I try to limit myself to three or four shortcuts so the idea of pinning them to the sidebar so they remain visible while scrolling would be great. I'd be happy with the 'bookmark' idea, too, although that feels a little less elegant. To be honest I can't think of other apps in this space that have come up with something better. Poor sidebar navigation is a reason why i've moved on from a number of other applications that I otherwise really enjoyed using.
I use shortcuts, but they're not as fluid as yours, Jon. I have a selection of notebooks and notes that stay where they are. I think I got stuck in my ways when I added shortcuts as a panel on the home screen. When it's there, it's limited to only a few that are visible, and now, in my head, for some unknown reason, I restrict myself to only having that many shortcuts. I need to expand so I can use them better.
Yeah. Its one of the reasons I keep mine fluid. If not I'd have a load. I tend to change them each day or every few days based on the things I'm working on.
One thing I hadn't thought about is that I don;t use the home screen as much as I used to. Not sure if its because I can access calendar and tasks from the sidebar.
The Home Screen has definitely turned my workflow around. It's my base each day. Shortcuts, Calendar, Tasks, a couple of pinned notes, and a saved search that shows me notes for each day of the current week so I can journal.
I like shortcuts. I don't use them quite as much as you seem to, however I find them quite useful.
I think it would be nice to have the option to have them fixed in their spot.
I also think that, if you use "recent notes" it should not be under the shortcuts. Recent notes should have their own section Like Notes and Notebooks. But the option to see them should remain a choice.
As other users have mentioned, shortcuts should be usable alongside the sidebar notebook list; otherwise, when I scroll to a specific notebook for navigation, the shortcuts become completely hidden and invisible, which defeats the purpose.
In my opinion, notebooks should inherently provide a multiple-level structure, similar to the folders in our file explorer (although Evernote has never offered this). A good notebook structure already provides us with the first layer of assurance for quickly locating information. At the same time, shortcuts are more like an entry point for quickly locating specific tasks at specific times or situations. They should not conflict with the operation of browsing the notebook, but the current design clearly creates this issue (and has transformed the originally good design into a relatively poor one).
Additionally, the differences in display orientation also completely result in variations in the amount of information that can be presented simultaneously. In the left-side list, when you have many expanded double-layer shortcuts, you will have to scroll up and down to find your target. However, placing it above the original bar provides a horizontal dimension, allowing for a direct view of the first layer's structure. At the same time, in the vertical direction, the second layer can be expanded, and based on the second layer, the third layer can continue to expand horizontally. This method allows you to quickly locate any position within a complex structure without losing the overall perspective from start to finish.
I really don't understand why such an excellent design would be changed. The current shortcuts are just another type of notebook or tagging system.
BTW, In fact, many times, it is unclear whether the official team is truly listening to the voices of users, especially for software services like Evernote that have experienced such a long period of decline; it is indeed not easy to break out into a new situation. Over the past year, I have felt the ambition and proactiveness of the new company, but to be fair, the competition among similar services in this era is indeed more intense than in the past.
I still hope that the developers of Evernote can seriously reconsider the original notebook structure and the positioning between tags, making a more significant adjustment and restructuring. Many users have wanted multi-layer notebooks for many years, but what we have now is a multi-level tag system, which is not a truly complete hierarchical system. Tag names cannot be duplicated, and users cannot really use it like a directory structure.
Let's take a look at Upnote, which is overall very similar to Evernote, but it has multi-layer notebooks. The note can also be placed in multiple notebooks at the same time. This method completely distinguishes the collection logic of tags and notebooks, where the former is used for categorization without hierarchical relationships, and the latter is a classification system with hierarchical concepts. These two are clear and complementary, with no significant conflicts.
However, in contrast to Evernote, which tries to achieve multi-level user organization through tags, the uniqueness of tag names forces some users to resort to using numbers as prefixes. This also happens with notebook names, as manual sorting is not possible, leading users to get creative with notebook naming. This kind of bittersweet creativity is, I believe, a shared memory and tear for long-time users.
Just a bit of sentimentality, using the notebook system as an example, please bear with me.
Thanks for that. I'll pass it on. Going to send a big batch of feedback over. Multi level notebooks is a conversation they are having but not sure if a decision has been made. They've been gathering a lot of feedback and I'll add to it.
I also agree that the old shortcut bar should return. It is way faster having it always available at the top. Having them on the side means you either have to click to open them which is a pain .... or you forced to scroll way more than necessary when accessing ones notebooks.
Like others I'm surprised that Evernote is reporting that users are hiding shortcuts. Their flexibility makes them very useful.
Same. Its madness!!
