Smart List Settings & Filters

Basic Smart List Settings

Lists

This setting shows all of your custom lists. By default, all of your lists will be selected. This means that tasks from all of your custom lists will be available to the Smart List. Deselect a custom list by tapping on it and removing the checkbox. This will prevent tasks from the unselected custom lists from appearing in the Smart List’s view.

Tip: If you want to remove a list from appearing anywhere in your app, remove the custom list from the app’s general settings with the Active Lists setting.

Show list names

This setting lets you choose wether or not you want to see the name of the list your tasks belongs to. For example, lets say you’re in the Someday Smart List which is full of tasks from many lists. With the Show list names option turned on you’ll see the name of the parent list right under the task name.

Include completed tasks

This setting lets you choose how to show completed tasks when viewing your Smart List. The following options are available:

1. Active and completed: allows both active and completed tasks to appear while viewing your Smart List
2. Active only: show only active tasks and hide completed tasks
3. Completed only: show only completed tasks (helpful when you want to set up a Smart List to review what you or your team has recently completed)

If you choose an option to show completed tasks, you will also have the option of how long to allow completed tasks to show:

1. Today: only show completed tasks if they were completed today
2. Yesterday: show tasks completed yesterday and today
3. 2 days ago: show completed tasks completed between 2 days ago and now
4. etc.

Sort type

The sort type setting lets you choose the order in which you want tasks in your Smart List to appear. Todo offers these sort options:

1. App Default: uses the app-wide sort order setting. When you create a new Smart List, this is the option that is selected. You can choose one of the other options for an individual Smart List to override the app-wide default sort order setting.
2. Due date, Priority: sorts tasks by due date first and then by priority when the tasks fall on the same due date
3. Priority, Due date: sorts tasks by priority first and then by due date when the tasks have the same priority
4. Alphabetical: sorts task alphabetically by the task name

Show subtasks

This setting allows subtasks (tasks inside of a project) to “bubble up” to the top when viewing a Smart List if the subtasks match the filters and settings defined on the Smart List.

When would you use this?

Let’s say you have many projects where the subtasks have their own due dates. You can set the show subtasks setting to on so that you’ll see the subtasks that are due without having to navigate into each project.

Example:
Let’s say you have a project with the following subtasks and dates:

• My Project (due next week)
  • Subtask 1 (due: yesterday)
  • Subtask 2 (due: today)
  • Subtask 3 (due: today)
  • Subtask 4 (no due date)

For a Smart List set to show tasks overdue or due today and with show subtasks set to on, the following would appear when tapping to view your Smart List:

• Subtask 1
• Subtask 2
• Subtask 3

For a Smart List set to show tasks overdue or due today and with show subtasks set to off, the project would appear when viewing the Smart List with the due date italicized to indicate that one or more of its subtasks are due:

Use task start dates

The Use task start dates lets Todo evaluate a task’s start date to assist in determining when to show a task. With Use task start dates set to on, a task with a start date can appear earlier in your task lists than when it is actually due, giving you a chance to start working on the task.

For example, let’s say you had a task named Science Fair Write-up with a due date two weeks from now. Since it’s something you know will take you about a week to get this done, you can set a start date on the task one week from now. By doing this, your tasks will start appearing in your list of things Today one week from now to help remind you to start working on it instead of at the last minute when it’s due. If the Use task start dates is set to off, the task wouldn’t appear in your Today section until the actual due date.

We recommend keeping the Use task start dates set to on so that if you ever set a start date, you’ll start to see the task earlier than its start date.

Task Creation Options

Due date

When you create a new task while viewing a Smart List, Todo uses the Due date setting to know when to automatically set the due date of the newly-created task. The following options are available:

1. App Default: Use the same setting that you have specified in the app’s default settings (this is the default for all newly-created Smart Lists)
2. None: Do not set a due date when creating new tasks
3. Today: Set the due date of newly-created tasks to today
4. Tomorrow: set the due date of newly-created tasks to tomorrow
5. In Two Days: set the due date of newly-created tasks to be due two days from today
6. In Three Days: set the due date of newly-created tasks to be due three days from today
7. In Four Days: set the due date of newly-created tasks to be due four days from today
8. In Five Days: set the due date of newly-created tasks to be due five days from today
9. In Six Days: set the due date of newly-created tasks to be due six days from today

Default list

The Default list setting lets Todo know which list you want newly-created lists to be assigned to. You can either choose between App Default or any of the custom lists you’ve created. When you use the App Default setting, new tasks will be assigned automatically to the list you’ve set in the main app settings.

