Tried to figure out how to use pencil to draw or annotate
What happened:
When I did this, and just create a new note I see no option to draw anywhere. If I add an image to the note, and long press the image, I get the menu with how I would like it displayed, and the actions of copy, share, preview. I don’t see any edit.
Assuming this is operator error, but I haven’t seen any doc on exactly how to enable drawing or annotation. Can I buy a clue?
Things that might be helpful to know (Agenda version, OS and model, etc):
Agenda 8.0, Premium on IOS, iPad Pro 11, IOS 13.1 Beta
That’s indeed how you insert a new drawing, the same way you insert any other kind of attachment, reminders, tags, etc.
@learned please note that you need Agenda version 8.0 and iOS13 or iPadOS 13.1 or higher for this option to show.
The premium feature to annotate images is available if you long tap an image attachments, the option to annotate the image should be shown in the menu as Annotate:
For whatever reason, I needed to delete the Agenda app and then re-install. Rebooting the phone was not effective in fixing the issue. I now have the Scribble tool. Not sure why, writing it off to lunar phases.
What happens is that (I think) we all of us imagine that we could write long notes with the pencil, just like what we do with the keyboard; and that has not happened.
What is implemented until now is rather to add some drawing made by hand within a note, but “taking freehand notes” is another thing…
I’m sorry to hear that, but I think we’ve been pretty clear about what was to be expected and what not (yet). “Pencil support” means something else to every person you ask. Some want pretty much what we delivered, the ability to add drawings to your notes just like in Apple Notes, others want a large canvas to handwrite notes, and yet others like yourself expect full blown handwriting recognition. I think it is unrealistic to think we could everybody’s wish list in one go.
What we shipped this week is a starting point and we surely hope to expand the capabilities as we go, which in part also depends on what Apple does in this area. Stay tuned is all I can say.
No actually not ALL of us expected that. I use Nebo for long handwritten notes. It’s developer (MyScript) has extensive experience with handwriting recognition. I, for one, did not expect Agenda to provide the same features as Nebo. Nor did I expect Agenda to become Notability, as another example. What I expected was Agenda to initially provide exactly what the developers have done with Apple Pencil. In the future will Agenda become either ‘another’ Nebo or Notability. Maybe. But for now, neither Nebo nor Notability provides me with the features Agenda does. YMMV!
The rest of us dream of taking notes in our “Agenda” and being able to link them to reminders and calendar appointments; just like we do on a traditional agenda.
So where does it stands now? What is the definition of the pencil feature? Make it clear In a more only 1 way approach without confusing or multiple interpretations
I would suggest to further discuss what you believe should or should not be part of pencil support in this topic where a lot has been discussed already (so please make sure to read back the previous posts to prevent having the same discussions again):
I feel compelled to chime in and state that the “apple pencil” support that you have been advertising as part of this last release is really not. Unless I missed something, what you made available essentially is the ability to (seamlessly) create a blank page, allow the user to annotate it, and then embed it in a note.
This functionality (create + embed) has existed as a “shortcut” for Agenda for months now — it was posted in these forums — in fact, I have been using the shortcut myself since then. Also the shortcut allows me to use a lined “page” for my notes (instead of the blank page) that your latest release implemented.
Not to mention that one can simply use “Pages” to create a handwritten note, embed shapes, change colors, etc. then “screenshot” each page and embed it in Agenda.
Implementing “apple pencil support” in a notes application like Agenda should at the very least allow one to create notes like “notability” does. And in a first release, I would not expect the bells and whistles of colors, text conversion, etc. But I would expect something more substantial than what you made available a few days ago.
Rich Text:
I believed that there’s a number of your customers are expecting that they can write professional-looking notes on the go with formatting options that include font style, size, and color, alignment, indenting, and outdenting text, and numbered and bulleted lists.
Possible options could utilize the apple text formatting module and it would be much better that you may offer options for floating, partial, global preference or even disable it. In other words, let the users decide what they want to be.
Regarding Apple Pencil
I’d strongly suggest that people shall not be asking the Agenda team to build a me2 solution against Notability or GoodNotes.
Instead, a tool palette is making sense and it would be a perfect fit with Apple Pencil as well. I am not sure if Agenda can inherit this tool palette or not but it’s fare enough for users able to make annotation upon the Agenda notes.
I have been following Agenda since it’s release, but have not used it much because for my work flow Apple Pencil support is essential. I would guess most people when they think of Apple Pencil support, they want the ability to do basic note taking along the lines of what is available in Apple’s Notes app.
When I saw his feature was available in 8.0 release I was really excited to start using Agenda as part of my workflow. I also bought the premium version only to
was unable to get any Apple Pencil functionality at all, had to reinstall Agenda and still nothing, had to restart my iPad Pro. Not a good user experience.
find out that note taking with pencil is not implemented.
I would suggest that on your “Features we are working on” you put more detail on what users can expect. I will be canceling my premium today, and hope true pencil note taking comes in the near future and I will gladly pay for it again.
Again, Pencil integration means different things to everybody and it’s just wishful to think we could implement an entire Notability replacement. Also as I mentioned elsewhere, I think it’s important to set expectations. While we certainly aim to keep adding pencil features, Agenda will always stay a typed-text first application: even if we would support taking notes through handwriting recognition** it would always be primarily to convert handwriting back to text instead of an app that would show all your notes in your original handwriting. But to expect that out of the box, in two months time we would be able to add all the features of Goodnotes or Notability is just not realistic, sorry.
Today we deliver pretty much the same capabilities as Apple’s Notes app (which also does not do handwriting recognition) and they have very strongly advertised this as having added pencil support to the Apple Notes app. So in that sense I don’t think we are making any misleading statements. Plus from the very start (as shown in the above post) we have been clear what to expect from us and what not (yet). For many this is already a great addition to the feature set of Agenda and we see many people excited about it fortunately.
**) which we’d love to add but depends on a number of factors as discussed in the above link, including support for multiple languages not just English, reliability and time+complexity to develop (i.e. being accurate and something we probably have to acquire or have Apple add in iOS14), and compatibility with our business plan (we could buy the technology but would have to charge significantly more).
Well this is is the interesting bit, that text already says and has always said:
Preceded by a link to the aforementioned post where from the start we have indeed indicated what to expect and what not. To be sure that we don’t repeat everything already discussed there I’m closing this topic and invite everybody to continue discussion over there.
Let’s try to make our requests reasonable.