New and Improved
March 31st, 2007 / 50 Comments
The update is here. We have just gone live with our latest version of Vitalist.
This update includes many new features and enhancements. To read about the major changes, please see the past few articles on this blog: Contexts as Tags, Sub-Projects, Quick Add/Edit, and Priority. We think you will find that these features make Vitalist both more powerful and more adaptable to different productivity styles.
We suggest that you clear your browser’s cache to ensure proper displaying of images in the new version. To do this in Firefox, select Tools->Clear Private Data in the menu. In IE, go to Tools->Internet Options and click the “Delete Files” button in the “Temporary Internet Files” grouping.
If you find any problems with the update, please let us know at support@vitalist.com and we will try to take care of it right away.
Since we now have three kids, a hopping Saturday night consists of checking the to-do list and items in advance of the week so we can have Sunday totally off. What a great surprise to have the changes up and active, the look and feel are greatly improved already. As a business owner, my one concern with Vitalist was usability for newbies, but its just so gosh-darn friendly-like now. Goodbye worries! Well done gentlemen, well done.
Thanks for the update and all the hard work, it looks great!
Here are a couple things that could work better for me, and I’m curious if anyone else.
1) When I select a Project Quick Filter for a parent, I would like to see all the actions of the children as well. It appears it only shows the actions for those items directly assigned to the parent.
2) For the context filter for the tags, it’s awesome to have multiple tags, but… I don’t like having to remove a tag filter prior to setting the filter to another context. The reason why this is for me…. is that during a day, I may want to see the @phone (calls I need to make) or the @errands (I have to run) The setup now requires that remove the @phone context prior to seeing my @errands… I can see reasons why I may want multiple filters, but not as a default. It slows me down when I’m quickly trying to figure out what I can get done in a certain context.
3) Now this one is really related to me… I’m color blind, and the color of the stars really mean nothing to me. I see they change but in terms of giving any sense of priority… Nothing.. Maybe there is a way to switch out the graphics as an option so they are graphics like Pool Balls (1) (2) (3) (By the way 8% of men are color blind and 2% of women, so it’s a pretty large market to ignore, but I do realize it’s MY Problem)
Otherwise a great Improvement.. Thanks soooo much!
Joe
Looks great I am exctied it is finally here.
1. Great job on quick add and sub projects these will be very helpful.
2. I am REALLY sad that I don’t have a context page option. It would be OK if I could sort by context on the action page, but no dice. Not sure why this is not an option. Maybe it is because it would be hard to sort with multiple context, but why not sort it by the first context listed, or just put the task in all contexts. The context filter is nice, but I like to look at the whole picture, at once (context page/view), I also agree with Joe, it is kind of cumbersome to have to remove the tag when I quickly click through my contexts.
I don’t mean to complain.. but I lived by the context view with the earlier version. I am excited about most changes. Thanks for the hard work.
[…] The Vitalist folks said they’d have the new features out by the end of March, and they did just that. Barely! New and improved features were rolled out earlier today (this afternoon I think?). This update includes many new features and enhancements. To read about the major changes, please see the past few articles on this blog: Contexts as Tags, Sub-Projects, Quick Add/Edit, and Priority. We think you will find that these features make Vitalist both more powerful and more adaptable to different productivity styles. […]
Great job guys. This is definitely more intuitive than the old interface.
Some items that need to be addressed:
- The mobile edition needs to become as intuitive. The ability to filter by context would be great on the mobile edition. Right now I have to scroll down to my @Errands section (which is below @Computer, @Call), this is awkward at best. Data entry isn’t smooth on the mobile edition (I’m using a Treo 700p).
- Project filtering is still awkward.
- Addiing a new action (quick entry) item while filtered on a project should allow for context entry.
- There should be a better way to do project reviews. With dozens of projects, doing a weekly review by using the drop down filter is awkward as well. Maybe the ‘My projects’ page could have an expand/collapse option for projects so you could see all the projects and their associated next actions on one page.
Without a doubt, however, the service overall is much faster, and data entry is also much faster with the new interface.
