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Hi,
there's something else with the accelerators.
Hitting Alt+A several times, you will switch between "Status" and "Start Date".
Press it until "Start Date" is selcted and then hit Space to check StartDate.
Instead of "StartDate" will "Completed" be checked.
Hitting Alt+H, you won't reach the Help-menu.
McBain
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Mc_Bain wrote: Instead of "StartDate" will "Completed" be checked.
the simple reason is because <space> is the default keyboard shortcut for 'toggle task completion'. To resolve this i'll change the default to <Ctrl>+<space> and update anyone's shortcuts if they've still got it set to just <space>.
Mc_Bain wrote: Hitting Alt+H, you won't reach the Help-menu.
 and i tried so hard to get it right!
.dan.g.
AbstractSpoon Software
abstractspoon2_at_optusnet_dot_com_dot_au
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Hi Dan
Small bug with the new task file link.
4.7 Tasklist capability added to link protocol (syntax: tdl://[tasklist]?[taskID] )
The link does not recognise a space in the file name.
tdl://filename.tdl?87 (is good)
tdl://file name.tdl?87 (is broken at the space)
thanks
dB
If frustration and humiliation is your aim... then golf is your game.
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thanks valik.
i've tried to make td:// behave just like any other protocol which means that spaces delimit urls in the comments field. there is no such restriction in the file ref field.
.dan.g.
AbstractSpoon Software
abstractspoon2_at_optusnet_dot_com_dot_au
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thanks Valik.
Handy to know about the %20.
I was trying to make a small 'Tool' that copies the task link and filename to the clipboard.
Using the TDL argument 'Tasklist filename' works great when there are no spaces, but fails when there is a space in the filename.
I am not sure if there is a easy fix for this Dan. If not, we might need to include some documentation.
In the meantime I will rename my files. easy enough.
Thanks again
dB
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Doublebogey wrote: Using the TDL argument 'Tasklist filename'
if you surround the filename in double quotes then it should be fine. eg. mytool.exe "my task file.xml".
.dan.g.
AbstractSpoon Software
abstractspoon2_at_optusnet_dot_com_dot_au
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I have my taskbar on the left-hand side of the screen. Every time I start ToDoList, it shifts left by the width of the taskbar. SetWindowPlacement() should only be called with identical parameters from GetWindowPlacement() (according to MSDN Library).
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River One wrote: SetWindowPlacement() should only be called with identical parameters from GetWindowPlacement()
that may well be true, but i'm not using SetWindowPlacement.
the problem is that i'm using GetWindowPlacement() when i save the app position, but MoveWindow() when i restore it.
i've withdrawn my previous words since i can now see that i misinterpreted your post. you were quite right.
.dan.g.
AbstractSpoon Software
abstractspoon2_at_optusnet_dot_com_dot_au
-- modified at 0:56 Saturday 25th March, 2006
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Yeah, those two functions don't play nice with each other if the taskbar isn't in the default position. Somewhere in MSDN there is documentation that says to only use GetWindowPlacement() with SetWindowPlacement() because they use one coordinate system. SetWindowPos() and MoveWindow() use a different coordinate system.
Ah, just found it:
MSDN Library reference[^]
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I just love your software program! You have a great tool that I am now starting to use.
I was wondering if a daily spreadsheet input like option could be incorporated? Meaning, I have projects that I track, but also non-projects (administrative tasks) that I would like to input a daily time value to. It would be in the tenth of an hour input. This addition would allow someone to see where they have spent all of their time, say, for the past week.
Maybe ToDoList can already do this?
Regards,
Karl H.
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Dan,
I'm sorry that I did not provide enough clarity in what I was asking. What I was asking is there already a way to start, stop, start, stop, etc. one particular task or subtask?
If not, I would find this capability extremely value-added as I oversee projects with a beginning date and an end date, but I also oversee non-projects which are more of an administrative task that has no beginning and no end.
Thanks
-Karl H.
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the 'time spent' field has a button with a clock icon on it which allows time to be tracked on a task. simple click it to start tracking and click it again to stop. there are also some preferences to control when to allow time tracking.
