Evernote enhancements to deal with conflicts

[michael.freidgeim 18]

 

I've accidentally noticed that one of my note includes conflicting modifications (see http://www.evernote.com/l/AHZfSH-hGvBDxrn62fjqOjqfiW6sv8YoCs8/).

I had them before and each time resolving them manually was a very annoying process, in particular on iPhone/iPad.

Especially I found that the note has about 13 copies of almost identical original note , some of the  with the same time stamp.

I searched discussion forum and there are multiple threads from people asking how to deal with conflicts, but no response from Evernote employees.

 

I am suggesting the following:

 

1. As I understand, on some devices Evernote put conflicting copy to special new Notebook named "Conflicting Notes ..."

Can this be done on iOS ASAP? I hope it should be easy, because it's done for some devices.

 

 It will avoid  corruption of the main note( as I read, system added multiple copies and huge notes become unmanageable).

Also it will be  noticeable to the user that  conflict with particular note occurred.

In the main note just add a short message about conflict with the link to conflicting note.

 

 

2. If conflict occurs, it will be good to add a notification to the reminders and alert user the same way as other reminders do.

 

3. A message about conflicts should have a link to a help page, that describe how conflicts can be resolved. E.g. On https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/25197-howto-diff-a-conflict-with-the-original and  https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/86113-how-do-i-resolve-sync-conflicts/ there are different methods, including

 

Export notes as text and compare with diff tools like beyond the compare/Winmerge,

Use comparison of ms word,

Compare in excel.

The thread is too long, so only relevant suggestions should be copied to help page.

 

Unfortunately, all methods , that I've seen, are for desktop, and not for iPad.

 

4. And ideally the conflicting notes should have highlights which particular sections that are changed <<<local>>>>> / <<<remote>>>>>, similar how it's done in source control system, e.g. Git. I understand, that for not plain text notes it could be challenging and not always would work right, but it's better to have something, than leave user without any help.

 

5. Investigate the bug why the same conflict was reported multiple times?

In my corrupted note http://www.evernote.com/l/AHZfSH-hGvBDxrn62fjqOjqfiW6sv8YoCs8/ there are 13 Conflicting modification notes :

 (67):Conflicting modification on 6 March 2016 at 10:59:19 AM:

(93):Conflicting modification on 7 March 2016 at 8:51:15 AM:

(139):Conflicting modification on 7 March 2016 at 8:53:03 AM:

(200):Conflicting modification on 6 March 2016 at 10:59:19 AM:

(246):Conflicting modification on 7 March 2016 at 8:51:15 AM:

(292):Conflicting modification on 7 March 2016 at 12:20:43 PM:

(353):Conflicting modification on 6 March 2016 at 10:59:19 AM:

(399):Conflicting modification on 7 March 2016 at 8:51:15 AM:

(445):Conflicting modification on 7 March 2016 at 12:20:58 PM:

(490):Conflicting modification on 6 March 2016 at 10:59:19 AM:

(512):Conflicting modification on 7 March 2016 at 8:51:15 AM:

(558):Conflicting modification on 7 March 2016 at 5:22:20 PM:

(605):Conflicting modification on 7 March 2016 at 5:23:47 PM:

[michael.freidgeim 18]

I've sent the suggestions  to support. Below is some extract from my communication with support person:

 

1) As I understand, on some devices Evernote put conflicting copy to special new Notebook named "Conflicting Notes ...Can this be done on iOS ASAP? I hope it should be easy, because it's done for some devices.

Quote

When a note conflict occurs on the desktop a local notebook is created and the conflict is then added. The note and conflicts do not sync to your account until you bring them out of the local notebook. The reason this happens is because the desktop version of Evernote supports a local database. On iOS devices, the servers are constantly communicating with your device and no local database is stored so adding a local notebook to an iOS device would not be possible.

However an end user do not feel the difference is conflicts notebook local or not. And if in case of conflicts you will create on a server notebook with a name like Conflicts_OnMyIPad_DeleteWhenResolved, the user will understand the purpose of the folder.

Creating on a server the new folder and new copy notes inside will not do more harm, than corrupting existing note by adding multiple copies inside it. Furthermore it will allow to use desktop tools for conflicts resolution. 

I understand, that it's a big architectural change, but it worth to do it, because current way of appending copies is unmanageable.

Quote

 I'll go ahead and mark this ticket as a feature request so that our development team can review it as well.

 

2) If conflict occurs, it will be good to add a notification to the reminders and alert user the same way as other reminders do.

3) A message about conflicts should have a link to a help page, that describe how conflicts can be resolved.

4) And ideally the conflicting notes should have highlights which particular sections that are changed <<<local>>>>> / <<<remote>>>>>, similar how it's done in source control system

Quote

I'll go ahead and bring this up to our product team and mark this ticket as a feature request so that our developers can monitor it

[C.Kucharik 1]

Take a lesson from Lean.  How can you make this process EASY on the end-user?  Right now it is torture to copy the content and file compare.  All you need to capture is:  What is DIFFERENT?  Best would be in-line acceptance like a MS Word Track Changes.  Please, please, please give us a better solution.  This happens a lot with mobile devices and network drops or speed of user action vs. sync.  Please make resolving conflicts easy!  Especially now that I'm paying for this.