What's wrong with Google Bookmarks

I love Google, both as a company and as a series of products.  I use many of their services and prefer them to the "competition."  But their bookmarks service is not something I use (at the moment) because of one simple thing.



Google Bookmarks is a rather impressive tool for bookmarking web resources.  You can set it up so that you can instantly bookmark anything that Google Search can find.  Your existent bookmarks are also indicated in Google Search results.  You can add labels (rather like "tags") to your bookmarks, and you can create lists of bookmarks that you can share with others or even make entirely public.

But there's one thing Bookmarks doesn't do: it doesn't let you get a list of bookmarks that contain more than one label.  Let me give you an example to explain.

I use Diigo for bookmarking because it offers, IMHO, greater and more robust services than pretty much any other bookmarking service.  If you go to my Diigo links, you will see, in the right sidebar, my Top Tags.  Click on the first one.  Diigo will give you a list of all my links that have that tag.  Now look at the right sidebar.  The Related Tags are an exhaustive list of all the other tags that appear in the resources that have that one Top Tag.  Click on the orange + sign in front of any of the Related Tags.  Now you will have a list of the resources that contain two tags.  In geek-speak, you've got the intersection of the set of resources that have the first tag and the set of resources that have the second tag.

This is a great way to very quickly prune a huge list of links down to a very manageable and specific few.  In fact, the more bookmarks you have, the more essential fast pruning methods become.

And Google Bookmarks doesn't do this.

In Google Bookmarks, you can only choose one label at a time.  You can choose, for example, article or sustainability, but you cannot choose both (and therefore get a list of articles about sustainability).

I'm seriously perplexed by this weird behaviour of Google Bookmarks, because the venerable Gmail does it right.  In Gmail, there are no folders to store email messages.  Instead you assign labels to messages.  With this approach, you can have a single message appear in multiple pseudo-folders without duplicating the message.  This is exactly the functionality needed by Bookmarks.  If Google can do it in Gmail, why can't they do it in Bookmarks?  I honestly don't know.

I like my tools as simple as possible; I find most fancy functionality is really unnecessary.  And Google Bookmarks sure is simple.  And clean.  And functional.  And fast.  But without supporting multiple label browsing, then there's no point in even considering Bookmarks.

But mark my words: if they ever implement this sorely missing and immensely useful functionality, I'll migrate to Google Bookmarks so fast it'll leave a mark on my keyboard.

UPDATE 1 July 2010
One more thing about which you should be aware regarding Google Bookmarks: it doesn't provide feeds of your bookmarks (except in a roundabout way) and your lists.  So you can't just publish the feed on something like a wordpress blog.  You can follow other people's lists, but only within the Google realm.  And that's not good enough for me, because you can get reasonable feeds from, say Google Reader....

There will be a slight delay...

My family and I are moving to a new house, and the billions and billions of boxes need to be unpacked, sorted, and their contents put into their new and permanent resting places.  This means my "spare time" - a joke to begin with - is utterly non-existent.  So there will be a slight pause in my writing till I can get a handle on the new place.  Wish me luck.

Geetasks: Google Tasks for the iPhone

Geetasks (currently at version 1.15) is a non-Google iPhone app version of Google Tasks. It's like having a self-contained, portable version of Google Tasks in your iPhone, that you can sync with real Google Tasks at your convenience, which is good for people like me, with meagre data plans on their iPhones. And because Geetasks syncs with Google Tasks, you can access your tasks from any browser on any computer. Living within the limits of its progenitor, geetasks is an easy and useful tool that has lots of room to grow, but is quite usable as is.

Caveat Emptor: I should preface this by being clear that, as of this writing, Google has not released its API for Tasks. The API is the description of the interface that programmers need to write apps. Releasing the API would imply a bit of a commitment by Google to preserve the interface during upgrades to Tasks, so that third party apps can continue to function, and to give suitable advance warning of changes to the API, so that developers can upgrade their apps in a timely manner. By not releasing the API, Google is basically saying they are free to change the Tasks interface whenever and however they want, without concern for what will happen to third party apps like Geetasks. So it is possible that Geetasks will unexpectedly break someday, and no one will be responsible.