Note: You can always adjust a task’s current list assignment by editing the details of the task. This is helpful when you want to keep the Default list setting, but occasionally want to reassign the list for a particular task.

Smart List Filters

Tags

Add a tag filter to your Smart List to filter tasks by tag. At the top of the tags filter screen, you’ll see these two main options:

1. Match all: In programmer’s terms this is an AND. All of the tags you select must be included for a task to match. For example, if you choose this option and selected the tags school, math, and homework, only tags that have all three of these tags would appear in your Smart List.

2. Match any: This is the typical OR filter you’d use when programming. If a task has any of the tags you specify, it will appear in your Smart List. For example, the following tasks would all appear by selecting the school,math, and homework tags:

Assignment 47 (tag: homework)

Science fair project (tag: school)

Talk with the Math 341 T.A. (tag: math)

There are also two special tags:

1. Any tag: Use this tag to indicate that only tasks that have at least one tag will appear in the Smart List
2. No tag: Use this tag to indicate that only tasks with no tag will appear in the Smart List

Due date, Completed date, Modified date, and Start date

Use date filters in your Smart Lists to restrict tasks from appearing when they meet certain date conditions. There are five main options:

1. No Date: Tasks will only appear in your Smart List that do not specify a date
2. Any Date: Tasks will only appear in your Smart List if they specify a date
3. Select a date: Tasks will appear in your Smart List if they match the date or date range you specify
4. Before a date: Tasks will appear in your Smart List if the date occurs before the date or time period you specify
5. After a date: Tasks will appear in your Smart List if the date occurs after the date or time period you specify

Priority

Use the segmented control from the priority filter to only show tasks that match the values you specify. For example, if you change the priority filter so that Medium and High are selected, only tasks with a medium and high priority will appear in your Smart List.

Starred

Use this filter to either show only tasks that have been starred (by setting the filter to on) or show only tasks that are not starred (by setting the filter to off).

Task name and Note

When you want to search the task name or note of a task, use one of these filters. Similar to the AND and OR options for tags, you’ll also see those options here:

1. Match all of the search terms: Use this option to require all of the terms/phrases you specify to be included in the task name or note.
2. Match any of the search terms: Use this option to match any of the terms/phrases you specify to be included in the task name or note.

For example, if you selected Match any of the search terms option and used the search terms chocolate and milk, your Smart List would include the following tasks:

 Chocolate candy bar

 Milk

 Buttermilk

 Baking chocolate

 Chocolate milk

However, if you selected Match all of the search terms option and used the same search terms, your Smart List would only include:

 Chocolate milk

Task type

This filter lets you specify the kind of tasks you want to appear in your Smart List:

1. Normal Task: These are the kinds of tasks that most of us use
2. Project: These are special tasks that have subtasks
3. Checklist: These are special tasks that just have a list of items inside (kind of like subtasks, but the items do not have due dates or any other properties other than a name)

Task action

Some tasks can have certain actions associated with them. These are the options:

1. None: Choose this option to have your Smart List only show tasks that do not have any associated action
2. URL: Show tasks that have a URL specified
3. Contact: Show tasks that have an associated contact
4. Location: Show tasks that have a location specified

Note: You can select more than one of these options.

Assigned to

When you share task lists with others, you’ll have the option to assign tasks. When using the Assigned to Smart List filter, you have these options:

1. Unassigned: Only show tasks that aren’t assigned to anyone
2. Anyone: Only show tasks in the Smart List if they are assigned to someone

Select one or more shared list members: Tap the person (or persons) you wish to filter by assignment in your Smart List.