Thursday, August 14, 2008

Toodledo gets it

I feel like I've been wandering in a strange country, speaking a language nobody else understands.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, I find a friend in Toodledo (awful name)
Toodledo :: A to-do list to organize your tasks

...If you already use a task manager, you won't want to type in your tasks all over again. Toodledo can import tasks from many sources, including your Palm OS PDA, Microsoft Outlook, Apple's iCal, and other online todo lists...
Heck, even if it doesn't work I give them points for caring!

Toodledo offers an iPhone optimized web view, they have great export options, an iPhone web app view, and they integrate with ToDo (iPhone $10).

This looks promising!

Update: Note that Toodledo deletes old tasks and limits review of past task to 3 days. For $15 you get more functionality, but you have to pay $30 for unlimited storage. If it works I'll try the $15 option until I see what Apple will deliver. I can do that because of their very good import/export functionality -- otherwise I wouldn't try them at all.

Check out the connections list. These guys are definitely data geeks. Alas, their aesthetics are lousy. They really need to invest in a sexy web site expert. I bought ToDo for $10, so I'm paying bucks to get tasks working post-Palm.

Update 8/16/08: After a painful uploading of tasks to Toodledo, I realize just what a problem their backwards interface is. They're really strong on data integration, but week on UI.

For example, it wasn't clear at all how I could operate on multiple tasks.

Mercifully, they have incredibly responsive tech support. The multi-task support is related to search. Perform a search, then click multi-edit.

It's not nearly as clear as Remember the Milk's set operations but it does the trick.

iPhone ToDo.app will sync with RTM as well as Toodledo, but it cannot be used to move data between the services. It always erases data on a service change. (Do the services require that? Toodledo is big on data freedom, so I want to give them the benefit of the doubt there.)

Update 9/12/08: I'm a happy Toodledo customer. The UI is ugly, but it's powerful if you study it. So I'm fine with that, I just worry that without a prettier face they won't get enough business. I just bought Appigo's Notebook app to sync with Toodledo Notebook -- only to discover that there's no Notes import yet. Ah well ...

Update 10/14/08: I'm happy to see Toodledo has added search to Notes, but I'm surprised to realize that Task search only scans titles, not notes. If you want to search notes you go to the notes field in advanced search. There's no "notes" and "task title" option. It's like working with a very simple database table. I'll see if I get a response to a support email.

5 comments:

myfirstbrew said...

what do you mean when you say that rtm can't exchange data and that it only replaces data? I have been contemplating switching to rtm because of toodledo lack of offline access and poor web GUI. Mainly their lack of offline access.

Anonymous said...

Just in case you didn't know, there are a few good user styles that freshen up Toodledo's crappy UI.

I've been using Omnifocus with its iPhone app, but it requires way too much work to actually start getting things done. I downloaded Todo.app on my iPhone yesterday, and I'm trying to decide between Toodledo and RTM.

I'm still a pro RTM user, but my Toodledo membership has expired. I love RTM because it has a clean UI (and plenty of userscripts and styles), and it works with pretty much everything.

Toodledo works with everything except Google Gears. They both can be integrated with Gmail. They both have quick-add access from Firefox. They both work with iGoogle and Netvibes. They both have OS X dashboard widgets. They both do pretty much everything else.

A real advantage of Toodledo is project/context support, although RTM can support anything with tagging, smart lists, and tag cloud scripts. My problem is that Todo.app doesn't support any.

Todo is helping me get back to basics and keep it simple, though. My lists don't have any @ signs, or any symbols whatsoever. This is all I have:

- Actions
- Goals
- Opportunities
- Projects
- Someday
- Waiting

I'm tired of tagging and over-classifying everything. If I can view everything at once, I don't need the project names connected to the project tasks. My daily reviews will pick up on anything that's missing.

I don't need contexts because most of my tasks can be completed anywhere with a wide variety of tools. If I still worked in an office, I would need contexts, but I don't right now.

I think Toodledo is great, but RTM + Todo is exactly what I've been looking for.

JGF said...

thanks dc for a great comment and extension to the post.

I opted for toodledo because of their very strong import/export abilities.

An additional advantage is that Appigo Notebook only syncs with toodledo, though there's no import for notes so it's of limited value for now.

RTM's UI is much nicer than Toodledo. I admire spartan, but Toodledo needs to be aesthetic spartan, not ugly spartan.

Still, I can work around the looks and the very unfortunate name -- so far it's working ...

Anonymous said...

I have been an Outlook user and I use AirSet (the best all-around web-based PIM). But I have liberated myself finally from Outlook and needed a task manager (not a strength of Airset). I stumbled on Toodledo and am very impressed -- I too prefer a company that stresses flexible import/export. I tried RTM in the past and never liked it. I'll look again but I think Toodledo will be it for me -- I already paid up for the Pro version,

Anonymous said...

We need a nice osx app that will sync with toodledo.

I use toodledo mainly because of its syncing abilities.

I initially bought appigo's todo and notebook and then bought toodledo's iphone app (so I have all three on the iphone).

However, I would love an app on my laptop that would sync with toodledo, I really don't like using their web interface too much. :)

A nice interface like Things that syncs with toodledo would be ideal.