Get Everything Done

Seraphim:

I'm still on the old version. I volunteered to take part in the trial for the new version and went back to the old version after a few days. Basically my assessment was the same as yours. One of the things I particularly hated about it was that the Notebook and Tag selector buttons are now at opposite corners of the screen, rather than being next to each other.

My overall summing up was that it was more concerned with looking good than with being easy to use.

At some stage I will no doubt be forced to switch to the new version, at which time I shall have to see if I can live with it. I've got a lot invested in Evernote (over 10,000 notes) and would hate to have to abandon it.

On the other hand it wouldn't be the first time I've hated a new version of Evernote but in the end grown to like it.

We'll see.

I just found the assessment of the trial new Evernote for Windows version which I sent them back in July. Bear in mind that some of the features I commented on may have been changed in the final version.


* Feedback on new Version of Evernote

*
Negatives

Can't put short cuts at top of screen (major nuisance)

Presentation mode is missing (which is a disaster)

Screen is cleaner - which I DON'T like because it makes it more difficult to see what is what

Mysterious yellow stars appear against certain notes. Still haven't worked out what they mean. Later: Apparently they are notes that are short-cuts. Doesn't do any harm, but I don't see much point in it.

Automatic filling-in of title removed. Why? Seems a pointless change to a useful feature. If there is no automatic filling, then one needs to be able to copy the title along with the note, which at present is not possible.

Heading levels and font family good, though it would be nice to still be able to access the full range of Windows fonts as an option.

It's now awkward to change the Folder and Tags on a note, as they are diagonally opposite each other. Minor nuisance - but why make it worse rather than better just for the sake of appearance?

No sign of the ability to display a list with the ticked items hidden (which was a very valuable feature of the original Evernote - yes, I have been using it that long!)

Positives

I like having a Checklist and a Checkbox, though I'm not sure how I'll use them yet. But the option is good.

Superscript and subscript good, though personally I don't have much use for them.

Summary

Full of minor annoyances (and some major ones) which mainly seem to have been changed for the sake of making the layout prettier. Some of them don't even achieve that.

Seraphim:

The one thing which Evernote could include easily but never has is to incorporate a proper outliner. There's a rudimentary one already, but it could be so much better. I'd much prefer to have that than any of the other "improvements".

Inspired by this conversation, I downloaded Evernote 10 again to see what differences there were now from the version which was used in the trial I took part in. I haven't been able to find any.

I think my summing up of Evernote 10 is that there is not one single aspect of it which is as good as the previous version. Apart from anything else it even seems to take longer to carry out its basic function, which is to display notes. This does not bode well for the future of Evernote.

Nevertheless I am going to keep Evernote 10 for the time being to see whether I can live with it. I am not a power user - I just want to be able to bung everything into it and get it back again quickly. I also use it for keeping my best photos, and displaying them. The removal of Presentation Mode has severely impacted that.

Seraphim:

<< Mark how is your experiment with Evernote 10 going? >>

Surprisingly well in fact. I'm not saying that I think it's better than old Evernote, just that it's not significantly worse for me, so far at least. I guess it depends what you want to do with it. As I said above, I just want to bung everything into it and get it back again quickly. Nothing fancy.

I don't have the problem you seem to be having with scanning into Evernote. What are you using to scan? I'm using the scanning on my Android phone and it works fine. Of course Evernote hasn't produced a new Android version yet. It's on the way, and maybe when it does appear it will make it more difficult. But for the present, fine.

Has anyone tried an alternative to Evernote and OneNote? I've never liked OneNote and Evernote appears to be in the process of destroying itself, So I'm wondering about alternatives.

I've seen a lot of positive comment about Nimbus Notes. Anyone used it who'd like to give a few pointers?

tomcal:

Thanks for your report on Nimbus. I am particularly glad that it contains collapsible outlining, which is something that I have been hoping for years that Evernote would introduce. It is the one single thing in my opinion which would make the greatest improvement to their product.

I think I shall be going back to legacy Evernote soon. Evernote 10 does everything that I need doing, but it is all just that little bit more difficult than in legacy Evernote.

I'd also be interested in your experiences with The Brain. I've tried it a few times over the years but never really got on with it. Maybe it's now significantly better?

Tomcal:

I'll put off trying Nimbus until we hear more about your experiences with it.

As I said above, I've tried The Brain a couple of times over the years but never really got on with it. The last time was quite a few years ago though. Maybe it's time to have another try.

Ian S:

Thanks for your recommendations.

I've put both Obsidian and Notion on my list to have a look at.

tomcal:

Thanks. Having read it I think I agree with some of the subsequent commenters that Notion is more complicated than I need.

Having gone back to Evernote 10 to give it a longer trial, I stuck with it for most of December. But today I reverted to Legacy Evernote and, as with Seraphim, the sense of relief was immediate. Basically everything took twice as long to do in the new version, and it was far less intuitive. There was not one single thing which I liked better.

As Seraphim said in the title of this thread, Evernote disaster!

Seraphim:

Yes, I think it's true to say that I haven't seen a single positive comment about it.

IanS:

Since I haven't been back on v. 10 I haven't seen it yet. I must have a look. Fortunately they allow us to have both versions at once.

IanS:

On a quick look through it, my answer would be that it makes it worse.

1) It doesn't achieve anything that a properly organised layout in Legacy Version doesn't do.

2) If you make use of it, it then takes even longer to get at all your notes.

3) Instead of putting short cuts back at the top of the screen, you now have to go the the Home page to access them.

4) What on earth is the point of the "scratch pad"? All one had to do before was press the big green plus button to bring up a new note. If you want to refer to a note often in Legacy, you can link to it by the short cuts, which are at the top of the screen where they belong.

5) What's the point of having "Recent Notes" shown in their own little box? I can tell which my recent notes are because they're at the top of the Note List in Legacy.

To sum up: Continuing the process of changing simplicity and ease into complexity and annoyance.

Ian S:

I've just had a look at the Pullein video, and basically everything he describes that the new Home Page can do I can already do better on my existing Legacy Evernote setup. The new Home Page is only needed because they have made everything so difficult in v. 10 compared to how it was before.

I also get the impression that v.10 now takes even longer to start up than it did before. It was already painfully slow compared to Legacy Evernote.

I also asked Evernote some time ago when I was going to get a refund of my Premium Subscription since they've removed the Presentation Mode, which was a Premium feature, and one of the main ones I use. I've had no reply needless to say.

IanS:

To be clear, I don't want to cancel my Premium Subscription. I was just hoping they would refund the cost in whole or in part as they'd removed one of the major facilities.

It'll be interesting to see what Bending Spoons makes of Evernote.

Just tried again with the new Evernote to see if it has been improved and found that it is even worse than I remember. Of the multitude of problems which I and loads of other people complained about not a single one has been fixed. It is slow, cumbersome, unnecessarily complicated and completely non-intuitive.

I lasted for two days and then went back to Legacy Evernote which fortunately still works fine - though for how much longer I have no idea.

I've been using Roam Research alongside Legacy Evernote for a year or so now and find that there is very little overlap between them. Evernote is best at storing lots of miscellaneous stuff and getting it back quickly. Roam is best for thinking with. While it lasts they make an excellent combination.

The reason I gave the new Evernote another try was because they had been trumpeting that they now had backlinks. Unfortunately they are not the sort of backlinks that Roam and similar programs have - the Evernote backlinks link notes together instead of words and phrases, and are basically useless, doing nothing that you can't achieve with tags.