OrchestrateHQ
OrchestrateHQ is now online! Go and play, then come back and read the rest of this post…
OrchestrateHQ is a simple, online task manager. I wanted a way of managing a number of different task lists quickly, but I felt there was a large gap in the feature-set of existing online task managers - they all tended to be either too basic or too convoluted for my needs. OrchestrateHQ is also the predecessor to a bigger productivity app (codenamed Lightbulb) that I am building, which will encompass many of the ideologies I have aimed for with OrchestrateHQ - focus, smooth user experience, swift development - but with an altogether different purpose.
OrchestrateHQ is the end result of me thinking: How would I like to manage my tasks?, and perhaps it will be useful to some of you too. During development, I had 5 rough goals in mind for what I wanted to achieve with OrchestrateHQ:
Make something that I actually want to use
Sounds very obvious, but web apps get built for different reasons. I built OrchestrateHQ because I need it.Zero barriers to entry
There are lots of neat web apps / services out there to try, but what I find frustrating is arriving at a new site that a friend or blog has recommended, only to find that I’m not allowed to play with it until I’ve given up some personal info to a registration form. Considering that the web app market is becoming ever-more saturated, I think in the future we will see more of the OrchestrateHQ approach - let users test-drive the service with zero commitment. If you’ve made a good service that they genuinely need, they’ll be back and they will register for a reason. I feel registration should be something that expresses a user’s increased emotional attachment to a site - not something that acts as a front door.Intuitive, simple user experience
As I stated in the beta screencast, I found most online task managers to be either too simple or too complicated for my needs. What I aimed to create was something in-between, with a near-zero learning curve. This was to be achieved by keeping two things in mind: (1) don’t have too many pointless functions, (2) don’t have too much stuff to click on. Whether the learning curve is near-zero for you is subjective, but I feel that I have at least adhered quite strictly to the two criteria I set and when I use OrchestrateHQ myself, it works exactly as I imagined it would when I started the project on a scrap of paper. It’s that purity that I strived for with this project - for me, purity and focus are much more easily-appreciatable qualities than the ability to do a multitude of different actions.Create an app that acts like an app
People will be either with or against me on this one. Thanks to liberal use of AJAX, OrchestrateHQ is basically self-contained in a single page. There is no jumping to a different page to view the “help” section, or to edit my tasks - the app is everything you see in front of you. Looking at other online task managers (managing tasks being, by definition, something that most people don’t want to spend too much time on) the amount of noise in terms of needless page jumps seemed to impede their usefulness, to me. There are drawbacks to my approach though - OrchestrateHQ has an extremely small google footprint; a search engine spidering OrchestrateHQ is not going to see a great deal. I’ll be looking into ways of rectifying this.Show that (swift development !== pre-built framework)
Given embarrassingly large erections by the beauty of Ruby on Rails, many PHP developers are themselves jumping on the framework bandwagon. Cake PHP and Symfony are two popular examples of pre-built PHP frameworks that piggyback on top of php to give you neat things like MVC architecture by default and a data abstraction layer. Whilst a pre-built framework like this is helpful in the development of large sites by teams (since they encourage a common coding standard), I think their suitability doesn’t extend to something like OrchestrateHQ (one guy, one specific idea) and would basically add a layer of nuts ‘n’ fudge where I don’t need it, in the chocolate bar of simplicity that is OrchestrateHQ in its current form. OrchestrateHQ does use a “framework”, but it is more of an intangible, structural ideology of where files with different types of content should go. I found this was more than adequate to allow me to develop quickly - OrchestrateHQ’s basic functionality was built in about 5 hours, with a little help from iced coffee, classical music and some kind of really lame scented candle* that’s meant to keep me alert.
* I know. I know.
I hope you enjoy using OrchestrateHQ. I will be making constant improvements as time goes on, so don’t worry if you see little things change here and there.
Cheers and thanks for the support - oh and tell your friends!
I welcome bug reports in the comments section below. Try to understand that all bugs have a priority level and I will attend to serious bugs first. Also, try to understand that there is a difference between a bug report and a feature request. Thanks in advance.
works really well (: great work!
seriously amazing! it can even take japanese. im thrilled.
