Could we use sections instead of labels?

[sai-manoj-kumar]

As of today, the Todoist API prevents users without Todoist Premium from creating Labels. Kanbanist uses Labels as the lists so without labels, well, there's not a whole lot going on.

☝️ from README

[robotlemon]

hi- new here- if i could add to the above... i'd find it great to have the option (perhaps a toggle?) to use Projects instead of Labels. sections could follow as dividers in the project column.

I would fund this functionality if it would help. thanks! -Reid

[mwakerman]

@robotlemon - please take a look at #11, this is something I've started looking at since Todoist have blocked the labels API for non-Premium users.

@sai-manoj-kumar - I don't personally use sections in Todoist but they appear to be something project based (each project has it's own sections). As such, how would you expect this to work in Kanbanist?

[sai-manoj-kumar]

@mwakerman The way I see it is, I have one Kanban board for each project I need to track. So, different sections form different columns in the Kanbanist. Seems so intuitive. Even if I go back to todoist after making changes in Kanbanist, the tasks are still broken down into different sections similar to the Kanbanist view.

Also, I don't want to move my tasks across projects when they change state, from todo to doing to blocked on someone else etc.

Just to add, I use labels like todo, doing, it messes up with my current filtering flow. That's not how I use filters in todoist. also,

[sai-manoj-kumar]

@mwakerman What do you think? ☝️

[mwakerman]

Thanks for the explanation @sai-manoj-kumar, unfortunately I think your use case (1 project per board) is not common and I can't see a clean way to use "Sections" if there are multiple projects on a board.

Regarding your last point about labels and filters, I'm unsure why creating a set of labels for Kanbanist and then disabling the other labels (in the "Lists" filter menu) would not work for you.

[sai-manoj-kumar]

@mwakerman Thanks for the response. Don't know if it is common or not, but I understand how it can be complicated with multiple projects and sections together.

There is no problem in the kanbanist, I feel that these new labels I create for kanban board don't do much in the todoist and just feel like a bit of clutter. Not a major issue though.

Overall I still would love to use one board per project based on the way I have my projects(work, side projects, personal etc.), will try to see if I can fork in this direction. Hope you won't mind. 🙂

[maartendeblock]

The cleanest way is to group on section name. If you want to use Kanbanist over multiple projects (as I do), than you must have sections with the same names.

[miguelarios]

Hi @mwakerman I would add a thought to your comment on how this could work for both scenarios (1 kanban per project OR 1 kanban multiple projects) Swimlanes! I just jira day in day out and like in jira you have swimlanes per story as a swimlane or a dropdown section and each subtask go across the kanban.

I can see in this analogy each story is like a project and each column in the kanban is a section and you move todos across, and each project can be a swimlane that can be collapsed same as how it is in jira. In fact, in jira you can make the hierarchy be epics or stories.

[miguelarios]

Additionally i feel labels can be almost like colors instead of the columns in the kanban as to me colors would be a quick visual of what the label is for which should match with the Todoist use for labels since each has a color. I'm unsure if the todoist api allows you to extract the color of the label, however.

[mwakerman]

Todoist are (slowly!) making their Boards product which, as far as I know, has a board per Project and uses Sections to define columns/lists so that should satisfy a lot of folks on this thread's needs.

[pdussart]

Todoist Boards will be released really soon: https://twitter.com/todoist/status/1306971431809495065?s=20

It is indeed based on sections: sections become columns. Which I find counterintuitive: I always thought they were ment to group tasks within a project, say, per topic (e.g. "testing") not per status, as one does using labels.

[mwakerman]

Yeah I’ve actually been using Boards for a while (you can enable it on the desktop app). I like it but find it really frustrating that it only has it per project so I have to frequently go between it and my Today view to see tasks in other projects.

