Some more small feature news today. If you’ve been using the Settings page recently you might have noticed some additional options. Here’s an overview of what’s new:
More notification settings
For those of you who like to receive email updates about changes and comments made by team members, you can enable email notifications under Settings > Email me at team activity. One option is to receive email for all updates. If you only want to track tasks you delegated to others, select “On, only for tasks I delegated to others”. A new option, “only for tasks for which I’m responsible” can be used to only get email notifications about your own tasks.
Export
Some users asked us if we could add an option to export the task list. This can be useful for various reasons, whether you want to have an offline copy or maybe keep old versions of your task list for administrative purposes. We now added this feature, which you can access under Settings > Account.
Import from external iCal feed
Another request was to make it easier to import tasks from other services. We now added preliminary support for importing tasks from services which offer iCal export, such as Remember the Milk. This option, too, can be found under Settings > Account.
What’s next
The last few weeks we’ve also been working on an API, which we plan to release soon. Stay tuned!
New: Start and end times for tasks
To give tasks a start and end time you can use tags like these:
| Tag | Effect |
|---|---|
| @2pm-4pm | Creates a task that lasts from 2pm to 4pm, in your timezone. |
| @2pm | Creates a task that starts at 2pm. Will show up on your calendar as a one hour event. |
| @16:00-17:30 | You can also use a 24h clock |
| @8-11am | Shorthand is allowed |
If you want to specify the start and end time for a task you also have to give the task a due date. So “Attend sales seminar @4-6pm” will not work (4pm on what day?) but “Attend sales seminar @tomorrow @4-6pm” will work.
Calendar improvements
- The start and end times also show up on your calendar.
- You can now use “only show tasks with a deadline” to keep the clutter from your calendar
Now you can see when events start on your iPhone, and you can get alerts as well
Tip: Free SMS/text notifications
If you synchronize your Thymer appointments with Google Calendar you can get text notifications for free.
Google Calendar
SMS notifications have saved us on more than one occasion, and you can’t beat the price! Thanks Google!
Minor search improvements
A few of our users requested a few more special tags to make it easier to find their tasks, so now you can also use the following tags:
| Tag | Effect |
|---|---|
| @notags | Find all tasks without tags |
| @noproject | Find all tasks that are not part of a project |
| @nodue | Tasks without a due date |
| @norepeat | Tasks that do not recur |
That’s it for today. More news coming soon!
3 minute screencast
A quick 3 minute introduction to Thymer for the iPhone!
Project list
After you log in you get to the project tab. Here you can switch between accounts, select whose task list you want to view and navigate to the recent activity feed. At the very bottom you’ll find a search box, which works just like search in the regular version of Thymer.
Task Details
When you select a task you go to the task details tab. Here you can assign the task to somebody else, mark it complete, toggle flags (discuss/billable/important/waiting for) and add tags. Tags you’ve used before are recommended automatically to save you some typing. Add or remove tags with just a tap of your finger. At the bottom of the page you can discuss the task with your team members or add some notes for yourself.
Recent Activity Feed
Want to keep track of your team on the road? That’s where the Recent Activity Feed comes in. Here you can follow discussions, see which tasks have been completed and so on.
Offline Use (experimental)
When you’re not connected to the internet (or if you’re using an iPod touch) the web app will automatically start in offline mode. In Offline Mode you can access your tasks and projects (providing you’ve accessed them before) and check the recent activity feed. However, you cannot make changes to tasks, nor can you search for them.
How to get it
Go to http://m.thymer.com with your mobile browser and log in. Check the box “iPhone version” or “Android version” on the login page. For the best experience with the iPhone, add the app to your home screen after you’ve logged in. You can do this by clicking on the + icon on the bottom of the mobile Safari window. Then select “Add to Home Screen” to turn Thymer into a one-click app with support for offline use.
Another small new feature today, a new menu for adding tasks.
One of Thymer’s main features is the ability to quickly add new data without having to go trough countless menus and confirmation buttons. That’s why tasks can be added by just typing in what comes up, like “do groceries @tomorrow @john”. All kinds of information can be entered this way: tags, projects, delegation, etc. If you don’t feel like typing or learning these shortcuts, that’s fine too. Although assigning tasks to projects and users without shortcuts was already possible, we’re now introducing a new task menu that brings all possible task options in one convenient option bar. This way you can set all the advanced options with just a few clicks.
You can find the menu by clicking Options -> Advanced Add. If you want to use this menu by default, go to Settings -> Lists & Menus and select “Show “Advanced Add” menu by default.”
The new project selection menu is now also available in the Edit menu.
Feature news! Today we’re releasing the following new features (available for all plans, paid and free):
Archive Projects
If a project is finished, on hold or rarely accessed, you can now archive the project and all its tasks. The most recent changes and reports will still be visible, but the project will no longer appear in your project list. As long as the project is archived, adding or editing tasks for this project is not possible. In case you have a limited projects plan: archived projects do not count against your total number of projects.
To restore the project, click + (Add Project) -> Show archived projects…
.. and select the project you wish to restore.
Task Colors
Like assigning colors to projects, it’s now also possible to assign colors to tasks. If you select a color for a task, the row in your task list will be highlighted with that color. This way you can mark special kinds of events and tasks.
Select a color from the Edit Dialog. To create a task with a color, use one of the following keywords: @colorgreen, @colorred, @colorblue, @colorcyan, @coloryellow.
Example of task with red highlighting
Project Titles
In Thymer, projects have a short name (‘project tag’), and a longer (optional) description. The short name is used to keep the project list and task list shorter, and to quickly add new tasks to a project by typing in the project tag. As the description can provide some important details to a project, this description is now shown when you hover over the project in the project bar.
iCalendar support
Viewing your Thymer task list with dates in your favorite calendar application is now possible! If you use calendar software with support for the iCal format (such as Google Calendar, Apple iCal or Microsoft Outlook), you can subscribe to an iCal feed of your Thymer task list. You can either subscribe to an iCal feed of a specific project, or to the tasks of all projects. Select the project you wish to get an iCal feed for, and click Options -> Subscribe to iCal.
If you use week day sections in Thymer, tasks in your calendar will be shown on the day they are scheduled in Thymer. For all other date sections, tasks are shown according to their deadline. Tasks that aren’t scheduled on a specific date yet, or have no deadline, are excluded from the iCal feed.
iCal on the iPhone
and in Outlook
That’s it for now. Hope you enjoy these new features! More news next week!
