Sort of ;)
Things 0.9.3 brings dock badges, more compact Next and Today lists, 8 bug fixes, and a new “Cancelled” status for To Do items. While the latter is obviously a new feature, the deeper reason behind it, was to remedy a limitation in previous versions.
Previously, when a project that still contained incomplete items was checked off and eventually got moved to the Logbook, the incomplete items still remained in the Next or Today lists. While this is not entirely wrong, it is probably not what the user wanted. Either the user forgot to check off those items, in which case there should be a warning, or there was a deliberate decision to leave those items incomplete.
Of course, obsolete to-dos can always be deleted. But sometimes it is interesting to keep a record of tasks that were once considered interesting (by a client or co-worker for example), but got axed nonetheless. It is now possible to state that a task got cancelled by using the corresponding new menu command from the “Items” menu.
Also, if a user attempts to check off a project that contains incomplete items, there is warning dialog that lets the user choose whether the remaining items should be marked as completed or as cancelled.
We also introduced an option to show a dock badge. In Preferences you will find a new menu which allows you to select which count will be attached to Things’ dock icon.
Please consult the Release Notes for a full list of bug fixes.
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Great news – again!
Awesome, glad here things are continuing to progress.
Quick Q. Are we able to turn off the Dock Badge in prefs?
Great release as usual. Is there a keyboard or mouse shortcut for marking a task as “cancelled”?
Yay – just what I wanted! Thank you!
Thanks a lot… I am really happy to see that you are continuing to improve Things Desktop while working at Things Touch… I was afraid we wouldn’t see any more updates until you released the new baby.
It’s awesome to be wrong!
Awesome, I like the “mark as cancelled” feature – I see myself using that a lot (since I tend to have lots of bad ideas).
Great release. However, when you cancel an item, it still counts in the “Today” or “Due” counts.
e.g. I have two tasks to do today. I cancel one, I still have two tasks to do :)
Same as ZZamboni: Looking for a shortcut for “Cancelled”.
Besides a keyboard shortcut, how about Option-Click on the Check-Off box as a mouse shortcut?
I think the new option to mark a task as cancelled is redundant, because you could simply assign a tag
cancelledto a task and then check it off. This is what i have been doing so far. An advantage of a tagcancelledover the new “Cancelled” status is that the task can later be found in the Logbook.What’s the use of adding new options that can be solved with tags already? I don’t see the advantage here. All this new option seems to do is to make it easier for people not to use their brains to come up with tags instead.
This is what i would like to see improved: Copies of repeating tasks are not shown in their respective Areas when these copies are also Today items. Is this a bug or intentional? If it’s intentional, it certainly doesn’t make Areas more useful.
Here is another bug i’d like to see fixed (at least i have this issue in my Things and have reported it): When you drag a tag, that has a parent tag, to a new position under its parent, the change is not shown, until you quit and restart Things.
@Alexander Schneider
If you are happy with your approach (kind of which I use(d) myself as well) stay with it and just ignore the new option.
Now, once available, I myself definitely prefer the new “Cancelled” status because cancelled items stand out visually without being mixed up with checked-off items. Maybe I am even going to combine both options.
So, different people, different preferences. This has definitely nothing to do with people not using their brains but using their brains and eyes differently. ;-)
@Chris Palle, Sure.
@ZZamboni, @Helmar, there is no predefined keyboard shortcut, but the beautiful thing about Mac OS X is that you can easily assign shortcuts for any menu item. You can do so in System Preferences > Keyboard and Mouse. The Using Services FAQ article has an example. However, we just noted that we used the British spelling in the menu title. Since the rest of Things uses American English we might correct this. In that case you will have to change the shortcut setting as well.
@RodiX, what a silly oversight on our part…
@Alexander Schneider, we couldn’t reproduce any of the bugs you mentioned. Maybe there are more specific conditions that lead to them? I encourage you to write to us at things@… (see Feedback link at the very bottom of this page).
Any plans to implement the scheduling of individual actions inside projects? That’s an integral part of the GTD framework that has been missing from Thing for far too long…
In the “Scheduled” view, recurring tasks under Every Month are (apparently) listed by alphabetical order and I can’t change this. I’d much rather see them sorted by the day of the month they’re due.
In the “Today” view, dragging tasks around to change their order isn’t as elegant as it could be. A blue bar appears to tell me where the task will be inserted. I’d rather that the surrounding tasks move out of the way as I drag a task around, showing the gap where the insertion will happen when I release the mouse button.
@Helmar The whole point of tags is that you can organize your tasks in every conceivable way. This is what enables people in the first place to use “their brains and eyes differently”.
I didn’t write that people are not using their brains. Maybe it sounded that way. I wrote, in other words, that the new option takes your focus away from using tags.
It’s a bit ironic to make a cancelled task stand out visually, because cancelling usually means you discard something, and don’t want to deal with it anymore. Just my thoughts.
