Jump to content

(Archived) Questions about subjectDate, Todos, and reminders


Recommended Posts

I've done a good deal of forum searching on the subject of Evernote and using it for Todo management. As a result of my findings I am considering "rolling my own solution" for a simple reminder system, not full a blown project management system, using their API but I don't want to waste time reinventing the wheel if I'm wrong. Here's what I understand to be true:


  • * Evernote has declined to add task management and have said that instead they prefer 3rd party developers implement it
    * There used to be a subjectDate field that could have been useful in this endeavor but now it's gone and there is no suitable replacement
    * Evernote has said they will offer a due date field and ancillary support items but at this time do not want to give an ETA on when it will happen

Is my understanding correct?

Second question. If am correct and I do decide to roll my own, what is the problem with simply inserting a date field and retrieving TODO items using the search facility? I know this doesn't work for project management because you need to be able to do sweeping date scans with less than/greater than relational scoping, hence the need for a typical date field, but to make a simple reminder system that simply tells me what I have to on any particular day and a few days into the future it seems sufficient. What am I missing here?

-- roschler

Link to comment
  • Level 5

Is my understanding correct?

Second question. If am correct and I do decide to roll my own, what is the problem with simply inserting a date field and retrieving TODO items using the search facility?

1.) Yes, you are correct. I believe the Subject Date field is planned to become the Due Date field. I have my doubts about the ancillary support items.

2.) I don't know how you could simply add a date field to Evernote.

What I do is treat the Created Date column as my To-Do date. Works OK, with a few additional tweaks.

The long-awaited Due Date column will improve the process substantially.

Link to comment
2.) I don't know how you could simply add a date field to Evernote.

Just by inserting it into the document content automatically via the API, at the end. For example:

My notes

Some things I said to my cat that even he yawned at but for some crazy reason I find fascinating.

================== DO NOT EDIT below this line =================================
DUEDATE20110721

Then when I want to find everything I need to do today, I just do a search for incomplete TODO items with the current date. For example for today the Evernote search query would be:

TODO:false DUEDATE20110721

-- roschler

Link to comment
What I do is treat the Created Date column as my To-Do date. Works OK, with a few additional tweaks.

The long-awaited Due Date column will improve the process substantially.

Could you explain the "few additional tweaks"? I am looking at moving my massive MS Word-based system over to Evernote, and I've come to rely heavily on the MS Office Notifications flag-for-followup feature. I need to have a solid due date workaround before I make the jump.

Link to comment
  • Level 5

Could you explain the "few additional tweaks"? I am looking at moving my massive MS Word-based system over to Evernote, and I've come to rely heavily on the MS Office Notifications flag-for-followup feature. I need to have a solid due date workaround before I make the jump.

My system probably will not work for you - I only have 75 or so future appointments, tasks, reminders, birthdays, etc. If Evernote offered a Due Date, I would have considerably more.

The problem with using the Create Date as the Due Date is the most recent entry will no longer be the first note when sorted by date. It will be further down the page. So I created a saved search to find a special place-holder note that I use as a Date Separator It is located between the future and past. The saved search finds the place-holder note, then I select all notes and my cursor is positioned on today's notes.

Each morning, I change the Create Date on the place-holder to the current day at 11:50pm to ensure the date separator note is positioned correctly. Klunky, but it works for me.

I hope that Evernote comes through on their past commitments and actually releases the Due Date feature. They have been very quiet about this issue recently. But that might be due to the noticeable reduction in Evernote staff comments this spring and summer.

.

Link to comment

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...