Looks quite spiffy, nice job!
1) When you click the checkboxes of two items rapidly, the pending/completed won’t update and still show 1 task pending.*
2) When you drag boxes to the trash or to the main area, they still float back after releasing them. Is this intended behavior?
3) Creating new lists causes a refresh of the page. Kind of defeats the point of AJAX doesn’t it?
4) The Javascript alert boxes are so ugly.
Using FF 1.5.0.4
*Actually I can’t seem to reproduce this, it could’ve been lag, but I did have time enough to grab a screenshot, save it to paint, and STILL see it…
Thanks for the feedback.
1) I can’t prevent speed abuse in non-intrusive ways. It would be more annoying for the user if for example I prevented you from clicking another checkbox until the animations had all finished.
2) The page refreshes right after anyway so I don’t see it as being a major problem. A minor bug.
3) Unavoidable, unfortunately. The draggable objects must be instatiated on window.load - I can put a new list preview in via AJAX, sure, but it won’t be draggable. Again, don’t act as if I’ve overlooked obvious things like this. There is a reason I made the page reload.
4) I think it’s more annoying for sites to style their own alert boxes. An alert box should look the same for every site you go to, so you know what it is.
Simple and easy to use - nice
F-ing-fan-tastic! Great concept and design.
I think this will replace my current system-writing on the back of a bunch of business cards.
I really appreciate the print function on logout. Especially how it only prints the open task lists. That is going to come in handy for grocery shopping or comparison shopping for electronics and such. I was going to ask if there was a way to print without having to logout, but I noticed that once you print you can just cancel the logout.
Thank you.
Moto Oda > glad someone has already found that! I’m quite pleased with the way printouts look. And actually, if you want to print something out like that without clicking logout first, you can just use your browser’s print function at any time.
sweeeeet.
i like it. i knew i would based on the screencast, but i already like it better than tadalists. Kudos!
now if only i could figure out how to integrate it into my Ziddlywiki…
Thank you - it suits my needs perfectly.
What happens with completed items? Do they stay on the list forever? Fade with time or as the number of completed items becomes greater than a preset number? Go away when you logout-login?
You were telling Guig about never having to trash lists as they are never-ending (I concur) and the zen of the 12-task list life, so I was curious how you were going to limit the clutter that could occur with legions of completed items.
Great little app!
Is there a way to uncheck already checked-off tasks?
[…] Launch of Orchestrate post. […]
riceMonkey > I have a list of things that I consider to be essential to the future revisions, and unchecking items that you’ve checked is one of them.
Moto Oda > right now, it is set to show only the last 5 completed items. I don’t think there is an optimum method of handling this - I’m aware that some people might want to see more, but for me at least, it’s likely that anything beyond around 5 items in the history will no longer be relevant to my current activities. I may implement a “view history” option somewhere, if I feel it is essential.
Interesting app - Very nice and simple, works as it should! Even in Opera! -pleasantly surprised-
By the way, when I’m adding item to the list, the “Hit enter to add” text is shown as a hyperlink, however if you click on it nothing happens. Not sure if this is intentional.
Will there be an option to customise colours in the future? I find the neon green colour too bright for my weak eyes >_
evane > must be a little Opera bug - when the text changes to “Hit Enter to add”, it should no longer look like a link. I’ll put it on the bug list.
As for customising colours….sucks air through teeth….we’ll see. Right now I quite like the fact that it has a little identity with the green and burgundy.
Sorry for posting so quickly again, but in Opera 8.54 The register/login/help/about links work and the background of the screen turns black.
With Opera 9 beta2 when clicked the background turns grey, and it “comes down” in a jittery fashion, not quite as smooth as in 8.54 - not sure which way it’s supposed to be. The about/help links work but register/login dialogue boxes don’t come up at all, not even after reloading.
About the colours - no worries. My monitor is probably making a pleasant shade of green a garish bright neon colour. My fault really.
