I just cut/pasted 163 notes, one at a time, from Evernote into CintaNotes.

I added tags with each note I pasted in.


My thoughts:
"That sucked".

JasonE

I would do the same, but I need the ability to capture images as well. It will be interesting to review the professional version of Cintanotes.

Glen

Out of curiosity... what does CintaNotes do that Evernote 2.2 does not ? What is your motivation to switch ?

Pierre Paul Landry wrote:

Out of curiosity... what does CintaNotes do that Evernote 2.2 does not ? What is your
motivation to switch ?

See:
http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/1835/0/evernote2-replacement


Bottom line:
..the combination of non-standard export and non-supported application does it in for me.



I really got to experience the non-standard export today....

JasonE

JasonE wrote:

I just cut/pasted 163 notes, one at a time, from Evernote into CintaNotes. I added tags with each note I pasted in.
My thoughts: "That sucked".

Too bad you didn't ask for help before doing this. You most likely could have automated this export using eg. AutoHotKey or AutoIT.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AutoIt
http://www.autohotkey.com/

Why you not like 3.1 or 3.5?

-Rael

Rael Bauer wrote:

Why you not like 3.1 or 3.5?

I wanted a replacement for EverNote2.2, so I needed something qualitatively the same.

EverNote3 is qualitatively different than EverNote2, and not what I want.

On an earlier thread someone said that the company that makes it dates the release of EverNote3 as the birthday of the EverNote application.
My reply was, "they might as well."



Jason

JasonE wrote:

EverNote3 is qualitatively different than EverNote2, and not what I want.

Ok. Just wondering what you feel makes them so different. I realise 2.2 has some perks being a more desktop application, but overall they seem quite similar.

-Rael

Rael Bauer wrote:

JasonE wrote:
>EverNote3 is qualitatively different than EverNote2, and not
what I want.

Ok. Just wondering what you feel makes them so different. I realise 2.2
has some perks being a more desktop application, but overall they seem quite
similar.

-Rael

2.2 has lots of features that 3.5 doesn't: inter-note links, subnotebooks, and the "continuous tape" view are the three that seem to be most talked about.

But what strikes me is that - from what I recall - CintaNotes does not have any of these features, either (except arguably the tape view).
So in other words, switching to CintaNotes causes you to lose all the same features you would lose by moving from EN 2.2. to EN 3.5. Plus you also lose rich text, embedded images, and embedded files. Seems to me that you might as well just move to 3.5 -- the data transfer is certainly easier.

Rael:

Ok. Just wondering what you feel makes them so different. I realise 2.2 has some perks being a more desktop application, but overall they seem quite similar.

dan7000:

But what strikes me is that - from what I recall - CintaNotes does not have any of these features, either (except arguably the tape view).
So in other words, switching to CintaNotes causes you to lose all the same features you would lose by moving from EN 2.2. to EN 3.5. Plus you also lose >rich text, embedded images, and embedded files. Seems to me that you might as well just move to 3.5?the data transfer is certainly easier.

Evernote2.2 is a screw driver. CintaNotes is a screw driver. Evernote3 is a swiss army knife with a screwdriver blade.

I carry a swiss army knife in my pocket.
I keep a screw driver in my workshop.

If I lose the screw driver in my workshop, I go buy a new screw driver, not a swiss army knife.


What I would use EverNote3 for I have covered with OneNote and Surfulater.

Either OneNote or Surfulater could accomplish what I use CintaNotes for.
Both would be awkward and clunky at it.

CintaNotes is eloquent, quick, and easy at what I use it for.
So was EverNote2.2. It really worked well at what I needed it for.


JasonE

JasonE wrote:

Evernote2.2 is a screw driver. CintaNotes is a
screw driver. Evernote3 is a swiss army knife with a screwdriver blade.

...

CintaNotes is eloquent, quick, and easy at what I use it
for.
So was EverNote2.2. It really worked well at what I needed it for.

Great analogy - I totally get it. It's always great to find software that is focused on doing one thing well. Sadly, it seems like as software matures, developers are always tempted to make the same software do more than one thing, and in the process, the software loses the usability that comes from a narrow focus. ... and then the field is ripe for a new startup to come in and make a smaller, more focused product again.

This cycle is discussed in a great book called the Innovator's Dilemma. I recommend it highly for those interested in this kind of thing.

I wonder if Evernote made the right decision focussing simply on being a "cloud" application. At first, this seemed smart. But now there are so many ways to float your data back and forth across the digital void. On my PC at work I use a simple application called ResophNotes -- which I learned about from Manfred Kuhn's blog. It syncs with Simple Note, then Tinderbox on my Macbook syncs with Simple Note and I can share basic notes that way. Also, PersonalBrain syncs Brains via the cloud. I also have Dropbox available.

By sacrificing some of its original functionality, Evernote has made itself less useful and now it doesn't have cloud syncing as a major point of difference anymore. Just a thought. Time will tell.

Steve Z.

From a marketing perspective, I think time has shown EN made the right decision going to the cloud, and becoming a multi-platform product. Its market share has rocketed, and it has a developed a lot of loyalty.

Unfortunately, it has dumbed the product down in terms of original functionality, and become increasingly irritable when that is pointed out. At one point the company line was it the functionality would be restored.

