Maciej Smoła

Explain the problem as you see it

I need to create new field with the same name if I want to make it behave differently in different supertag templates in terms of being hidden or not.

Why is this a problem for you?

Cannot use one field universally under different supertags.

Suggest a solution

Field’s hiding settings per supertag, not per field

Explain the problem as you see it

Side panels are painful to use if used often to peek at a node's content. They are not smooth in opening (often with the width different than expected) and hard to close (aiming for small "x" at the right top, least used corner), making the work with them slow.

Why is this a problem for you?

Panels are slow to use and require a lot of fiddling even if needed to be used for one action, like changing supertag settings.

Suggest a solution

Side peek like in Notion, examples:

• https://youtu.be/yUgdTsExyCQ?si=WqFKYlG-wyrNnlmc&t=169
• https://medium.com/keep-productive/notion-introduces-peek-mode-af4175dbfd5
  

Most important features:

• easy close by clicking away of the side peek
• opened in wide enough with customizable width
• customizable popup location (side or center)

Explain the problem as you see it

Every time I close the dock and open it again it gets reset to default width (too narrow for being useful in my case). I usually work with a dock being closer to 50% of window size.

Why is this a problem for you?

Every time I open the node in the dock on the right side of the screen I need to readjust its width.

Suggest a solution

Make Side Dock width constant until changed by user, remember the last used width and don't revert to default narrow dock.

Explain the problem as you see it

There is no way to post to Trans Today node using external apps with API.

Why is this a problem for you?

I need to go through Inbox to move them to Today and remember about that it’s there.

Suggest a solution

Universal ID for “Today” (maybe also + and -X relative number of days) or other way to allow integration with the final gessler of posting content into specific relative Day Node.

Explain the problem as you see it

I have a list of chapters of my online course. I would like to add a task which would have all of them as subtasks. To do this, I create a specific task like "check the illustrations" and put all of the chapters as this task children (as subtasks). This way I know, that to complete the main task, I need to make that specific activity included in the task title through all of the chapters.

Sometimes I even go deeper and put not only chapters, but all of their lessons as subtasks.

Part of my chapters/lessons tree:

Task with subtasks being inline references to chapters and lessons from the tree:

Why is this a problem for you?

It's very time consuming to do this kind of stuff. Currently I do it the other way because of this – I created "an universal list" of chapters and lessons, added a supertag to all of the lessons and each new task got added to the supertag template:

Sadly, it's not optimal, because often there is no need to add a task to every single supertag instance.

Suggest a solution

Add a shortcut to paste copied visible structure as the same structure, but each node is an inline reference.

Explain the problem as you see it

There are very limited ways of extracting content relations based on simple outline position – most of existing features are based on fields' values.

Why is this a problem for you?

I have a tree like this:
– Note A
–– Note B
– Note C
–– [[Note B]] (a reference)

I would like to have a search for all Note B parents, so that it will have results:
– Note A
– Note C

Currently, to have information of node's hierarchy, I always need to have fields on every node and when the node is a reference, I need to fill them in manually (like creating #synthesis note based on several nodes moved from other locations).

Suggest a solution

Add two search operators:

1/ PARENT_OF
In the previous example it would look like [>PARENT_OF: Note B], result: Note A.

2/ PARENT_OF_WITH_REFS
In the previous example it would look like [>PARENT_OF_WITH_REFS: Note B], result: Note A, Note C.

Explain the problem as you see it

Sidebar located on the left has few drawbacks:

• when using Tana as on the right side of the screen, with other apps filling the left side, left sidebar makes a less than optional viewing experience (stands in the way between window edge and nodes' contents);
• may cause problems with left sidebars from other apps, browsers (Arc with hidden sidebar) and system (MacOS dock on the left).

Why is this a problem for you?

As above.

Suggest a solution

Ability to:

• change sidebar location to the right.
• hide sidebar completely.

Explain the problem as you see it

When using "Map checkbox state to field value" in a setup where there is several statuses for Not-done and one for Done having

"Map checked to" → "Done"

"Map unchecked to" seems not so useful – there is a specific status I would like to go back to and it is most often the same as before setting it to "Done".

Why is this a problem for you?

I have a field for priorities:

• p1
• p2
• p3
• done

And let's say I have a field and it has a priority set to "p1". I set the tag with that field to "Map checked to" → "done".
I checked that node off, field changes status to "done". But wait, I sometimes find out that I checked it by mistake and want to go back. I uncheck it. Status doesnt't change or changes to whatever I have it set in "Map unchecked to". But ideal way would be to have an additional option there to set it to "previous field value (before checked)".

