Ta-da List gets drag and drop Jason 19 Jul 2006

43 comments Latest by tada list favicon at ideass

It’s been 1.5 years since we launched Ta-da List. Here’s an overdue birthday present: Ta-da List now has drag and drop reordering of to-do list items.

We’ve had drag and drop reordering of to-dos in Basecamp and Backpack for a long time now. Last week we looked at the stats and saw that over 2,000,000 to-do items have been added to Ta-da. We decided it was time to give Tada some love. So go make some lists, mix ‘em up, and get things done.

Special thanks to Marcel for getting his feet wet in some muddy old code.

43 comments so far (Jump to latest)

Larry Wright 19 Jul 06

Cool! I’ve wanted this for a while, I’ve grown quite accustomed to it in Backpack.

On a (somewhat) related note, when can we expect the calendar in Backpack?

Luis 19 Jul 06

Man, I was using it yesterday to create a grocery list and was actually thinking, “man, what’s up with the up/down arrows?”

Thanks for the feature.

Christopher Fahey 19 Jul 06

This was the main reason I didn’t adopt Tada lists. Now I’ll try it again!

James Wheare 19 Jul 06

This has been one of two main annoyances I’ve had with Ta-da List, thanks for fixing it :)

The chip on my other shoulder stems from having a monolithic rolling “Urgent” list that has all the completed items dating back to when I first set the list up. Any chance of a way to trash completed items?

Keep up the great work.

JF 19 Jul 06

Any chance of a way to trash completed items?

Just delete the list and make a new one. Problem solved.

Zachary Koch 19 Jul 06

Ah, thank you so much for this!

daniel 19 Jul 06

GLORY!

Manton Reece 19 Jul 06

Excellent! Glad to see Ta-da getting some love. I use Basecamp every day, but I still prefer Ta-da for many tasks. Perhaps it’s not too much to hope that we’ll get Ajaxy per-item editing in Ta-da someday too. :-)

Keep up the great work.

James Wheare 19 Jul 06

Just delete the list and make a new one. Problem solved.

Somewhat inelegant, but I guess it works.

Problem is, the list is never empty, so I’d have to manually enter all the current items in again. I know, I know, “shock! horror!” I’m just saying :)

Peter Cooper 19 Jul 06

If anyone’s in the mood, a “dragging apps from Rails 0.X to 1.1” article would certainly be fun.

I just had to do a reinstall for a client who hadn’t been in touch since March 2005, and ended up installing Rails 0.11.1 to get their app back up and running *g*

SR 19 Jul 06

Cool! Actually, it was just the other day that I noticed Ta-da list didn’t allow ajax reordering, but this will come in handy for priortizing tasks easier.

Thanks!

SR 19 Jul 06

One more request though… can we get a favicon.ico for Ta-da list (actually all the apps) as it is getting hard to find it among all the other tabs in my browser

Pretty Please :)

tb 19 Jul 06

Am I missing something? I’m checking my lists, and don’t see no drag and drop…

Gordon 20 Jul 06

Ohh this is gonna turn into a request list list… you’ll need a web based list app.. ohhh wait..

Anyhoo, I’ll second SR’s request for a favicon (in fact a PNG would be ideal as a shortcut to my Ta-Da lists sits in my dock).

Also, is there anyway to alter the RSS feed to display only NEW items? Or can I filter it somehow?

I have the RSS feeding to a widget on my desktop which helps me track my THIS WEEK list, but don’t need to see all the stuff I’ve already done…

And finally, many thanks for this fabulous, and free, app. It’s made a huge difference in my efforts to keep myself organised. Bravo!!

Gordon 20 Jul 06

P.S. “Just delete the list and start a new one”???

Not really the type of solution I’d expect from 37signals! Probably the most UN-user-friendly solution. ;-)

Steve 20 Jul 06

> Not really the type of solution I�d expect from 37signals!
It’s exactly the type of solution i’d expect.

The quality of 37’s products is precisely because they go 1.5 years without adding all the little functional requests that people make.

We might think “hey surely that’s not a big feature - you could stick that on this afternoon”, but all those little features add up to a big kludgy mess :0)

If enough people needed that feature then i’m sure it would be added (eventually). For now plenty of people are working just fine without it - why add more than is needed?

*puts on 37s fan boy shirt and reads ‘getting real’ again*

Ryan 20 Jul 06

A welcome improvement. I’d be happy if the lists worked exactly as they do in Backpack. Edit and delete items inline, multiple line content, overall link placement and styling, etc.

It’s an excellent showcase piece of your less is more approach. Make it just like Backpack, Basecamp, and users will feel that much more at home when upgrading.

Logan 20 Jul 06

Finally. The arrows kept making me feel like I was back in 1998. Thank you 37s for an awesome free tool and for making it even awesomer.

Any chance of a way to trash completed items?
Un-complete them, then you can trash them.

Mark Gallagher 20 Jul 06

Just like to add my agreement with the feedback that #1 enhancement on my list is the ability to trash completed tasks.

It’s basic functionality you expect from a simple to-do list.

My two cents. Thanks.

