ForumsNewsToodledo 2017 - The Year in Review
Toodledo 2017 - The Year in Review
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Jake Toodledo Founder |
Happy New Years from Toodledo!
In 2016, we re-designed and re-engineered the entire website to work better across all types of screens (desktop and mobile). This was a major undertaking, but with more and more of our visitors using Toodledo on mobile screens, this was vitally important. It turns out that this was too big of a project to fit entirely in 2016, so one of our main goals of 2017 was to finish this project, monitor it, and optimize it. This means that 2017 wasn't as flashy as previous years, but it was all important work. Here is a short explanation of what we worked on in 2017: Tasks The brand new version of the Tasks section was released in March. It was the result of more than a year of effort, starting from scratch and re-engineering the entire thing using the latest technology. It works equally well on desktop and mobile screens and it works offline too! So, for a lot of people, they wont even need to use a app - the website will work just fine. We spent the remainder of the year continuously improving this new section: listening to feedback, making small changes, fixing bugs, optimizing syncing, optimizing loading, testing, etc. We are very happy with the result. We know that, as a customer, this isn't a super exciting change, because the new Tasks section mostly works the same as the old Tasks section, so it appears that we didn't do much this year. I assure you, that it was a big effort and in the long run, I believe that this was the right move for Toodledo. The old Tasks section was getting a little long in the tooth and hard to maintain with 12 years worth of old code. Many of you still prefer the old Tasks section because it is familiar. We respect that, which is why we haven't forced the new section on anyone. We are going to continue to improve the new Tasks section with the hopes that more people will switch over to using it full time. Notes In 2016 we completely re-engineered the Notes section to work on mobile screens and work offline. Most of this year was spent fixing bugs related to this, and optimizing things to make it work better. We also began work on WYSIWYG or Rich Text editing of notes, but this isn't ready for release yet. It turns out this is really hard to do, which is why you dont see it too often on websites. iOS app Im not going to beat around the bush here. The iOS app is in a bad state. The Toodledo iOS app was first written for iOS 2.0 back in 2008 (10 years ago!) and it has been updated continuously for a decade. Apple is very agressive with their iOS updates, often requiring that an app make major changes to work on the new phone or operating system. Over the years, all these changes on top of changes, upgrading from iOS 2 all the way to iOS 10 have caused our app to take on a lot of "technical debt". So in 2016 we threw out the old code and started over with a clean slate. The work on a new version of Toodledo for iOS continues today, albeit slower than we all would like. In the meantime, our new mobile/offline friendly website will work great for anyone who cant handle our aging iOS app. Android App With more and more of our users coming from Android, we spent a lot of effort this year on improving our Android app. Here are some highlights: + Reassigning tasks to a collaborator is now possible + Subtasks are now displayed inside the parent task + You can now edit a goal's level and archived goals are now hidden + The timer field is now editable and can be started/stopped in the app + Added context and tag filters + Dividers now show the number of tasks inside, and can be collapsed/expanded + Improved how links and HTML formated notes are displayed + Improved how tags are edited + Added an app shortcut (tap and hold app icon on Android 7.1+) + Improved the search feature to search notes as well as task titles + Improved syncing and a number of other smaller things Overall + We improved security by forcing SSL encryption for all connections. It is no longer possible to use Toodledo without encryption. This was a big effort that happened behind the scenes, but it was important. + Improved importing of tasks from other places + Completely redesigned the homepage to be nicer and communicate Toodledo's features better. + Added the option to purchase a subscription that automatically renews monthly, for people who dont want to have to remember to manually renew their subscription every year. Reliability We were able to maintain an uptime record of greater than 99.9% for the year. Conclusion All of the above is just the highlights. We made hundreds of other smaller improvements and fixes across all aspects of our product. We know that our communication in 2017 was not as prolific as it has been in previous years. This was mainly because most of our work was in behind-the-scenes stuff that had nothing to communicate. We also could have done a better job at communication. However, another thing to keep in mind is that Toodledo has been around for over a decade. It's a pretty mature product by now. The velocity of improvements to Toodledo cannot be expected to remain as it was in its earlier years. Personally, I believe that we made some mistakes with adding some features to Toodledo and ended up with a somewhat complex and cluttered experience. We are trying to be more careful with new functionality that we add to Toodledo in the future. We want to make sure that it really is important functionality that makes most people's experience better, and isn't just adding stuff for the sake of adding stuff. Our main goal going forwards is to make sure that Toodledo works reliably across as many platforms as possible and continues to be a powerful and useful tool to help people stay organized and productive. We appreciate all the support and suggestions that we have received from everyone. Thanks to everyone for making Toodledo a success. Happy New Year! PS. Please use promo code "newyear18" at checkout to get 10% off a subscription or renewal for you and your friends. |
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dsunde |
Thanks for posting this. Just the other day I was wondering what was going on there and why we haven't seen any updates or blog posts for more than half a year. It is good to see an update so we don't worry that the product has been abandoned.