Well done. I am for your color association identity thought. Although it is one of those popular happy makers. Sorry, I’m tired, and I can’t think of words.
Anyway, someone is right about unchecking items. I am afraid to make a mistake and check an item…though I know that I can simply reinput the task. Also, one of the things I find useful about ta-da list is the ability to reorder tasks, though I fucking hate the little up down arrows that take forever. Can we get some drag and drop reordering? Or is it there and I’m missing it?
Orchestrate is sweet!!! The zen approach is definitely the way to go. My only niggle is with when you check a task as completed. Personally, i would like to be able to, as someone already mentioned, either uncheck it as completed, be forced to confirm completion (yeah the idea sounds really stupid, a task is either done or it isn’t), or worst case, just add the task again and remove it from the history. Maybe all thats required is clear history…I totally get your way of thinking though (task is done -> click complete -> task go in history) but maybe there should be an option like ‘enable confirm completion’ as part of your profile in the same way you have to confirm deleting a list.
All in all though, its f#@*ing great.
I second the drag ‘n’ drop ordering.
Looks & works nice. Simple and to the point, that’s what I like about it. It’ll do the job for me for the time being. Thanks. I tried to register, but it looks like I can’t, is that right or am I more incompetent than I realize?
You’re going to be rich, rich I tell you!
(I really like it.)
How about being to drag items between lists? e.g. I make a long list, then after time want to drag some of those out into several separate lists to make the more manageable and organised….
Neato. I’ll try utilizing this during summer school.
I’m just wondering when Chidade is gonna show up….
Oh thank you, thank you, thank you!!! Orchestrate is awsome, simple, and beautiful! Of course this means I have no valid reason for sitting around and letting junk pile up around me unfinished amymore…. But I’ll live with that some how. Yongfook I basque in the glory of your supremacy! Oh, and I like the colors just as they are. Any way of say adding tasks to tasks in a certain list ie: sub-bulleting or something like that? Or is that too complex?
In my javaascript apps I include this:
ondragstart=”return false” onselectstart=”return false”
in the body def, to prevent the user from dragging over the UI as text selection.
(Individual elements still get the drag events, but this prevents drag misses from turning into ugly text highlight UI behavior).
btw, it was your website work from a couple of years ago that got me interested in web design. Thanks.
i lurve it :D
This, very clever IMHO, app has been dugg, on digg.com, all here cordially ordered to head there and digg the story so it reaches critical mass.,.and we kill jon’s server. ;) Come on, people, you know it’s worth it.
Is there anyway to automatically put focus on the “add new task” text field once i click add new task?
too much technical info, not enough food eating! eat something weird! i remember when this site was about how japan sucks and the food makes you want to push your balls into your guts. yo, i’m visiting tokyo, and i better get a tour from the one and only yongfook in tokyo to the one and only kim putnam in daegu
Brilliantly simple. I really like the fact you can just jump in and play with it, and it also makes me want to register cos i want to go back to my lists!
After my blog on google’s online OS and my bootstrapping ways
I think this is perfect product to the lead up to the future online OS environment. I work on 3 computers and have been looking for such great productivity for my day to day work and its online and i can get access to it from all my pcs.. My only wish if there is a way to automatically add dates?
But all in all, great stuff! I’ll highlight it and link to it from my blog, and I look forward to your Lightbulb.
Regards DT
“Completely free!” haha.
i was going to ask if we can reorder the burgundy boxes but not being able to kinda forces me to scan them all once over, which is good for me i guess. i like the little shadow under “Orchestrate” btw.
If any of you are digg users, please consider digging the entry for Orchestrate!
digg entry link
It’s a little late now (was submitted a day ago) but there’s still a chance we could push it to the front page. That would make me jizz in my pants.
Cheers, YF
when typing in a list using “/” for example: “jerk/pull/strap/taunt”, if it’s too long, it’ll extend out of the box list. i guess it’s assumed it’s one word? thought i’d let you know.
btw, this is brilliant. sucks on yongfook’s juicy brain
Is there a way to rename lists ? I can’t find a way and I’ve created a list with a name I dont like anymore :/
I’m off to digg…
Loving it so far, just one questions - is there anyway to delete lists? I can’t seem to figure out how to.
