Perfection is damnably hard
Apr. 26th, 2010 10:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsSo, I spent about an hour mashing my static to-do list with its awesome typography into a django version of the Rails to-do manager, Tracks. I tracked down where I got the "right now" thing from, Merlin Mann. I've changed the typography to a modern sans-serif, updated the javascript clock, and put in a second column.
And now comes the hard part: preserving what I love about my project list without cluttering it up with controls or decorations. This means that the page is going to look completely not like a smart page-- there are no underlines, no icons, no nothing to indicated affordance. Instead, I'll just know that text is clickable, and know what to do where-- just like paper. That I created all of the actions is helpful, and the idea of putting an "advanced controller" for actions above and beyond "add task", "mark task done," and "add project" will be all hidden on another administrative page makes me happy.
But that means that the functionality must be both hidden and obvious. So the task list only appears when you click on a project, and it scrolls down smoothly. It must also scroll up when you click on another project (only work on one thing at a time rule), and the control icons on the right must only appear at certain times-- like when you mouse over the last quarter of a task item.
All of this "intelligence" is nit-picky and damnably difficult, but it must be just perfect. This is something I have to live with, if I'm going to use it. It'll be fun.
And now comes the hard part: preserving what I love about my project list without cluttering it up with controls or decorations. This means that the page is going to look completely not like a smart page-- there are no underlines, no icons, no nothing to indicated affordance. Instead, I'll just know that text is clickable, and know what to do where-- just like paper. That I created all of the actions is helpful, and the idea of putting an "advanced controller" for actions above and beyond "add task", "mark task done," and "add project" will be all hidden on another administrative page makes me happy.
But that means that the functionality must be both hidden and obvious. So the task list only appears when you click on a project, and it scrolls down smoothly. It must also scroll up when you click on another project (only work on one thing at a time rule), and the control icons on the right must only appear at certain times-- like when you mouse over the last quarter of a task item.
All of this "intelligence" is nit-picky and damnably difficult, but it must be just perfect. This is something I have to live with, if I'm going to use it. It'll be fun.
