ForumsQuestionsHow to complete tasks (world's worst designed command menu?)
How to complete tasks (world's worst designed command menu?)
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Textgenie |
How does one mark a task is completed? How? This most elementary notation command is invisible to a newcomer even in the FAQ's long and un-ordered list, which only warns the completed tasks will disappear in six months (not very friendly indeed, and frankly good reason to distrust this site that its staff imagines the relevance of listing completed tasks ends after six months! Are they trying to save memory or force a subscription payment? How much memory does it use to retain text entries?)
Without doubt this is the worst menu tree I have ever seen. Opaque to even this utterly simple and common need. Yet the purpose of the site is to organize! Suggest you guys hire a journalist to give you advice. So simple - that's their job to make things clear. They come cheap too! How to complete tasks in list without making them vanish? Baffling. Where the blazes is the menu tree anyway? Invisible! Cheers This message was edited Jan 08, 2016. |
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Salgud |
Lemme see...
There's a star you could check next to each task, but does "star" make you think of complete? Doesn't work for me, anyway. What other options are there? Looking, looking, looking... O yes, a checkbox to the left on each task! Wonder if it could be that!! Give it a try and let us know how that worked out, ok? |
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cj |
While I was tempted to give a sarcastic reply too ... i realized that the OP has a (small) point:
There should indeed be a way to achieve every major function or task via a menu and a keyboard shortcut. There are a lot of reasons and occasions when *not* using the mouse is much more convenient and productive. Areas of the UI that force the user to hunt and click (mouse) - that don't seem to have keyboard or keyboard menu alternatives are: - completing a task (UI - take a cue from the way gmail does its select and deselect from the keyboard) - starring tasks ... (again Gmail might lend a few ideas) - anything from the action menu - I find this one to be particularly lacking in alternatives. and - the date/time picker (I find that particular GUI widget particularly clumsy - many things in that widget that need better keyboard and menu alternatives) I'm not complaining about any of these things - but I am pointing out some UI design deficiencies that might confuse a newbie. And for me, some of these UI deficiencies hinder 'hyper-productivity" while using toodledo. But OK, yeah, the checkmark is kind of obvious ... Then again, the checkmark-completion, too can be improved: I use several mindmapping apps, and they all use an interesting GUI technique for a checkbox for a task: - box is empty for a new task - doubleclick the 'checkbox' for it to be completed ... it appears "filled" - single click-only: the lower left quadrant of the box gets filled to indicate the task is 25% done, - each successive click fills another quadrant counterclockwise. It is actually quite elegant. -oh, and the above task-completion UI method can also be achieve via keyboard shortcuts or menus Just food for thought, or discussion. This message was edited Jan 08, 2016. |
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Salgud |
Posted by cj:
While I was tempted to give a sarcastic reply too ... i realized that the OP has a (small) point: There should indeed be a way to achieve every major function or task via a menu and a keyboard shortcut. There are a lot of reasons and occasions when *not* using the mouse is much more convenient and productive. Areas of the UI that force the user to hunt and click (mouse) - that don't seem to have keyboard or keyboard menu alternatives are: - completing a task (UI - take a cue from the way gmail does its select and deselect from the keyboard) - starring tasks ... (again Gmail might lend a few ideas) - anything from the action menu - I find this one to be particularly lacking in alternatives. and - the date/time picker (I find that particular GUI widget particularly clumsy - many things in that widget that need better keyboard and menu alternatives) I'm not complaining about any of these things - but I am pointing out some UI design deficiencies that might confuse a newbie. And for me, some of these UI deficiencies hinder 'hyper-productivity" while using toodledo. But OK, yeah, the checkmark is kind of obvious ... Then again, the checkmark-completion, too can be improved: I use several mindmapping apps, and they all use an interesting GUI technique for a checkbox for a task: - box is empty for a new task - doubleclick the 'checkbox' for it to be completed ... it appears "filled" - single click-only: the lower left quadrant of the box gets filled to indicate the task is 25% done, - each successive click fills another quadrant counterclockwise. It is actually quite elegant. -oh, and the above task-completion UI method can also be achieve via keyboard shortcuts or menus Just food for thought, or discussion. While I might agree with you in theory, cj, I don't see the problem in practice. This is the first time in the 5 years I've been coming to these forums that anyone has complained about marking tasks complete. As far as "hyper-productivity" goes, to me it's like being pound-wise and penny foolish, there are probably at least a dozen things TD users do to waste valuable time far in excess of the time it takes to grab the mouse. Like the guy on the freeway driving 70 six feet off my back bumper, endangering both our lives, thinking he'll somehow get home sooner. How much time do most of us waste cruising the net or talking football in the breakroom compared to how much we waste using the mouse? I have nothing against keyboard shortcuts for those who prefer them who'd banish the GUI forever given the chance, but I'm old enough to remember DOS when everything was a keyboard shortcut and using computers was exasperating at best. So I'll happily "waste" 10 minutes a year reaching for my mouse! :) |
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Textgenie |
Obviously I am complaining that checkboxes have not worked for me. I need a checkbox that notes a task is completed and shows it in the listing somehow, which it doesn't appear to do. A LABELING. How do I get a task completed label in the listing? Why is my display missing that, the most obvious requirement in any to do list?
