Is there a way to streamline to-do entries?

[Jeff]

Spent the morning converting a bunch of my random documents and lists into On
Note beta – very nice product and I’m really starting to like it already.

So far the only annoying thing I’ve found is the To-Do list support is a
little clumsy, unless I’m missing an option I can’t find in here. I use a
ton of lists and I like to just create very simple checkbox lists easily.
Currently the only way I can see to do this is to type a few items in and
then select them with the mouse and then click on the flag option to make
them to-do items. Either that or use a keyboard shortcut.

What I’d like to be able to do is create a note section that indicates every
line I add into this section will be a to-do item. This would save me a ton
of mouse/keyboard work when generating the raft of to-do lists I use. I
know it kind of hits your generic “flag†approach a little sideways but many
of the productivity tools I’ve used in the past have some sort of concept
along these lines specific to to-do lists since they’re so common.

So far other than that, I’m really starting to enjoy it – grabbing sections
of web pages and such is really nice. A lot of what I do is evaluate user
interfaces for web stuff and this is just crazy-cool for me.

 

[Ben M. Schorr - MVP]

Aloha Jeff,

I suppose you could create a template that includes pre-created lines already
flagged with checkboxes that you could just fill in your items.

-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr - MVP
Roland Schorr & Tower
http://www.rolandschorr.com
Microsoft OneNote FAQ: http://www.factplace.com/onenotefaq.htm

 

[Jeff]

Yeah, I thought about that but on several of my pages I have mutliple lists
that I add to a single page as I go - a single template that just has a ton
of pre made to-do flags on it doesn't really work well there. Having a note
section "default flag" would be really cool - when I create the note section
it can default to nothing (i.e. like it is now) but let me right click on it
and select default flag. I think lots of folks would find this type of
functionality nice for various types of lists.

Either that or follow the Word bullet list convention - if you move to the
end of a line that's flagged (i.e. for a "to-do" flag) and you hit enter, the
next line is also a to-do flagged item. This would also work well for me and
would probably involve less violence to the code. It also follows existing
convention.

 

[Ben M. Schorr - MVP]

Aloha Jeff,

Create your list, with enters at the end of each line, then highlight the
entire group of them and click the note flag. OneNote will apply individual
checkbox flags (or whatever flag you picked) to each line.

-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr - MVP
Roland Schorr & Tower
http://www.rolandschorr.com
Microsoft OneNote FAQ: http://www.factplace.com/onenotefaq.htm

 

[Ben M. Schorr - MVP]

Aloha Ben,

Or maybe that's how you're already doing it? If so...it's a pretty easy
solution. One mouse swipe and one click to convert an entire list to To-Dos.

-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr - MVP
Roland Schorr & Tower
http://www.rolandschorr.com
Microsoft OneNote FAQ: http://www.factplace.com/onenotefaq.htm

 

[Jeff]

Yeah, I'm already doing that. But try this as a test. Put 4 or 5 seperate
to do lists on a page and then add one or two to each using this method and
count how many times you have to move the mouse and click and/or use the
keyboard.

Compare this with 4 or 5 bullet lists in a word doc. No mouse swipes or
clicks involved, it's much faster and far more efficient.

I'm not arguing you can't do it. I'm arguing that it can be much, much more
streamlined and easier without having to impose on the rest of the
functionality of the application.

Lists are, by their nature, repeated items. The chances that the next thing
I want to add immediately after a member of such as list is _also_ a member
of that list is pretty high. The app should assume that unless I tell it
otherwise. As opposed to forcing me to essentially create new smaller lists
each and every time I add to any of them. Pretty basic UI convention...

The Word implementation of bullet/number lists is an excellent example of
how to do this correctly. It allows easy addition to a list and also allows
you to easily break the list with the minium of fuss. I find this much more
intuative and efficient than the list model (or non list model) of the
OneNote approach.

-J

 

[Kathy Jacobs]

What I do:
I make sure that my to do flag is one of the first nine. Then, I can just
press the appropriate control key (either for each entry or for the selected
entries) and the to do flag is applied.(Keeps me from needing to go to the
mouse to apply the flags.)

Might that work?

--
Kathryn Jacobs, Microsoft MVP PowerPoint and OneNote
Author of Kathy Jacobs on PowerPoint - Available now from Holy Macro! Books
Get PowerPoint and OneNote information at www.onppt.com

I believe life is meant to be lived. But:
if we live without making a difference, it makes no difference that we lived

 

[Rainald Taesler]

Lists are, by their nature, repeated items. The chances that the
next thing
I want to add immediately after a member of such as list is _also_ a
member
of that list is pretty high. The app should assume that unless I
tell it
otherwise. As opposed to forcing me to essentially create new
smaller lists
each and every time I add to any of them. Pretty basic UI
convention...

Sorry Jeff, I see your point. But I would not follow you in so far.

For the way I work this would mean a real downside.
I hardly ever create a ToDo list additional lines (with a few
explanations).
If the system would work like you would want to have it, at each new
line I would have to unselect /delete the flag and or start a new line
for the same topic with Shift+Enter.

I do not think that the system should just make assumptions. It should
do what I tell it <g,d&r>

Honestly speaking it took me quite a while to really get accustomed to
the way WinWord handles lists with bullet points an numbering. Still I
do not feel too comfortable with it :-( :-(

Rainald

 

[Rainald Taesler]

What I do:
I make sure that my to do flag is one of the first nine. Then, I can
just press the appropriate control key (either for each entry or for
the selected entries) and the to do flag is applied.(Keeps me from
needing to go to the mouse to apply the flags.)

Thanks, Kathy,
Really nice suggestion.
For my way of working with lists I'd prefer this over some kind of
automatic flagging.

Rainald

 

[Grant Robertson]

If the system would work like you would want to have it, at each new
line I would have to unselect /delete the flag and or start a new line
for the same topic with Shift+Enter.

I agree. I make heavy use of regular text formatting such as bold,
italic, subscript & superscript. I have a hard enough time with turning
all of that off BEFORE I hit enter at the end of a line as it is. I would
hate to add turning off all the note flags AFTER hitting return as well.
In fact, I would much prefer it if OneNote cleared ALL formatting for
every new paragraph.

What they could do is provide a special key combination that would start
a new paragraph and COPY all the formatting of the old paragraph. They
could then create a toolbar button to do this so the feature would be
available to stylus users as well. They could use something like ctrl-
enter or some other enter key combination that isn't already used.

 

[Rainald Taesler]

Grant Robertson shared these words of wisdom:

What they could do is provide a special key combination that
would start a new paragraph and COPY all the formatting of the
old paragraph. They could then create a toolbar button to do
this so the feature would be available to stylus users as well.
They could use something like ctrl- enter or some other enter
key combination that isn't already used.

I like this idea.
How about posting in Connect?

Rainald