ToDoList

ToDoList has EVERYTHING except cloud-sync to smartphones. As of October 2015 here's my opinion:

Best thing = EVERY imaginable function, ALL of them, including NEST-ABLE tasks.

Worst thing = no sync. It isn't really a smart-phone app in any sense.

ToDoList is ALMOST too much. The wide range and variety of functions means you have to learn how to use them or else they'll clutter up your task-list and your thinking processes. ToDoList is free, open-source, and I've found the developer to be very friendly and approachable.

One excellent thing = NEST-ABLE tasks. I REALLY like this function, it is utterly indispensable, and yet VERY few competitors have it. Nest-able tasks (super-tasks, sub-tasks, sub-sub-sub-sub-tasks, task-folders with many tasks in them, OR super-tasks with their sub-tasks, etc.), with capacity to mark as "done" or partially done (percent) or not done at all, to mark any of the tasks or sub-tasks, and meanwhile to mark OR NOT MARK the sub-tasks under them as complete or incomplete or percent partially complete (and a reminder will pop up, asking about how to treat sub-tasks when a super-task is being marked), capacity to "link" the completion of ONE task to the NEXT task (really shouldn't remember to buy milk unless you have FIRST fixed the broken refrigerator, f.e.) (but I think? only if the latter is nested with the former). I LOVE the nested-task capacity. Why doesn't everyone have that?

Also ToDoList includes all these standard functions and more: created-date and start-date and end-date and due-date and completed-date (all of them, and YES they're different, I really NEED the distinctions!), auto-generates time-lines, auto-archives completed tasks OUT of the active task-list TO an archival list if you wish, OR keeps completed tasks right there in the active task-list as a done-list so you can see what's finished and what's not, you pick when to do archiving, it auto-backs-up all its TDL files which hold its task-database(s) and settings and interface tweaks very regularly, there's pretty much infinite regression via the "undo" key-stroke (I think? it will go back in time even beyond any recent "save" command, which is better than Photoshop!), modifiable user-interface (choose which columns to display, choose which priority or category etc. will be default for new tasks, etc.), sorting and re-sorting and sub-sorting (nested sorting?) by any field, viewing by calendar or task-list or due-next or done-by-yesterday or Gantt-chart or create-your-own-view with pick-your-own-fields or use-default-fields, tracking of a task's partial percent complete, percentage complete auto-calculated for any super-task whenever some of its sub-tasks have been worked on and marked (partially) complete, tracking of time expended or allotted per task and for super-tasks auto-calculated based on sub-tasks' times if you wish, built-in stopwatch that you can click on and off to auto-record time expended per task, tasks can be assigned to a variety of different people, database TDL files can be shared among different users at different levels of access and read-write privilege, tagging tasks, assigning categories to tasks, assigning priorities to tasks, assigning colors and styles to tasks and to fields and to any text, creating your own fields (I created "client name" and "case number" and "conflicts" for my law practice), Gantt charting, all the obvious simple calendar functions, some novel complicated calendar functions that I can't even figure out how I might use (though I can imagine someone else would like them), exporting and importing whichever fields and tasks you choose, to a variety of file-formats (right now, the export menu offers MM, CMS, CSV, GAN, HTM, ICS, ML, two different TXT choices, plus its own file-extension TDL, so I think you ought to be able to pretty much create whatever you need with a little sense and some close scrutiny), recurring tasks which will re-appear when marked complete (as EITHER a marked-complete old task plus an automatically created new task, OR as an automatically changed deadline to the same old task, you choose), tasks which jump up on your calendar and get auto-flagged as "important" or as "priority" or whatever, YOU BLOODY WELL NAME IT, ToDoList has got it.

Not only adequate, but utterly exhaustive, for anything related to multiple-person project-management and team multi-task assignments. Clearly should be a go-to for anyone who needs a (free) project management tool for complex reiterative multi-programmer software development projects. There's little support -- it's only ONE DUDE! -- so if you are not technically minded and you think that you may need to call the help-center regularly, then maybe you should pay for Base-Camp or some other cloud service that has helpful people in Bangalore and Cairo and Anchorage and London for overnight conversations. ToDoList would be much too cumbersome for a grocery list (I would use a pen and paper) but I find it excellent for calendaring of strange deadlines and tasks that pop up, such as next court dates, the motions and papers that must be worked on and written and printed and completed and notarized and submitted before that next court date, etc..

Worst thing = no sync. The most disappointing (to me) part about it is that it doesn't really coordinate among small devices. This is not a cloud-service synchronizing task list. The sync button? There's not one. My Windows phone will read a TDL properly through a certain web-browser set-up, a hack I've worked out, but to implement this hack you need to "by hand" perform the act of causing import-export at a "main" computer which houses the TDL data files, and you must then upload-download to and from an accessible location which you maintain (Microsoft OneDrive works fine) and you must keep in mind which version has been modified by which device. It's not HARD ... you probably do it with email drafts already, except for the fact that the emailers put the latest version on any device automatically. But it's annoying and mind-occupying, to do the sync "by hand" like this. So, ToDoList isn't (yet?) set up for the next generation of phone-to-computer multiple device continual sync. If you know how to run a server and have a basic understanding of file-formats, then you can operate the sync "by hand" and thus get ToDoList very NEAR to multiple-device usage status, but that isn't really "real" sync.

Love it. Will continue to use it. Hope some day to get sync. Thanks for your time ... :) ...