Task Notes Formatting (bold, ital, color, etc.)

[Eric Young]

I have been demo'ing MLO and decided to buy it.  I think the product is amazing.  Will MLO ever support formatting of task notes? This would make projects with various steps that have extensive notes much simpler and easier on the eyes...

[Holmes245]

I totally hear you on that Eric. I think it's referred to ask Rich Text note. Including this would make some tasks that I don't necessarily need sub tasks for (which would be over kill) great to use. For example, I have a couple "self studies" that I do and would like to include a bullet list of chapters to read in a book and set it to reoccur on days I need to study. Having the ability to do this and then just use a cross out feature to cross the list off in the notes area would be great. I've seen a lot of software incorporate this and in a sense, out perform MLO in this area. I personally think that MLO needs to advance in this area.

[Mark Levison]

This another frequent request who's complexity needs to considered. Since MLO supports multiple platforms Windows/Android/iOS/... - rich text needs to be implemented on all platforms not just the one you use. Formatted notes need to be synchronized and editable on all platforms. Many small but important questions arise. Next comes the question of how much would be enough. Bold/Italic/..., then we will want lists, followed support for images.

Is this the best use of Andrey's time or would we prefer other functionality.

As a reminder mlo.uservoice.com exists so Andrey can a rough sense of our key priorities. A vote there is more meaningful than another +1 here as it costs you one of your 10 votes.

Cheers
Mark

Holmes245

5 December, 2012 9:02 PM

I totally hear you on that Eric. I think it's referred to ask Rich Text note. Including this would make some tasks that I don't necessarily need sub tasks for (which would be over kill) great to use. For example, I have a couple "self studies" that I do and would like to include a bullet list of chapters to read in a book and set it to reoccur on days I need to study. Having the ability to do this and then just use a cross out feature to cross the list off in the notes area would be great. I've seen a lot of software incorporate this and in a sense, out perform MLO in this area. I personally think that MLO needs to advance in this area.

On Tuesday, December 4, 2012 7:41:15 PM UTC-5, Eric Young wrote:

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Eric Young

4 December, 2012 4:41 PM

I have been demo'ing MLO and decided to buy it.  I think the product is amazing.  Will MLO ever support formatting of task notes? This would make projects with various steps that have extensive notes much simpler and easier on the eyes... --
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[Holmes245]

Which is sad, really. I understand what you're saying though Mark. It's sort of a blessing and a curse, I guess, that MLO can sync with other platforms like Android and iPhone yet the Windows version is limited by the fact that said desired features are postponed due to lack of portability. I've used open source software (one in particular that's coming close to MLO) that has it and I have to say, it was nice.

Joel

[Eric Young]

I would say it is very much worth the time and effort to implement such key features.  MLO could further boast itself in business sense / environments, ecspecially those project orientated.  Simple formatting of tasks alone make them easier to read.  I have use several other platforms and my purchase of MLO is not my loyalty or commitment it's my trialing it to see how it compares to others.  To be frank, MLO comes with one of the best top downs for organization; however, when dealing with the actual content of the task most other platforms have MLO beat hands down - simply because there is none.  Formatting the high level is not true formatting.

 

Products that are much more comprehensive include TaskMerlin, EssentialPIM (great formatting but clunky interface), Liquid Planner, and more. 

 

To go a step further I would push to have MLO replace TaskMerlin in my workplace IF MLO could support textual formatting / Rich Text. 

 

Back to the question - yes, it is worth the time; not only from my perspective.

[Holmes245]

The notes are great, yes, but those first two fail in other areas. TaskMerlin lacks subtasks which take it out of the game IMO and EssentialPIM lacks anything like MLO. The tasks area is wanting. Since we're referencing software, my open source reference earlier was to ToDoList put out by AbstractSpoon. MLO is a lot more fluid IMO in function but ToDoList had both rich text notes AND ability to password protect your file yet MLO which is paid doesnt'. If what Mark is saying is the reason that MLO doesn't have RTN then we won't have it for  a long time simply for the reason that you can't port it across all platforms (which limits the PC software for those who don't sync). Granted, ToDoList doesn't have any apps to sync to (to my knowledge) so at the current time nothing is stopping him from adding features and streamlining the software.

Joel

[Richard Collings]

Just had a very quick look at all of these products and they all look as if they are targeted at the project management use case rather than the individual personal task management use case  which I think is MLO’s target market.

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[Eric Young]

Well I don't want to get into a debate about TaskMerlin having any number of subtasks you desire.  In as much any product can be utilized with GTD methodology in mind or thinking outside of the box and using software solutions such as these for purposes which they are not advertised (such as task management, sharing, updates, etc.).  My focus is business not personal.  MLO, in it's current version, treads on without directly approaching this.  I believe MLO is missing a large market by doing so.

 

I hope I made it clear that I am looking at this from a business stand point and not a personal use standpoint.  As it stands TaskMerlin remains our most utilized piece of software.  Rightly so as it aims at both personal and project usage.  Off topic for a moment, anything can be considered a project, that is basically what GTD is - treating any individual or larger task as a project with a path to completion which can or can not include a critical path.  Again, we're looking at our options to see if something better is out there. 

 

Thus far all we are looking for is for MLO to have the ability to format text or have a built in rich text editor.  We're not exactly on the small company size, we're over 175.  Perhaps this is a way to directly communicate with the creators and not the community alone.

 

 

[Holmes245]

Eric, just as a side note   I think that's great that you're looking at MLO even though it may not be what you need. I hope it eventually can grow further for both our sake  I wish I could have used MLO where I worked previously (looking for work now) but they were not forward thinking at all about the software they used which was unfortunate for them. MLO in that setting would have rocked if they had looked at what it does. 

Joel

[Jim Wavada]

Perhaps just a text file cut-and-paste functionality?  I would be satisfied if I could create notes in an RTF editor like Word or OneNote, then paste them into the Notes section of a Task as a protected image file.  Would that be doable.  

I still thinks MLO outperforms every other task manager I have tried, and I have tried many from full on project managers to simple to do lists.  And I definitely use the cross-platform compatibility that MLO provides (W10 on laptop, Android  on Kindle Fire, and Apple iOS on iPhone).  I haven't found another Task Manager that even comes close to having that kind of cross-platform utility.  And I absolutely need it.  So I'm not going to jump ship over the ability to format notes in a task.  But a little cut-and-paste compromise might be possible?

P.S. I love the new video tutorials that are showing up online now.

[Laurence Glazier]

I have tried the rich text feature in the MLO 5 beta, which uses "Markdown", however this can make formatted notes hard to read in the Android MLO file, so I have abandoned this option for now.

[Andrei Bacean]

Happy new year!!!

mlo 5 has not been yet released to public, so it's premature to make some conclusions on the public mlo group.

Recently, mloteam told that notes formatting is in plans for mobile platforms too.

So let's wait and enjoy ;)

Br
Andrei

[Laurence Glazier]

oops, sorry. And sounds good!

[Stéph]

Just a quick reply about Markdown, in case Markdown formatting of notes makes it through beta testing and gets into a future public release: Markdown is designed to stay easy to read in a plain text file. For example _this is a line emphasised in bold formatting_. Therefore, it shouldn’t be difficult to read, or even to add formatting characters in Android, even if the Markdown formatting isn’t supported on some platforms.

I hope Markdown does get included in a future release. It’s much more lightweight than some kind of full RTF implementation.

Stéphane