticeable improvement, and that is the image-search and text recognition for images. There are definite, measurable improvements over EN 2.2's ability to take scanned papers and recognize their text. This is something I really like and had hoped for. However, I am not as enthusiastic about the loss of integrated hierarchy, and I am disappointed by the lack of features for power users.

I would have expected much better support for extending the existing product through templates, adding tables, etc. For instance, it would be nice to have data fields of templates directly and automatically associate with specific attributes (tags or categories although I am hesitant to use the term "categories" any longer although it did not previously cause me any conceptual issues). Regardless of how the product would be extended, I did not expect certain features useful to power users to be swept under the rug. This is not making the correct impression for certain users, and I feel the EN team should not only reassure us that we will see some power user features, but promise specific features to be implemented and make a commitment to implementing at least a core foundation of advanced features.

Thanks for reading this far.

Ryan

[dbear 0]

Marc - your long descriptive post above is wonderfully accurate. In fact, it described my own learning curve in using Evernote precisely. And I utterly agree that the 2.2 set up was MUCH simpler to both understand and learn to use BECAUSE each "more powerful" capability simply got added to the top of what you currently knew how to use. My progression from beginner towards "power user" was a series of "Oh! I can do that too!" realizations. Each level of added capability was simply a step further on top of what I already knew to use.

If there was any confusion for new users on how to use 2.2 (and I'm betting an actual survey would show that there wasn't) it would only have come from knowing too soon that there was a bunch of functionality you hadn't yet learned to employ. And I agree that the answer to that would be to handle it in "options" that default to "beginner mode" rather than cutting down on the program's features.

As to the guy who said "most users want to easily find their notes, not spend time organizing them," --- What the heck???? What do you think the purpose of "organizing" is?? It's for making notes even that much easier to find! And spending that much less time finding them! When I can automatically tag a hundred notes just by entering a short search sequence, I've just saved hours of manually going through notes, reading them, deciding upon an appropriate tag, dragging it to the note. I was just floored by that comment because it's so contrary to reality.

I'm all in favor of moving Evernote's capabilities to the web, and I think it could be a huge success - but not if you don't move those things that make Evernote great already. There's probably half a hundred web clipping sites out there that already do what Evernote seems to be proposing - clip web sites (or portions thereof), access by e-mail, mobile phone, make selections public, private, or with specific permissions, add tags, add and trade comments. Ho-hum. Evernote will probably get lost in the crowd (or lost in the cloud.) I think it's a big mistake to even CONSIDER anything less than the full implementation of Evernote's full feature set.

[ruudhein 29]

I experience the casual disdain with which dedicated EN users are treated when it comes to our request to keep features disconcerting. Less than being in a beta forum and a working together environment I read some of the posts by the EN team as hostile to its user base. Apparently we are a stand-in-the-way, a roadblock. And apparently we're in a take it or leave it situation.

Lately I'd been trying to make EverNote and PersonalBrain work together nicely: it's kind of a relieve to see I don't need to and can simply move on.

[iafanasyev 1]

As to the guy who said "most users want to easily find their notes, not spend time organizing them," --- What the heck???? What do you think the purpose of "organizing" is?? It's for making notes even that much easier to find! And spending that much less time finding them! When I can automatically tag a hundred notes just by entering a short search sequence, I've just saved hours of manually going through notes, reading them, deciding upon an appropriate tag, dragging it to the note. I was just floored by that comment because it's so contrary to reality.

As the guy who said that, I want to explain my statement a bit further. Yes, I understand what organizing is for. What I wanted to say that most of the people do not want spend much time organizing stuff just to be able to quickly find it later. They just want to quickly find it (preferably without organizing -- because this is an excise task they would avoid if they could) -- this is the end goal. So, the better the searching (easier, faster, smarter), the closer we are to this goal. Organizing does help find things, but at the cost of additional time you spend at this task. There are also ways to find notes without having to organize them explicitly. Having said that, I must additionally explicitly say that I'm not against organizing, and the easier organizing UI is -- i.e. the less time you spend on it -- the better.

[Brad_I 5]

As the guy who said that, I want to explain my statement a bit further. Yes, I understand what organizing is for. What I wanted to say that most of the people do not want spend much time organizing stuff just to be able to quickly find it later. They just want to quickly find it (preferably without organizing -- because this is an excise task they would avoid if they could) -- this is the end goal.