Ok found it, feeling stupid now.
This is PERFECT. Thank you so much!
yo i don’t really know much about computers but is there a way i can like…download this and use it just on my comp cuz i have a mac and i can’t use that popular post-it note software that all my friends have on their PCs…and this would be a great way to substitute.
ps stickies just rnt my style
Just tried out the app, and I’ll add my voice to the chorus of how useful I found it to be - and it’s really simple, too. As mentioned earlier in these comments, is there a way to rename the heading for a task list?
shigajet > I’ll add the heading rename functionality soon.
I think it would be a nice if it could eventually become a Windows client instead of a web client. Or– a Windows client and then you could synch it with the web client. Similar to the way Outlook is used in some apps. But I do like how simple and straightforward it is. Very useful.
Merrill> Hahahahahaha! Yeah, a thick client to reproduce web app functionality? Another thing to install and update? What’s the point? And who uses Windows anyway?
I think Yongfook accomplished exactly what he wanted, and many people, myself included, find Orchestrate extremely useful.
YF - I thought you’d go into doing the soundtracks for Final Fantasy games. I was way off…
Russ– it was just a suggestion. I like working w/ downloadable programs (yes, there are downsides to them, as you mentioned)and I don’t always like working in a browser. I thought maybe there are other people who feel the same way. Who uses Windows? Um, last I checked, millions of people use Microsoft-based products. But, then again, I work in Corporate America so what do I know?
I applaud Yongfook’s desire to create a program for himself that turned out to be fantastic and shared it with the rest of us. Thank you!
I think merrill has a good point. Perhaps Yongfook could export an API to Orchestrate to promote third-party tools. Perhaps a dock widget to remind you of a task, or to add a task to Orchestrate without using your browser.
As this is complexity behind the scenes, I don’t think it interferes with the zen principle. This would definately attract more users I think.
Another point, where’s the RSS feed gone to YF?
Never mind about the feed, I found it, but the blog entries feed isn’t working with firefox’s live bookmarks.
“Who uses Windows? Um, last I checked, millions of people use Microsoft-based products. But, then again, I work in Corporate America so what do I know?”
Apparently nothing about sarcasm.
The blog entry feed is working with Firefox’s live bookmarks as is the comments feed.
I just noticed that the feed at the bottom of this page is http://www.yongfook.com/feed/ while the feed for the blog entries I’m using and that is automatically used if you hit the shiny orange button in Firefox’s url window is http://www.yongfook.com/feed/atom/
The latter works, but the former doesn’t. Try switching.
Sweet. Would be nice with some keyboard shortcuts.
Hello YF, I’ve found a lil bug:
Please refer to this http://www.geocities.com/nonchalantgt/OrchestrateBug.gif
When 2 “Task Lists” are created and both are dragged to “View”, if the “Task List” on the right position(Test2) “Add New Task” then focuses on the textbox but does not type any character and presses ‘Enter’; the “Task List” on the left position(Test) will lose its ability to hide. One would have to delete the “Task List”(Test) in order to ‘reset the positions’.
I apologise for the confusing explanation.
Perhaps you can some validation on the “Add New Task”?
gT > I’m not experiencing that bug at all - what browser are you using?
Hello YF, I’m using IE 6.0.
Apparently, the hanging of Task Lists occurs only when there are 2 Task Lists, when one is in Position 1 and the other in Position 2. When either Task List(stucked or unstucked) is deleted, the “stucked” Task List regains it’s ability to hide.
Here are some errors produced by the browser that you may use for debugging.
I get this error, when I try to “Add New Task” but this error is trivial as it does not hang the Task List.
Line: 3 Char: 93 Error: Can’t move focus to the control because it is invisible, not enabled, or of a type that does not accept the focus.
It is this error, when I attempt to hide the Task List in position 1.
Line: 545 Char: 3 Error: Object doesn’t support this property or method
This is a very useful app.
