New Feature: Inline Checklists
Got knocked off the air yesterday (internet can still be a bit flakey in Buenos Aires) so I decided to polish off an old idea that had been hanging on a branch on my local machine for awhile… inline checklists!
inline checklist
Notice that the notes area under the third task has a checklist. We’re calling them checklists instead of subtasks, as it really is just a checklist of things that I might want to tick off as part of completing a task. If I required the granularity of context filtering and due dates I might have creating a project with tasks under it, but in this case I just wanted a list of things I needed to consider… and there is something satisfying about checking things off as they are addressed.
Here’s how it works: Nirvana will convert any line in a task note that begins with a “- ” (hyphen space) and will replace it with a checkbox. Checked items will replace the “-” with an “x” in the notes, and that’s it.
- item one
- item two
- item three
If I were to check items 1 and 2, the task note will be updated as:
x item one
x item two
- item three
If you want to update the list, edit or move things around, click on the task name to bring up the edit dialog and make changes to the notes area.
And that’s all there is to it. Super simple.
Which Browser Are You?
Thought we’d share an interesting tidbit for those who find this sort of thing interesting…
Nirvana Visitors (year to date)
Working on fix for context menus
Wanted folks to know that we are actively working on a fix for the context menus (to the far right of each task) so that they actually work on IE8, and stop slowing things down on all other browsers.
For the technically inclined: the hierarchical menu jquery plugin currently in place works great if you only have a handful of tasks, but starts to really drag its feet as the number of tasks grows. Think we found an alternative that doesn’t exhibit this behavior. With any luck it won’t be too involved to swap out the old menus for the new.
UX Experimentation for Upcoming Features
Been working all weekend (yes, wife and son are out of town) on some engineering and UX challenges that have been holding up the works for Areas of Responsibility and Smart Lists. I’m quite happy with where things are going.
left navi - work in progress
Adding new features without cluttering up the interface (or confusing non-power users) is always a challenge, but I think this shows promise.
Email to Inbox, Daily Tickers, SSL
Just rolled out a bunch of long overdue updates to Nirvana tonight. Thanks to everyone on the discussion boards for holding our feet to the fire… it’s been a long time coming, but we’re finally back on a regular release schedule.
In the Account Settings dialog you’ll see a bunch of new options. Might we suggest you log in to your account and check them out?
the new account settings dialog
Profile Photo: We’re going with Gravatars. Will lend some nice eye-candy to some upcoming features.
Email Ticklers: Select the days you’d like Nirvana to send you an email with your daily todo list
New Tasks via Email: Each account comes with a unique (generated) email address. Send an email to it and Nirvana will create a new task in your Inbox with the contents of the email.
SSL: Any screens that have to do with your account (login, signup, the app itself) are now https encrypted.
On another note, we’ve had some internal discussion about how well we’re communicating (or not) with everyone in the beta community… and we’ve decided that we need to be “a little less Apple and a lot more Google.” Starting today we’re going to be a lot more vocal, release a lot earlier, and release more often. The perfectionists in us have kept our development pretty close to the chest thus far, but it’s probably better for everyone if we emoted a little more.
Spread the word.