ForumsNewsUpdates to due dates and start dates
Updates to due dates and start dates
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Jake Toodledo Founder |
Today we are releasing a big update centered around how dates work.
1) The main thing that people will notice is that the Due-Date and Due-Time fields have been combined. We did this for two reasons. First, almost nobody uses due-time without using due-date. This is logical. A time makes no sense without a date. What you are trying to do is mark a point in time when a task is due, and that requires both a date and a time. It is logical and helpful for these fields to be in the same place. Second, because we have added more and more fields as we have matured, horizontal screen real-estate has become very valuable. We noticed that people who enable the due-time field actually use it for fewer than 10% of their tasks. This was causing a lot of wasted space on the screen. By compressing the time into the date and only showing it in the 10% of cases where it matters, we were able to free up a lot of horizontal space, which means that you will now have room for more fields with less horizontal scrolling. You still have the option of only using dates without times, and you can still input a time without a date (although we don't understand the purpose of this). 2) The second big improvement is that we have added the Start-Time field and combined it with Start-Date in the same way. With this addition, it is now possible to accurately bookend an event or task with specific start and end times. For example, a meeting can now be specified as starting at 4:30 and ending at 5:30. This wasn't possible before, and this makes our next enhancement possible... 3) When syncing your tasks to a calendar, like iCal or Google Calendar, the tasks will now be properly placed on the calendar at the time of day when they occur. You use start-date, start-time, due-date and due-time to specific when the event will appear on the calendar. If you omit one of the dates, we'll use the other date. If you omit one of the times, we will attempt to calculate it from the "length" field, otherwise it will be a zero length task or and all-day event if no times are specified. This should give people the flexibility that they need to keep track of tasks and events. Along with this, we have also fixed two iCal related bugs. Timezones will now be correctly applied, and non-english characters such as Chinese or Russian will now appear correctly in Google Calendar. 4) In your account settings, it is now possible to pick whether you want the week to start on Sunday or Monday. You can also specify your time preference to be am/pm or military time. A lot of people asked for these preferences, so we are happy to finally have them. 5) Toodledo will now display dates as "Yesterday", "Today" and "Tomorrow" to make it more obvious when a nearby task starts, or is due. If you want to see the actual date, you can hover your mouse over the word and it will popup the date. 6) The "Advanced Due-date modifiers" which have previously been a semi-secret are now easily accessible. With this feature, you can easily specify whether a task is due "By", "On", "After", or "Optionally on" the specified due-date. This helps organize your tasks and affects how tasks are displayed and how they repeat. For more on this, please read our help section 7) There are now a variety of "Quick Dates", which you can click to quickly enter common dates (today, tomorrow, next week, etc). This makes it faster to enter certain tasks, and it provides a quick way to postpone a task to a future date without hunting through the calendar or typing in a new date. This message was edited Apr 15, 2009. |
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Gummi |
Great news. I like it when I wake up in the morning, fire up Toodledo, and see a new and improved date user interface. :)
Quick question: Is there any reason to use start dates at all? Couldn't I just use Due Dates with the advanced modifiers? |
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cj |
Looks good ...
one thing Did I read wrong ? I was expecting tasks to show up now in my google-calendar, if they had a due time ... |
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Anders |
Posted by cj:
Looks good ... one thing Did I read wrong ? I was expecting tasks to show up now in my google-calendar, if they had a due time ... They should if you have the iCal feed enabled and entered in Google. It seems like Google Calendar only updates a couple of times a day at most, so it will take a while for any changes to show up there. |
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Anders |
Is the iPhone app going to be updated to reflect these changes? Also, could seeing the calendar view on the app be a possibility at some point?
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Linden |
Thank you, guys! These are all amazing features!
I recently began to use Start Dates for the odd occasion that a task couldn't begin until the due date, particularly so it wouldn't show up in the scheduler. Now I can use the due-date modifiers and reduce my columns again. |
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nv00021 |
Really great additions....keep up the great work!!!
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Proximo |
These are great enhancements. Thanks for making Toodledo better and better.
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Murphybp2 |
Will the hiding of future start dates consider both the start date & time now? So if I set a task to start on the 20th at 5pm, it won't show up until after 5pm?
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Fred_Foote |
I don't like how you now need to "mouse off" the date to select the one you've chosen. I preferred it when you could "tab off" a date and thereby select it.
Also, I don't think any date selections are working in the multi-edit mode. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. |
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kleerkoat |
more proof that Toodledo is THE task manager.
thanks for your hard work! |
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Vin Thomas |
SWEET! Thanks guys! I hope this leads to more international users jumping on board and Toodledo finally become the LEADER in online task management. You deserve it WAY WAY more than the "other guys".
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cj |
Posted by Anders:
Posted by cj: Looks good ... one thing Did I read wrong ? I was expecting tasks to show up now in my google-calendar, if they had a due time ... They should if you have the iCal feed enabled and entered in Google. It seems like Google Calendar only updates a couple of times a day at most, so it will take a while for any changes to show up there. Yes, I have the feed enabled (and have had it enabled) ... after 8 hours - still nothing on the calendar ; ( |
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cj |
Posted by frederi825:
I don't like how you now need to "mouse off" the date to select the one you've chosen. I preferred it when you could "tab off" a date and thereby select it. Also, I don't think any date selections are working in the multi-edit mode. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. I noticed the "mouse off" right away too. Klunky but I got used to it, hoping that it will be fixed once the dust settles. Now that the time/date *entry* combo is being enhanced, it's really all about what we can *do* with the field ... right now I am waiting for them to show up on my calendar as appointments - for me this seems to be the biggest advantage (if it ever works on my calendar!) |
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Anders |
Posted by cj:
Yes, I have the feed enabled (and have had it enabled) ... after 8 hours - still nothing on the calendar ; ( I have heard a variety of different things about the frequency of Google's updates, but it seems like somewhere between 12 and 24 hours between updates is the most commonly reported experience. |
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Jake Toodledo Founder |
Whoops, we seem to have broken date selection in Multi-Edit. There is always something we fail to test :o
We'll get that fixed ASAP. |
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Jake Toodledo Founder |
Fixed. You may need to reload your browser once to pick up the changes.
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davidkrandallju |
I can't seem to alter due dates. I click on the field and all I can do is reload the page.
Also, could you add "none" to the quick dates. I am often changing something that had a date to not having a date and the way it is now is pretty difficult. |
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juliesammons |
Thanks for the updates! I am having the same problem as davidkrandalju: when I try to change a due date, the new calendar pops up, but won't disappear even if I mouse off. Reloading the page makes the pop up disappear, but the dates aren't changing. I reloaded my browser with no difference.
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aaron |
Same problem as davidkrandaliju and juliesammons. THis problem is occurring on Safari 3.2.1 and Firefox 3.0.8 on a Mac running 10.5.6
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