I would really like a Undo feature on the task. Currently when you mark a task as done there is no way to Undo it.
This is SO cool! Extremely intuitive (for me). Exactly what I want. If it oculd OPRIORITIZE my task lists then it would be everything I want. But I’m not complaining — my search is over, with orchestrate, I think. Good work.
http://www.solutionwatch.com/450/25-to-do-lists-to-stay-productive/
thanks to appearing on solutionwatch, the number of Orchestrate visits has gone through the roof!
I havn’t experienced any bugs yet. I’m using Fox Fire web browser. It’s great that you’re getting such a possitive response. It really is a great app! Would also like to see a undo option. Both for completed, tasks and for those times when you type the wrong task in the wrong list, or, if you a bit anal like me, spell the task wrong and have the overwhelming urge to correct any grammatical errors, even in a task list… but other than that meh, I say it’s damn near perfect!
jon. this is the dogs. seriously. answers my prayers for instant , online organisation. great stuff mate. cheers
“thanks to appearing on solutionwatch, the number of Orchestrate visits has gone through the roof!”
Is that sign-ups or actual users?
This is swell. :D
Hey YF, everyone seems to be liking Orchestrate, but since you designed it for yourself around your needs, I’m curious if it’s working out for you as you hoped?
orchestrate is a great product, but the management and search function need to add.
Moto > it’s been a real lifesaver. I knew it would be, since I had a very clear idea in my head from the start as to what exactly I needed out of a task manager. I currently have 8 different lists - I have a main work list where I dump in small miscellaneous tasks, 4 project-specific lists, an Orchestrate bugs list, and a couple of lifestyle lists (”wishlist” of things I want / need to buy, house bills list). It’s working out great.
yf –
Well done, keep on truckin’!
I am also a hipster pda user, and my tasks print out very nicely on 3×5 cards in Orchestrate. You might be surprised how challenging the 3×5 format can be for many task managers.
Kudos! I’ll be back, now that I’m no longer an Orchestrate virgin I can’t get enough.
Hi,
I use a similar tool but with Mindmaps. Unlike Orchestrate, this is doc based & not web based. It would be good to have your task list in the form of Mind Map.
Ramkumar > stay tuned for my next personal project. That’s all I’m saying…
Sorry if these are repeat requests:
Thanks, this is cool!
To edit my above post — I found I can drag the green boxes but not the red boxes into the trash. I suppose for consistency, you might consider either allowing either to be dragged, or visually locating the trash more closely with the green boxes.
Personally I don’t see how it keeps things “consistent” by making something draggable when there is no indication you can do so. I think it’s more consistent to keep a drawer full of draggable objects and have those as the only draggable objects on screen. Also, from an interface standpoint, if you drag a huge list panel onto the trash can the visual metaphor is lost. The panel is bigger than the trash hotspot, making it ambiguous as to where to drop.
Reordering lists is something I will consider, although I don’t see it as a high priority. For those who are curious, my next updates to the Orchestrate engine will be: rename list titles, delete list items, revive checked items.
All boring, but functional, and that’s what I’m interested in more than anything, for this project. Not sure when I’m going to have time though, I’m incredibly busy right now…
Some more things I noticed: - If I edit an item that is low on the page, when I click to edit it, the page jumps back up to the top. This takes me visually away from the place, and I have to scroll to edit it again. (using Safari) - For some reason Safari doesn’t pick up on the login screen for doing its automatic password entry (”Do you want to remember your password on this page?”). - there doesn’t seem to be a “retrieve password” feature. (notice I had some password trouble lately :) - I right-clicked “about Orchestrate” and did “open link in new window” but it just showed the old page (even though the url was #about)
Regarding my earlier post about consitency, I just meant that for me personally, I just see a bunch of boxes and I assumed that if I could drag the green ones, then the red ones should be draggable, since the green ones didn’t have any special “drag me” icon. And the green ones get dragged and turn into red ones, so they seemd to be kind of the same object. Of course I am just one user and that is my point of view as a user. Thank you for sharing your design reasoning and for providing this useful app.