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On Sun, 20 Sep 2020 at 17:17, pdussart ***@***.***> wrote: Todoist Boards will be released really soon: https://twitter.com/todoist/status/1306971431809495065?s=20 It is indeed based on sections: sections become columns. Which I find counterintuitive: I always thought they were ment to group tasks within a project, say, per topic (e.g. "testing") not per status, as one does using labels. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#86 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AARESAXVQOKYXHHPMN35GD3SGWXS3ANCNFSM4MLPA3JA> . --

-- Misha Wakerman [email protected]

[pdussart]

Thanks for mentioning that. I didn't know it was so easy to enable experimental features https://get.todoist.help/hc/en-us/articles/207106825-Join-the-beta-testing-program Experiencing the Boards-view confirms my suspicion, and what you're saying, that a Board-view on a per-proejct basis would break or at least hamper my workflow, too. But I might change my mind, eventually. On Sun, Sep 20, 2020 at 9:52 AM Misha Wakerman <[email protected]> wrote:

…

Yeah I’ve actually been using Boards for a while (you can enable it on the desktop app). I like it but find it really frustrating that it only has it per project so I have to frequently go between it and my Today view to see tasks in other projects. On Sun, 20 Sep 2020 at 17:17, pdussart ***@***.***> wrote: > > > Todoist Boards will be released really soon: > https://twitter.com/todoist/status/1306971431809495065?s=20 > > > It is indeed based on sections: sections become columns. Which I find > counterintuitive: I always thought they were ment to group tasks within a > project, say, per topic (e.g. "testing") not per status, as one does using > labels. > > > > > — > You are receiving this because you were mentioned. > Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub > <#86 (comment) >, > or unsubscribe > < https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AARESAXVQOKYXHHPMN35GD3SGWXS3ANCNFSM4MLPA3JA > > . > > > -- -- Misha Wakerman ***@***.*** — You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#86 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ADTHY5RPWKKZR44UW3YKVUDSGWYDRANCNFSM4MLPA3JA> .

[erauner12]

While I think the native boards they introduced are great. I still think do not think that it replaces everything that Kanbanist can do. I hope to see this project continue to flourish.

[pdussart]

the things is: Todoist boards are based on sections instead of labels. So unless you want to assign both a section and a label to each task you have to go with either Todoist OR Kanbanist.

I've tried a Todoist-only workflow for a couple of weeks (I even threw all my labels overboard - pun not intended) but I think I'm reverting to a setup with Kanbanist and Todoist combined. To me, todoist-boards are simply another way to display tasks in a (sub)project: an alternative for the default task list view. But they do not "feel" like a real Kanban (not that they advertise it as such, to my knowledge). If you need "true kanban" in your workflow - which means also being able to combine tasks from several (sub)projects on one board - Todoist Boards don't come even close to a replacement of Kanbanist.

[mwakerman]

I've been working on switching to Todoist Sections as columns in Kanbanist. As to be expected, the hard problem to solve is if people have different sections in different projects (I've also built a settings menu where you can manually manage all your sections across all projects including forcing all projects to have the same sections). I see two options:

• Force people to have the same sections in all projects (show the tool I describe above if they don't).
• Enable something like swimlanes where each project gets its own board in the same view. And enable a combined board iff people have all the same sections.

[anandman]

Why bother with the second option? Isn’t that same as saying use Todoist Boards view for each individual project and IFF sections are consistent across all projects, then use Kanbanist? One question, with either option, can we use sections both for Kanbanist and for separating out “sub-projects”? For example, can I have a common set of sections like “Backlog”, “Next”, “Current”, “Done” that Kanbanist uses while still having sections that represent “sub-projects”? I understand that any tasks in the latter sections would not show up in the swim lanes as a result.

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On Oct 16, 2020, at 13:04, Misha Wakerman ***@***.***> wrote:  I've been working on switching to Todoist Sections as columns in Kanbanist. As to be expected, the hard problem to solve is if people have different sections in different projects (I've also built a settings menu where you can manually manage all your sections across all projects including forcing all projects to have the same sections). I see two options: Force people to have the same sections in all projects (show the tool I describe above if they don't). Enable something like swimlanes where each project gets its own board in the same view. And enable a combined board iff people have all the same sections. — You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe.

[mwakerman]

• Project swim-lanes is a very often request feature, see Bump jquery from 3.4.1 to 3.5.0 #89
• Having sections (and labels for that matter) that are columns and others that are ignored/repurposed is possible. The overarching issue with sections is that Kanbanist will need to do a lot of work to keep sections synchronised across projects. For example, what should Kanbanist do if someone deletes a section from one project manually in Todoist?