Thanks for the compliments everyone.
We are definitely working hard to continue improving Vitalist, and I can tell you that many of the things all of you have brought up will be released in the near future.
This was a big structure change in general for Vitalist, but the good news is that additional features will be able to be released much easier/quicker.
A job well done!
I’d like to add an option to consider for the next version. No rush, but hope it might considered.
Repeated actions currently only show up when the actually due date set occurs. This unfortunately doesn’t work well with me as I’d like to be aware and see them on my list well before they are due. I noticed over on rememberthemilk.com, they provide the following options:
1. A repeated action shows up right when the due date for the previous action passes.
2. A repeated action shows up immediately after a previous action is checked off as complete.
I have to say the new layout is awesome! Thanks for all the hard work in recreating the structure. I know it took an incredible amount of work.
I love it.
Simply fantastic work! Great, great job. I second the request for vie by context. That was my starting page on both my pc and my blackberry. When I had some time to make calls, I could just scroll to that context. Sub-projects are a great addition. I am looking forward to getting my hands dirty with it this week. Thanks for a great app!
Nice work, thanks
Its great to see you guys listening to and responding to the community, keep up the good work!
Just a couple of comments:
- I think it makes sense that the action list display actions from all sub-projects when you filter by a parent project. Without this behavior I think the usefulness of sub-projects is limited.
- I kind of miss the “context” and project” views from the previous version. This could maybe be achieved by some sort of “grouping” functionality on the action list where actions are “grouped” under headings. ie: you could group actions by “context” (roughly duplicating the context view from the previous version) or by “project”, or even by both. If you could also group by due date (today, tomorrow, end of week, end of month, etc) that’d be great too.
- When I create a new action from the action list, the projects in the project dropdown are not hierarchical.
I dig the changes, and appreciate your work, but are the feeds gone? The links are gone, and the XML feed I had on my google homepage appears to have stopped working. Is this temporary, or has that functionality been moved somewhere else? Or is it gone completely?
Guys great work, but i miss the context view! That was my most important view! I realise you’ve got a problem maybe because you can give more than 1 tags / contexts now? But i miss it!
JR, the feeds are not gone, but unfortunately we were not able to keep the old links because of the structure change. We have setup Vitalist to be ready for API’s in the future, and this required such a change.
If you check your Settings, you will see a Services tab. There you can activate the feeds you desire. This also provides for better security. We will be adding more services in the near future.
Suggestions / questions
* You filter now by activating a context. And you can select multiple. Why not make visible in that same box which filters you use and deselecting by clicking in that box again? Same goes for priority. Now you select on one place and deselect on an other location.
* The mobile version lost all of its power now there is no way of filtering on context anymore. The context page used to be my home page. I hope you start working on that again as well.
* Priority doesn’t seem to be working with me. I don’t see the stars showing up (and i’m not colour blind
).
* And i can choose a priority when i start a new action, but not when i double click.
* I do see a green cross though, what is that supposed to be for?
Great work guys. I love the sub-projects and the ability to close projects out now.
Show your support with your wallets folks… if you haven’t registered for a premium account do it today. It’s only $5.
Great job - but I’d like to second the comment about the contexts view - this was the simple most important for me! Please reinstate it!
Thanks. W
Hey Guys! I just adored the new Vitalist! The visual and the new organization are great!
The only thing I miss is seeing all the tasks but separated by context or project.
kudos to you guys!
Sort By Project Please.
Also Projects filter list not alphabetical right now.
I like the updates. There are a couple of regressions for me though:
1. Actions list sorted by project
2. Actions list sorted by context
I would also like to see:
1. Ability to print a “pocketmod” report for “offline” access.
2. Ability to see the projects and sub-projects when filtering on a main project.
Good work.
Dear Matt & Crew,
I second the requests for a return to:
1. Actions list sorted by project (essential for me)
2. Actions list sorted by context (and not having the contexts appearing in front of the task)
I only found Vitalist late last week (after trying out countless varieties of GTD software) and I was thrilled to be able to sort by Project and by Context in such an attractive, colorful interface.
