EndNote X2 - First Impressions and suggestions

Well, I for one have now come full circle.  X2 is unusable.  I finally requested a refund for my upgrade.  Existing users should also think twice before upgrading.  I would recommend new users to look for X1 bargains, unless the developers make it a priority to fix the broken work flow.

I couldn’t agree with you more. How Thomson could think that an Outlook model would be analogous to the scholarly research process is beyond me.  Unless this radical change in workflow model is changed back ASAP, I think I might be bidding Endnote adieu.  To all good things…

One work around for the downloading of everything after an online search is, a) highlight the citations you want, b) choose “Hide Selected References,” c) hit control-a to select the remaining citations, then d) hit the delete key. The unwanted citations are deleted, and then the citations you “hid” will then pop-up, safe and sound.

No more clicking on the citations you don’t want.

This suggestion was given to me by EndNote tech support.

I’ll add my vote as well that the new online search mode is AWFUL. I love the smart groups and saved searches, but hate the add to library by default “feature.”  I found out the hard way by accidentally closing endnote before deleting my search results and now I have 500 extra references in my library that I’ll have to sort through and delete.

Jason, another good mac based model is Papers.  They also have built-in online searches, and previous searches are saved in the sidebar, but you have to drag and drop them into your library.  You can still  search in the same window, but please don’t add results by default to the main library.  It would be nice if the pdfs were attached to a reference were more easily accesible as well.

Hi Jason, 

I only am posting to voice my keen displeasure at the complete lack of thought that obviously went into the Online Search function/workflow. 

I am distinctly reminded of the story behind the unholy birth of the Pontiac Aztek.  They created a great concept vehicle that got rave reviews, but, apparently, no one at GM really knew what they wanted as an end product.  So they formed a committee to mold the concept into production.  They worked with focus groups and marketing people and came up with various parameters to which they tried to meet with the final product.  It was classic committee compromise and the result was a vehicle that is a perennial favorite on most folk’s “Most Hated” list of cars.  

Please make this “feature” go away or at least optional, or I will be quickly trading in my lemon.

We are currently working on adding a Preference to allow one to choose between the EndNote X2 Online Search model and the old “Temporary Library” model. We plan to include this in a free upgrade patch for both Windows and Macintosh this fall.

Please feel free to contact me directly – by email or phone – with any additional comments, questions, or suggestions for any of our bibliographic products.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Jason E. Rollins, PhD

Director, Product Management

Research Software

Scientific

Thomson Reuters

3501 Market St.

Philadelphia, PA 19104

+1 215 823 1721

jason.rollins@thomsonreuters.com
thomsonreuters.com
scientific.thomsonreuters.com

Dear JasonR,

that sounds great!

Can you do the same for the duplicate check? PLEASE!

When I try to find duplicates within the database - Endnote X.2 displays a temporary Duplicate References group and shows only the potential duplicates. The group does not include the original reference for each set of duplicates anymore.

For me - working in a health technology agency it is just not possible to work like that. I have to double check whith the original reference to make REALLY sure that the duplicate is realy a duplicate. A lot of times Endnote makes mistakes, when there is not a lot of data within the records (no year, no author).

The suggestion in the Endnote manual to go to “all references” and double check might work when you have 20 references in your library but I work whith up to 8000 records - so always jumping, scrolling up und down is really annoying - specially when I know that in Endnote X.1 and before it was no problem!

Thanks a lot so far. Whish you a nice holiday tomorrow!

Yours sincerely

Elke Hausner

Thank you Jason.  This is definitely a step back in the right direction. I would not waste resources comparing the existing workflow with other software.  As far as i am concerned, EndNote X1 sets the current standard.  The goal should be enhancing it and not a departure from that workflow.

Please also note that there ia a serious instabiliy issue with the current build of EndNote X2, which sometimes crashes when the user pressed ctrl+D to delete reference entries.  This has already wreaked havoc on my libraries.

Perhaps Thomson might consider a better beta testing model than is currently being used. Useability tests outside of the community of power users is plainly an inadequate model of testing new features. Among other things, it undermines the confidence of the community of users in the product. There are many products catching up to Endnote that are in some ways more powerful, like Zotero, and free or at least more affordable. I think buyers of this product deserve more careful consideration of new features to avoid debacles like this silly feature addition–an addition that could only have been cooked up in a lab utterly free of actual users.

Wow, thank goodness I ran into this discussion.  I posted a question about this in another Endnote forum and was told about the new automatic search process.  I asked if this could be turned off and received no response.  I thought that I must be seriously missing something, as I found this new “feature” quite troubling, to the point of deciding not to use Endnote anymore, because I’m scared of my library endlessly expanding.  Plus, I can’t be bothered deleting references I don’t want.  I’m really happy to hear that the company will be addressing this issue shortly.  If I didn’t know this, I would have moved to another citation manager and never looked back.  The new search process is just plain scary.

I have one additional request, related to this situation.  I now have a ton of new references that I don’t want and some that I purposefully chose.  I’d like to be able to get rid of all the excess references, but I’m not sure how to do so without reviewing each of them.  Even if I order them by reference # (so the new ones show up last), this would be a real hassle, since I’ve purposefully chosen a bunch of the new references.  The most efficient way for me to remove the unwanted references would be to search for all references that are not assigned to a custom group, since I assign all of my references to custom groups when I download them.  Hence, any references that are not assigned to a custom group would be excess references that were automatically downloaded in addition to the ones I purposefully chose (i.e. references I purposefully chose in recent searches have been categorized away into custom groups as I usually do).  Unfortunately, while there is a way to search for references that have been placed in reference groups, there doesn’t appear to be a way to search for references that are not assigned to any custom groups.  If there is a way, please share!  If there is not, I request this option to be included in the upcoming patch. 

