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iPhone app updated with context/tag filters
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Jake

Toodledo Founder
Posted: Jan 13, 2010
Score: 1 Reference
Our iPhone app was updated today to version 1.5.6. The major improvements are a context filter and tag filter so that you can hide certain tasks. Here is the full list:

* Added a new Context Filter for hiding/showing tasks
* Added a new Tag Filter for hiding/showing tasks
* Added general preference to show list counts as filtered/total, so you can see how many tasks are currently filtered.
* The "Beep Beep" sound will now work with remote notifications
* Fixed bug where unlinking an account from Toodledo.com syncing could cause existing subtasks to be hidden
* iPhone->Web force sync will now work better
* The app will no longer freeze if the "Choose a Wifi Network" popup appears in the middle of a sync.
* Fixed bug where tasks set to repeat on a month multiple would always repeat monthly, if Toodledo was used in standalone mode.
* Fixed bug where sync wouldn't finish if a task's note had certain non-english characters in it
* Filters will no longer be applied to fields that are disabled
* The buttons on the "About Us" page are now clickable in landscape mode
* The "Sync on Edit" feature will now work more reliably, requiring fewer full syncs.
* If you have selected a default folder and then you delete that folder, it will now set the default for new tasks to "no folder" instead of "undefined"
* Archived goals will now be hidden
* Fixed display bug with adding new tags in landscape orientation

Available for purchase or as a free update from the iTunes App Store.

Apple allows you to rate and review an iPhone app each time it is updated, so feel free to re-rate or re-review our app if you desire.
paul.freeman

Posted: Jan 13, 2010
Score: 0 Reference
Great update, thanks for changing the list count, although if I was picky I'd prefer just to see the filtered rather than filtered/total ... but it returns the information that I need to see, so it is good enough.

I can also confirm it fixes the display bug when it caused a screen flicker if exiting the app whilst it was syncing. Perfect.

I'm not sure how the tag and context filters work, I'll have a play later.
marisa_whitfield

Posted: Jan 13, 2010
Score: 1 Reference
Crashing issue with new update.

I can repeat this every time.

Open app at top level
choose Contexts
choose one
choose a task and open it
scroll down to to bottom.

At this point the app crashes for me and closes altogether before I can even do anything

I have rebooted the phone. I'm running all the latest updates of everything on iPhone 3gs

is anyone else seeing this?
Jake

Toodledo Founder
Posted: Jan 13, 2010
Score: 0 Reference
Marisa, I was not able to reproduce your crash. Can you please create a support ticket and attach the crash logs from your computer? The location of the crash logs is explained here: http://www.toodledo.com/info/help.php?sel=80
Proximo

Posted: Jan 14, 2010
Score: 0 Reference
I appreciate the added features but I would prefer to only see the number of task I have based on my filter and not the total count as a secondary number.

I also must say that the filtering of context and tags is all wrong. It's opposite of how the feature should work and the way it works in just about every productivity app I have used.

Not to sound ungrateful but it just don't make sense. If I wanted to show all the task with a particular context, I would select that context. The way this is implemented in Toodledo, I must select all the context I want to hide except the one I want to show. That makes no sense. The same is true for tags.

I would guess many users would agree with this logic.
Proximo

Posted: Jan 14, 2010
Score: 0 Reference
Related to my post above. This implementation will cause more work to filter the task than needed.

For example. I have an Action folder showing all of my "Next Actions" across every area of my life. I have over 128 task and I wish to only see the @Work context so that I can filter the list to what I am interested in.

If I have 12 different context on my context list, I must select 11 of them to filter out what I don't want and show only @Work.

The way it should work is that I simply click on the @Work context and it filters out all the rest.

I can't be the only person that thinks this is a bad implementation of filters.
Alan

Posted: Jan 14, 2010
Score: 0 Reference
Now, if you had to go through this once, but then could store the filter as a saved search or saved filter, that would make life much easier!
jlaker

Posted: Jan 14, 2010
Score: 0 Reference
I totally agree with Proximo. Selecting what you want to hide is unintuitive and in most cases will require additional effort to be of any use. I have come to rely more and more on tags and to have to select what I don't want so I can see what I do want is tedious at best.