On the more advanced front, it would be great to have a “download lists” in some XML or .txt format as a backup, or to upload lists in the same format. The download feature would give me more confidence that there is a backup if something bad happens (I know it’s a personal project, so I don’t expect you to be manning the servers at 3am if something goes down).
I am just providing these as data points for you to consider or ignore.
I freaking love it! I have found myself wishing for the ability to rename task lists as easily as I can edit the text of a task, and like others have expressed I would love to be able to reorder tasks. But I dig it. I found your blog (also I like) by way of people bookmarking your “10 smart women” post on delicious and just stumbled across Orchestrate. Lucky me.
Hello, my most wanted features for Orchesstrate are (the first 3 was promised to be in the next version by yongfook): - rename list - delete list items - revive list items - drag and drop list items between different list - reorder list items via drag and drop, and/orlag items
Thanks for Orchestrate, i love it!
Sorry, for the last one i meant FLAG items
inspired - simple, clean and focussed. great effort. Will be happily recommending to friends and colleagues.
Thank you Jon for this wonderful project. I use it daily to organize my life. Keep it up!
Hi, I would like to know if there is a way to delete a task List, in my case I wat to change the title or delete but I can’t find how. Despaite of that is nice easy and usefull.
Hi I just registered and I really find this useful. I was wondering though if there was a way to edit the Task List title or to edit an added task. To edit I have to create a new Task List and re-add the tasks to the new Task List.
Hey YF, have been using this and really do appreciate it a lot. It IS really a cool tool. A small suggestion I have is that it would be nice to be able to reorder the items on a list and/or have a way to emphasize items that are more important than other items on a list.
I have a suggestion. ( sorry if this is already posted, i didn’t had the time to read all the comments ).
Have the list trash icon on top of the lists, and the drag area to view the tasks on both the side and bottom of the task list.
Why ?
You ( and I and everybody else ) could open orchestrate on their firefox sidebar, and the site will be completely usable, now since you have to drag and drop to the right, it is outside of the viewing area.
I know you didn’t mean the site to be used like this, but try it … you will like !!!
TIA Grillo
The text entry box for “Add new task” should be present always and should not require clicking text that says “Add new task” to open up a place to type.
[ TextEntryBox ] AddTaskButton
Agree with others - this is great!
A rename/delete option is the thing I was looking for that made me come to your blog. That and the ability to reorder list items would make this perfect for my purposes….
But, this is great. I think I’ve played with all the to-do/task management options and this is the best.
I’m wondering if there’s a good way / willingness on your part to make a good way to make an alternative method to access task lists. I’m interested in displaying my primary task list on my blog. Right now, the /getlist/ urls require cookie authentication, which ends up being some extra code on my part. I’d feel better about it if there was some permanent key i could use to acces the list data.
Cool site!
you might also think about allowing a list to pop-out into a new window
This will quickly become a must have for me.
Feature suggestion:
Say I have tasks that I do every day, is there a way to uncomplete a task so that I can have a set of tasks ready for the next day? I have some daily tasks that are the same each day and it would be nice to check off each item, and then uncheck them for another day.
Yeppers, I just put in a few more projects, and made another mistake - definitely would appreciate a way to delete or rename misnamed projects, and a way to reorder a list within a project.
But the ease of use is really wonderful. Excellent app.
Regards, Meredi
Love it! But…I was an idiot and mispelled my username. Orchestrate will not let me delete/modify this account or let me create another with the same e-mail address.
I’ve just created 12 projects, in less than an hour, I have all the major threads of my life out there where I can see them. This is really fabulous.
Thank you soooooo much.
Found Orchestrate through Lifehacker today. Love how clean and simple it is.
Welcome to visitors from Lifehacker!
Many of you new users are asking for features that I’ve already decided to put in - I just need to free up some time to do it. Sit tight, hopefully I’ll make some time for Orchestrate this weekend.
YF
Wonderful! I was just going to give a few feature requests but it looks like you’ve gotten it under control just fine.