Thanks to the nitwits who added too much blather to read and then hid my question as too "negative". Truth hurts? I stick to my guns. This is undoubtedly the worst menu tree ever. But not course to those who have learned it carefully. I am talking about people who come to use it as a time saver and find the display and menu tree is a mess. Make the lists simple and clear and the commands likewise for newcomers or die on the vine. No one with a normally crowded life has time to pore over a poorly laid out to do list regardless how much the expert usrs love it. How do you think Google prevailed in the early days? |
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Jake Toodledo Founder |
To mark a task as completed you click the checkbox. You can then see the difference between an active task and a completed task by looking for a checkmark inside the checkbox.
Completed tasks are probably hidden after you refresh the page. This is the default setting because we figure that once you've completed a task, you are done with it and don't want to see it anymore. But, it is really easy to show your recently completed tasks by adjusting your filters. Click the "Eye" icon in the blue toolbar above your list and select "show recently completed tasks" and then they will be shown. More info here in our FAQ: http://www.toodledo.com/info/help.php#126 |
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Textgenie |
Thanks Jake and all for the sensible suggestions that I tick the box. Of course I did tick the box opposite a completed task. It did nothing to label it completed in the full list. What should I do to label it as completed and have it show up in a list of completed and uncompleted tasks as completed? The Recently Completed tasks list just shows it alone though in multiple repeats, actually four, because I have tried four times to get it to list as completed in the full task list.
Love the way any criticism of the set up results in mass confusion and hiding of my posts. A little bit like the Mad Hatters tea party (in Alice in Wonderland, the greatest children's book for grownups ever written). The eye is the answer it seems. Thanks Jake. Love the eye! Incentive to explore what else Toodledo offers, raising hope that hidden behind the baffling array of options are more delightful commands to enhance the sad record of how little has been achieved in my past six months! This message was edited Jan 13, 2016. |
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coolexplorer |
Posted by Textgenie:
Thanks Jake and all for the sensible suggestions that I tick the box. Of course I did tick the box opposite a completed task. It did nothing to label it completed in the full list. What should I do to label it as completed and have it show up in a list of completed and uncompleted tasks as completed? The Recently Completed tasks list just shows it alone though in multiple repeats, actually four, because I have tried four times to get it to list as completed in the full task list. As a subscribing TD user I do not see any problem with TDs ability to show completed tasks. You can in Settings select the option of 'striking out' all completed tasks (so that they are clearly differentiated form active tasks). By setting the 'eye icon' filter option to show completed tasks, you can see it along with your active tasks, but striked off. You can check 'Recently Completed' tasks in the first main TD menu. If however you want All Completed tasks you can, once you learn how to, set up a Custom Saved Search View to show All Completed tasks, ad nauseum. My custom list show 444 completed tasks. I go through them once in a while and delete all but a few I need for reference. Most power users learn how to use Custom Saved Searches to slice and dice TD as per their whim. Love the way any criticism of the set up results in mass confusion and hiding of my posts. My experience is that the TD forum is really friendly and helpful. Maybe the tone of your first post "worlds worst designed command menu" got TD fans riled up. Hope the above helps you get the most out of Toodledo. This message was edited Jan 13, 2016. |
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Jake Toodledo Founder |
It sounds like maybe you have the task set to be a "repeating task" so that when you check it off, it reappears with the due-date moved forward. If you weren't expecting this, I can see how this would appear like the task is not getting completed.
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Textgenie |
Thanks again Jake the eye rules for sure!` Not only the answer but a key to why all are so into Toodledo once they master it, a secret door into the Aladdin's cave of delights waiting for expert users of Toodledo. It matches exactly the wit and laid back, disarming confidence of the site's engagingly cute title, a big attraction in itself.
The only thing is, how do I set Repeating on or off? I have cursored over every icon I can see and nothing shows that. Maybe there is some list of what icons mean that I can access somewhere? I need access to this secret society! The picture of the subscriber top right oddly releases a thicket of many options but not Repeat Tasks. Apparently free Toddledo wipes out completed tasks within a week, which seems even more of a spur to letting go of the past than the six months leeway it said elsewhere. This message was edited Jan 13, 2016. |
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Textgenie |
OK found it. The Repeat heading wih no cursor label to explain 'click to choose' expands for each list item to offer the choice of none or repeat daily weekly etc. In fact every item on the array of items for the table as a whole expands with a click to offer choices. Excellent! What a pity it doesn't say so with a response to the cursor over it, to say it needs clicking. Who knew!? But it's perfect.
This message was edited Jan 14, 2016. |
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Textgenie |
Oh Christ finally found the down arrow inside a circle on the left which offers Delete this task among other things.
Amazing that no one mentioned this! |
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