I appreciate the addition of the feature but I think you might want to revisit the implementation.
cjuzda

Posted: Jan 14, 2010
Score: 0 Reference
I have to agree 100% with Proximo, not on the issue around the number of tasks shown, that's not a problem, I like seeing how many tasks are filtered out but the way the context filter is applied is extremely counter intuitive and illogical. I'm particularly surprised because it's also the opposite of the web app which allows you to select just the context you want to see. Love the app but what were you thinking in this case?

Posted by Proximo:
I appreciate the added features but I would prefer to only see the number of task I have based on my filter and not the total count as a secondary number.

I also must say that the filtering of context and tags is all wrong. It's opposite of how the feature should work and the way it works in just about every productivity app I have used.

Not to sound ungrateful but it just don't make sense. If I wanted to show all the task with a particular context, I would select that context. The way this is implemented in Toodledo, I must select all the context I want to hide except the one I want to show. That makes no sense. The same is true for tags.

I would guess many users would agree with this logic.


This message was edited Jan 14, 2010.
Proximo

Posted: Jan 14, 2010
Score: 0 Reference
Posted by Alan:
Now, if you had to go through this once, but then could store the filter as a saved search or saved filter, that would make life much easier!


Alan, it would be easier to just do it right and not have to jump through hoops to get something this simple to work. I know many of us rely on saved searches for doing many things but we are talking about a simple Context/Tag filter here.

I can only hope Toodledo will fix this to work as it should.
mike

Posted: Jan 14, 2010
Score: -1 Reference
Posted by Proximo:
I appreciate the added features but I would prefer to only see the number of task I have based on my filter and not the total count as a secondary number.

I also must say that the filtering of context and tags is all wrong. It's opposite of how the feature should work and the way it works in just about every productivity app I have used.

Not to sound ungrateful but it just don't make sense. If I wanted to show all the task with a particular context, I would select that context. The way this is implemented in Toodledo, I must select all the context I want to hide except the one I want to show. That makes no sense. The same is true for tags.

I would guess many users would agree with this logic.


+1!
Jake

Toodledo Founder
Posted: Jan 14, 2010
Score: 1 Reference
With regards to "hide" vs "show" on the context/tag filters: It's a matter of preference, so let me explain why we picked the way we picked. The point of a filter is to filter out, or hide tasks that don't match. It's like a screen that obscures a subset of the whole. To maintain this analogy we decided to have you choose which contexts/tags to hide.

If you think about it, the only usability difference between "Hide Contexts..." and "Show Contexts..." is that the checkmarks are reversed. Let's examine the scenario proposed above, where there are 12 contexts and you want to only show one of them.

Hide Contexts: You must check 11 contexts that you want to hide. (11 clicks)
Show Contexts: You must uncheck 11 contexts that you don't want to show. (11 clicks)

It's the same number of clicks, whichever way you do it. The only difference is the way you think about it. For us, filter means hide.

And yes, the website does the context filter the wrong way. This is because it currently only allows you to filter on one context, and hiding a single context isn't useful. When we upgrade the website's context filter to support multiple contexts we will also switch the semantics the correct way around.

I'm sorry if you don't agree with our choice, but it's what made the most sense to us.
Jake

Toodledo Founder
Posted: Jan 14, 2010
Score: 0 Reference
A compromise might be to add "Check All" and "Uncheck all" buttons.
Transisto

Posted: Jan 14, 2010
Score: 0 Reference
I am very happy to see updates comming in.

I am referring a lot of people to Toodledo, , my main argument is "they'r working on it constantly" , thank for proving my point.

Toodledo's todo like must be huge, That'd be fun to look at if there were a public todolist of what need to be done at toodledo,, with priorities. that would make a good demo.

;)
Jake

Toodledo Founder
Posted: Jan 14, 2010
Score: 0 Reference
We add all of your suggestions to our to-do list. There are now over 1000 tasks tagged as "feature requests". So, we have a lot left to do...
Proximo

Posted: Jan 15, 2010
Score: 0 Reference
Posted by Toodledo:
With regards to "hide" vs "show" on the context/tag filters: It's a matter of preference, so let me explain why we picked the way we picked. The point of a filter is to filter out, or hide tasks that don't match. It's like a screen that obscures a subset of the whole. To maintain this analogy we decided to have you choose which contexts/tags to hide.

If you think about it, the only usability difference between "Hide Contexts..." and "Show Contexts..." is that the checkmarks are reversed. Let's examine the scenario proposed above, where there are 12 contexts and you want to only show one of them.