Thank you and thank goodness I won’t have to change citation managers!

  1. Make the search fix available ASAP, like yesterday.

  2. the extremely attactive feature of version X2 is the Find full text feature.  In this feature Endnote will go on the web and download and attached the pdf file of a reference.  This would be a wonderful feature for me, unfortunately it fails many more times than it succeeds.  I can’t figure out why it fails and why it succeeds.

Hi,

I am actively considering progressing to use EndNote X2, but this nagging problem badly corrupted my library, which I took effort to keep clean and relevant. May I know the time frame of having this patch?

Campion

The EndNote X2.01 free upgrade patch for Windows and Macintosh is scheduled for release by the end of October 2008.

Jason Rollins, EndNote Product Development

jason.rollins@thomson.reuters.com

Thanks.

That’s quite a long wait. But will definitely look forward to this.

Hi, my first post on this forum.

I use X1 on a PC at work and need to run a mirrored library on my Mac at home. Ideally I would prefer the same version of Endnote on both machines, however as I can only get X2 from the site, I downloaded the trial version to try out. 

After a short time working the same workflow that I have used since Endnote 4, I became really frustrated and went searching for answers in this forum. It now appears that what I thought was a bug/problem with my settings (I searched through the preferences carefully) of getting my PubMed searches dumped directly into my carefully vetted library is actually a carefully researched ‘feature’. I’m really not happy with this. I would far rather dump the X2 when the trial runs out and get a copy of X1 - bit of course that’s not available!

I now have a dilemma:  I would still prefer the same versions on mac and PC, but there’s no way I’m updating my PC X1 to X2. And there doesn’t appear to be another solution. 

I read Jason’s replies as to why this change has occurred and I’m not convinced.  The comparison with Outlook is really not relevant - I want to choose what I put into my libraries and my searching is deliberately less than pinpoint accurate in case I pull up something serendipitously. I’ve never found it a huge problem moving the references I want into my library and disposing of the rest when I upload the next search. 

I like the look and functionality of X1 that I use on my windows machine. I would really like a copy of Endnote X1 for Mac!!  

I also join the request to be able to modify the option of automatic retrieval of all search results into main liberary.

It is quite urgent for me, as I am writing a scientific paper at the moment, and using a temporary liberary just for searching is driving me crazy.

I registered for RSS update on this thread, could someone please post here when the update is available for download?

thanks!

Is the use of a temporary library the only work-around for this? Have around 3000 references in my main library, and don’t want to clutter it up with a lot of junk, but a temporary library seems like more work.  It has been recommended to me to use Zotero for searching and then export the library to Endnote, but I don’t see big advantages to that, either. 

If one has to use the temporary file, it seems to me that it would be best if the libraries were on the left toolbar as icons, and the references could be highlighted and then dragged to the permanent library icon, rather than having two screens open, particularly on a laptop, where screen real estate is key.

iPhone support would also be great, since there is a portable MEDLINE portal. It would be nice to have a small app that lets me search, pick references, and then e-mailed either to Endnote or to my inbox for Import.

Using a secondary library is the recommended method if you do not want all of your online search results going into your main library. This is really all the older EndNote “Temporary Library” model was. Having multiple windows open - and the real estate use and confusion this caused is one of the reasons we changed this in EndNote X2.

As we have said many times, we are working on a free patch for all X2 users that will include a “temporary library for online searches” option but one that will be integrated in a single window workspace. This patch should be available for both platforms by the end of this month.

Jason Rollins, EndNote Product Development

Thank you Jason, first about working for the update to have the “old fashioned” online search option. I guess I was not alone complaining about that automatic entry “feature” in beta testing.

As you pointed out in the response to my beta test report, there is a wide variety in Endnote users. I understand some people make tons of small library, naming each with a specific title. Some people make (including me) a big “master” library which contains all the reference they need, and categorize them within the master. I prefer the latter method, because I don’t need to choose or open multiple libraries to format current manuscript. However, it’s been (before X) painful to custom-categorize hundreds or thousands of records using custom keywords and Term functions. In that sense, Group feature introduced in X1 was a big welcome for me, and now the number of groups is not limited (in X2). However, the automatic entry “feature” in X2 was not good because it corrupted (as others pointed out) my “10 years old” master library. The automatic entry is probably good for people using small library management.

At least, Thomson may try user survey about how they use Endnote at some point. Library management as well as methods to import record from online sources are probably the most critical areas users care about. Then changes may be geared with that survey in mind. Of course, some changes may not be welcomed by all, but at least you can get a sense about a common denominator.

Best regards,

JasonR wrote

 

As we have said many times, we are working on a free patch for all X2 users that will include a “temporary library for online searches” option but one that will be integrated in a single window workspace. This patch should be available for both platforms by the end of this month.

 

Jason Rollins, EndNote Product Development

Jason, thanks for this update, as if it was necessary, count me as another long-time endnote user (all the way back to the very first version of it) that really does not like the new feature of automatically adding all search results to the open library.  I anxiously await this patch to allow me to choose the references I want to import.