.dan.g.
AbstractSpoon Software
abstractspoon2_at_optusnet_dot_com_dot_au
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I decided to use TDL for GTD for the following reasons:
1. Most importantly, it is fast and nimble. After years of Outlook and other bloated apps, it is such a pleasure to be able to move around my whole task list so quickly and easily.
2. Can run it from a single directory, so it is easily portable and I don't have to have administrator privledges (shh, don't tell the IT department).
3. Easily portable on USB drive from Work computer to Work Laptop to Home Desktop to Home Laptop.
4. The tree structure. There are other apps that do this, I guess, but this is the best one that I've used.
5. Everything is on one screen: the task information is all on one line, with all the change boxes right below the lists and the notes pane right there as well. There is nothing that you have to double-click to open or modify.
6. The ability to quickly select a bunch of non-contiguous tasks and modify a column or two is a huge help. Say I want to change any task assigned to Jessica--all I have to do is cntl-F, pick allocated by, then select all to make the change in all the tasks.
7. It seems to take very few steps to do everything, and you can assign hotkeys to most of the actions. Moving tasks around, promoting and demoting them, is very easy.
8. It is very customizable, with lots of options for rolling up task completion percentages, changing colors, filtering, etc.
9. Having task dependencies from 4.8 is a real plus that I’m very excited about.
10. The allocated to and by are things I use a lot.
11. dan.g. One of the biggest pluses is that the application is continually being improved and kinks worked out. It is very well supported and any problems are quickly resolved. There will be lots of new features to play with but it seems obvious from the history that the app won’t become bloated.
Things that would help with GTD:
1. The most important thing for me is to have an option to see a list of all tasks that don’t have any subtask (listed without the parent tasks). That would be a list of things that you actually have to do (“next-actions” or NAs in GTD terms).
2. Pop-up reminders would be a great enhancement, especially if they could be not only date specific, but also time specific. This would be separate from the due date.
3. A lot of GTD people will want separate columns for context of the next action (where the action takes place—like at the computer, on the phone, at home, at the office). I handle this in the Category column currently, but a lot of people will want to use this for real categories.
4. As mentioned before, combining a range of attributes to produce a weighted average for producing a master priority list would be a great feature.
5. I would like a way to import my TDL into my Palm. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy—I think that the CSV export you put on the list for 4.8 will work fine for me. I will use the CSV export file and import it into Palm Mobile DB. The CSV file would be easier to use if you could specify what columns to import (not just the shown columns or all columns)
6. Would it be possible to add “Above Risk” as an option on the Filter Bar at the top? I would love to be able to filter on this.
I’ll add other things as I think of them.
Thanks for the great program and for being so open to different suggestions!
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I'll second this:
"4. As mentioned before, combining a range of attributes to produce a weighted average for producing a master priority list would be a great feature. "
I can't see how the todolist is usable for people with a large number of conflicting tasks and priorities, because it requires you to balance the priorities yourself between tasks. The advantage of programs like MLO is they can help you juggle priorities by calculating them for you based on due dates, urgency and importance (+other) factors
to implement this would require some extra fields adding, and an algorithm (if you look on the MLO google group and/or the MLO help file its discussed how the prioritization algorithm works)
-- modified at 19:42 Friday 24th March, 2006
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scoobiesnacks wrote: I can't see how the todolist is usable for people with a large number of conflicting tasks and priorities
actually, i think that the human brain is remarkably good at prioritizing if it has sufficient information to work with. indeed no-one in the past 2 years (until now) has requested such a feature.
scoobiesnacks wrote: The advantage of programs like MLO
unfortunately their strength is also their principal weakness. calculating a priority based on only 2/3 numerical attributes is okay when it's helping to decide between shopping and the gym, but for people who use many of the text based fields it's woefully inadequate. i'm for the idea in principle but only if we can come up with a system that encapsulates as much of the real-life complexity of making decisions.
.dan.g.
