I think it's a good idea to list the reasons why Tudumo exists.
For me, it comes down to "feel". If an app feels clunky, I'm not happy using it. I have my own weird ways about that too - I still can't really use MS word. It drives me nuts. But rewriting Word is just a terrible way to start your software business!
A few other tools bug me. One is the bookmarks folder. I know it's been the way we do things for absolute ages, but I don't care - I can't stand putting my bookmarks into a menu system. I put more and more and more in, and then I move computers and junk the whole lot. Some will come back, most I'll lose and that's okay. But there is a better way of doing bookmarks, just I haven't seen it yet. Hint - it's gotta be much faster than delicious, and it can't be based on menus. They suck. And Google is exceptionally well placed to do it properly, but they haven't.
So, back to actions/tasks/todo lists. For the longest time, nothing I've used has worked for me. The Em-phAs-is here is "for me", so YMMV. I want fast, I want pretty, I want drag and drop, I'd like on the web but I can't wait around for it to load. I'd like it on my phone, I don't like subfolders that much, and I think it can all be done, it's just hard. Don't show me every option you have, don't make me look at a table or a tree - both waste so much of the screen and we use them because they're the way we've always done it. But, obviously, trying anything else is very hard - if you want to fiddle and invent a new way, best you put some serious time aside.
So Tudumo is part experiment (that was the first...8 months, but small experiments continue) part huge effort and many parts great fun. And now I have something I'm (mostly) happy with.
What is it?
- Well, Tudumo has headings, like you've always used. This means you can group stuff together, like you've done before.
- Tudumo has tags, which some of you have used. They're great, because you can group things in multiple ways.
- It then combines these two - so you can filter on both dimensions - you can say "show me only the items with this tag" and if you like you can add "...under this heading" and "...with this state".
- And yes, actions have a state. Version 1 of Tudumo had a block on the left (for priority) and a block on the right (for completed). But...very few things are both completed AND high priority. But...you guessed it - that's the way it's always been done! So I merged them, and added a few other states. It works nicely.
Dates are in there, but not terribly well done. They need work...I'm bad, I know. Naturally, I rewrote the date editor - that experiment is not completed yet but it looks nicer.
And the whole thing is wrapped up in a very hand-coded user interface, so you don't know about tags until you use them. You don't see columns for dates until you add them to items.
You don't have notes hidden some way off the screen - they're there, underneath the label, but only when you want them. I'll be amazed if, the first time you see Tudumo, you don't think "is that it?" because it looks so simple.
However, now Tudumo needs more of you than it does of me. If it's not usable enough or not fast enough or just won't go anywhere until I sync it with Outlook, you'll do a better job of telling me. I can rub off the rough edges until the cows come home, or I can put it out there and have you tell me...whatever it is you'll tell me.
So...next action! Mail me at betasignup@tudumo.com and I'll send you a url to download from.
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