I’ve been using EndNote since version X7 and I can guarantee that EndNote 20 is, without any doubts, a HUGE DOWNGRADE (with capital letters, yes) concerning overall usability compared to previous versions.
Aside from Windows itself (particularly Windows 8), I do not recall any other software in which a newer version was so much worse than older ones.
I am not referring to appearance, design, or whatever because I know each one is entitled to their own preferences, I am referring to features (or more specifically, the absence of them) that really affected my work flow. Several essential features that I heavily relyed on were removed for no apparent reason.
From what I have read in other queries in this forum, the administrators acknowledge that the removal of old features are not being well aceppted by the community. On the other hand, they give no guarantees that these are ever coming back, which is disappointing considering the product price tag.
I am not particularly fond of refunds, I will stick with my EndNote 20 licence expecting that future patches improve usability to a bare minimum again, but even then I might still just use EndNote X9 for as long as it is supported. If nothing useful is changed by then, I certainly will not upgrade further and might just search for alternative softwares, which is not something I would appreciate really, I’ve been using EndNote for years and it worked really well until now.
Some new features I just consider annoying, but not really deal breakers, such as the new dark bar, which is distracting and there is no option to customise its colour.
However, some removed features are really deal breakers, such as:
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The amount of space that the new interface takes is unpractical and there is no option to resize side bars beyond a certain point. Squeezing bars whenever needed was extremely useful. In EndNote 20, my reading is slowed down by the presence of large useless bars instead of a larger number of articles.
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The lack of PDF preview within the side bar is a really unfortunate modification. Ok I get that PDF visualization is still available by opening it into a new window, but I fail to comprehend why someone though it would be better this way. For whom uses these features on a daily basis, It is clearly not better nor useful.
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The ability to open multiple windows was removed. Copying articles from one library to another has become a more laborious task than it was before.
- ‘Insert Citation’ is not present anymore. It is a shame because it is a really useful function that allows selecting a group of references and cite them all together.
There are several other things I dislike but, for me, the above-mentioned are the most relevant ones.