Really enjoying the gain in my productivity with GtdNext. Thanks to the developers.
As I grow more into it, i am coming across a few issues with usability, but somehow managing to find my way around them. Hopefully James and his team can help this amazing template evolve into a powerful and successful tool that we all crave for.
For now i am unable to find a way to easily release Actions from Projects. Am i missing something?
I try and drag an Action out of a project into the ‘Projects and Actions’ outline to make it an independent Action but it keeps rolling back!?!
Help.
Maybe having an option in the Panel where you can select Projects (and ‘None’) might help?
HI Vermnium - Thank you very much for the kind words! We are working very hard to make GTDNext better and better!
Drag and drop does need to get smoother. In the mean time, you can also use the keyboard to remove an action from a project. Just put your cursor at the start of the action and hit SHIFT+TAB - this will outdent (opposite of indent???) the action and remove if from the project.
Hope that helps and thanks for using GTDNext!
EDIT: Today we released updated drag and drop! Check it out!
Now, don’t tell me this new update was in response to my Question!?! A one day turnaround?
Ha I’m guessing it was a nice coincidence:)
Thanks anyway. That really makes a huge difference.
I know you probably have alot on your plate, but i have to mention one usability improvement that is quite important to me.
Everytime i click on any Project or Action (on the side bar), Area (on the top) or Tags (on the top), by default i would prefer to see results that are exclusive to that selection (refreshing with every selection). At the moment filtering is adding up (unless i deselect first). I think instead, we could use Alt key for multiple selection filtering.
Also, related to this, is the fact that the filter settings are persistent across screens (e.g. if you move from Next to P&A etc). This is a very nice feature to have, especially if you have engaged multiple filters, but I think that here, too, it would be better to have this as an option, say, a “freeze filters” toggle, rather than as the default behavior.
And finally, also related, I miss the “invert” switch for tags that we have for Areas. In effect, this would be a very powerful exclusion filter, allowing us to prune all “temporarily unsuitable” tasks from our next actions list
Fair point James.
But can i pt a couple of quick arguments in favour of executing filters exclusive to the selection?
First, when i use Areas and tags to categorize Actions, its really important i think, to be able to quickly see only the Actions under a selected category. So jumping from one Area (which i see as the role i need to play or the hat I need to wear for that category of Actions: Work, Fitness, Home) to another is really handy. Same with tags: Phone, errands, computer. So, i think in majority of cases, selecting between Projects,tags or Areas would be to separate out Actions within, rather than combine. Of course you can always ctrl+ select to see the combined results. Am i right in that? Please let me know if your experience is different.
Secondly, the fact that at present you need to click on the selection a second time to deselect it is, in my opinion, slowing down workflow and reducing productivity. Instead, with what I’m arguing for, deselection happens automatically as you make another selection which doubles the speed of your browsing. Specially in case you have four out five selections, where at the moment you have to go back to each one individually to clear them.
WhatDoYouThink?
Thanks.
Count me as another vote for the default being that clicking on a tag deselects the other tags. That’s usually what I want. A clear all tags button might be another option.
But I do agree that it would be nice if users could do either. I like the alt (or shift) click idea @Vermanium suggested. Another idea would be to use an approach similar to how you choose tools in some drawing programs or the shift key in the iOS keyboard. If you click once, it is selected, and will be deselected if you click on another tag. If you want the tag selection to “stick” you double click on it.
How about a toggle button on the top left for ‘Filtering Mode’? Toggling between ‘Multi selection’ and ‘Single selection’. That would surely cater to everyone’s need isn’t it?
Anyway, hope you get some time to think about it James.
I agree with the majority here. I think it is good if people find it easy to understand. Most other apps (e.g. Nirvana, Zendone, Doit …) follow the suggested principle that a regular “naked” click deselects previously depressed tags, whereas a meta key-click (ctrl-click, shift-click, alt-click etc) will usually produce either an AND filtering or an OR filtering. I prefer OR filtering, which is what we have in GTDNext now, but I would think it even better if all three forms were implemented, e.g.: ctrl-click for AND, shift-click for OR and alt-click for NOT. For me, NOT would be the most useful of these, and AND the least useful, but all have their good uses.