Suggest a solution

Option for "previous field value (before checked)" in "Map unchecked to".

Explain the problem as you see it

We are unable to make hiding fields more dependable on fields content.

Why is this a problem for you?

I don't need to see a field if it has only tasks in it and all of them are done. I would like to hide it to avoid cluttering up my view.

Suggest a solution

Add new field hide option "Hide if all tasks in this field are completed"

Explain the problem as you see it

With many buttons interface quickly becomes cluttered.

Why is this a problem for you?

I often use command buttons which could be condensed into one button, like:

• Change priority to 1, 2, 3, 4.
• Change due date to today, one day further, earlier etc.

Having them side by side can result in >10 buttons, which could be really condensed into 2 "show more" buttons.

Suggest a solution

Command to make a button show multiple buttons as a popup with options formated as:

• drop-down list;
• horizontal list (like below):
  
• grid with their specified location in space (like below):
  

Explain the problem as you see it

Let's have a classic example:

• there is a #paraphrase node with children being several #quote nodes and few other #paraphrase nodes' references from other places,
• each #quote has >Source field with nodes tagged #source,
• each #source node has >Icon, >Full name and >Abbreviation fields.

It is possible to use "build title from fields" to append >Icon + >Abbreviation of #source nodes to the title of #quote node.

However, there is no way to pass that info further to the #paraphrase node to see at a glance which sources is the paraphrase based on. - It is possible to do it with single #quote, but gets broken with multiple nodes in the field.

Build title from fields formula for #~ (used as a paraphrase tag in my use case) used in examples below:

${name}${Bazuje na cytatach:.Źródła wykorzystane|?}${Bazuje na cytatach:.Numer rozdziału|?}${Numer strony|?}

Why is this a problem for you?

I would like to see information about sources of quotes (or literature notes in zettelkasten) used to create a paraphrase (or permament note in zettelkasten) without diving into node's descendants. Also, I would like to gather information from additional fields like Section number ("Numer rozdziału" in above example).

Sometimes, I would make a paraphrase as a basis to create another paraphrase, as a sibling of #quotes. Then, I would like to have that paraphrase sources information be also used to build title from fields of the parent.

So perfectly, I could have a setup of build title from fields looking like:

"Node name/text" 📕 bookABC-page10 📗 articleX-section79

Suggest a solution

Allow build title from fields function to gather infromation from fields of many children and other descendants.

Explain the problem as you see it

There is no way to connect multiple tasks' dates together if they are to be completed one after another.

Why is this a problem for you?

I would like to have an option for more automated rescheduling tasks priorities and due dates. Currenty the only way to do it is via listing them one above the other and completing them from the top to the bottom of the list which is error-prone nad not so flexible.

Suggest a solution

Dependent tasks. Ability to set Task B to be due X days after Task A.

Explain the problem as you see it

We have several useful fields/parameters like:

${cdate} and ${ctime} - Created date and time
${mdate} and ${mtime} - Modified date and time
${sys:description} - Description field
${sys:createdAt} - Time of creation
${sys:lastModifiedAt} - Time of last edit
${sys:lastModifiedBy} - User who last edited the node
${sys:modifiedBy} - All users who ever created/modified the node
${sys:owner} - Parent node
${sys:dateFromDayNode} - The day node this node belongs to (Calendar date system field)
${sys:doneTime} - Date and time this node was marked done

A new one like ${sys:convertedToTaskTime} and ${sys:taggedAs{{CUSTOMTAGNAME}}Time} would be useful to show when a node has been converted to task being worked on – either manually by making it a task node or by adding a new tag like "#in progress".

With ${sys:doneTime} it could then be used as a time logger for tasks:

1. Create task as a plain node.
2. It's waiting for its time in some kind of backlog.
3. Decide to make it more actionable - tag is as "#in progress" or convert it to todo (or both).
4. Complete the task

Why is this a problem for you?

I have a long list of illustrations to be created. When I start working on an illustration task, I convert its node to a todo. After finishing the illustration, I complete its todo.

I would like to track the time from "start working on an illustration task" to "complete its todo".

Suggest a solution

Have functional:

• ${sys:convertedToTaskTime} or
• ${sys:taggedAs{{CUSTOMTAGNAME}}Time}
  to be then later used for example as a date ranges in Calendar View.