Thanks for this web app. I’m experimenting with using it as a highly portable list for simple tasks to compliment my more detailed MS Project task lists.
I tried to register, but when I enter my email address in the registration box it says that it is not a valid email address, and it doesn’t let me enter the enter address. Looks like your field needs to be significantly bigger.
Christopher > very sorry about that. I’ve made the input box take more characters.
Howdy. This was probably mentioned already (or is already in the app, but i cant find it), but it would be tits if there was an RSS feed for the lists.
this is very nifty and i love that it’s so simple. keep the colour scheme!
Dashboard widget would be very handy for Orchestrate.
Brilliantly simple! Would it be possible to put in a percentage completion dial in the corner of the windows so I can quickly scan and get a sense of which ones I need to work on? I’ll have more feedback as I play with it.
Oooh, now I want 13 lists. Can it be made bigger?
Walter Wong > I really like that idea!
[…] It also represents an evolution of the ideological framework for web application development (I mentioned this in the Orchestrate post) that I am now extremely comfortable with and shows that yet again, you don’t necessarily need a pre-built framework to help you develop faster, as long as you know exactly what you want to achieve. Sketchplanet is an entire rewrite, merely using the same database (with a bunch of new tables) and went from zero to what you see now in about 3 days of on-and-off coding. […]
orchestrate is web2.0, Great JOB man… the best in usebility & Design. amazing.. but when the rss feed 4 lists will be ready ?
Eran
Love the simplicity of Orchestrate!! I would like to request a few features though. First I would like to be able to drag a task from one list to another. I use Orchestrate for my daily list of tasks and if I don’t finish an item on Monday I would like to be able to drag it to the Tuesday Task List. Rearranging and renaming of lists would be nice too. Thanks for the great app!!
For two wretched days I looked for a really good to do list — useful, good-looking enuff it doesn’t make my life feel like slumming. Thanks. Yr great.
Okay, it looks and feels great. However, I have a serious gripe, which renders it useless: I want to use it on whatever computer I’m on (obviously). Our workcomputers are all on the same ip. Apparently, you seem to think you can identify a person by ip only, or our proxy is doing something weird, because when I browse to the site from a different computer, they are greeted as me and are logged in! ;-)
If it wasn’t for this, I too would probably be saying how this application has changed my life..
ruurdb > I am not looking at IPs at all. I’m using a standard per-browser cookie setup. I don’t know how your office is set up but perhaps your browsers are set up to store cookies in some centrally-accessible location. Do you get the same behaviour with gmail, hotmail or anything else you have to log into?
It seemed proposterous to me as well, to look at ip. But it did seem like a logical explanation for what I am seeing. To answer your question, I am not seeing this behaviour in other sites. We do not have a central cookie storage system.
When I browse from work to the site, I’m immediately logged in. When I choose to log-out, and press the logout button, I’m just returned to the mainpage, fully logged-in, like before.
I’ve tried removing my cookies, but that doesn’t do the trick.
I’m a developer myself, and I must admit that this is something I would not believe without seeing it myself ;-)
it’s a caching issue. never seen this before, but after the logout, I need to do a manual refresh to get to the ‘register or login’ page.
Young, very good job. I have been using your tool for 2 weeks now and today I decided to send you $1 by paypal. (sorry not much but I believe this can grow if you keep getting more users willing to pay). My wish list: - rename function for lists names (I think this is already on your list), - priority feature for ToDos (1-high, 2, 3, 4 or A, B, C, D) However, it would to be enough to be able to reorder the content of the to-do lists. Maybe a dirty but easy way to do that is to always sort the list by the first characters: so if one start the todo with 1, 2, 3 or A, B, C it would be like sorting by priority), in any case I am not sure how easy or difficult it is to implement that but certainly sorting/re-ordering capabilities for the to-dos should be a priority. Once again, excelent job!
Bug? Feature?
Assuming you have an open task.
Login. Then Clear Cookies. Click any open task to ‘finish’ it. It will finish. Attempt to add a task and one gets, rightfully so, mysql errors.