Gayle 20 Jul 06

Aw, hell yeah :)

Chris 20 Jul 06

Did you change the indentation for long list items that wrap to a second line? It feels different now but I of course I can’t be sure that it has changed at all.

Chris 20 Jul 06

Ah, you did change it: when lines wrap they now align to the left edge of the checkbox. Compare with the old way. The line spacing is different as well.

Was the new layout intentional? I feel so petty pointing this out, but I would so adore it if the old styling returned.

Robbie 20 Jul 06

Any chance of a way to trash completed items?

I could see a “start a new list with open items,” but that’s probably more than it needs.

JF 20 Jul 06

Again just delete the list or start a new list and keep the old one. It’s your call. It works right now,

Robbie 20 Jul 06

I wasn’t asking for anything. :)

I’m fine with how they work now.

Anonymous Coward 20 Jul 06

boring

ajr 20 Jul 06

What? Boring!?
You can move them around!

Dave 20 Jul 06

James Wheare - if you are a Firefox user and know CSS, install the “Stylish” extension for Firefox. This will allow you to assign custom CSS to any domain, sub-domain, specific URL, etc..

I use this method to hide the completed to-do list items in my Basecamp account.

jonto 20 Jul 06


Tb,

Make sure that you hit the “reorder” link first. You will then be able to drag and drop items in your list.
==================

37s,

To be more like Basecamp, TaDa needs a “Reorder Lists” link on the main page. Aside from that, things look good.

Thanks,

j

James Wheare 20 Jul 06

Thanks Dave, good tip. Alas I’m using Safari. Anyway, not terribly surprised or disappointed by JF’s ‘no by default’ response, just adding my voice to the broth :)

P.S.

Gordon 20 Jul 06

Right. I get the “keep it simple” approach. I get the “if enough people ask for it we might do it” approach.

But.

If you take the path of tackling the biggest annoyances first, then, judging from the small number of comments on here, that big annoyance is being able to delete completed items.

This is direct user feedback, and anyone who works in software knows that, without doing usability studies/labs, this info is like gold dust.

On the other hand, this is a free “grabber” tool (as in, it grabs you and makes you think.. hey I COULD use Basecamp… I get that idea too).

However the comment “just delete the list or start a new list and keep the old one. It�s your call. It works right now,” isn’t what I’d expect from a self proclaimed user-focussed company.

It’s very close to that old software line of “well it works on my machine”… very old school.

Sorry to keep going on, but hey, you know what WOULD appease a lot of people.. some sort of insight into what features we can expect to be changed after the next 18 months ;-) (transparency IS a 37Signals thing, right??)

Mike Kingscott 21 Jul 06

Ok, so to delete an item permanently (that you’ve already checked off), you uncheck it, edit the list and then click the black x button on the right of the item…

Hmmm. You guys have got me all fired up on usability (I’m a [web] developer, oooh, get me), and then you do something like that? :-p

FWIW, I’m evangelical on 37signals products, honest!

James Wheare 21 Jul 06

Guys, I think you’re over-reacting.

This is exactly the sort of lo-tech no-nonsense fix I expect from 37signals. If they implemented all these niggling features, we’d have an app that’s bloated and confused. Sure, it may be quite a simple feature but these things add up.

If I may be presumptuous for just a moment… When deciding whether or not to implement this feature, I expect the reasoning goes something like this:

Is this feature essential to creating and managing lists?
No.

Is it an annoyance?
Yes.

Is there a workaround?
Yes.

Is it inelegant?
Yes.

Is it unbearable?
No.

Does it get in the way of the core vision for this app?
No.

Solved.

Patience :)

JF 21 Jul 06

James, you’re hired ;)

Rob Sanheim 21 Jul 06

Now I just want lists in basecamp to work the same as tada - enter text -> hit enter -> entry gets added, enter text for 2nd item -> repeat.

basecamp requires tabbing to get to the submit button, or using the mouse. lame.

James Wheare 21 Jul 06

Careful Jason, I may well take you up on that ;)

Oly 22 Jul 06

Here’s what im going to do next based on James’ decision making plan…

Do I like visiting this blog…
Yes

Do I find the 37signals fan boys make me angry…
Yes

Why I am still here reading all the comments then?
Dont Know

What should I do next?
Go make a cup of tea I think

Should Tada lists have an easier way to trash old things to do
Yes

Are you sure?
Yes

Was that cup of tea task on your list of things to do?
Damn, No

But seriously, all I can say to you Jason is; rules are made to be broken

Rob Rambusch 24 Jul 06

The drag-and-drop functionality worked this morning but now seems broken. The “drag” icon dosn’t get displayed when I choose “reorder”. Has anyone else experienced this ?

Rob

Steve B. 25 Jul 06

I also no longer have the reordering drag-and-drop ability.

Firefox 1.5.0.4 / Windows - I click ‘Reorder’ and the checkboxes no longer change into handles.

Laurens 25 Jul 06

Hey, it works fine! thanks!

Laurens 25 Jul 06

Hey, it works fine! thanks!

Alyson 25 Jul 06

I use Ta-Da Lists so much, it feels like I’ve been waiting for this feature forever. It works great — thanks!