Bad default due dates for tasks created in Agenda view.

1

When I create a task in the agenda view using the text box at the top, they are created with start and due dates with the current day’s date and time. I can’t see how these default values could be useful. If the task is due instantly, how can I even have time to complete it? To make matters worse, if I forget to subsequently open the task and set dates for it, I could end up forgetting about it since its due date would have already elapsed. It would disappear from my agenda list in a couple of days.

This is typically not what I would want; if I use this feature, I want to dump a task into the program so I can remember to do it later. The key word here is “later”. The client seems to be designed with the assumption that if I create a task, I want to complete it right now. If I want to do something immediately, I don’t want to create a task for it because I’d be doing it instead.

If I create a task by only supplying its title, I want it to have no due date or start date. This way, it appears at the top of the list where I can see it and remember that it needs to be done.

2

I immediately noticed this too. I suggest either just leaving all that extra stuff off by default, or by creating preferences to give us control over what the defaults are for new tasks:

For example, quickly adding tasks at the top of the Agenda window is great! But I don’t want all the new tasks I type in to have a default Due Date of an hour from now (which is presently the default behaviour). This just creates more work, as I then have to go to the task list and edit each task individually to change or remove the due date.

So the preference for this could be something simple like:

**\*\*\* Defaults for New Tasks \*\*\***

- Due Date for New Tasks: 
 No Due Date 
 5 mins 
 [...] 
 1 hour 
 [...] 
 1 day 
 [...] 
 1 week 

- Start Date for New Tasks: 
 No Start Date 
 Now 
 [...] 
 1 hour 
 etc. etc. etc. 

- Create Reminder for New Tasks: 
 No Reminder 
 [...] 
 etc. etc. etc. 

- Status for New Tasks: 
 Not Started 
 etc.
3

We have to discuss it further with our developers but I can assure that we will try to make it more user friendly.