However, this kind of behaviour is not a common occurence at Google, as far as I can tell. Since their apps are generally free, and since Google knows where its bread is buttered, and since response from Geetasks developer seems quote timely and professional, I would expect any problems arising from this to be relatively minor. But don't quote me on that.

Geetasks implements all the current functions in Google Tasks. You can create and manage multiple lists, assign due dates, and add notes. You can nest tasks, thereby implementing subtasks; operating (i.e. moving, checking off, deleting, etc) on the top-level task of a sublist applies the operation to all subtasks. Google Tasks can connect tasks to Gmail messages; Geetasks can't do that, but it does understand those links and shows them to you. You can sort tasks by date, title, and status (active or complete), and of course manually. And you can purge (delete) completed tasks in a list with one tap. Unsynced tasks are marked in red, and the title bar will tell you how many tasks are unsynced. It's also very easy to move an item from one list to another.

Both Geetasks and Google Tasks adds new tasks to the top of a list. Most other apps add new tasks to the bottom of a list. I must admit I was a little put off by this at first, because I was so used to other apps. But I did get used to it very quickly, and found I rather liked having new tasks pushed onto the top of lists. This let me add items that I knew I could do later that day, and they'd be right there at the top of the list. I found this useful in that I tended to add all kinds of tasks, knowing that I could take care of them quickly once I found a free moment.

From the point of view of GTD, this is like combining the Inbox and Action lists. Some GTD devotees might cringe at this, but for me at least, and probably also for people who prefer AutoFocus, it makes sense.

Geetasks (and Google Tasks too) currently lacks the intelligence to bring tasks that are due to your attention, but this could be added to Geetasks without having to wait for Google Tasks support.

Similarly, completed tasks are also left in place, which ends up leading to more scrolling because any one given screenful of tasks can have several completed tasks on it. Given that new tasks are added to the top of a list, moving completed items to the bottom of the list would make sense.

While some people have complained that Google Tasks (and therefore Geetasks) is too simple, I think it depends on why you want to use it - that is, it depends on how you want to manage your tasks. If you like things simple, then Geetasks is a real contender.

Indeed, if you prefer minimal task management - like AutoFocus rather than GTD - then I would urge you to consider Geetasks.

I'll give an example of how one can organize one's tasks with Geetasks in my next post.

Taska: an iPhone task manager with class

Updated 9 June 2010

---

Taska (version 1.0.6 as of this writing) is a new GTD oriented task manager for the iPhone and I must say I'm impressed. Indeed, I'd say that of the task manager apps I've tried (including Pocket Informant, ToDo, ToodleDo, GeeTasks, FocusTodo, SmartTime, Things, Nozbe, 2do, and at least a dozen others), Taska takes the cake for combining great interface design, broad functionality and flexibility.


Taska implements all the fundamentals of GTD in a clean and appealing package. But its real power comes from the range of functions it offers and the clarity of it's interface. And it throws in some very pleasant extras. All for a reasonable $4.99 CAD.  You can see screenshots of the app at its makers' website.


Here's a list of my favourite features of Taska, in no particular order.

Smart task creation. Tasks are filed intelligently no matter where you are in the app. If you're in a project or context, the task is associated with the project or context; if not (e.g. at the home screen) then it goes into the Inbox. And if it has today as a due date, it also gets added to the Action list. Upcoming tasks are automatically added to the Next list.

Repeating tasks. Many task managers implement repeating tasks, but Taska offers some novel ways of setting the repeat interval: every X days, X days of the month, and days of the week, measured either from the task's due date or actual completion date. This offers surprising variety from a very few unconfusing alternatives, which is a sign of superior design.

Task horizons. Taska let's you set a "horizon" on when a task will appear in your Action list. Unset by default, this is a useful feature for some kinds of tasks that need a bit of lead time, like taking out the garbage, something I do first thing in the morning before checking my tasks for the day (and sometimes before I'm fully conscious).

Repeatable due dates on projects. Some of my projects have no particular deadline - ditto for the tasks in that project - but I want to work on them regularly, say once a week or so. In Taska, you can put a repeating due date (see above) on the project itself. This means I can be reminded of having to work on specific projects without having to manage due dates for each of its tasks individually.

