Catch up on new Evernote features, AI assistant improvements + Mermaid for family trees
Evernote’s had a quiet little burst of useful tweaks lately, and a couple are genuinely worth your time.
A huge thank you to John who became a paid subscriber over the last week and many thanks also to those who bought me a coffee. Taming the Trunk is 100% reader supported, no ads or commission links and your support is really appreciated.
Newsletter housekeeping: The latest version for PC & Mac is 11.18.1. You can grab it from the download page. Latest mobile version is 11.17.3.
Thanks for all the nice feedback and messages about the interview with Stacey Harmon last week, loads of folk found the conversation useful and I’m going to try and get Stacey back on in a few months.
This week is a bit of a mismatch of new small features I’ve forgotten to mention and some more use cases for Evernote’s AI Assistant.
We start with...
A New What’s New Page
You may have noticed that down the bottom of the sidebar, we now have a little megaphone icon that looks a bit like this.
This icon appears blue when there’s something new to read.
Click it and you go to a brand new “What’s New” page, which is much more informative than the basic release notes.
It’s a nicer way to tell you about new features and improvements and there’s also a learn section, which I believe will be expanded on.
You can also file a bug or suggest a new feature pretty easily.
I’d like to see the whole ‘Help and Learning’ section from the website built into this as it would end up being a one-stop shop for help and advice.
Let me know what you think in the comments.
Search box gets a kingdom bar
This dropped a few weeks ago. If you open the search box you’ll now see a thin bar at the top which gives you easy access to all the Evernote kingdoms like Tasks, Calendar, Home etc.
I’ve not found myself using it that much, but I can see how it could be useful.
Maybe the ability to customise it? Add notebooks and spaces to it? Would you find this useful? Let me know in the comments.
The AI Assistant can delete notes
Not automatically!
So, you can ask the AI assistant to delete a note or multiple notes and you also get the chance to undo, which is kind of important.
Here’s the conversation for deleting an open note.
There’s an option to undo as well.
Now you may be thinking, it’s much easier to just delete it than go through all this conversation and you’d be correct. I don’t see this context being useful.
But, if you ask the AI to find lots of notes within a certain criteria and then delete them it could be useful.
You could ask the AI Assistant to find all your notes in a notebook that have the title “Untitled”, which means they could be empty.
Then ask it to delete them all.
I created a bunch of notes and didn’t title them. Here’s the conversation.
Now this is much more useful. You can use the AI Assistant to find a bunch of notes you don’t want and then get rid of them.
Let me know what you think in the comments.
Mermaid charts for a family tree
I had an email from Dany who’s one of the TTT paid subscribers and has been using Mermaid charts quite a bit. He created a lineage chart and this inspired me to create a family tree chart using the AI Assistant.
So, I asked the Evernote AI to create a fake family tree for me starting in 1760 and includes births, marriages, children and deaths. It did a really good job and provided me with perfect Mermaid code to build the chart.
It came up with this.
Now the chart is great, the problem is the resolution. You can’t read the names in the boxes.
Any charts that are big, horizontally, will look like this.
What you see above is the maximum size.
There was an Evernote Expert call yesterday and I mentioned this to them so I really hope improving resolution is on the to do list.
I reckon Mermaid in Evernote could be very useful for genealogists. Let me know what you think.
I’ll leave the code for this Mermaid chart at the bottom of the post in case you want to play with it.
Slash commands now work in lists
This little improvement dropped this week, so make sure you’re all up to date.
You can now use the slash (/) command in a list.
It works in check, bullet, or numbered lists.
I know a few folk have been asking for this.
And finally...
I’ve given the AI Assistant a name!
Awaken EVE!
I always thought this would be a great name for the assistant and now we have the AI Memory feature we can name the Evernote Assistant, we can also tell it our own name as well.
This is what my AI memory looks like.
A few ideas for a name:
Skynet (Terminator movies)
Edgar (Electric Dreams movie)
Max (from Max Headroom fame)
Pris (Bladerunner)
HAL 9000 (2001: A Space Odyssey)
Orac or Zen (Blakes 7)
K9 (Dr Who)
I asked EVE to introduce herself to me.
Have some fun with the AI Assistant. Have you named it? Let me know.