I try to limit myself to three or four shortcuts so the idea of pinning them to the sidebar so they remain visible while scrolling would be great. I'd be happy with the 'bookmark' idea, too, although that feels a little less elegant. To be honest I can't think of other apps in this space that have come up with something better. Poor sidebar navigation is a reason why i've moved on from a number of other applications that I otherwise really enjoyed using.
I use shortcuts, but they're not as fluid as yours, Jon. I have a selection of notebooks and notes that stay where they are. I think I got stuck in my ways when I added shortcuts as a panel on the home screen. When it's there, it's limited to only a few that are visible, and now, in my head, for some unknown reason, I restrict myself to only having that many shortcuts. I need to expand so I can use them better.
Yeah. Its one of the reasons I keep mine fluid. If not I'd have a load. I tend to change them each day or every few days based on the things I'm working on.
One thing I hadn't thought about is that I don;t use the home screen as much as I used to. Not sure if its because I can access calendar and tasks from the sidebar.
The Home Screen has definitely turned my workflow around. It's my base each day. Shortcuts, Calendar, Tasks, a couple of pinned notes, and a saved search that shows me notes for each day of the current week so I can journal.
Nice. Thinking more about it I stopped using the home screen as much when I started using daily notes.
WFT! Who are the animals hiding the Shortcuts??? I'd be lost without them.
I know! In the list I saw it beat Files!
I like shortcuts. I don't use them quite as much as you seem to, however I find them quite useful.
I think it would be nice to have the option to have them fixed in their spot.
I also think that, if you use "recent notes" it should not be under the shortcuts. Recent notes should have their own section Like Notes and Notebooks. But the option to see them should remain a choice.
It would really improve the sidebar if we could move things around and reorder them how we want. Hope it arrives some day.
I need the old shortcut bar back.
Just for speed of access? If shortcuts appeared at the top would you still have the big list in the sidebar?
As other users have mentioned, shortcuts should be usable alongside the sidebar notebook list; otherwise, when I scroll to a specific notebook for navigation, the shortcuts become completely hidden and invisible, which defeats the purpose.
In my opinion, notebooks should inherently provide a multiple-level structure, similar to the folders in our file explorer (although Evernote has never offered this). A good notebook structure already provides us with the first layer of assurance for quickly locating information. At the same time, shortcuts are more like an entry point for quickly locating specific tasks at specific times or situations. They should not conflict with the operation of browsing the notebook, but the current design clearly creates this issue (and has transformed the originally good design into a relatively poor one).
Additionally, the differences in display orientation also completely result in variations in the amount of information that can be presented simultaneously. In the left-side list, when you have many expanded double-layer shortcuts, you will have to scroll up and down to find your target. However, placing it above the original bar provides a horizontal dimension, allowing for a direct view of the first layer's structure. At the same time, in the vertical direction, the second layer can be expanded, and based on the second layer, the third layer can continue to expand horizontally. This method allows you to quickly locate any position within a complex structure without losing the overall perspective from start to finish.
I really don't understand why such an excellent design would be changed. The current shortcuts are just another type of notebook or tagging system.
Nice. I'll pass some of this and other feedback on as they are working on my navigation easier.
BTW, In fact, many times, it is unclear whether the official team is truly listening to the voices of users, especially for software services like Evernote that have experienced such a long period of decline; it is indeed not easy to break out into a new situation. Over the past year, I have felt the ambition and proactiveness of the new company, but to be fair, the competition among similar services in this era is indeed more intense than in the past.
I still hope that the developers of Evernote can seriously reconsider the original notebook structure and the positioning between tags, making a more significant adjustment and restructuring. Many users have wanted multi-layer notebooks for many years, but what we have now is a multi-level tag system, which is not a truly complete hierarchical system. Tag names cannot be duplicated, and users cannot really use it like a directory structure.
Let's take a look at Upnote, which is overall very similar to Evernote, but it has multi-layer notebooks. The note can also be placed in multiple notebooks at the same time. This method completely distinguishes the collection logic of tags and notebooks, where the former is used for categorization without hierarchical relationships, and the latter is a classification system with hierarchical concepts. These two are clear and complementary, with no significant conflicts.
However, in contrast to Evernote, which tries to achieve multi-level user organization through tags, the uniqueness of tag names forces some users to resort to using numbers as prefixes. This also happens with notebook names, as manual sorting is not possible, leading users to get creative with notebook naming. This kind of bittersweet creativity is, I believe, a shared memory and tear for long-time users.
Just a bit of sentimentality, using the notebook system as an example, please bear with me.
Thanks for that. I'll pass it on. Going to send a big batch of feedback over. Multi level notebooks is a conversation they are having but not sure if a decision has been made. They've been gathering a lot of feedback and I'll add to it.
I also agree that the old shortcut bar should return. It is way faster having it always available at the top. Having them on the side means you either have to click to open them which is a pain .... or you forced to scroll way more than necessary when accessing ones notebooks.