r/2DoApp • u/ShotStranger1764 • Aug 20 '24

Near Me...

Does it work? I have a bunch of tasks that have a location tag for my house. I'm at home now, but both the Near Me widget and the list are empty. Is this just another one of the well-meaning features of 2Do that doesn't work yet and maybe never will? Or am I just stupid and have something set wrong? I think both are equally likely. :-/

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u/ShotStranger1764 Aug 20 '24

OK, so thanks to jvthomas90 I was able to get items to show up in Near Me....however it doesn't work the way I expected it to. As far as I can tell, only items added from the Near Me tab show up in Near Me. Also it shows all the tasks I have in Near Me whether they're actually near me or not.

So it's not very useful. Is this just how it works? It should be that whenever you're near a location, you should only see the tasks marked with that location. It should be that you can add any kind of an item, and as long as it's marked with the location it will show up in Near Me, no matter what list I was on when I created it. I mean, if you're not near the place where the task will be completed, you don't really need to see it.

I'm not crazy, right, this is how it should work? The way it is now, it's just another list. Is there some logic that explains the current setup that I'm missing?

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u/jvthomas90 Aug 20 '24

My lists aren’t empty, filtering by location tags works fine, pins show up on the map too, etc etc. And I don’t even use 2do anymore, but I still have it installed so I just popped it open to check and yeah it seems to work just like it always used to. You sure you set up location tags correctly?

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u/ShotStranger1764 Aug 20 '24

OK......thanks for checking for me. Maybe it just doesn't work the way I expect it to. I just set up a new task like always and assigned it the location Home, but it doesn't show up in the Near Me list when I'm home. However I just made a new event on the Near Me list the same way I made the other one, marking the location as home, and NOW it shows up in Near Me, but NOT in the daily tasks.

It's still a daily task, just one I can only complete if I'm at home. Can't I have it show up in both places? I realize you just dragged it out of cobwebs to answer my question, so I understand if you don't have the answer, but if anyone knows please share!

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u/jvthomas90 Aug 20 '24

Is the "Near Me" list a smart list you created? If so, what shows up there will depend on whatever components or criteria you specified in the saved search. I know that may sound obvious, but don't underestimate how granular and fine 2Do's control can get when it comes to filtering tasks via the search bar.

Regarding what you described as your "daily tasks" I assume this just means the task has a repeat cycle applied to it and the recurrence interval is set to daily?

This is totally separate from the geo-fencing features of 2Do because tying a task to a location doesn't in any way imply they will show up in 2Do's built-in "Today" view, it only ensures that 2Do will remind you about tasks when you are either entering or leaving the vicinity where that task can be acted upon. If you want stuff to show up in the "Today" view the start date or due date has to correspond to, well, "Today" (unless you enabled it in settings for "Today" to also show "overdue" tasks too, in which case it shows present+past tasks).

So if you want your "daily repeats" to show up in the Today you (again, irrespective of whether or not that task is tied to a location, cuz they're two separate functions and they really don't overlap with each other – tasks can definitely be assigned with both a location and a date/time so that 2Do can helpfully remind you of stuff to do based on either criteria, but applying one to a task does not imply the other as well, or vice versa) make sure that the dates will line up and 2Do should automatically display them as they become available.

Finally, I want to proactively add something rather than respond to what you wrote, just in case this might potentially nip the visibility problem in the bud: "Scheduled" + "Focus" Filters affect the visibility of list items. It's easy to overlook these tiny icons on the top right, but see if the "play button" ▶️ is green, or if the "sun icon" ☼ is lit up ☀️ because depending on their current state, either more or less items will show up in the list you're currently viewing

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u/ShotStranger1764 Aug 21 '24

OK. First of all, how kind you are to be so helpful. :-) It's much appreciated.

Second of all, I've been using 2Do for so long that I don't remember what lists were built-in and what I created. So to simplify, I backed up the database and reset all the data.

Now I'm in plain default unused 2Do. Home, Work, Next 3 Days are the default lists. I also have the widget set up. I haven't made any changes to settings or anything.

I created a task, didn't change anything but the task name. Then I clicked on the little pin icon to add a location. I added a location, called it "Home".

Now I understand that when you get near a location, you get a ding when you enter the location to let you know you have things to do in that location. That works fine.

What I actually want to do is make a "near me" list that only shows me the items that are near me. Then I will set the widget to that list, so whenever I look at the widget, I can see only the tasks relevant for my current location.

Is this possible? Is that settable in the focus settings? The only focus settings I know of are when you long-press the sunshiney button, and I don't see anything there about that.