Checklists. Sometimes, a group of items are best represented by a checklist, which is much easier to manage than a list of tasks. In Taska, you can add named checklists to both projects and contexts.

Superior sync. Taska syncs with the free Toodledo service and with your desktop Mac. Of particular interest is that checklists will sync with a free Toodledo account (Toodledo's own checklists feature requires a premium Toodledo account).

Geolocation for contexts. Taska can use your iphone's GPS to associate a location with a context, so that you can use contexts to sort your tasks according to where you are. While this feature really doesn't do much for me personally, I can see how others might find it immensely useful.

Tags and filtering. While tagging and filtering by tag (and contexts too) is a fairly common feature, Taska has a very clean and easy to use interface for tagging and filtering.

Batch edit. This is a power-user feature. You can select a collection of tasks and perform certain operations on the lot with just one or two taps. Very useful when you're reorganizing your tasks.

Really nice look and feel. While this doesn't really affect it's functionality, good look and feel is important to useability. Taska uses colours judiciously, and it's icons are crisp and not faddish. Generally, Taska goes for a minimalist look (which I personally prefer) that keeps your attention focused on the tasks and not on all the pretty bits.

Lists as well as projects and contexts.  (UPDATED) I'm still not sure why the lists are there, but I assume if I plated with the app enough, I'd figure out why they're there.  Besides contexts and projects, Taska has lists.  These are displayed on the main screen, whereas projects are all kept in the Projects list and contexts are accessed by a special menu button on the home screen.  It took me a while to figure out what lists were for, but I finally got it: they're arbitrary containers for projects, tasks, and checklists.  This turns out to be quite useful for me.  Instead of having a regular project just for those one-off work-related tasks that don't really belong in any project, I can just put them in a list called Work, along with all my work projects and checklists.  And having these master lists visible on the home screen is also quite convenient.

This isn't a complete list of what it can do; it's just the stuff I think is particularly useful.

Of course, no app is perfect. Taska has a couple of rather obvious shortcomings that could be easily addressed and would increase its useability substantially.

There should be a universal Home button on every screen. Sometimes, I've found I have to tap the Back button far too often to get to the home screen, which is a pain.

There's no rapid-add function to quickly add several tasks or checklist items. To add multiple items, you have to tap +, then enter the task, then Done, for each task entered. It should be possible to add several tasks in succession once you've hit +.

And my personal pet peeve is the lack of support for events (calendaring). This one would be a major change, but I just can't understand why one would use a task manager and not be interested in having events also managed in the same app.

(UPDATED) There are also some quirks in Taska that feel more like bugs (some more obvious than others).

• There is an option to hide completed tasks immediately.  Sometimes this works; other times it doesn't.
• Some items in the Action list have a little Next icon by them, while others have the name of the project.  I think items marked Next are marked that way because they do not have due dates.  This means that, for such tasks, you can't tell what project they're part of.  It would be better if that little marker always showed the name of the task's project or list.  That way, things marked Next would be obviously items not associated with any other project or list.
• The Next list seems to contain all tasks not in Someday (including Action tasks).  This isn't very useful.  I think Next should contain only the first task in each project or other "collection" that isn't already in Action or Someday.  Perhaps there could be a setting that let's users set how many "next tasks" from each collection should be shown.
• Manually ordering tasks in lists or projects doesn't always work.  And sometimes, the app crashes when trying to reorder tasks.  This isn't a very big deal because reordering isn't an operation that should cause data loss.  Still, any crash is annoying if not stressful.
• Also, you can only partially reorder the Next list manually.  I haven't figured out what the criteria are that define if a task can be reordered and, if so, where else in the list it can be moved to.  The Next list should be reorderable completely.
• You can attach a note to a project, task, or checklist.  But with checklists, the note isn't visible when looking at the checklist contents.  To see the note, you have to tap the checklist itself (as if to edit it).  It makes much more sense to show the note at the top of the checklist, followed by the checklist contents.

Still, as task managers go, Taska is, by my reckoning, the cream of the current crop. And seeing as it's only at version 1.0.6, there's reason to be hopeful for lots more interesting stuff in future versions.