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Jordan Sherer  //  Howdy! I'm Jordan Sherer, an experienced software developer and entrepreneur. I work at def6 and run widefido. You seem interesting. Let's chat!

Jan 22 / 12:23pm

TodoPaper 2 Collapse Indicators

One of TodoPaper's strengths has been the ability to fold/collapse projects, similar to the functionality found in outliner software. Two of the things that I've disliked most about the TodoPaper 1 implementation of folding was the distracting indicators and the fact that folding was limited to projects.

I've completely revamped collapsing in TodoPaper 2. You can now collapse any text hierarchy, including projects, todos, and notes, so long as the line being collapsed has children (lines underneath it with a greater indent). This makes collapsing extremely flexible.

You may have noticed that I've removed the left margin where checkboxes and folding indicators used to live. This helps clean up the interface: checkboxes are now the todo hyphens, and indicators only display if a line is collapsed. 

Collapsing can be achieved by holding the Control key and clicking on a line that has children, or by right clicking and selecting "Collapse" from the context menu, or by a simple keyboard shortcut. 

Let me know what you think:

15 comments

Jan 22, 2012
oli said...
Very cool feature! I hope you release TP2 soon.
regards
Jan 22, 2012
Josh said...
Looks great!
Jan 22, 2012
Gregg Sgambati said...
Hello,

I do not understand.  I keep reading about version 2 but version 1 downloads from the your website.  Can you please explain?

Thank you.
Gregg



Jan 22, 2012
Jordan Sherer said...
@Gregg: I'm still finishing up TodoPaper 2. You can sign up to be one of the first notified of the new release here: http://widefido.wufoo.com/forms/todopaper-20/
Jan 22, 2012
Jordan Sherer said...
@Josh, @oli: Thanks!
Jan 23, 2012
Daniel said...
Looks neat! Hopefully there will also be a keyboard shortcut to collapse/expand.
Jan 23, 2012
Jordan Sherer said...
@Daniel: Absolutely. Keyboard shortcut, menu, or control+mouse click.
Jan 23, 2012
marek said...
Let me be the one voice of dissent. Comparing this with the screenshots of 1.x, the checkboxes are more readable, much clearer as indicators than the current design. I understand minimalism, but there are certain UI idioms on Windows that are convenient, familiar and indeed work very well. A checkbox is obvious, while it is not at all obvious that a hyphen is "collapsible" or that it should indicate a done/undone state. It does not look clickable (it does not "afford" clicking; Joel Spolsky has a great essay on UI affordances). Similarly, it is common to indicate a collapsed line on the left side of the list, not on the right - that way the indicators are aligned and can be easily found. The idiom here is perhaps that of a "hinge" which is open or closed. The new way is putting that hinge on the opposite end, quite surreal really (ie., opposite to what experience and intuition dictate).

So no, I don't think I like it. Sorry!

Jan 23, 2012
Jordan Sherer said...
@marek: Thanks for your honest opinion. I appreciate it. I *do* understand your points, and haven't made this decision without considering the impact of the decision. I'll follow up with a blog post soon to discuss some of these things in more detail.
Feb 03, 2012
madmaxmedia said...
I would love a keyboard shortcut as well (CTRL-arrow or something like that.) That would go a long way towards being able to quickly navigate and sort through a file.
Feb 04, 2012
TheFonze said...
This has become the Duke Nukem of task managers. I was excited about this two years ago.
Feb 04, 2012
Jordan Sherer said...
@madmax: You will be able to use the keyboard to perform these actions.

@thefonze: I understand. I've been working on 2.0 for a while. I myself am frustrated it's not out yet. But, I'm working diligently to deliver a quality release. Though, in the terms of Duke Nukem, I'll actually be delivering about 12 years early ;)

Feb 14, 2012
ssp5a1 said...
Have you seen Workflowy's implementation of collapsing? I'd encourage you to check it out if you have not. It is elegant and works pretty well. They do a hyphen / circle for expanded/collapsed items, respectively. I think the bubbled-ellipses would work, though!
Feb 15, 2012
oli said...
Will drag & drop to arrange the items possible?
regards
Mar 27, 2012
Jordan Sherer said...
@ssp5a1: I have. I don't think that paradigm will work in the text editor context of TodoPaper, but I have definitely considered it for inspiration.

@oli: Indeed. Version 2 has drag and drop support for tasks, projects, (and notes after enabling their drag handler through the preferences).

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