AbstractSpoon Software
abstractspoon2_at_optusnet_dot_com_dot_au
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.dan.g. wrote: i'm for the idea in principle but only if we can come up with a system that encapsulates as much of the real-life complexity of making decisions.
That would be great if we could have such a feature. Here's some thoughts on how it would work...
I agree on your real life complexity point, I think this has heavily thought through in the approach MLO finally settled on. Like your program, the approach developed through the user group discussion as to how if should work in practice. I'd advocate having a play with MLO to get a feel for how this works in practice
MLO has two main options, which I suspect developed out of people's different approaches to how they wanted to prioritise their tasks:
Approach (1) Hierarchical, (sorted by goal deadline, by importance, by date, and by depth in the tree)
Approach (2) Computed score (computed recursive score throughout the outline based on importance and urgency slider settings)
Note: When you set the priority of a task in most To Do programs you actually set the absolute priority that compares it to the other tasks in the list. In MLO, however, you only consider how important it is to complete the task relative to completing the parent project.
Understanding To-Do List Ordering
After you have entered all your goals, projects, and tasks into the Outline, MyLife Organized can select only those tasks which require immediate attention and place them to the To-Do List. The scheduled tasks appear in the list only at the most suitable time. You can filter the To-Do list by setting the appropriate place/situation. Each time you complete a task the To-Do list is regenerated to keep it updated and right ordered.
Sorting of the To-Do List depends on the parameters you set. Depending on your level of commitment to time management you have two options:
1. Hierarchical Priority. Use this if do not plan on being particularly accurate about setting task options. You will notice that with hierarchical priority there's no urgency in the task options. This is the simple way to get started with MyLife Organized.
2. Computed-Score Priority is the more advanced option, and you will get excellent results if you take the time to configure the tasks more or less correctly. You will find that MyLife Organized will do an excellent job in presenting to you to-do lists that are sensibly prioritized.
"More Details on Hierarchical Priority
Introduction
Suppose that you have two projects, Prj1 and Prj2, in the root of your MLO outline, and that each task has one subtask p1 and p2, respectively. In this case, only tasks p1 and p2 will be shown in the To-Do List. How will they be ordered in the list? It depends on the tasks' parameters.
1. Weekly Goal
Any task marked as a Weekly Goal is always placed at the top of the To-Do List, regardless of how its other parameters are set. This is one way you can quickly highlight a task and bring it to the top of the list for your attention.
2. Task Importance
2.1. If project Prj1 is assigned a higher importance then project Prj2, subtask p1 is always placed at the top of the To-Do List, regardless of the importance of subtasks p1 and p2. This is because you have specified that the entire Prj1 project is more important than the other projects. As a result, all of its subtasks will have a higher priority then subtasks of other projects on the same level which have a lower priority than Prj1.
Note that when you set the priority of a task in most other To-Do programs, you actually set an absolute priority in comparison to all other tasks in the list. In MyLife, however, you should only consider how important it is to complete the task relative to completing its parent project. Thus, for example, when you assign p1 an importance, you should only think about its actual importance to accomplishing project Prj1, not its absolute importance.
2.2. If projects Prj1 and Prj2 have the same importance, the subtask that is assigned a higher importance is placed at the top of the list. Thus, if P2 has a higher importance for project Prj2 than P1 has for project Prj1, P2 will precede P1 in the To-Do List.
Note: The Importance parameter is considered only after the Weekly Goal parameter has been considered.
3. Time
If you set a deadline for a task, the closer the deadline to today's date, the higher this task will be in the To-Do List. Thus, if you set deadlines for both p1 and p2 and the p2 deadline is closer, P2 will precede P1 in the To-Do List.
Please note that since Importance is considered before Time, preference is given to how important tasks are, rather than when they are scheduled. This helps you to stay focused on the most important tasks, to separate importance from urgency, and to overcome procrastination.
Note: The Time parameter is considered after Weekly Goals and Importance are considered.
4. Project Completion Percentage
The closer a project is to being complete, the higher its subtasks are placed in the To-Do List.