Now that you've explained it, I can say I think I now understand and I tend to agree. Fewer people want to bother with setting up auto filters, etc. It is sort of like the person who installs Google Desktop search on their computer and stops categorizing emails. Instead of weeding through folders and subfolders, they do a keyword search.

Personally I do some of each. So as I understand it, Evernote would 1-up the G-desktop solution by saving your most frequent searches as tags...yes? It just might work.

[wsp 11]

I want to explain my statement a bit further. Yes, I understand what organizing is for. What I wanted to say that most of the people do not want spend much time organizing stuff just to be able to quickly find it later. They just want to quickly find it (preferably without organizing -- because this is an excise task they would avoid if they could) -- this is the end goal. So, the better the searching (easier, faster, smarter), the closer we are to this goal. Organizing does help find things, but at the cost of additional time you spend at this task. There are also ways to find notes without having to organize them explicitly.

Well, OK, here we have the semi-official view of the Evernote folks: that EN is not an organizational tool; it's merely for collecting and storing information. So, despite all the eloquent protests on this forum, it sounds to me as though there's no realistic possibility we'll ever get our favorite EN 2.2. features restored to EN3, because cross-note linking, automatic categories, and the like are seen as superfluous organizational features.

I have accepted the reality that EN3 is not going to be nearly as good (for many purposes) as the present version, but I'm still struggling with the business logic behind this. Why strip away some of the strongest features from a program -- and then announce that they weren't really necessary in the first place? The suggestion seems to be that we longtime EN users were deluded about its essential nature, and we now have to be reminded by the management that we were using their software inappropriately.

Odd reasoning, to put it politely.

[vogelap 27]

What I wanted to say that most of the people do not want spend much time organizing stuff just to be able to quickly find it later.

Interestingly, I think you've found a large group of people for whom your statement above is false. Call us "EverNote 2.2.1 users".

As Marc_Clarke said to me in a private conversation: "The "Essence of EverNote" is three-fold: 1. self-assigning categories, 2. the mixed category tree, 3. and the category intersection panel (Intersection or Union). These three concepts form a tripod. Take away one leg and you can't sit on the stool."

Iafanasyev... Please cite the sources for your research that indicates what "most of the people" want? I find the assumption to be too general and unsubstantiated to be seriously considered. Plus, I think it's incorrect, especially for EverNote users.

[shimra 14]

If some of these power features are still there in the back end code, just not part of the interface for simplicity's sake, why not just have a "setting -> enable power mode" type option? Or have a secret "undocumented" way to activated these features?

Even popular products like Microsoft Word have "power" features like Visual Basic and Macros that most people never touch and could never handle.

Regular users might even like the fact that they can learn the power options one day of if they become more savy or have greater business needs.

[ThomasStraten 0]

As stated by Vogelap

iafanasyev wrote:

What I wanted to say that most of the people do not want spend much time organizing stuff just to be able to quickly find it later.

Interestingly, I think you've found a large group of people for whom your statement above is false. Call us "EverNote 2.2.1 users".

As Marc_Clarke said to me in a private conversation: "The "Essence of EverNote" is three-fold: 1. self-assigning categories, 2. the mixed category tree, 3. and the category intersection panel (Intersection or Union). These three concepts form a tripod. Take away one leg and you can't sit on the stool."

Iafanasyev... Please cite the sources for your research that indicates what "most of the people" want? I find the assumption to be too general and unsubstantiated to be seriously considered. Plus, I think it's incorrect, especially for EverNote users.

Not only I completely agree with Vogelap and Marc_Clarcke. I would add a fourth fold: The search ability (but combined with 2 and 3 as in our beloved 2.2.1).

Marc_Clarcke is also stating a truth: The different levels of skills (or the level from basic user to Power user) is just straightforward and easy... I repeat "EASY"!!!

It is easyness and power that caught our eye with EN since its first version after comparing it to hundreds (yes, hundreds) of pims, organizers, info handlers etc... I couldn't keep the count on how many of them i tried in the last 8 years...

There are two ways to work in designing system: You make a better version of the existing product and offer new capabilities (without taking out any of the existing ones), or you make a completely new product.... And let people choose.