This last version is perhaps the best yet - if one is not in need of the lost functionality.

One beautiful thing about EN is that you can have more than one window open, so you can a notes window, a first draft window, and be rewriting in a third window.

But its tagging is weak - especially compared to a program such as Surfulater. And Surfulater allows both a folders and tag structuring.

I very much wish Surfulater would enable multiple windows. If Surfulater did that, and had cloud capability, I think it is poised to eat some of Evernote's market share.

One of the things that concerns me about EN is that its marketing folk play a little loose with the truth - such as when they talk about the product's second anniversary.

Two years since the big changes began, maybe.

But the program is a lot older than two years. When the marketing boffins say two years, it kinds of rubs the noses of its original loyal users in the trash heap of lost functionality.

An EN plus - its Chrome extension for clipping is probably the fastest and best such extension I have ever used. In fact, even though EN is locally loaded on my computer, I prefer to clip first to the cloud and synch later because the extension makes it easier to add the tags.

Again, my hope is that Surfulater develops a Chrome extension, in addition to the multiple open windows, and cloud syncing - at that point I could switch everything over to Surfulater.

Even now, Surfulater is a better product if you have large amounts of data, related to many different subjects.

Daly

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

I wonder if Evernote made the right decision focussing simply on being a "cloud"
application. At first, this seemed smart. But now there are so many ways to float your
data back and forth across the digital void. On my PC at work I use a simple application
called ResophNotes -- which I learned about from Manfred Kuhn's blog. It syncs with
Simple Note, then Tinderbox on my Macbook syncs with Simple Note and I can share basic
notes that way. Also, PersonalBrain syncs Brains via the cloud. I also have Dropbox
available.

By sacrificing some of its original functionality, Evernote has made
itself less useful and now it doesn't have cloud syncing as a major point of difference
anymore. Just a thought. Time will tell.

Steve Z.

Daly de Gagne wrote:

But its tagging is weak - especially compared to a program such as
Surfulater.

I am not sure I understand what you mean. For me the tagging functionality in these two applications is more or less equivalent, and more powerful than the majority of applications I have worked with. Tags are not my preferred way of working, but I use them extensively in Evernote as there are no hierarchical notebooks or folders. I have found the EN tagging system very capable and flexible with hierarchical organisation, autosuggest, multiselection (especially in filtering) and similar intuitive features.

The only tagging feature I haven't found in Evernote is clones in the tag tree, i.e. possibility for a tag to exist in more than one positions in the hierarchy concurrently --one could argue however that classification-wise this makes no sense. I don't know whether Surfulater has this feature.

And Surfulater allows both a folders and tag structuring.

Yes indeed; I thought it was overkill to support both folders and tags (and clones, which means that items may exist in several folders concurrently), but it is great for users to be able to choose whichever system suits them best.

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

Yes indeed; I thought it was overkill to support both folders and tags
(and clones, which means that items may exist in several folders concurrently), but
it is great for users to be able to choose whichever system suits them best.

What an interesting discussion we have going here!


I just want to add a counter-point regarding tags and folders.
For the way I conduct research on the web, and utilize that information later, the tags/folders combo fits very well.

I am certainly not arguing that this is the best way in any objective sense. It is just the most intuitive way for me.

I could even image throwing clones into the mix.
If I had some temporary side-project, I could see making a folder for it, then cloning in the articles I needed. When the project wrapped up, I would move the folder to a "completed side-projects" folder.


JasonE

Alex, the Surfulater feature I like is that "nested related tags are automatically show." in the tree, and do not have to be manually set up as with EN.

The way Neville has set this up it seems it is possibly more likely Surfulater, and not EN, will end up with the capability of finding the articles which have a specific set of tags you might specify on the fly. For example, all articles tagged Freud, mindfulness, and attachment - InfoHandler has always been the champ at this ability - because it was tag based in essence, and you could be very specific about which tags you use to find articles.

If, for example, there are 100 articles mentioning Freud, or 125 mindfulness, or 85 attachment it can be a chore to get the 17 which are tagged Freud-mindfulness-attachment if you can use a multiple tag approach. The beauty of tagging is that the tag word does not have to appear in the article, so it can get around a problem of using a regular search.



Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

Daly de Gagne wrote:
>But its tagging is weak - especially compared to a program such
as
>Surfulater.

I am not sure I understand what you mean. For me the tagging
functionality in these two applications is more or less equivalent, and more
powerful than the majority of applications I have worked with. Tags are not my
preferred way of working, but I use them extensively in Evernote as there are no
hierarchical notebooks or folders. I have found the EN tagging system very capable
and flexible with hierarchical organisation, autosuggest, multiselection
(especially in filtering) and similar intuitive features.

The only tagging
feature I haven't found in Evernote is clones in the tag tree, i.e. possibility for a
tag to exist in more than one positions in the hierarchy concurrently --one could
argue however that classification-wise this makes no sense. I don't know whether
Surfulater has this feature.


> And Surfulater allows both a folders and tag
structuring.

Yes indeed; I thought it was overkill to support both folders and tags
(and clones, which means that items may exist in several folders concurrently), but
it is great for users to be able to choose whichever system suits them best.