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Xxx_2 |
I think in the same way: I was actually afraid that the product development had been abandoned, but with Jake's enlightening post above, I was very excited and confident that the program I chose to manage a large part of my activities is in the right way. I was in the last year increasingly transferring to Toodledo tasks that were in other apps (eg shopping list, workflow of my tasks in photographic work and others), to benefit from the centralized use of a single app to manage all of them, in a good product, stable, with data backup, etc ... and it was essential to me know that this product is being worked and accompanied by the Toodledo team. Thanks for the "year in review"!
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David Longstaff |
Hi,
I have been aware of Toodledo for many years and used it for a couple of years around 2010. I'm a productivity trainer in the UK and Toodledo has been included in my list of recommended apps since I started delivering the course in 2009. Every year I make a point of switching tools just to freshen up my system and keep me in the loop with advancements. So for this year, I've returned to Toodledo and I have to say I like the new app. It has the same familiar feel but some nice fresh features. Well done - keep up the good work! Regards David Longstaff Positive People |
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SABiltongHunter |
Thanks Jake, maybe I missed something but when you say mobile/offline website for iOS, what exactly are you referring to?
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Jake Toodledo Founder |
Posted by kuduboet:
Thanks Jake, maybe I missed something but when you say mobile/offline website for iOS, what exactly are you referring to? Im referring to the entire website, which will now work on a mobile screen just fine. The only exception is that the "Classic Tasks Section" will not work on mobile screens. You'll need to use the "New Tasks Section" in a mobile web browser. The URL for this is https://tasks.toodledo.com and you can set this to be the default in your account settings if you want to go here all the time after login. |
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sergeev.maxim |
Website on iOS is not correct solution. What's about offline mode?
Yes, i read first post, but can't understand :) do you have a plan to develop iOS app? When? I'm gold-user several years and i want to use the app on my iPhoneX. Right now it's really bad. And to be honest i forced to review another apps ((( Thanks for toodledo! This message was edited Jan 10, 2018. |
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shelbyp |
Posted by sergeev.maxim:
Website on iOS is not correct solution. What's about offline mode? Yes, i read first post, but can't understand :) do you have a plan to develop iOS app? When? I'm gold-user several years and i want to use the app on my iPhoneX. Right now it's really bad. And to be honest i forced to review another apps ((( Thanks for toodledo! I have been thinking a bit about app/offline mode/mobile website (I am a senior developer). Here are my thoughts: 1. when I started using TD years ago, offline was very important for me, now it is irrelevant, the cost of 4G-5G is small, so unless you spend most of your time on an airplane, offline is not that important and it seems to be the general direction of the software, since things are moving to the cloud extremely fast (Microsoft OneDrive, Sharepoint adn Office 365 are good examples). Does TD still need a complete offline offering which is a costly dev effort? Personally I would prefer to see efforts invested elsewhere. 2. Mobile Website, I am wondering if TD's strategy may be to move away from apps and just have the website on all platforms, much easier to maintain from a coding point of view. Given today's technology there is very little that can be done in an app and not in a website. Apps are usually needed for complex games, you can probably have most or all of TD in a website. |
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Olivir 2017 |
Posted by shelbyp:
Posted by sergeev.maxim: I have been thinking a bit about app/offline mode/mobile website (I am a senior developer). Here are my thoughts: 1. when I started using TD years ago, offline was very important for me, now it is irrelevant, the cost of 4G-5G is small, so unless you spend most of your time on an airplane, offline is not that important and it seems to be the general direction of the software, since things are moving to the cloud extremely fast (Microsoft OneDrive, Sharepoint adn Office 365 are good examples). Does TD still need a complete offline offering which is a costly dev effort? Personally I would prefer to see efforts invested elsewhere. 2. Mobile Website, I am wondering if TD's strategy may be to move away from apps and just have the website on all platforms, much easier to maintain from a coding point of view. Given today's technology there is very little that can be done in an app and not in a website. Apps are usually needed for complex games, you can probably have most or all of TD in a website. My battery life is important to me and mobile data on means too much of an impact on it, especially because I travel every day with quite some sections without a signal, so the unconnecting/reconnecting is even more stressfull. And offline mode for a website on iOS is still not usable for me, because when I really want to add something to Toodledo, it always bugges me that internet connection is not available:-( - therefore I still have to use standalone app |
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jbpontzer |
I like the web interface although I run into several problems.