Actually, you are probably making a very bad move which is releasing a far-too-early Beta (if i can call that a Beta!), making a lot of promises nobody is sure you will be able to fulfill, you are giving the impression of uncertainty to all of the members of this forum, ....... not a very clever move in my opinion.

And Vogelap is making a very good point to his crtitique to Iafanasyev...."Most of the people", "the inmense majority", are the typical words used by dictators... That is really scary.

Best regards to all EN lovers (1.5 to 2.2.1) and sincere wishes for clarity to the team of EN (by the way, where is Leo???)

Tom

[vogelap 27]

(by the way, where is Leo???)

I shall just. sit. right. over. here. and wait for the answer to that question.

[leo 0]

I am here, ThomasStraten, vogelap and all Dear Friends (really, I'm here, no kidding; I know it's that "April 1st Day" today ). I am touched, as always, that some people remember our long talks and disputes since early 2005 or even late 2004. Needless to repeat what many of you know and agree with: this is a great software forum, and all credits go to your incredible, smart and passionate contribution. "Passion" and "magic" have always been with our team, and we've been blessed with finding constant response among our users. I will always remember the unique creative atmosphere of this place and its unprecedented (at least, in my experiences) influence on the product roadmap and features.

I am now heading company's business in the area of digital ink and related recognition technologies and products, more specifically, our ritePen application, riteShape and riteForm technologies, and other "pen-enabled" products we are planning to develop (more details at http://ritescript.com). This is a different business with different markets and requirements; I am excited with the progress we are doing in many areas. Please feel free to contact me via PM or write to info at ritescript dot com or info at evernote dot com if you wish to learn more.

I am not directly involved in the Evernote 3 effort, so you would understand that I cannot comment on the substance of this thread; I think iafanasyev and dstav are doing a wonderful job keeping you updated and responding to your inquiries.

All the best to all of you,

L.

[Jims 0]

What I wanted to say that most of the people do not want spend much time organizing stuff just to be able to quickly find it later. They just want to quickly find it (preferably without organizing -- because this is an excise task they would avoid if they could) -- this is the end goal. So, the better the searching (easier, faster, smarter), the closer we are to this goal. Organizing does help find things, but at the cost of additional time you spend at this task. There are also ways to find notes without having to organize them explicitly. Having said that, I must additionally explicitly say that I'm not against organizing, and the easier organizing UI is -- i.e. the less time you spend on it -- the better.

Respectfully, I think this is a serious misconception. It is what has led to design decisions your base users are balking at, me included. You have departed from the previous conception of categories and search leveraging one another and put them in opposition to each other or as substitutes. Categories leveraged search by having auto-categories that could have keyword and other filters. Search leveraged categories because you could easily pre-narrow your search results by easily creating categories and assigning them. By making search the primary organizer, the user is saving illusory time only. The very short time spent using the category functionality up front always paid off in less search time later trying to narrow or sift numerous results. Evernote's great achievment until now was making those categories very easy to set up, assign and manage, and work with search in the right balance. That has always been one of the genius parts of Evernote. But because new users sometimes confused categories with folders is not a reason to eliminate and rebuild the core functionality. It isn't a functional problem, it is a design problem.

I strenuously urge the return of all of the category functionality from 2.2. If you need to reform it to make it more understandable to the new or casual user, so be it. I agree that there were very real problems in accessing features embedded in categories and getting the new user to adopt them (the category intersection panel is a perfect example: very useful but poorly designed). That is the art.

But it is a grave and costly mistake to reduce functionality that we professional users have come to benefit from. Costly because what drive-by or casual user is going to pay for your product - or get their firm to by additional licenses for it? (Eliminating LAN connectivity is another misconceived reduction in my view) Costly because professional users will find a substitute that does the things you have eliminated.

I think "tagging" is a revolutionary way of organizing information because it is simple and can be done on the fly. But I think "flat tagging" (Which Evernote 2.2 had cleverly transformed) and drastic UI simplification are fads that have gained way too much currency in reaction to poorly designed crowded UI's (ie. Microsoft's). Please consider what your professional users are telling you about these changes. I appreciate your listening.

(2+ year user)

[colddaye 0]

What I wanted to say that most of the people do not want spend much time organizing stuff just to be able to quickly find it later. They just want to quickly find it (preferably without organizing -- because this is an excise task they would avoid if they could) -- this is the end goal. So, the better the searching (easier, faster, smarter), the closer we are to this goal. Organizing does help find things, but at the cost of additional time you spend at this task. There are also ways to find notes without having to organize them explicitly. Having said that, I must additionally explicitly say that I'm not against organizing, and the easier organizing UI is -- i.e. the less time you spend on it -- the better.