@Jürgen I have reported already through Things, and didn’t get a reply. I’ll email you some screenshots…
I hunted for five minutes for the cancelled option, which tells me that it’s either not in a logical place or I need to finish my morning coffee first. : )
I was looking for a cancelled switch/button/icon right next to the item to be cancelled. Going up to the dropdowns seems rather Windows-like, so it didn’t occur to me. I’d think it would be nice next to the Today/Not Today toggle icon. Thanks for the added functionality. It is useful, but I disagree with how it’s been implemented.
I posted this request in the forum as well, but wanted to mention it here.
It’d be great to have the ability to sync completed items from the Logbook via iCal as well – so that we’d have access to these finished tasks when searching etc. too.
I actually wish that the delete button did ‘cancel’… I have always felt it should behave that way. I like to see what other ideas I had, especially when it might become valid later on. You should consider this, IMO. Wouldn’t a button to remove all cancelled items, and add an option to hide cancelled items, provide the same functionality as ‘delete’?
Methinks too that we need a quicker way to access the cancelled function: the workaround via OSX system preferences is clumsy (eg. cannot define CTRL-Delete).
I reckon option-click for mouse fans would be great, and I support Luke’s idea of the delete key being the shortcut for cancelling.
Delete on active task > Cancelled
Delete on cancelled task > Trash
I’m probably using the app wrong, but having a bright red number in the dock was too off-putting for me – making me dread how much stuff I have to do! Thanks for the prefs option.
@Jürgen This is a bit of a selfish request, and might take more of your time than you can spare, but it would bring a little warmth to my day if Things could have a British English version at some stage :)
I like having the badge on the dock-reminds me that I have some priorities for the day and keeps me focused.
One of the things I liked about iGTD was the ability to quickly add (with a keystroke) an entire email, including addresses, into a to-do: just click on the email and hit F6, boom! the text and addresses were in a to-do. Is there any chance of this being implemented in THings in the future (perhaps even the function of linking directly back to the email in Mail)? My workaround has been to open a bunch of messages and leave them on my desktop until I answer them, but it clutters up my desktop so much (even using Spaces) that I’m looking for another option. I’d rather add them to a recurring project in “Today” that consists just of emails that need to be answered or that I don’t want to forget.
Thanks, and keep up the good work!
@Jürgen I would like to second Walafrid with this insular request, it would a nice touch if Things could be localised to have a British English version at some stage.
I have not been able to get any keyboard shortcuts, to work for Mark as Cancelled so far.
Very enjoyable to use.
You guys have been constantly improving Things from release to release and I applaud that. It’s already become an integral part of my planning after only a few weeks. I would, however, love to know when we will be able to schedule and “someday” tasks that are in projects. This feature is apparently requested so often it’s actually in your FAQ. With every new release it’s the first thing I (and I am sure others) look for in the change log. Will you be adding this ability before the 1.0 release? It would be really nice to get a status update on that. Aside from that, keep up the great work!
Awesome app . . . keep up the good work!
Now please just address the font-sizing issue??
Cheers!
Why is the Dock icon 10.5 only? Such icons have been around for ages.
@Vic, @Jerry, for 1.0 we indeed plan to add the scheduled and someday options for items in projects.
@Alexander Schneider, When you file a bug report through Things feedback dialog, you need to check the “I want a personal reply” option, if you’d like us to reply.
@Bonobo and others, we plan to provide a shortcut with the next release.
@Ross Hill, we feel this too. For the sake of simplicity we went with the standard badge appearance. But that is likely to change sometime down the road…
@sitta, you can already link to email messages in Things. You may want to look at the following FAQ article: How can I attach files to my to-dos?.
@Walafrid, @Malcom Rowe, we plan to localize Things to many different languages. Why not British English. However, it is most efficient to start the localization process only after the user interface is complete. If you like you can contact us after the 1.0 release with your suggestions. We will then add British English in an 1.0.x update.
@Greg Smith, A font size option is indeed on our list for 1.0.
@Spencer, because it was never that easy to implement :). For 1.0 we plan to do more custom stuff with the dock badge, and that will work on 10.4 too.
@Jürgen Thank you very much for your reply – that makes a lot of sense, and I’ll endeavour to get in touch when the 1.0 release is out. Thank you very much for your dedication!
Nice! Dock count seems to work with a replacement icon ;-)
Thanks for the “alt” click on the box as a shortcut for the strike-through text :).
@Jürgen Thank you for the reply your intended program of work makes perfect sense. It continues to astonish how you have time to put together such an elegant program, read and reply to emails the slip in users suggestions along the way “alt” click being a case in point. I look forward to the next tweek.
@Malcolm Rowe, risking to take away the mystery, but we are actually four people here working like crazy :).
The Dock count requiring 10.5 seems a bit odd.