1) In the morning, I like review all of my tasks. When I make an update to a task, the list refreshes to the top so I have to re-scroll through the tasks. 2) The website goes to desktop mode on a iPad so it is too wide. 3) if you have a long title, you cannot scroll into the text to make changes. Also I do spend a fair amount of time on airplanes working or I’m in a location with a bad connection so working off line is important. I often need to use the app because of the above items. This message was edited Jan 15, 2018. |
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sergeev.maxim |
The app mustn't duplicate all function TD (habits, lists and so on). But you should to do basic GTD functions:
— simple add task to inbox-folder (many many ways, very very simple, user-friendly, and very speedy) -- it's main function :)). It's posible only if app indepented of the internet and worked like standalone app; — user-friendly task-list for viewing (folders, stars, find) and tick boxes; I think ... it's all. Everything else is ok in web. sorry for my english |
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Maniac8888 |
Posted by shelbyp:
Posted by sergeev.maxim: Website on iOS is not correct solution. What's about offline mode? Yes, i read first post, but can't understand :) do you have a plan to develop iOS app? When? I'm gold-user several years and i want to use the app on my iPhoneX. Right now it's really bad. And to be honest i forced to review another apps ((( Thanks for toodledo! I have been thinking a bit about app/offline mode/mobile website (I am a senior developer). Here are my thoughts: 1. when I started using TD years ago, offline was very important for me, now it is irrelevant, the cost of 4G-5G is small, so unless you spend most of your time on an airplane, offline is not that important and it seems to be the general direction of the software, since things are moving to the cloud extremely fast (Microsoft OneDrive, Sharepoint adn Office 365 are good examples). Does TD still need a complete offline offering which is a costly dev effort? Personally I would prefer to see efforts invested elsewhere. 2. Mobile Website, I am wondering if TD's strategy may be to move away from apps and just have the website on all platforms, much easier to maintain from a coding point of view. Given today's technology there is very little that can be done in an app and not in a website. Apps are usually needed for complex games, you can probably have most or all of TD in a website. A lot of people just don't have Internet access all of the time. I spend most of my day in an area without Internet access (In a 3rd world country, no less) and a stand-alone app is mandatory for me. Most of my interaction with TD is in this environment. For all I care, everything can sync when I get back to my office that has Internet access. Not everyone has Internet 24/7. |
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boydston01 |
Yeah, I strongly prefer a good dedicated/native app over a good web app!
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christopher_fairbanks |
Posted: Mar 21, 2018
Score: 1
Reference
Any update on the new IOS app? We really need collaboration features in it. It’s been way to many years that this has been lagging. Please please get this done soon. Thanks
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Ummagumma |
Posted by christopher_fairbanks:
Any update on the new IOS app? We really need collaboration features in it. It’s been way to many years that this has been lagging. Please please get this done soon. Thanks Count me in, too. I love Toodledo and really want to get back into using it, but it seems that for every step forward, there's two steps backward. I have pretty much given up on ever being able to sync Toodledo with Outlook. OK, let's move on. There's simply no good way to have Toodledo work well on iOS. For me, "working well" means supporting core functionality, reliable background sync, and well featured widget (having to start the app every time just to glance at my daily workload isn't useful). 2Do could be a perfect Toodledo client but it seems the two developers still can't get together and figure out how to make it background-sync to Toodledo reliably. To this day, it has to be done manually, which is unacceptable. Toodledo's own mobile client is stuck in stone age and the widget is honestly pretty useless at the moment. I could probably live with the current client if I could have a real workable widget that is user-configurable and shows due dates, stars, priorities and folders or tags for every task. With a readable font. Any other suggestions ? |
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alexandremrj_2 |
This task manager has a lot of potential and we are going ipad only, and we might like it or not but a good website does not replace a good iOS app, we are still not there
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GSP1963 |
Just a quick post here to give the people at Toodledo a bit of customer feedback.