Respectfully, I think this is a serious misconception. It is what has led to design decisions your base users are balking at, me included.

I'm not a base user, I guess I'm vaguely intermediate, but if I could throw in my two cents...even I'm balking. Nthing the great tagging system of 2.2 which drew me to Evernote over any other notetaking program.

So far the beta is looking more like a fun toy and less like an actual useful tool.

I hate to break down the above quote in a parental manner, but if you organize at the beginning you find things better when you need to. Why else was I told to put things away when I immediately finished my tasks as a kid? If I let them pile up, a bit like the beta is doing to my experimental notebooks, I get a mangled mess that takes longer to sort through than if I'd had neater categorization to begin with.

Yes, I'm loving the green and the new logo, but Gmailing a note to myself is looking like it will give me the same functionality at the moment. In the case of Gmail if I want to find something, I can just search for it...

[vogelap 27]

So far the [3.0] beta is looking more like a fun toy and less like an actual useful tool.

Sadly, I agree.

[ThomasStraten 0]

Dear all,

First of all, congratulations to Leo, and sadness for us!!! But what the heck, the EN team (even wrong) is still very responsive and we all appreciate that.

So lets continue the discussion.

Iafanasiev wrote:

What I wanted to say that most of the people do not want spend much time organizing stuff just to be able to quickly find it later. They just want to quickly find it (preferably without organizing -- because this is an excise task they would avoid if they could) -- this is the end goal.

This is absolutely wrong (to say the least). Searching does NOT give you the results your want. Some stupid examples will illustrate my statement.

I have a EN base with stuff to do, remarks to myself, expenses (TEMPLATE!!!!) etc...

In my expenses templates I have categories like Home, Business, Check, Cash, Atm, travel etc..... Absolutely easy to create, no automatic filter, just simple and plain tags.... In my NOTES, I generally give the title (and I can repeat the title without clashing which is a beauty). So I just put the name of the Supermarket (Jumbo, Easy, Homecenter) but sometimes i just put what i bought like bread or chairs or Hilton.... How can I find (with a simple search) what I am spending at home.... should I make a search on Jumbo (one supermarket) plus Lider (another one), will it give me my spending on wine or bread? Or my reservation, ticket, voucher for my stays in hotels????

In my work (I am actually working on a philosopher called Xavier Zubiri), I have Citations, Remarks, Bibliography, Notes-to-myself-regarding-a-paragraph, to-do's, expenses (yes i buy some articles and books about or by him), inspirational thoughts, questions to ask, notes by others, related authors, notes on books (title is my category or a short word like IL or IRE or IRA), notes in French, in Spanish and in English.... How the heck do you think I can search.......in all that without some organization........ And this is a very simple job, I am just studying the philosopher and trying to write something intelligent about him.... and I collect TONS of articles, pieces of articles, sites to visit, stuff written by other philosophers about him that are interesting to me.... Just a simple work of a mere student (I am 52, please respect my white head!!!!).... Jesus!!!! Without categories I would be absolutely hopeless....just with searches i would never recall what i just need to work on today, namely the notes i took on IRA (Intelligence and ReAson) last week.... By the way, a search on IRA would give me all future tenses in french "Il ira voir si j'y suis", articles about Irish, and a search on IL would give me the 3 personnal article "Il a raison" in french or "ill" and even a quote in your forum i kept in my database....but for my work?????

Other example.... In my Outlook i had 608 Notes...... And there is no way to categorize them...... In my portable it is just a mess to find the correct note and in my computer, what did I do??? I cut-and-pasted everything and put them in EN....... Voilà!!!!!

As a programmer, my first notetaking software was made by me with five columns of possible categories..... It worked like a breeze until the internet came in. (was text only in Windows 95 or earlier)

Before finding EN i was using InfoHandler which I dropped because the programmer decided to make a shift in its GUI that led all his customers to complain...Result? He lost...all of us and you can see his forum.....i feel sorry for him.