I was more than ready to go for the paid version on Monday, but now ….?
I really do like the addition of Priorities and SubProjects, but honestly, I’d happily do without them to see the return of sorting by Projects and by Contexts.
Gee guys, maybe you could offer “Classic Vitalist” (like Classic Coke).
:-)
@Sheila: When you go to settings you can choose between contexts before of after action.
Sheila, by “sort by Project and by Context” do you mean the view that showed all projects with their actions grouped underneath them, and the view that showed all Contexts with their actions grouped underneath them?
Thanks for the great changes. However, I also really miss
1. Actions list sorted by project (essential for me too)
Please bring this back. It was my most used view.
Dear Vitalist team,
Thank you very much for all of your hard work in getting us a new version of Vitalist! While I don’t like everything that changed, I like a lot of what changed. I look forward to working with you to keep improving “our product” without sacrificing the simplicity that makes Vitalist so appealing.
Hey, where is the “Suggestions” link now? Thanks for considering every one of our suggestions, for implementing some, and for not implementing some. Striking the balance between essential features and complexity is crucial. Please don’t quit tweaking (like some of your competitors have done), and please don’t add so many bells and whistles that it ruins the product (like some of your competitors have done).
I just upgraded to a premium account. I encourage everyone that is seriously using Vitalist to consider doing the same. I figure the Vitalist team could use some food money
I am certainly getting $5 worth of value each month from Vitalist. How about you?
Mike
I like the updates, but:
1. Why does “Waiting On” only appear as an action option if you start from the Waiting tab in the lefthand nav? Doesn’t make a lot of sense that you have to think first - am I waiting on anyone else for this - rather than being able to select this option no matter where I enter the option.
2. You’re probably aware of this, but none of the “Learn More” links in the settings section work.
3. I noticed that the items I had set as “waiting on” showed up in my list as “C: The Person’s Name”. While “C” does make some sense since that’s the name of the contact, the context in which I added their name to the task was “waiting on”, so “W” or “Waiting on:” would probably fit better.
4. This is a holdover from the earlier version, but I really think you need to change the labeling in the lefthand menu from “Archives” to “Search”. The whole function of this area is searching (and these can be completed items or not), so “Archives” just makes it unnecessarily confusing.
5. Another thought is to re-work the “Reference” area - this is really an area for freeform notes, so referring to “Reference actions” and providing the same input mechanisms as for regular actions doesn’t make sense.
6. The dropdown menus for Project, Context, and Waiting On should include an option at the bottom to “Add new [Project/Context/Contact…]”. It takes the user out of the regular flow to see that they don’t already have a project or contact set up (context is easier now since those can just be entered by hand) and have to go searching on the screen to figure out how to add one.
7. As someone who is not color blind, but is an interaction designer, I have to agree with Joe who noted that different colored stars do nothing to help him distinguish between different priorities. You should never rely solely on color to communicate anything on a computer screen. Adding a number to each star icon may be a good way to handle this. Or get rid of the icons altogether and just use High/Med/Low.
Hmm….If I remember correctly, the old Vitalist allowed me to create a new project from an Inbox item. I can’t do that now.
That’s another piece of lost functionality that would be nice to have back.
I found your site about three weeks ago and I began to use it a lot
I am sure the chnges make sense to most people.
But I agree with Sheila and Mark on their posts dated April 1.
I like the old sorting mentod.
Any chance that format can be resureccted?
Great product: I’m happy to contribute by paying for the premium version!
However, second the request to be able to sort/see all actions by Project (also to include sub-projects) or Context (”classic view”).
Nice job! A few things I would like to ask:
- If the action list can be sorted by project, that would return most of the functionality of the Projects view; you can even just automatically sort by projects first, priority second (The color catches your eyes, so they don’t need to be sorted to the top too).
I was one who needed the project view to determine what actions I had designated and what was missing.
-The little note bubble is great; I had been placing an asterisk on each action item I had a note on so I wouldn’t forget I had more info hidden there!
