Feature request: Click *anywhere* on line to change sort orders

idea implemented
#1

Hi

Here is a simple feature request for mainly for new users of GTDNext:

The drag&drop changing of sort orders needs to be made much easier & more intuitive! I suggest that the user should be able to click almost anywhere on any given line in order to change sort orders.

The only possible exception being should be that if you click on the actual text itself you should be able to go straight into text editing mode. This is how the excellent MLO (My Life Organised - on Windows) works.

On GTDNext you can only drag and drop if you click on the small icon on the left. But:
A) If you are a new user you may not find this (and just leave)
B) Even advanced users are still required to click on what is still only a very small target (!)

If this request is technically difficult, then I suggest using double-clicking to select the line ready to be moved.

BACKGROUND
After a LOT of research, I recently been living on GTDNext for about 3 weeks, but I am now living mostly on MLO (My Life Organised) at present.

MLO is both extremely mature and extremely powerful and I think GTDNext can learn a lot from it!

In this case, drag & drop on MLO (on Windows) is much more intuitive than on GTDNext because the user just needs to click anywhere on the line in order to select it for moving. The only exception to this rule is that if the user clicks on the text itself it then goes into text edit mode. (On MLO with the line selected hitting F2 gets you to edit the text, if that’s what you really want to do. - this is also useful.)

However before everyone here charges off to MLO, I should explain that although MLO is absolutely brilliant in a large number of ways, (including it does have an Andriod App - albeit only a rather basic one) MLO does have it’s own problems.

The deep problem with MLO is that it is more of a highly-configurable productivity ‘platform’ than and a ready-to-use productivity ‘application’. i.e. MLO users can design their own system in multiple different ways. The down-side of this is that it is exceedinglyconfusing & fiddly for new users. i.e. MLO is great for Early Adopters and geeks, but is almost un-usable by Mainstream users!

Also another deep problem is MLO doesn’t seem to have a field for Areas. (And if you like to work in areas, then you are forced on MLO to do a lot of messing about with tags. This is extremely painful to set up on MLO, particularly if you want to be able to do area filtering by single clicks like you can in GTDNext!).

So I am keeping an eye on GTDNext because eventually I would like to move back here when GTDNext is a bit more mature. :smile:

J

#2

I agree that MLO is difficult to set up. I tried and failed. I actually believe that it was not even possible to get what I wanted - well, I did try very hard, at any rate.

But I am not sure that the absence of Areas needs to be a problem. MLO has unlimited hierarchical levels, which means you can use the top level(s) for 20 k and 30 k Areas and 30 k Goals and Objectives. I cannot remember the exact functionality beyond that, but I assume you can look at just one of those trees (a given “sector” of your life) if you like.

Glad to hear you are getting somewhere in your search.

#3

Excellent Idea. In fact we like it so much that we did it today! (About 5 hours after you suggested it)

Check out 1.0.6.9 and you will notice that you can now drag and drop items from anywhere (except the text area).

One of the advantages GTDNext has over downloadable products like MLO is that we are able to make updates and deliver them at a much faster rate. Plus, we tend to listen and value our customer base. So, indeed, I encourage people continue to use GTDNext. It’s just going to get better and better.

2 Likes
#4

Excellent. Nice work !

To be rather brutal however, having lived in MLO for few weeks now, the very slight delay that you (inevitably?) get on a web interface is definitely slightly irritating… Nonetheless this is HUGE improvement to the UI, IMO. Btw, is there a hotkey way to change sort orders? (i.e. equivalent to Shift/Alt/arrow in MLO and I think Workflowy.)

EDIT: I take the speed issue back. It think my PC was busy doing stuff. OK I’ll settle for the web interface is sometimes a fraction slow - something that to be fair has never happened to me in MLO.

#5

[quote=“ship69, post:4, topic:383”]
Excellent. Nice work !
[/quote] Thanks!

There are some trade-offs between a downloadable app and a web-app. No question about that! But as you’ve seen, it really shouldn’t affect your drag and drop speeds. Glad you like it. No hot-key yet, but we will at some point. Mostly heads down on some other dev work right now.

#6

Absolutely CRUCIAL !

You probably wont like this (and some of your users will scream but) I think the best hotkeys to use for this would be Shift/Alt/[arrow-key] as used by WorkFlowy and MLO.

And fwiw, I do strongly recommend you allow all four arrow keys to work in the intuitive and what is seems to be becoming the standard way. i.e. Shift/Alt/ plus Up; Down; Left; Right arrows need to move the item up one, down one, become more childlike, become more adult-like… i.e. as happens in both MLO and WorkFlowy!

(One way around you users squealing would be to allow your users to configure their keys. This would provide a fix for you “early adopter” users. But be aware that mainstream users simply will NOT put up with any ‘stupid’ need to configure things. Most of them will try all the standard things and then bail out if the basics aren’t intuitive & obvious.)

Trying to help

#7

I’m not necessarily against using these keys. In general I like the keys that workflowy has picked.

Appreciate it always. Thanks!

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