We ARE CATEGORY LOVERS ANIMALS....Family, Society, Man, Women, Children, Country, Young, Old, White, Black, Asian, Christians, whatever thing you name is categorized and subcategorized and subsubsubsubsubcategorized and we play with these categories, selecting several and then searching (perhaps) because simple SEARCH WILL NOT give the result you want.

Just look at you checkbook for God's sake.... are you going to search by name? by amount?

You have it wrong..... W R O N G ... and you will kill Evernote if you don't make EN 3 a SUPER EN 2.2.1 This is as simple as that. (And by the way, searching with words still works horribly in the images or pictures).

I have a special searching engine (DTSearch) also.... It is absolutely gorgious to make very complex searches and find some stuf in my 20 gigs document folder. But do you want to oblige people to write queries as : ((thing or chose or cosa) w/5 (real*) or (thing or chose or cosa) w/5 (sentido or sen*)) and not Zubiri or worse, make them learn SQL??? And even then not to be sure to get all the results they realy want, or too many answers (like my "il" example?). But DTSearch serves a completely different purpose as EN, it makes me able to organize my work, search for quotations, follow some writers in their hole writings and find the right stuff into their texts....nothing to do with taking notes or collecting info or organizing my work, home, head as EN DOES!!!

Even the most idiotic pims were giving categories or trees or keywords..... why is that so?

I am not mad at you, just trying to make a point but it is true that sometimes I feel.....say,..... pushed away

Best regards

Tom

[iafanasyev 1]

Guys, please calm down for a second. I hear and understand what you are saying. I am not against organizing, as I already clearly said before. Please don't interpret my words above as "he wants to steal our categories and tries to " -- I don't, and I'm even not the right person whom you should try to convince. What I said above is the expression my personal attitude to the problem -- there are many ways to make things done, and having the choice, people try the easiest ways to solve problems, so our goal is giving people such easy/convenient ways to solve the problem -- finding the information they look for. There are still many things to be done in Evernote to achieve this.

I know you are perplexed why would Evernote team drop features which were already in 2.x, and which you got used to. There were internal not so obvious reasons to do so: to simplify internal program structure, to make the UI simpler, to be able to switch the application to the new database layer, to improve performance and scalability on big databases (this is what EN 2.x suffers from), to make Evernote 3 clients more uniform, as now there are also Mac and web versions, and to do al of this in a very limited timeframe. So we left and implemented the barebone features for now, and will carefully add other features to all clients based on market demands and your feedback. And this is why we tried our best to make EN 2.x and EN 3 work side-by-side together, as they can't substitute each other for now, especially for power users.

[wsp 11]

When you create a local-only notebook in EN3, you are warned that it cannot be converted to a synchronized notebook later on. Hence the two types of notebook are non-interchangeable and distinct in some way that is not obvious to the user. So why can't some of the EN2.2 features be restored to local notebooks only? In other words, when you switched to a local notebook, there would be a few more (or at least different) menu choices. Would that be too difficult to implement?

[ThomasStraten 0]

Iafanesev said:

Guys, please calm down for a second

I believe this is for me.....

I apologize. It is true I am a kind of Lancelot and will defend EN 2.2.1 to my death.

I will ask to be included (invited) as a Beta Tester for Version 3 (please? I was beta tester of version 2) and be happy to wait the two months for the "core functionality" of 2.2.1 to be installed in version 3. Please understand that we just want Evernote to be succesful and remain the best program we are using after so many, so many other systems we tried and discarded...

Apologies again. (please invite me)

Tom

[shimra 14]

So we left and implemented the barebone features for now, and will carefully add other features to all clients based on market demands and your feedback. And this is why we tried our best to make EN 2.x and EN 3 work side-by-side together, as they can't substitute each other for now, especially for power users.

If you want Evernote 2 and 3 to work side by side, I suggest that you implement a feature to export from Evernote 3 back to 2. This is pretty standard for programs like Microsoft Word when a new version comes out.

[salgud 12]

So we left and implemented the barebone features for now, and will carefully add other features to all clients based on market demands and your feedback. And this is why we tried our best to make EN 2.x and EN 3 work side-by-side together, as they can't substitute each other for now, especially for power users.

It would help me, and probably others, if you told us what 2.2 features are planned to be added to 3, even if in the distant future. Are you saying that the plan is to restore full 2.2 functionality to 3 eventually? If so, how about a rough estimate of "eventually"? Months? Years?