That’s it
Have a great weekend
All the best
Jon
Here’s the really long Mermaid code for the made up family tree
Have a play with this. Do a /mermaid and copy paste the code.
graph TD
%% ====== Styles ======
classDef person fill:#f7f7ff,stroke:#4b4b7a,stroke-width:1px,color:#111;
classDef marriage fill:#fff6e5,stroke:#a66b00,stroke-width:1px,color:#111;
%% ====== Generation 1 (born ~1760) ======
A["Thomas Whitcombe\n*b.* 1760 • York, England\n*d.* 1821"]:::person
B["Eleanor Marsh\n*b.* 1764 • Leeds, England\n*d.* 1833"]:::person
M1((⚭ 1784)):::marriage
A --- M1 --- B
%% Children of Thomas & Eleanor
C["Samuel Whitcombe\n*b.* 1786\n*d.* 1852"]:::person
D["Hannah Whitcombe\n*b.* 1789\n*d.* 1861"]:::person
E["Edward Whitcombe\n*b.* 1793\n*d.* 1847"]:::person
M1 --- C
M1 --- D
M1 --- E
%% ====== Generation 2 ======
F["Mary Alden\n*b.* 1788\n*d.* 1869"]:::person
M2((⚭ 1810)):::marriage
C --- M2 --- F
%% Children of Samuel & Mary
G["Clara Whitcombe\n*b.* 1811\n*d.* 1888"]:::person
H["Joseph Whitcombe\n*b.* 1814\n*d.* 1870"]:::person
I["William Whitcombe\n*b.* 1818\n*d.* 1891"]:::person
M2 --- G
M2 --- H
M2 --- I
%% Hannah's marriage branch
J["Robert Kershaw\n*b.* 1787\n*d.* 1859"]:::person
M3((⚭ 1812)):::marriage
D --- M3 --- J
K["Eleanor Kershaw\n*b.* 1813\n*d.* 1902"]:::person
L["Matthew Kershaw\n*b.* 1816\n*d.* 1884"]:::person
M3 --- K
M3 --- L
%% Edward's marriage branch
N["Agnes Ford\n*b.* 1796\n*d.* 1878"]:::person
M4((⚭ 1819)):::marriage
E --- M4 --- N
O["Henry Whitcombe\n*b.* 1820\n*d.* 1899"]:::person
P["Lucy Whitcombe\n*b.* 1824\n*d.* 1910"]:::person
M4 --- O
M4 --- P
%% ====== Generation 3 (Victorian era) ======
Q["Eliza Hart\n*b.* 1822\n*d.* 1896"]:::person
M5((⚭ 1840)):::marriage
I --- M5 --- Q
%% Children of William & Eliza
R["Arthur Whitcombe\n*b.* 1842\n*d.* 1916"]:::person
S["Beatrice Whitcombe\n*b.* 1845\n*d.* 1928"]:::person
T["Frederick Whitcombe\n*b.* 1849\n*d.* 1933"]:::person
M5 --- R
M5 --- S
M5 --- T
%% Joseph's marriage
U["Sarah Molyneux\n*b.* 1817\n*d.* 1901"]:::person
M6((⚭ 1838)):::marriage
H --- M6 --- U
V["Thomas Whitcombe II\n*b.* 1840\n*d.* 1908"]:::person
W["Edith Whitcombe\n*b.* 1844\n*d.* 1920"]:::person
M6 --- V
M6 --- W
%% ====== Generation 4 (turn of the century) ======
X["Mabel Grant\n*b.* 1846\n*d.* 1922"]:::person
M7((⚭ 1867)):::marriage
V --- M7 --- X
%% Children of Thomas II & Mabel
Y["Harold Whitcombe\n*b.* 1868\n*d.* 1943"]:::person
Z["Florence Whitcombe\n*b.* 1871\n*d.* 1957"]:::person
AA["George Whitcombe\n*b.* 1875\n*d.* 1962"]:::person
M7 --- Y
M7 --- Z
M7 --- AA
%% Arthur's marriage
AB["Nora Pritchard\n*b.* 1846\n*d.* 1930"]:::person
M8((⚭ 1869)):::marriage
R --- M8 --- AB
AC["Evelyn Whitcombe\n*b.* 1870\n*d.* 1949"]:::person
AD["Charles Whitcombe\n*b.* 1873\n*d.* 1936"]:::person
M8 --- AC
M8 --- AD
%% ====== Generation 5 (World Wars era) ======
AE["Lillian Bates\n*b.* 1872\n*d.* 1951"]:::person
M9((⚭ 1893)):::marriage
AA --- M9 --- AE
