Multiple Braindumps | Voters

Multiple Braindumps

complete

Chris

Ability to create multiple brain dumps (like work/personal) that use the same board

December 28, 2022

Sunil

Hey Chris, can Brain Dump be renamed as we are now using more relevant name for BDs?

Chris

Sunil: Hey Sunil,
I just opened up a new feedback item if you want to upvote that: https://feedback.ellieplanner.com/feature-requests/p/ability-to-rename-braindump
For transparency: Unfortunately the word "Brain dump" is hardcoded pretty heavily into the system (example: The Siri integration uses the word "Brain dump" in the trigger phrase") so I would need to make some big changes to support swapping it with something else. 
It isn't impossible though! But I would like to see if its something more users want before making those changes. Hope that makes sense

Chris

Looking for people to test out the new "Show all lists" setting in Ellie before release :)
It also has a setting to toggle between "Compact" and "Full card mode"
If you're interested, please comment below and I'll add you to the beta!

Sunil

Chris: Interested

Rob Willemsen

Chris: interested

Chris

Sunil  Rob Willemsen (and anyone else interested!)
I decided to throw it up on https://beta.ellieplanner.com and you should see a new "BRAINDUMP & LISTS" under Settings -> Personalization
Please comment any feedback/issues :)

Sunil

Chris: will it also work in the Mac App?

Rob Willemsen

Chris: Nice feature and works well. I would like it even more it there would be more options. After you swipe it into a task (or calendar) it is gone. 1. I would like to see in the task / calendar from which 'brain dump' it came from, like it is with Labels. Show first the 'brain dump' and second the label. 2. Also I would like a feature where I can see a 'show all' of ALL of my OPEN brain dumps, even if they are sheduled in a task or calender. With sorting options like 'by label', of 'by date' (no date first).

Sarah

Chris: Loving it so far!

Am I supposed to be able to drag it into the calendar? If so, that doesn't work for me.
Kinda weird bug when I move tasks into one list they all show a checkmark and when I click it it disappears.
Agree with Rob above, would be great to show the list it came from. Maybe just the icon would be enough honestly if space is a concern.

Chris

Sunil: It will be available on the Mac once its rolled out fully yes! (for now though, only available on the beta site while its tested)

Chris

Sarah: Awesome!

Ah found a bug with this, will get this fixed asap and let you know
"When I click it it disappears" -> I think I was able to reproduce that. I noticed that the task gets sent to the bottom of "Today" when it goes from Checked -> Unchecked which is wrong. Will push a fix for that

However, having trouble reproducing the "Kinda weird bug when I move tasks into one list they all show a checkmark" part. Are you able to reproduce it somehow or is it random?

Will think more about this (and thanks Rob Willemsen!)

Chris

Sarah 1 and 2 (hopefully) should be fixed, let me know!

You will have to refresh the page to get the latest

Hanan Ari Alkalay

Chris: Id love to test it! ^_^

Chris

Hanan Ari Alkalay: Just released it this morning actually :)

You can refresh the page/ update the Mac app and it should be live. Let me know if you have problems with it!

Chris

marked this post as

complete

You can now create multiple braindumps/lists inside of Ellie! 🥳
This is now live on web/Mac and iOS as well
This is the first version of this feature and I have plans to make it more customizable in the future (including a setting to show all lists at once for people who don't want to toggle between lists).
If you have any feedback/issues please let me know

Rob Willemsen

Chris: I can see it on my Mac, but not in IOS. I will test it shortly

Rob Willemsen

Chris: the ‘show all’ options would make it perfect for me’

Sarah

Cool stuff Chris! The all list would be great and the ability to move things between lists. Maybe within the item view there's another property with the list it's on that we can pick from a dropdown to change.

Would also be great to hear from you when you think people should use labels vs. lists.

Chris

Sarah: Great feedback!
"Maybe within the item view there's another property with the list it's on that we can pick from a dropdown to change." 
-> Will add this (might have to re-work the card modal since this list is getting massive now)
"Would also be great to hear from you when you think people should use labels vs. lists."
-> I think lists should be for major groupings (Work, Personal, Ellie, etc...) and then the labels for mini/subgroupings (specific areas of work for example)
I have an "Ellie" List for anything Ellie related and then I have labels for "iOS/Web/Bugs/Marketing"
That's how I've been using it so far :)

Chris

Rob Willemsen: Let me know if this is still the case! Might take a few hours for the update to show up on the app store

Rob Willemsen

Chris: works now! Thank you

Rob Willemsen

Chris: when you use the app and create a task in another list than Braindump, it is not possible to drag it back into this list. You will drag it back to the ‘braindump’ list. Can you fix this somehow?