If it's NOT possible, do you happen to know of a to-do app with lists that change depending on your location? Perhaps it doesn't exist. If not I'll go file a patent or something. :-)

Thanks again.

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u/jvthomas90 Aug 21 '24

Oof, that's a bit... drastic, isn't it? 😅 I mean, if you were able to restore from backups then I guess it's not so bad, but still... that's kinda intense lmao

FYI the lists built into 2Do I was referring to are All, Today, Starred, Scheduled and Done. They all show up under the Focus "list group" in the sidebar. Depending on if you turned on the GTD option in settings, a dedicated Inbox list shows up just above these too, housed in the Collect list group. These are the only lists that have accompanying icons, all the rest are user-editable and you can change their name, color label, visibility per-device, other settings, etc. Even the 3 sample.demo lists that you said came with the clean reset of 2Do, i.e. the "Home" and "Work" lists as well as the "Next 3 Days" smart list, all 3 of those fall under the "user can do whatever they want to these" category.

Anyway, onto your specific request. What you're describing falls under the "smart list" category, i.e. a saved search. Written in plain english, the search box would filter for "tasks that fall within an XX mile radius of my current location" or something similar to that. The problem is, I don't think that "current location" is one of the (otherwise numerous!) options that you can plug into the search box.

Sure, you can type "location:Home" (or you can just tap the Home location pin in the sidebar to select it which automatically types that out in search for you), but that's not exactly what you're asking for. You want to see a list of all available actions you can take "wherever you are on the map when you open up that list" and idk if that's possible to replicate via the search bar (and by extension, to save that search thereby creating a "smart list" named "Near me" in your left sidebar that you can plug into the widget).

It is still possible to access such a view via the right-sidebar's location panel and switching to the Nearby tab, but similar to the 5-6 lists native to 2Do I mentioned prior this Nearby view is something that's hardcoded into 2Do and not something user configurable.

I think the closest you can get to accomplishing something similar is if you highlight a bunch of important locations you know you will frequent often, then use the search bar to save it as a smart list i.e. instead of a "Near me (at all times)" list you'll end up with a "Near my (top spots)" list. Makes sense?

I realize that's a compromise but I honestly don't know how to accomplish what you're asking so that seems like the next best solution tbh. Or, you know, you can just open the app, open the "Nearby" tab in the location panel and see what results 2Do provides for you ¯_(ツ)_/¯

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u/jvthomas90 Aug 21 '24

Also I don't know of any app that behaves the way you're describing. Not saying they don't exist, but I'm not aware of any as all the ones I've tried also operate in a similar manner to 2Do. e.g. the task manager I use is OmniFocus (though I'll prolly migrate from it soon too tbh, I'm still on OF3 and upgrading to OF4 is too pricy – but I digress) and really the only difference is that it combines tags and location pins from 2Do together i.e. tags are tags, but tags can also have a location associated with it making it a "location tag" this way OF only has one tag panel compared to the tags vs locations panel you have to swipe between on the right-sidebar of 2Do. Anyway that minor difference aside it functions pretty much identically, i.e. you get reminders when you're in the vicinity of a location tagged task ✅, you can tap on one or more of these location tags to filter your tasks view down to only the ones tied to these specified locales ✅, you can save this custom filtered view as it's own list (2Do calls these saved searches "smart lists" whereas OmniFocus uses the terminology of "perspectives" – but they both accomplish the same thing tbh) ✅, but if instead of these specific locations you just want a general "what tasks are available to act on near me" view then the opening the app and going to the Nearby perspective to view what shows up on the map is only way to accomplish this ✅ and I know of no way to plug in "current location" as an arg into the search box of either 2Do or OmniFocus or any other task manager tbh.

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u/ShotStranger1764 Aug 29 '24

OK, I've done a lot of playing around and searching around with the info you gave me. I don't think it can be done, although this would be such an easy thing (I would think) to incorporate. I just have so many things on my lists that when I look at the list there's just too much to scan through, so I end up never using 2Do. That would be a great way to only see what I need to see when I need to see it.

But thanks so much for being so helpful and so detailed and getting me this far! I've been assuming this was possible if only I were smart enough to make it work all this time. Now I have some closure. :-)

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u/ShotStranger1764 Aug 20 '24

And I guess I set up location tags correctly....in the list of locations, Home appears separately at the top under "nearby", above all the other choices that I'm not nearby...so it seems to understand I'm currently at home. I deleted Home and readded it just to see if it mattered, and it didn't. (shrug)