Suppose that, in additional to p1 and p2, you have additional subtasks for projects Prj1 and Prj2 (p11 and p22, respectively). Assume also that task p22 is completed but all other subtasks of both projects are incomplete, and that all other parameters (Weekly Goal, Importance, and Time) are the same for Prj1 and Prj2. In this case, subtask p2 will receive a higher placement in the To-Do List because project Prj2 is closer to completion than is Prj1 (by completing only one task, p2, you will finish project Prj2). In comparison, to complete project Prj1 you will need to complete both p1 and p11.
Note: The Completion parameter is considered after Weekly Goals, Importance, and Time have been considered.
For a more complex example, please see the Web page.
In summary, here is the order in which task parameters are considered in determining a task's position in To-Do List:
1) Weekly Goal
2) Importance
3) Time
4) Project Completion Percentage
Option 2:
More Details on Computed-Score Priority
Computed-Score Priority mode uses the details you supply about each task to compute an individual score for each task in your outline. These scores are then used to provide a priority-ordered To-Do List. The two factors that contribute to each task's score are its Importance and its Urgency. The To-Do List will include tasks that have no uncompleted children tasks, ordered by their Computed-Score Priorities.
MLO can be configured to order tasks by just Importance, just Urgency, or a combination of both.
Importance Slider
The absolute importance of each task is a computed value and is not directly set by the user. Instead, for each task you set the importance of that task relative to its immediate parent. Once you have done that, the program will compute the task's actual importance. A task's importance to its parent is controlled by a slider and its ranges from 0 to 1.
Suppose that you have two projects in the root of the MyLife outline (Prj1 and Prj2), and that each of them has one subtask (p1 and p2, respectively. The importance of each task will be calculated as follows:
Computed actual importance of p1 =(Prj1 Importance to outline) * (p1 Importance to Prj1)
Computed actual importance of p2 =(Prj2 Importance to outline) * (p2 Importance to Prj2)
For example, if the importance values are set as follows:
Prj1 = 1, Prj2 = .75, p1 = .45, p2 = 1
then these tasks' computed importance scores will be as follows:
Prj1 = 1
Prj2 = .75
p1 = 1 *.45 = .45
p2 = .75 * 1 = .75
If you are ordering your To-Do List solely by importance, the To-Do List will order the tasks as follows:
p2
p1
If p2 is completed first, the To-Do List will now display:
Prj2
p1
However, if p1 is completed first, the To-Do list will display:
Prj1
p2
Note: if you use a task just to group together other like tasks, you should set this "container" task to maximum importance relatively to its parent, to avoid artificially lowering the priorities of the tasks it contains.
Urgency Slider
The Urgency of each task is a computed value and is also not directly set by the user. Instead, for each task, you set its urgency relative to its immediate parent. Once you have done that, the program will compute the task's actual urgency. A task's urgency relative to its parent is controlled by a slider and its value ranges from 1 to 2.
Repeating our example from the importance overview, you have two projects in the root of the MyLife outline (Prj1 and Prj2), and each project has one subtask (p1 and p2, respectively). The urgency of each task is computed as follows:
Computed actual urgency of p1 =(Prj1 urgency to outline)*(p1 urgency to Prj1)
Computed actual urgency of p2 =(Prj2 urgency to outline)*(p2 urgency to Prj2)
For example, if the importance values are as follows:
Prj1 = 2, Prj2 = 1.25, p1 = 1.5, p2 = 2
and if the tasks have no due dates set (see a later section for the effect of due dates on urgency), the computed urgency scores will be as follows:
Prj1 = 2
Prj2 = 1.25
p1 = 2 * 1.5 = 3
p2 = 1.25 * 2 = 2.5
If you are ordering your To-Do List solely by Urgency, the To-Do List will be ordered as follows:
p1
p2
If p1 is completed first, the To-Do List will now be ordered as follows:
p2
Prj1
However, if p2 is completed first, the To-Do List will now be ordered like this:
p1
Prj2
Importance and Urgency Combined
If you set MLO to consider both Urgency and Importance in calculating task scores, the score for each task will be the product of its important and its urgency.
