Why remove features in the name of redesign? | Endnote 20

Have been a user of Endnote for about 3 years despite the fact that most European institutions offer Citavie free of cost.

Pros

Tabbed interface is good for multiple projects. 

Feels a bit faster than Endnote X9. 

Cons or Suggestions for Improvement:  

  1. Removing PDF preview in library view is counter productive. Including me, most researchers use wide screen monitors or dual or triple monitor set ups. One of the core reasons most of my research team shifted to endnote from Citavi was the ease of pdf review while writing papers. Please think, when someone has 100s of papers on a database to skim through, how much time would be wasted opening each paper in a separate window? 

  2. Secondly, color scheme is poor (purely subjective). It would be good to have a neutral color scheme like X9 or have an option to change colors or something. I believe, researchers use Endnote for functionality, not for its aesthetics.

Even, if your developers felt a redesign was necessary, why not keep an option to keep the old scheme? Otherwise, why not have an open beta Programme so that everyone could have test driven it prior to the release candidate? Visual designs should be inclusive especially for a software aimed at productivity for a niche audience. 

  1. Please stop removing features from an existing product in the name of redesign. Either introduce a good substitute for them, or keep them as legacy components, or may be don’t fix what’s not broken? 

Summary : Endnote 20 feels like Windows 8. An attempt at redesign that looks futuristic for non-researchers. But counterproductive and counter intuitive for researchers. If you want to upgrade a product why would you think removing existing features is the best starting point. 

For now, our  team will keep using Endnote X9 till it becomes obsolete. After that, at the present state, it seems logical to shift to alternatives like Citavi instead of paying for Endnote 20 or othet future release. 

L

6 Likes

The sad constatation is that nobody form the ENDNOTE development team is reading our posts. Thank you for the CITAVI suggestion. I think I just might ask my money back from ENDNOTE and move on.

No selfrespecting company woul dignore SO MANY and SO SIMILAR negative comments after “improving” the software. Please. This is not serious.

  • no pdf preview (terrible!)

  • after exiting and reentering Endnote, the width of th ecolumbs is NOT preserved ( I dont need a wide column where all I see is a sign that I hvae a pdf of that ref)

  • too big space between the lines that CANNOT be customized

  • UPDATING an existing ENDOTE refenrece DOES NOT WORK- did you notice that? Sucks…

 These and many other comments keep on coming back for weeks now and what is the response of Clarivate? From where I sit, just a niddle finger…

Przemko

4 Likes

The new version of EndNote is not worth the cost for the upgrade. For the last couple of versions, the ehnancements have been quite disappointing. Honestly, I think the engineers are not speaking to users as they ‘improve’ the program. This is why I need to use the 30-day trail version prior to making the investment for the upgrade.

In the current case, the upgrade offers has some new features which are not too exciting coupled with some changes in current features that are detrimental for long-term users. Let me add, the colors scheme is so aweful to look at  for hourse, I decided not to upgrade to the new version for this reason. This upgrade is a HUGE dissappointment. 

2 Likes

i fully agree with your points, after more than 15 years using endnote and going through many versions, version 20 is an obvious step back . I am going back to the version 9 and thinking seriously of changing to another reference manager that is free or offered by my university (endnote isn’t).

d.

2 Likes

excellent and to the point

I agree - I wish I could move back to X9.

By removing the “insert citation” icon from the interface essentally removes the only reason I use EndNote which is to add citations and references to a document. What used to be 1-click, now requires 3.

Why would you remove functionality for the primary reason to use a citation manager - adding citations to a document.

1 Like