%% Children of George & Lillian
AF["Alfred Whitcombe\n*b.* 1894\n*d.* 1978"]:::person
AG["Margaret Whitcombe\n*b.* 1898\n*d.* 1986"]:::person
AH["Stanley Whitcombe\n*b.* 1902\n*d.* 1972"]:::person
M9 --- AF
M9 --- AG
M9 --- AH
%% Harold's marriage
AI["Rose Bennett\n*b.* 1870\n*d.* 1948"]:::person
M10((⚭ 1891)):::marriage
Y --- M10 --- AI
AJ["Catherine Whitcombe\n*b.* 1892\n*d.* 1975"]:::person
AK["James Whitcombe\n*b.* 1896\n*d.* 1965"]:::person
M10 --- AJ
M10 --- AK
%% ====== Generation 6 (post-war) ======
AL["Irene Shaw\n*b.* 1904\n*d.* 1991"]:::person
M11((⚭ 1926)):::marriage
AF --- M11 --- AL
%% Children of Alfred & Irene
AM["Peter Whitcombe\n*b.* 1927\n*d.* 2009"]:::person
AN["Joan Whitcombe\n*b.* 1930\n*d.* 2018"]:::person
AO["Michael Whitcombe\n*b.* 1934\n*d.* 1999"]:::person
M11 --- AM
M11 --- AN
M11 --- AO
%% James's marriage
AP["Dorothy Lane\n*b.* 1899\n*d.* 1988"]:::person
M12((⚭ 1921)):::marriage
AK --- M12 --- AP
AQ["Richard Whitcombe\n*b.* 1922\n*d.* 1995"]:::person
AR["Sylvia Whitcombe\n*b.* 1925\n*d.* 2004"]:::person
M12 --- AQ
M12 --- AR
%% ====== Generation 7 (late 20th century) ======
AS["Margaret ‘Maggie’ Cole\n*b.* 1931\n*d.* 2016"]:::person
M13((⚭ 1954)):::marriage
AM --- M13 --- AS
%% Children of Peter & Maggie
AT["David Whitcombe\n*b.* 1956"]:::person
AU["Helen Whitcombe\n*b.* 1959"]:::person
AV["Andrew Whitcombe\n*b.* 1963"]:::person
M13 --- AT
M13 --- AU
M13 --- AV
%% Michael's marriage (and divorce)
AW["Carolyn Hughes\n*b.* 1937\n*d.* 2010"]:::person
M14((⚭ 1960)):::marriage
AO --- M14 --- AW
AX["(div. 1971)"]:::marriage
M14 --- AX
AY["Simon Whitcombe\n*b.* 1961"]:::person
AZ["Rachel Whitcombe\n*b.* 1966"]:::person
M14 --- AY
M14 --- AZ
%% Remarriage
BA["Janet Ellison\n*b.* 1942"]:::person
M15((⚭ 1974)):::marriage
AO --- M15 --- BA
BB["Clare Whitcombe\n*b.* 1976"]:::person
M15 --- BB
%% ====== Generation 8 (present day) ======
BC["Priya Desai\n*b.* 1960"]:::person
M16((⚭ 1985)):::marriage
AT --- M16 --- BC
%% Children of David & Priya
BD["Sophie Whitcombe\n*b.* 1988"]:::person
BE["Oliver Whitcombe\n*b.* 1992"]:::person
M16 --- BD
M16 --- BE
%% Oliver's partner + child
BF["Amelia Clarke\n*b.* 1993"]:::person
M17((⚭ 2018)):::marriage
BE --- M17 --- BF
BG["Maya Whitcombe\n*b.* 2020"]:::person
BH["Noah Whitcombe\n*b.* 2023"]:::person
M17 --- BG
M17 --- BH
%% Helen's family
BI["Gareth Price\n*b.* 1958"]:::person
M18((⚭ 1982)):::marriage
AU --- M18 --- BI
BJ["Leah Price\n*b.* 1984"]:::person
BK["Tom Price\n*b.* 1987"]:::person
M18 --- BJ
M18 --- BK
%% Andrew's family
BL["Caroline Frost\n*b.* 1965"]:::person
M19((⚭ 1990)):::marriage
AV --- M19 --- BL
BM["Ethan Whitcombe\n*b.* 1995"]:::person
BN["Zara Whitcombe\n*b.* 1998"]:::person
M19 --- BM
M19 --- BN
A great name may be VIKI (for I robot), I personally called it Danerys (obvious reasons).
I think if we’re talking computer names, given the current level of intelligence it has be be Holly (Red Dwarf)