Tuesday
Aug242010
Briefly: our big update
Tuesday, August 24, 2010 at 03:58AM by Simplenote Our update went live several hours ago and we're buried in feedback. Most of it is very positive, which is extremely rewarding for us. Thanks everyone for your kind words.
We'll be going through it all in the coming days. This will take some time as we work through the backlog.
If you unsuccessfully tried sending an email to support@simplenoteapp.com, please use support@simperium.com instead until our domain transfer is complete.
We're already working on another update to address some of the problems people have found. We appreciate your help.
Reader Comments (95)
Really love the update. You kept the simplicity but made the app much more powerful. Already wrote a detailed review (5 Stars) for the german AppStore.
Could you guys explain the benefits of going premium? I looked at the chart on the website but I don't really understand why there is a premium version. For example what does it mean to create a note by email? Also what is 3rd party app usage? And what is 30 backup versions of each note? Is that literally 30 different versions of the same note stored somewhere? I'm confused...I want to support you guys but I also want to understand what I'm spending $12 on.
Tip to those who want dropbox sync: you can already do this using your computer. Just set Notational Velocity (or whatevs) to use a folder on Dropbox.
Can anyone explain the functional difference between the "publish web page" and "share" options? It seems as if they are the same, but there must be some key differences that I'm not understanding.
@Matt: Maybe "Share" allows for gDocs style collaboration?
@Simperium:
-how about an iPhone-friendly text input field on your blog comments?
-in the new client, whenever I change prefs, I have to reenter my login info and redownload all my notes. This takes a while. :( And it never happened before...
-it's nice that you went w. a tagging system but now I would like to be able to easily show all of my untagged notes at the same time. I think whenever a platform adds tagging, eventually it's going to need Smart Folders in order to be truly useful...
-or -- how about an option to hide the whole tagging structure, for folks who already have hacked an alphabetically based organization method? (I have al of my immediate to do lists preceded by "01"s in the title...)
-it would be great if we could use a smaller font.
@Mathew The "share" link goes to a page where you can actually edit the note. Anyone who has this URL can make changes. The "publish" link is a readonly page.
Try share and publish.
How do I search for tags without my mouse? I can't get anything to show up when I search "tag:whatever"
I really want to use my mouse as little as possible, please.
Yeah, searching is pretty broken now. The search box should search tags without having to add an operator to the beginning of the search. That should at least be an option to turn on. I'm going to have to go back to adding my tags as #tags in the first line of my notes.
If I have a note that's tagged #CAFE, I should be able to touch the search box and type #CAFE not tag:#CAFE.
The thing that Simplenote had going for it was that it was a dead simple way to create, edit and search for plain-text notes. That has changed, and not in a good way.
Russ
Love Simplenote and the new features. The new theming is ok too, but the new application icon reminds me of the Pepsi icon.
Noticing that when adding new tags to a document online (web app) it doesn't necessarily sync to iPhone app ... even tho app says "synchronized" ...
I really think Simplenote has a lot of potential... it has an extremely refined interface. However, I just cant get over not having basic text controls (bold, strikethrough, indented lists) that help make long blocks of text more readable and scannable... especially on a mobile device. I think this really prevents Simplenote from being used as a true "knowledge management" tool.... really thats a shame, because Evernote's web interface is terrible, but its the only thing I have found to use between my Linux desktop and Android phone :-/
Great update, but the iPhone icon isn't very nice... Please, bring back the older one!
I'm very disappointed.
The point was to be simple. Now it's less so.
And worst for me, some of the devices I access the site on now don't have enough power to run it without crashing.
PLEASE make an alternate version available at a modified URL so that lighter devices can access it as they used to?
I'm currently using an alternative application called Notespark but really like the look of the version of Simplenote. It does most things that Notespark does with the addition of pin notes and version history, which are great features. Additionally I prefer your web interface, especially not having to click edit/save to amend notes.
There's only one area that would prevent me moving over to Simplenote and that's around note sharing. Firstly, it doesn't appear to be available via the web interface but maybe I'm missing something or it's yet to be implemented? Secondly and most important to me, is sharing via the iPhone app forces the note to be shared via email. In Notespark I can share directly with other Notespark users, simply by entering their username. I have a lot of notes to share and doing so through email, one by one, isn't going to happen.
Thanks everyone. We'll be working to further clarify how sharing, premium subscriptions, and other things work. Also, there are some known issues with tags that we'll be fixing.
@Martin: we launched a new general website as well, but it will take some time for the DNS to propagate around the internet before you'll see it.
@G: There's an option in the web app's account dropdown to use the old interface. We left this for extra device compatibility (which is the problem you're having).
@Ben and @Yakov:
Thanks for the explanation of URL vs. sharing. Makes complete sense and now I see how it works.
Also there is an issue with the "Notify me of follow-up comments via email". When you receive the email and try to unsubscribe from the follow-up comments it does not allow you and redirects to a 404 Not Found. Could you guys look into this as well. I keep getting e-mails, and would like them to stop :-/
I've gotten the error from my phone and from the web:
Not Found
The requested URL /display/RemoveSubscription was not found on this server.
Apache/2.2.3 (CentOS) Server at simplenoteapp.com Port 80
Please, please, bring back the notepad Icon!
A couple of other comments in case you don't have them already:
1. Trash should be at the bottom (I think) on the iPhone app, not at the top
2. When you add tags online, they don't show up as categories on the phone app
3. The 'you don't need to sync' message feels very silly. if there's never any occasion for that, why have the button? is that a full sync from the server? if so, why not have it say "would you like to conduct a full sync from server"? etc.
4. deleting a note online doesn't seem to be deleting it on the phone (?)
Anyway, thanks, this is going to be a cool update!
I second the request for the old icon. Loved it! The new one... not so much.
Other than that, a great update!
How do we delete a tag that we no longer wish to use?
Hello,
I'm a new convert to Simplenote. I downloaded ResophNotes and converted a bunch of text files to Simplenotes. Anyone know if there's a quick way to convert notes created in the iPhone's default "Notes" tool to Simplenotes, aside from individually e-mailing them? I've got over 300 I'd like to convert...
To convert your iPhone notes into SimpleNote, one way is the following: synch your notes with Outlook, then in Outlook from the File pulldown select Import and Export and follow wizard to export your Notes to a CSV. Then Import that CSV direclty into ResophNotes or whatever desktop SimpleNote companion app you are using and synch with SimpleNote on your iPhone. Perhaps a little roundabout, but this approach worked for me.
Love the new update, and the new look ( even the icon :) ). Couple of things I've noticed:
- New web app doesn't appear to render properly in IE7
- After clicking Done in the tag dialog ( iPad ), the tags are comma separated. Select another note, and then click back to the original note. The commas have gone, giving the impression of a single tag. Click in the tag field again, then Done, commas return.
Again, fab update.....
It is an amazing release, I love it! I'd like to see some way to viewing all the notes that have no tags. Now that we have them, I want to go and add tags to all my notes, but I find I need to wade through them all one by one to find those I haven't yet tagged. Not really a Big Deal, but it would be nice for quickly going back to those remaining to be tagged. Anyway, excellent tool.