I just returned to Toodledo after using another app for over a year. I have been using Toodledo off-and-on--mostly on--for 15 years, by my best estimate. Before returning to Toodledo recently, I evaluated about a dozen task manager options. Observations: 1. The single greatest thing about Toodledo is its superb customizable view and reports. Nothing comes close. It's like the Erector Set of todo apps: with the options in selecting fields, the order of presenting those fields, the customizable searches, you can pretty much build anything you want. This is the essence of Toodledo, frankly, and I think you folks need to beat that point home relentlessly. You will never win a contest for being pretty, being a "life manager," or being trendy and hip. What Toodledo does is it gets the work done like nothing else. Need a report that shows all tasks done for a certain project exactly X days ago and excluding trivial (-1) tasks? Toodledo can do it. Oh, and you want to sort by Priority first, print a copy, then sort by date, and print another copy? No problem. 2. The aging and unacceptable Toodledo iOS app was almost a deal-breaker for me. I imagine that this weak spot takes Toodledo off the list of options for many. It doesn't match the website design, it doesn't use the full iPhone X screen, and it looks very dated. In the end, I followed advice I'd seen on here and tried the website on my phone and found that worked well enough for my uses. For serious task work, I use my desktop PC; for me, all I really need from the phone is a lightweight reminder of what's on the agenda. I use stars to indicate tasks for the current day, and the website on my phone handles that well. I'm glad I got past the iOS app hurdle; I'm sure many don't. 3. I agree with recent comments by Jake that the added bells and whistles added to the app are uncertain in terms of being a plus or a minus. Notes are certainly useful. But Outlines, Lists, and--especially--Habits? There are other apps that handle those things much better and I worry that in trying to present itself as a Swiss Army knife, so to speak, focus is being taken away from Toodledo's incomparable tasks views and reporting. Toodledo can't compete with the many excellent habit-building apps out there and it puts itself at a disadvantage, in my opinion, to encourage evaluators to judge it in that area. I could be wrong. I can certainly appreciate the logic in trying to make Toodledo a comprehensive organizing solution; I'm just not sure it's the right approach. That's it. I hope this has been helpful. Thank you all for continuing to develop and maintain Toodledo. |
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Ummagumma |
>2. The aging and unacceptable Toodledo iOS app was almost a deal-breaker for me.
This is what keeps me leaving Toodledo. It's a fantastic service which is unfortunately only working well on the web. I am currently back to 2Do, and it has areas in which it's superior to Toodledo, mainly the ease of use when it comes to advance filtering. It could be a perfect companion to Toodledo, except that it doesn't background sync with it. The 2Do developer blames Toodledo and Jake says it's the other guy. I don't really care who's right (I tend to trust Jake) but the bottom line is, I need background sync and I end up giving up Toodledo yet again, and syncing with Reminders. I use mobile devices far more often than desktop, and the Toodledo app on mobile is, to be blunt, almost useless. Oh, and I may be wrong, but I don't believe it background syncs either.. Another problem is the lack of sync to Outlook. This message was edited May 07, 2018. |
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GSP1963 |
@Ummagumma: Interesting. 2Do is one of the few task managers I haven't evaluated. What is "advance filtering"?
I'm really happy with Toodledo on my desktop and I'm glad I've returned to it. The flexibility and power are just wonderful. I'm in IT, though, so I tend to value those things and don't mind (enjoy, even) working on custom searches. I worry that flashier, easier-to-use apps will eventually steal enough customers away from Toodledo that it will stop being supported. I sure hope that never happens. Based on your comments and my own recent experience, the sooner the Toodledo staff can release a new iOS app, the better. |
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shawn.buckley |
Nice to read some updated comments. I've been using Toodledo for about 5 years steady. I agree with comments from GSP and Umma, to a point. I don't personally find the iOS app to be terrible, and I've been pretty picky in my choice of apps. The only thing I've found that it can't do is allow me to sort my various views / searches independently like you can on the desktop. Sure, I can't create new searches on the app, but I prefer to do that on the desktop anyway. Now, I'm not saying the app couldn't use a refresh. I'd like to see some sort of review process added - something that might be invoked from any view. It might, for example, call up each task form the view, one at a time, and provide short cuts to "defer 1d, 2d, 3d, 1w, etc. and/or change folder, context, or status (user configurable) at a quick push of the button. The user might then hit a "Next" button to automatically save changes and call up the next task in the list...
I certainly agree that (and in my opinion) Toodledo should just focus on the Tasks side - I personally have no use for the other sections (habits, etc.) I also agree that Toodledo is just SO flexible, it really can't be beat. |
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