- I had just started to regularly use the context view. I miss it too, but I would be happy to click on a context to view that list (without deselecting the context I chose previously). That would be more intuitive as the default- I was clicking/refreshing repeatedly before I figured out what was going on. :\
- Definite improvement on the Waiting and Someday features. I had made a context for both of them instead so I could designate projects and quickly change them to regular action items easily. I don’t have to ignore those views anymore!
-I have not had a chance to test this, but when clicking the print icon on top to create a printable page, action items that had been completed did not reflect that status on the printout. Can you also gray out those items like they are on screen?
The interface and features won me over from other sites I have tried before. The new design is an adjustment; It actually requires you to use it differently than before, but definitely an evolution for the better. I appreciate all the work you have done, and thank you for letting me put in my two cents worth.
[…] There are some very cool changes that have been made (full info here), not the least of which are: […]
It looks really great! I don’t miss the old views - to me it appears that everything can be viewed and sorted via filters. The thing I’m wondering is what happened to drag-and-drop re-ordering of actions? I’m using Firefox on a Mac and it is just highlighting text.
Hi,
I also miss the context view.
Anyway, I wanted to tell you that since the change was done, the popup calendar for setting dates is not working anymore on my Firefox (Mac). Would be nice to have it working again. Not that typing the full date takes ages, but well… it goes faster with a couple of clicks.
Keep up the good work!
Great job on the new features! Love the additions, and will continue to work with them and learn how they function before posting feedback with substance.
Thanks for all your hard work.. I’m nearly ready to move to Vitalist full-time!
There does not seem to be a way to select a WAITING FOR Contact when moving inbox items to WAITING items. Which means you need to move them then go into “waiting” and reselect there and add the contact. In addition for myself I would like to be able to select a WAITING FOR when moving inbox items to the ACTION list also as I prefer to treat WAITING as a context than as a separate list altogether.
In the mobile app, I would appreciate if the input cursor could automatically be positioned in the first input line so I can just type what I want immediately. Small thing yes but optimized for easy data capture.
I am kind of glad that I didn’t have more info in than I did. My somedays are now ticklers and without knowing if the context view will be back I am not sure that Vitalist will be as useful to me as before. Just curious whether or not subscribers are included in decisions about upgrades. Seems like quite a few people used context view for it to be just plain gone. Huge fan…just a little disappointed is all. I would love to here “we didn’t know context view was so important or utilized. Quick fix, won’t be but a moment!” I am only a month into GTD so I have yet to actually get anything done other than researching and tweaking a reliable system.
I was so excited to find vitalist and to see the posts for the new functionality. The loss of functionality, though, was a huge surprise.
I love the quick edits and the sub-projects. Both are really helpful.
However, I’d give them both up to get the view back that shows all actions broken out into their projects. The ability to drag/drop in that view and create my NA list on the fly was a primary reason I chose to use Vitalist.
I appreciate all the great work done in this release, but would be even more appreciative to get that view added back in.
I just realized that I couldn’t drag and drop… bummer. I totally get the use of priorities, but I am not a fan of using them. I would much rather move to the top of my list what needs to be done that day.
You guys rock for listening to us!
Thanks for the hard work to create the updated Vitalist.
But I must also vote for a return of the old “context” view - that is the one I used all the time and built my RSS feed from. Please do reinstate that function.
Also, I understand how to create the RSS feed for imort into Google’s Personalized Homepage, but the sidget is very different. It use to display all of the actions by context view - now it only displays 3 items in the widget. This is pretty useless as I certainly have more than 3 things to do each day.
Could you revert to the old Google widget, too?
Thanks!
I like the new version. A few items from my wish list…
- Alphabetically sorted list of projects in the quick edit drop-down, so I can find them faster.
- The ability to add contexts in the quick add
- Waiting should just be another context. A contact field should be addable to any item
- Sort by Project in the Actions list — with the secondary sort by either priority or date as specified in Settings.
- The total number of items in a view (for tracking if desired)
Keep up the great work.
A.
I noticed an error in the iCal feed. I found a setting for it and these links don’t work eighter. Invalid url?
Does anyone understand how the new split between “someday” and “tickler” in the lefthand nav works?