Hide Contexts: You must check 11 contexts that you want to hide. (11 clicks)
Show Contexts: You must uncheck 11 contexts that you don't want to show. (11 clicks)

It's the same number of clicks, whichever way you do it. The only difference is the way you think about it. For us, filter means hide.

And yes, the website does the context filter the wrong way. This is because it currently only allows you to filter on one context, and hiding a single context isn't useful. When we upgrade the website's context filter to support multiple contexts we will also switch the semantics the correct way around.

I'm sorry if you don't agree with our choice, but it's what made the most sense to us.


I would have to disagree with you on this. It's not the same.

Example:

Hide Contexts: You must check 11 contexts that you want to hide. (11 clicks)
Show Contexts: You must check 1 contexts that you want to filter by and the rest are automatically hidden. (1 click).

Now let's say I selected @Call for the context to filter by and all the other context are hidden automatically. Now I want to filter my list by @Internet. I would only select @Internet as the context to filter by and all the others would hide automatically. It's still just 1 click.

Multiple-context would not change this. If I wanted to filter by @Work and @Call. I would select @Work context and @Call context. 2 Clicks.

The current implementation would force me to select 10 context to only show the two I need.

Look at Evernote. When you select a Tag, guess what happens. Only the notes that contain that tag are shown and all the others are filtered out. If you select two tags, you will only see all the notes that contain the two tags.

I think it should be a user vote if we are expected to work with Toodledo on a daily basis. I don't see how the current implementation would make any sense at all. If Tooodledo is going to break the way the website does it for this method, then I have a real big problem with that direction as well.

It seems that many of the additional functions added to Toodledo keep making the system less user friendly. It was bad enough to have hidden functions in the UI where you need to Hover and see a magical box of options that you would not otherwise know where there, but now I have to click 11 times to simply filter a list by 1 context?

Makes no sense.
Jake

Toodledo Founder
Posted: Jan 15, 2010
Score: 0 Reference
I hear you. I'll see what I can do.

But you have to admit that having a context filter (even with 11 clicks) is better than no context filter at all, so we are making progress. If it is too frustrating to use, please ignore this new feature until we have a chance to tweak it.
Claudio

Posted: Jan 15, 2010
Score: 0 Reference
Deleted post.

This message was edited Jan 15, 2010.
Proximo

Posted: Jan 15, 2010
Score: 0 Reference
Posted by Toodledo:
I hear you. I'll see what I can do.

But you have to admit that having a context filter (even with 11 clicks) is better than no context filter at all, so we are making progress. If it is too frustrating to use, please ignore this new feature until we have a chance to tweak it.


I do appreciate you and all the effort you put into Toodledo. I mentioned on one of my post above that I did not want to sound ungrateful because I am not. I would rather have the ability to filter than not any day of the week.

I was just expressing my point of view to see if it could potentially be improved using the single click idea.

So thank you again for all you do.

P.S. After working with the task badge that shows how many active task vs. filtered task, I have to say that I do like it.
bwheeler350

Posted: Jan 15, 2010
Score: 0 Reference
Posted by Toodledo:
I hear you. I'll see what I can do.

But you have to admit that having a context filter (even with 11 clicks) is better than no context filter at all, so we are making progress. If it is too frustrating to use, please ignore this new feature until we have a chance to tweak it.


Good progress and much appreciated. For an example of a common approach to filtering, look at Excel. That is an interface very familiar to hundreds of thousands of users across the world:

Autofilter applied to a range of values gives the user a set of drop down arrows for each column. The drop down provides a set of checkboxes for the user to indicate what to show (or hide). The checkboxes autopopulate as the distinct values found in the column. The user can select all (show all) with one click (displays as all boxes checked), or enable more selective filtering by clicking to select some. Then clicking a few of the many boxes sets the filter to just show the items that are checked and hide the rest that are unchecked. It also allows filtering for blanks, or by simple expressions (e.g. greater than, less than, top 10, ...). Users familiar with this convention find the current ToodleDo implementation inverted to expectation.

Eventually, it would be great to have that degree of flexibility in ToodleDo for all folders/contexts/goals/etc (all grouping categories), with ability to save sets of filters across various catgegories for easy re-use allowing user-defined names (like saved searches - yes, already on your to do list to expand this), best with some on-screen indicators indicating which filters have been applied, and ideally available both on the web page and iPhone.

Maybe that can be developed incrementally (if you can't just take care of it this weekend).


This message was edited Jan 15, 2010.
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