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Introduction to Microsoft To-Do
- maaaats 9y agoI've never quite found a TODO-app I like. They are all too constrained. Kinda like using jira/trello instead of a physical board with post its. It limits the creativity. I use OneNote and just add things everywhere I feel like it. Different folders, pages and scattered across a single page. Full freedom, instead of a simple list.
- ckluis 9y agotry workflowy? It’s beyond awesome.
- breakingcups 9y agoI can second that.
- ckluis 9y agotry workflowy? It’s beyond awesome.
- feborges 9y agoDoes it have a public API?
- mpweiher 9y agoYes. More specifically, it uses the Exchange backend, which has several public APIs and is also supported by various vendors. So for example your to dos show up in Apple Reminders and in BusyCal. And of course in Outlook ;)
- alphadevx 9y agoLooks nice, and reassures me that if MS is spending money building a to-do app I wasn't so crazy after all for building my own :-) https://five.today/ https://five.today/
- dorian-graph 9y agoHave not people forever been building to-do apps, and will continue on doing so regardless of Microsoft and others? It's like a rite of passage.
- roryisok 9y agoWhen you learn a new language, invariably you'll find a tutorial for how to make a todo app. It's the next step up from hello world. I'm not immune from it. I'm making my third todo list app at the moment. Maybe all the options out there highlight the fact that there's no perfect combination of features for everyone - you'll always find one feature in app X which is not in ap Y or available on platform Z. In my case, I wanted an auto-sorting todo list app on Windows Phone (Listage, in case anyone is interested - though admittedly I don't even use it myself anymore).
- dorian-graph 9y ago> When you learn a new language, invariably you'll find a tutorial for how to make a todo app. It's the next step up from hello world. Very true—see: http://todomvc.com/ http://todomvc.com/ I agree, everyone has a slightly different style of working, myself included.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- welanes 9y agoDon't Microsoft own Wunderlist? My theory is that if you observe a large cluster of developers for long enough, todo apps simply manifest into being. None as good as Lanes though, https://lanes.io https://lanes.io. Obviously ;)
- owenwil 9y agoThis is built by the Wunderlist people, and that's now dead :(
- welanes 9y agoFor real? Wow, that's super lame (he says, while frantically beginning to code an 'import-from-Wunderlist' feature).
- H4CK3RM4N 9y agoI think Microsoft released one for this new thing. I'm not sure if it's cross compatible.
- garretraziel 9y agoMicrosoft's To-Do lets you import from Wunderlist.
- blahblah12 9y agoDude this decision was by the Wunderlist team, they're all still at the company.
- timlyo 9y agoTrying out lanes now. It looks really nice, but how limited the basic version is is a killer for me, especially when there are so many alternatives.
- welanes 9y agoHey, maybe we can fix this. What in the basic version would you like to see?
- owenwil 9y agoRIP Wunderlist, a shame they've decided to sacrifice a product with a good loyal following and brand for their own branded one, but alas. :(
- blahblah12 9y agoIt's the same exact ppl working on it. The CTO now runs a ton of teams at MSFT. They just cloned the app with a different backend and a few new features. The only thing that changes is the brand. It's like accompli. https://www.linkedin.com/in/fowlerchad/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/fowlerchad/ - runs a ton of things now Christian is an EIR - https://www.linkedin.com/in/christianreber/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/christianreber/ The rest of the accompli and sunrise teams are around, too.
- gorbachev 9y ago"The only thing that changes is the brand" That's not quite true. Microsoft To-Do doesn't implement nearly the same set of features than Wunderlist does.
- mrmondo 9y agoHowdy, Is the source available somewhere we can inspect it?
- mrmondo 9y agoSorry if I was somehow disrespectful - I'm unsure how my question warranted a downvote, I'm quite genuinely interested why - so happy for critical feedback.
- roryisok 9y agoSince we're talking about todos, I built a screensaver todo list the other day, and it has helped me a lot. my main issue with todo lists was that I forget to look at them. Once I'm at my desk I get my head stuck in work and forget to call dave or email chris or whatever. So I built a screensaver, set to 1 minute delay, which displays my todo list. It simply reads a text file from dropbox with some UTf8 icons at the start of each line. Every time I go for tea or take a toilet break its the first thing I see when I get back. I wish I'd done it years ago
- amorphid 9y agoA screen saver todo is a good idea! Is it open source? Care to share it? Heh, asking if the code is open source in this context feels like panhandling :)
- roryisok 9y agoYeah, I can open source it. I'll reply back shortly UPDATE: Here it is! https://github.com/roryok/todoscreensaver https://github.com/roryok/todoscreensaver (uses WPF/.NET, GPL, based on a WaveSimScreensaver source by Sean Sexton) Planning a few updates already, mostly just extra settings (change font size, theme etc)
- amorphid 9y agoThanks!
- cuchoi 9y agoThanks! Do you know if it is possible to implement this in OSX?
- roryisok 9y agoDon't see why not? It's just a screensaver that opens a text file EDIT: found this blog entry on creating OSX screensavers in Swift if anyone wants to give it a go https://whichline.wordpress.com/2015/07/13/os-x-screensaver-swift-2-part-1/ https://whichline.wordpress.com/2015/07/13/os-x-screensaver-...