Rob Willemsen

Chris: as soon as you put something in your task list, it is not connected to a specific ‘braindump list’ anymore. And if you enter this task and you select the list, it automatically moves back to ‘braindump’ stage and loose his ‘date’. Is this something that can be fixed?

Chris

Rob Willemsen: Hey Rob, this is actually intended behavior since technically when a task has a date it is moved out of the list (it is more clear on the web version through the act of dragging it in and out of the list)

If you have suggestions on how to make this more clear, let me know. This was something I was worried about in terms of confusing UX when working on the feature

Rob Willemsen

Chris: I just checked my iPad, and here I can't find this new feature (only on iPhone and iMac its visible for me)

Chris

Rob Willemsen: Lists in general should be available on the iPad (check if you have the latest version). However, the "Show all lists" will be coming in the next week or so after its rolled out on web/Mac

Montana

Chris: Loving the "show multiple lists" functionality on desktop! 
I lose the ability to see which tasks have subtasks, though, which means I need to click through to each task to know if they contain a subtask. 
Would it be possible to have a drop-down menu for subtasks within tasks? And maybe some kind of completion indication (e.g. 1/3)? It's such a nice bit of info to have at first glance, and it looks like it's available in "show one list" mode.
UPDATE: I just played around in the personalization settings, and found that changing the card layout from "compact" to "full card" allows you to see the completion indication I mentioned above. Oopsies! 😬 I still think the subtask drop-down menus in the lists pane would be a nice function, though.

Chris

Montana: Was about to comment the card layout thing, glad you found it! :)

Chris

marked this post as

in progress

Chris

marked this post as

planned

Will start work on this soon!

Have some fun ideas to hopefully make (almost) everyone happy here :)

Davi

Hey Chris, I don’t know if this will be factive with brain dump especially. But why not have a “project area”, where we can visualize tasks by projects.

Chris

Another user gave an alternative suggestion to this (and was kind of enough to mock up a screenshot):
Basically within the braindump allow the creation of grouped sub-lists (most likely tie them to their label). You can see this in action in the screenshot pretty clear.
Drawbacks would be: ux complexity and the loss of the card format (lots of visual indicators on the cards that helped people)
This topic of Braindump organization has come up in a lot of feedback emails recently and I'm looking to explore some solutions next week. 
Would love to know if anyone has thoughts on this option as well!

Greg

Chris: hmmm… not a fan. Loving braindump as is. I think you did a great job with its original function. I think updates should maintain the design. Just my thoughts.

Bec

Chris: This is pretty much what I had in mind as well. Would it be possible to still have cards but under collapsible 'headings'? (the cards could be smaller if each one didn't have to display the label). Even better would be an option to "group by" label (or time estimate). Then anyone who doesn't like the grouped/toggle list view could leave their cards ungrouped.

Alex

Chris: YES!!!! This exactly!!!!!

Rob Willemsen

Chris: this is exactly what I’m looking my for. I use a Blueprint of the things that I be aware of in my company and private live (looks like a Mindmap). every ‘department’ has a couple of topics. Looking at those topics help me to dump my brain. 
If you can create it like this screenshot and be able to add a task to every topic right away would be great. 
Now I use the labels for it, to connect them to the right topic.

Bec

Hi Chris are you planning this? I could really do with more organisation in the brain dump / inbox area

Chris

Bec: Exploring this in more depth next week, will give an update!

David

Is this the same has having separate brain dump lists/projects? I think ‘Backlog’ is a more suitable name than ‘Brain dump.’ Maybe an ‘Inbox’ could be cool too? Where you then process tasks into various lists.

Alexander Kim

David: I was about to post a new request to ask for it to be renamed. Braindump and the icon is for some reason really off putting to me. I’d love for actual projects and an inbox, essentially a replacement of Things.