It seems when one logs in again, the task we clicked to finish is finished. And, of course, the task we attempt to create, wasn’t. The behavior doesn’t seem right.
Hi, check out bubbles http://www.3d3r.com/bubbles/
Is it too hard to meke it work on this app ?
OrchestrateHQ is great, thank you for your work, i am using it every day. (greetings from slovakia)
Nice site, there is only one thing: there is no feedback, when I drag something out from the “track lists” it takes some time before I can view it, I can’t tell If I did the right action. Also when I add a task, I can’t tell if it added it, it comes out after a while. I think the site would be better with some feedback
there is feedback for task list loading and item editing. did you not see the spinning indicator when you drag out a task list?
Simple and elegant. All you need now is a mailing list so we can know when you have lightbulb up and running because I am excited to see what you will do with that.
Great idea - really like it - why is it limited to only 12 headings? more ould be very useful!
A very ultra-uber app. Love it!! The only thing I would ask for is to be able to uncheck items that I check…I know I’m a confused dude. Any idea of when you would incorporate that type of functionality?
Stay tuned for an announcement regarding this on Monday…
thanks for the awesome app. i vote for a feature enabling some sort of visual discrimination between list items, so you can prioritize them, e.g. by reordering.
I would like to commend the excelent work. The simplicity and elegence are very refreshing.
I don’t know if you are actively developing this app, but renaming tasks, unchecking, and most of all, reordering them are crucial elements to me. I would be happy to pay for these features.
LOL, it took me about 15 minutes, but i finally figured out how to delete a task pane. That little something below the panes should look like a trash can.
[…] Since production work on haikuplanet finished, we started work straight away on another two projects that we’ve had in our heads for a long time. One will be out at the end of this month and I can’t say much about it but if you are an orchestrate fan, you’ll like it. A lot. The other project will be out in January and it’s shaping up to be really fun and easy to use web service…but beyond that I can’t say anything. Just stay tuned to the jonkenpon blog for updates. […]
Thanks for sharing this! It works great for my needs and I will be using it constantly
amazing !!! i was just about to buy this complicated task manager cause i was too tired from todo list, but this is sweet !!! simple and clean … only one request, make it somehow a desktop app so i can still use it on my pc without having an internet connection. (combining it with offline bubbles when and if bubbles would have that feature for example) any way to print it as it displayed ? although i was suprised and happy with that printable version, thanks again, great job tal
Great… BUT… it WOULD BE PERFECT… if you added drag and drop task between lists… this would allow for rearranging and compiling. ALSO, make it so you can UNdelete a task… then it would be PERFECT.. thanks again.
I’ve been reading yongfook.com since it was a hilarious blog about food as a dating metaphor, and now that I have an actual job with actual things to keep track of, I’ve been using Orchestrate.
Only problem is… I got the invite on my page to join 8apps, and that is hotter than sex. But it won’t give me a password for the email I thought I registered with. Of course, I’ve deleted the original confirmation email. If I give you my Orchestrate username and password (and my firstborn?), could you find out my email on 8apps, so I can get in?
I’ve got the same problem as Jake…. although I’ve got doubts that anything can top the hot coolness of Orchestrate!
Jake, Herb >
http://8apps.com/blog/2007/01/16/hello-orchestrate-users/
That goes for the rest of you too!
Cheers, Jon
I tried your site and I couldn’t register. It kept giving me errors.
I could never try it out. Email me when you have registration fixed.
I used “BryanStarbuck” as my login name. Sometimes it claimed it was too short. Then it would claim it was fine in the HTML but still fail with the MessageBox.
thanks yong,,,the greatest AJAX web application ..can you give ur mail… i need to teach you about that
PEOPLE PEOPLE PEOPLE
Orchestrate has now been SUCCEEDED by 8apps.
http://8apps.com
Contact me via the yongfook.com contact form if you would like an invite to test out 8apps.
Is there a way to add a completion date to each to do item?
Thanks…and the interface is nice, clean, and simple. Great job.
I just wanted to know what sort of skills/programming languages do I need to learn to create something similar to Orchestrate?