- manigandham 9y agoA simple text file has always been far faster and more useful to me than any of these to-do apps. Lately it's migrated to a text file on dropbox, or using google docs or box notes for cloud sync. There's also TaskPaper which is nice but only on Mac https://www.taskpaper.com/ https://www.taskpaper.com/
- davejamesmiller 9y agoThere is TodoPaper, which seems to be a clone of TaskPaper for Windows. http://widefido.com/products/todopaper/ http://widefido.com/products/todopaper/
- Pxtl 9y agoI've been using Google Keep - it has a list of checkboxes for this, they hide when checked. The upside is that you can drag-drop reorder then and you can add to the list from voice on the homescreen ("okay Google add book my vacation time to the Todo list"). But it fails one power of plain text rule - I can't copy and paste into and out of it. Sucks when I want to send snippets of my shopping list to my wife over sms.
- manigandham 9y agoI do use Keep for notes. For todo's though, the web UI is nice but too slow and annoying to use. Nothing is faster than a text file.
- dragly 9y agoIf you want to quickly add new tasks to your todo.txt from the command line, I strongly recommend http://todotxt.com/ http://todotxt.com/ It is a fantastically lightweight solution and has an Android app for those times when you are not in front of a computer. The Android app just reads/writes to the same todo.txt file over Dropbox.
- partycoder 9y agoMy todo app of choice is asana (http://asana.com http://asana.com). You can start from a simple todo list... but each task can have sub-tasks, dates, attachments, etc. Meaning that you can add hierarchy and additional information if you need it. It also has mobile apps, at least for iOS and Android.
- samdoidge 9y agoI switched to Trello from Wunderlist a long time ago - The syncing was much faster, and the usability is brilliant. Creating new lists to work use a new system (currently 4 quadrant matrix) makes it very flexible.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- problems 9y agoOne of my biggest asks from todo apps like this is that my todos be kept private. I need encrypted sync so that the authors can't just go and read them... so I'm basically left with todotxt and emacs org-mode as options and then using SyncThing to get todos to my server. Not that those are poor or anything, org-mode is probably the richest tool around, just that I lose out on a lot of nice UI to get it.
- lootsauce 9y agoI must be dense or something but never in my life have I ever found todo apps useful. Note taking apps, yes. The odd shopping list on the back of an envelope, sure. The odd text document now and then while I work, sometimes. But taking time out to make a list of things to check off and then going back and checking them off. Sorry I have better things to do, and no I have not made a list.
- ohitsdom 9y agoI used to love to-do apps and use them often, but after becoming a Google Inbox user I'll have a hard time switching. Having all action items in one place that are snoozeable to a specific time is huge for me.
- lighttower 9y agoThe requirement that Wunderlist never met is the ability to VERY QUICKLY from ANY screen add a to-do without CONTEXT SWITCHING. Todoist was the only one that provided this 3 years ago with a sticky notification in Android. I was a paid user for 1 out of 3 years (not currently paying). I would pay if the price was closer to the LastPass pro price, $1 per month, $12 per year
- WorldMaker 9y agoI used the Cortana integration with Wunderlist for that. (It was Cortana that suggested Wunderlist in the first place.) If there is one thing that the speech recognition assistants can do very well, it's be a thing I can yell TODO items at and have track for me.
- MrVitaliy 9y agoMy Documents, My Downloads, My Computer... and now My Day.
- joelbugarini 9y agoExcellent! But being a Microsoft Launch, I would expect a Windows Phone version!
- russellbeattie 9y agoTo do lists need less "simplicity" and more artifical intelligence. Imagine that you were jotting down things to do for a personal assistant to organize and clarify for you. * Text entry should be free form. I want to scribble a note to myself, or mumble something into my phone as it crosses my mind - I'm ADD, any step, however minute, between the thought crossing my mind and being recorded risks it being lost forever. * Repeated tasks should be noticed and auto entered (always go food shopping, and do laundry on Sunday?) * Tasks should be grouped automatically. Lots of "buy this" or "pick up that" and "meet there" can be organized pretty easily. * Things to remember are different from tasks. I have to go food shopping - that's a task. Each item in that shopping list isn't a separate task. * Tasks don't live by themselves. Phone numbers, email addresses, directions, instructions all need to be recorded, used and not lost because that tasks was marked as complete. * Some to do items are never complete: Exercise, regular checkups, eating right, going to sleep on time. Your personal assistant would remind you about these things. * Automatically breakdown to-dos into steps. You write down, "get coffee filters", your task assistant adds in "open Amazon.com, log in, search for coffee filters, hit buy now." * Reminders and alerts and other ways of getting in your face is the principal 80% of tasks. Writing it down is simple and easy. Actually remembering, then doing the tasks suck. * Done lists are great as well - don't just hide tasks once they're done, show a daily list of things accomplished. Get a seinfeldesque checkbox for completing all your tasks.
- roryisok 9y agoI built a list app with some of those features, but I ended up favouring simpler things. Although I would love a smarter shopping list that tracks my purchasing patterns and makes suggestions based on what it thinks I'm likely to need
- throwaway18917 9y agoWhy complicate to-do lists even more, though? As soon as you try to make them smart, you risk them doing something you didn't want, and then having to manually fix it, which is irritating. If I want a repeated task, I'll set up a recurring calendar event/task for it. If I want to group tasks in a certain way, I can do it myself. And if I have to get coffee filters, I don't need four separate steps to tell me how to get coffee filters. What about a simple notebook?
- rewrew 9y agoI've found that nothing works for me like a written list -- it's the act of writing out the to-do that helps me remember it for some reason (I usually don't have to look at it again if I've written it, but I won't remember if I've typed it -- I've tried a bunch of different formats). Plus I take a weird pleasure in manually crossing items off.