Revisiting the examples in the previous two sections, the assigned importance values were:
i-Prj1 = 1, i-Prj2 = .75, i-p1 = .45, i-p2 = .75
and the assigned urgency values were:
u-Prj1 = 2, u-Prj2 = 1.25, u-p1 = 3, u-p2 = 2.5
The combined importance and urgency scores will then be:
Prj1 = 1 * 2 = 2.0
Prj2 = .75 * 1.25 = 0.9375
p1 = .45 * 3 = 1.35
p2 = .75 * 2.25 = 1.6875
If you are ordering your To-Do List by both urgency and importance, then, the To-Do List will display the tasks ordered as follows:
p2
p1
If p2 is completed first, the To-Do List will now be ordered as follows:
p1
Prj2
However, if p1 is completed first, the To-Do List will now be ordered as follows:
Prj1
p2
Factoring Dates into the Urgency Calculation
If the MLO preferences are set to order the To-do List by "Urgency" or by "Importance and Urgency" (that is, if Urgency is to be considered and not just Importance), the start and due dates are used to weight the score of each task based on the nearness to today's date of the dates in question.
How much effect the start and due date will have on the overall urgency of the task can be configured in the MLO preferences. The preferences allow you to set the start and due date weighting factors individually. The higher you set the weights, the more influence the dates will have on the list ordering. Since the weights can be set independently, you can configure the MLO any way you like, including giving higher priority to start dates than to due dates.
This is the point at which things get complicated! Several different formulas are used to get the date- driven score adjustment. The formulas are chosen based on the setup of the task in question and its current relationship to its due date.
If you do not like complex math, you only need to understand the following: The time between the start date and due date is compared to the date selected in the MLO To-Do List (usually today's date), and a boosting factor is computed. If you do like math, the details of this adjustment are as follows:
If Start Date < Due Date
Start date score contribution = (StartDate WeightFactor / (Task Duration / Elapsed)) /2
Due date score contribution = (DueDate WeightFactor / (Task Duration / Elapsed)) /2
If Start Date = Due Date (no start date) and the due date is farther than 1 day away
Start date score contribution = (StartDate WeightFactor / (1 – (1 / Remaining)))/100
Due date score contribution = (DueDate WeightFactor / (1 – (1 / Remaining)))/100
Where Remaining = Date Selected in MLO To-Do – (Start or Due Date depending on which contribution is being computed.
If Start Date = Due Date (no start date) and 1 day or less remains until the due date
Start date score contribution = (StartDate WeightFactor / (((ABS(Remaining -3) – Remaining) / ABS(Remaining -3)) / (ABS(Remaining -3) -1)))/100
Due date score contribution = (DueDate WeightFactor / (((ABS(Remaining -3) – Remaining) / ABS(Remaining -3)) / (ABS(Remaining -3) -1)))/100
Where Remaining = Date Selected in MLO To-Do – (Start or Due Date depending on which contribution is being computed.
That's it for the heavy math.
Once the start and due date score contributions are computed, they are simply added to the current priority score. If you are viewing the To-Do List by just urgency you then get:
Score = UrgencyScore + StartDate Score Contribution + DueDate Score Contribution
If you are viewing the To-Do List by importance and urgency combined, you get:
Score=(ImportanceScore * UrgnecyScore) + StartDate Score Contribution + DueDate Score Contribution
Providing a meaningful example of these results in writing is beyond the scope of this documentation. You are encouraged to play with the program settings and observe the results. It will quickly become apparent that items increase in priority as their start and due dates approach. Just how much they increase depends on how the weighting preferences in MLO are set. The program defaults should provide a reasonable starting point for just about everyone. "
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Hi .dan.g.
is there a reason why there is no support for different text background colors (using RTF)?
I guess every other formatting feature is available.
If it's not to much trouble, could you please add it?
McBain
BTW: If you copy text with backgroundcolor from Word to ToDoList the backgroundcolor is shown correctly (also after saving the tasklist and restarting ToDoList).
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