Evernote -> Notion -> First step on Anytype now

General Discussion Feedback & First Impressions
1

Hello,
Here is my feedback on Anytype, a bit long but complete, I hope it will be useful.

Uses

Evernote since 2012:

  • quick note taking (meeting, conference, …)
  • Knowledge base : code snippets, tips, application base, etc.
  • encryption of string inside a note (password protected)

Notion since 2020 (test to replace Evernote, not conclusive but Notion showed its interest anyway) :

  • Database: wine cellar, travel notebook (family collaborative), …
  • Notebook for RPG (base for some aspects + different views according to people or needs, character sheet, etc)
  • Sharing of notes in a “web” (simple link accessible via browser without the need for a login) or collaborative version (pro and perso)

I sometimes exchange with the Notion team about some features… I feel motivated to do it with Anytype!

Needs

  • Efficient navigation

    • Global tags (Evernote Like) because very flexible
    • Customized menu (section title, link, sub-link, etc. manually set)

  • Customization and formatting, if I have to put my life in it or if I have to share notes, it has to be pretty (subjective notion, so ideally customizable UI ;-))

    • Multiple columns (Notion-like)

  • Sharing

    • Web page sharing accessible without an account (Notion and Evernote like)
    • Collaborative sharing (rather Notion-like, real time and visibility of other actors’ actions), on a note or on a set (notebook, workspace,…)

  • Quick and possible Offline opening (Evernote-like, quick note taking situation in any situation)

  • Notion of workspace (or notebooks or others)

  • Android widgets :

    • Quick note
    • Direct access to specific note (or favorites list)
    • Scan to image or pdf
    • (optionnal) audio note

  • Webclipper… Evernote’s is excellent (Notion’s is very basic) (Web Clipper)

  • Site embedding (Maps, Spotify, Youtube,…)

  • Powerful search (Evernote crushes everyone, probably hard to do as well but might as well aim for the best)

Summary

Bravo, for an alpha version, it is already rich and relatively stable! I already talk about it around me (including to a Notion evangelist)! And in open-source, with a motivated community, we can expect a lot! A little lost at first with the Set, the time to understand that they are not separate bases like Notion. Once understood… quick navigation is even more important (and the right definition of object types), but it opens new possibilities! View all files, mp3 or image, I like it!

But I don’t really use it (just to test) and would wait… In particular :

  • Navigation difficult at the moment, a good menu should allow access to everything with a minimum of clicks (including without knowing where your note is). This is essential: every second spent searching for data increases frustration (this is a brake on adoption).
    • Evernote is in my opinion top: folder or tag tree (so fixed or dynamic) then view (customizable list) of notes. Plus saveable search, bookmarks/search/note, … never need more than three clicks even for a fuzzy “security app I noted a while back” thing. For having presented it in company, it hooks the users
    • Notion has concerns: non dynamic menu, page in DB not visible in the menu.
    • And Anytype… I’m looking forward to see what the widgets do :smiling_face:
  • Transfer of notes Notion : big mess in Anytype (import from a database), note with multiple empty toggles (just the toggle titles). And no solution for Evernote?
  • This is an alpha :-). Ready and motivated to spend time helping to improve it, not to put all my data in it.

Suggestions / expectations

  • Transfer from Notion, including database

  • Transfer from Evernote
    :+1: (Import from Evernote )

  • Separate workspaces
    :+1: (Sub-spaces / Global filters )

  • Collaboration (working together on an object), to use it as a family
    :+1: (Collaboration, team environment )

  • Sharing “public” web page version
    (any suggestions already posted ?)

  • On a set view : ok to have a mandatory relation displayed but to be able to choose which one! On a gallery view, it would allow to have only the images for example!
    :+1: (Ability to hide the Name relation in Sets Grid view - #2 by Shampra )

  • Be able to resize PDF and audio block
    (any suggestions already posted ?)

  • More sites can be embed
    :+1: (Embed block (embed a website into an Anytype page) )

  • Possibility to copy the link of an object via right click, copy the link (or even via a drag and drop). With a large number of pages, having to do /link and search in the list is more laborious especially when you already have the object in front of you
    (any suggestions already posted ?)

  • Opening several windows seems to reload Anytype each time, it should be possible to have several pages opened in different windows easily (right click, open in a new window, middle click, CTRL+click etc) and quickly (as if it was in the same window). See proposing tabs, Notion is doing it and it’s nice.
    :+1: (for tabs : Tabs )

  • Be able to put blocks in simple tables (at least images, icons, checkbox)
    :+1: Images or Blocks in Simple Tables

  • Be able to select a large number of objects from a set
    :+1: Add select all to multi-select in sets

  • Empty/reset its space (to clean the demo… or a messed up export from Notion ^^) :+1: Reset Anytype to "factory default"

  • A good search engine (efficient, complete and with a pleasant UX)
    (full of requests that I will browse and support)

  • I haven’t looked at Android yet, if there are widgets; nor for a web clipper

  • Unleash the power of the Open-Source community! When everyone can make the product evolve or can add an extension/plugin/etc, we should see Anytype grow even faster.

BUG

Few bugs so far, and not reproduced except for the 1st

  • Import from Notion (toogle title empty after import, import from a database that has just screwed up)
  • Syncing… I’ve got a note just above the text that stayed in “Syncing…” for more than 1h, without having more info (percentage of progress, error,…)
  • PDF that stay indefinitely in "Dowload in progress
  • PDF embedding is just horrible and totally unreadable (tested with the same PDF in Notion and Evernote: it remains readable in these two applications, not in Anytype)
  • After a paste of big text (this one ^^),the text did not appear. Ok after reboot

Oh, we can’t edit a note title??? (New objet, type text, want to change the title but can’t find how…)

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Hi @Shampra, thanks a lot for the detailed post, this kind of feedback is really useful.

I’ll quickly address some of your points, feel free to ask any question :wink:

Check this out:

Also this has been addressed on the latest Town-hall, more info on that here: Anytype Spring Town-hall: A First Look at Our New Beta Software

There is some follow up discussion of this in the original feature request about embedding, see:

I’m not sure what you mean here, the goal is to create a link to an object that is already in your view? If that is the case you can already copy paste the block that contains the link to the object or drag and drop it to another page.

The web-clipper is in the roadmap (also check this feature request) and as all the other “minor” features the team will work on it in the months after the public release, again this was discussed in the latest Town-hall.

If you are interest in the collaborative side of AnyType I suggest you watch the latest Town-hall, some of related topics were addressed as well

The syncing system will completely change with the new version so hopefully any bug you encounter now will be solved when switching to the new app.

The notion import is being improved too and with collections we will have a starting point for importing databases, see:

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Thanks for your reply :slight_smile: .

I was here.
I will find the time even longer before the release of the next 3 versions :grin:.

Thank you, I had seen well. Now it’s more the need to resize them, I didn’t see anything about that. I’ll open a post!

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