- GROUPING - The grouping of actions in a view is sadly missed, it gives you the BIG PICTURE and an easy way to REVIEW your actions, contexts and projects
- QUICK FILTERS - Filtering is a great idea for working on projects or by context and printing reports, when filtering on a project all sub projects and actions should be displayed.
- REVIEW - I would like to have a review option where I can see all actions, waiting on & someday’s by project. This view should show the hierarchy of the project with actions grouped under sub projects.
Excellent application and a great productivity tool
I second (or third, I lost count
the request to be able to create a new project from a task entry screen. Right now I type out my task, realize I don’t have a project created for it and have to exit to go to the projects screen..
Some great new features here, good work - and thank you!
I do have some wishes, though — wishes that I see other people have, too. Here are my emphatic dittos…
- REVIEW - I would like to have a review option where I can see all actions, waiting on & someday’s by project. This view should show the hierarchy of the project with actions grouped under sub projects.
Ditto! Unless I’m missing something, the ONLY way to see actions that have a contact defined for “Waiting On” is to go to the Waiting view. This requires that I remember to check this view — I need a way to see these actions along with all my other actions.
- Alphabetically sorted list of projects in the quick edit drop-down, so I can find them faster.
- The ability to add contexts in the quick add
- Sort by Project in the Actions list — with the secondary sort by either priority or date as specified in Settings.
Ditto!
- I think it makes sense that the action list display actions from all sub-projects when you filter by a parent project. Without this behavior I think the usefulness of sub-projects is limited.
Ditto!
return of the old “context” view - that is the one I used all the time
Ditto!
The dropdown menus for Project, Context, and Waiting On should include an option at the bottom to “Add new [Project/Context/Contact…]”.
Ditto!
“Doesn’t make a lot of sense that you have to think first - am I waiting on anyone else for this - rather than being able to select this option no matter where I enter the option.”
I second! (actually bring the old version back would be my first choice and then make a few minor tweaks to it.)
I miss being able to re-order actions. Also, I liked being able to add to actions from the dashboard. Now, I can only add to inbox.
Thanks for great improvement as new version!
I really like the beautiful look-and-feel.
It would be nice if we could set Context/Project/Action upon multiple items at the same time. That function is implemented on RTM, and I really like the function, because I have sometime s lots of things to list up, but would like to put such annotation later all together.
Thanks anyway.
Drag and Drop re-ordering is gone?!? That was one of the biggest draws to Vitalist. Yikes. Is this a mistake??
Thank You
I am really new to this. I read the David Allen book. I know that David Allen lent the name to an add-in for Outlook. I tried that and it does not pass the “simple and intuitive” test. That is what one should expect when you try to use a Microsoft product. So I come here and discover what appears to be a very new (starting in early 2007? or maybe 2006? web site. Don’t know who is doing it though. Would like to know. Looks like the idea is to charge for premium accounts and give it free for basis level of service but financine it with some ads on the right? [sorry, but I am old enough not to believe in free lunches]
GTD on a web site that tries to be really simple (ie like Google not like Microsoft)
What I want to know next is what are the elements here. This looks like a database with Actions as the key building blocks. An action can have a context. It can be part of a project and a project is going to be made up of a bunch of actoins. An inbox is a grouping of actions. There is something called a filter. Filters can be quick or context? Reference is not clear from the context. Looks like maybe it is old actons? I would have thought Reference was a place to store information I might like to refere to like phone numbers or addresses or passwords or something. I discovered that a little icon to the left that looks like a disk is something to click on to enter or save. How about a Help screen that displays in one place all the icons used on the site and what they stand for.
Then out of the blue I came across Simple Machines Forum. Like I woulod recognize their name. It seems tthey are some third party that has a forum application that is being used by Vitaqlist. So add a sentence in your simple introduction [the one that does not exist yet] to warn us.
Maybe I am not a typical user. I am the knod of person who likes to read the manual first. I know most people just dive in and only read the instructions when they get to a point where they cannot make the thing work by randomwly pushing buttons and entering data.