Clear 2.4.3 is out on the App Store

[phillryu]

Clear 2.4.3 is now released on the App Store! Thanks to everyone who helped test this ahead of its release.

Here’s what’s new:
• Toolbar above keyboard
• New setting to enable swipe gesture to show or hide toolbar
• (Pro) Set tasks to repeat, they will regenerate when cleared away
• Simple Styles text shortcuts deprecated in favor of toolbar options
• Natural language reminders deprecated in favor of toolbar option
• More logging & reduction in data synced to Clear Watch
• Backend data support for the upcoming sync & Clear Web test
• “Clear” changed to “Remove Reminder” for more legibility
• Momotaro theme color values tweaked

Repeating tasks have been requested since Clear’s original release, and it’s a feature that is kind of enabled by the new toolbar, which allows for some useful features without needing new hidden gestures to teach. This is a new feature for Clear Pro members.

You can set a task to repeat with the new toolbar. These tasks will ‘regenerate’ at the top of your list after checking them off and then pulling to clear away your checked off tasks:

It’s useful for tasks you’re doing each day on your todo list, or other use cases like weekly grocery items, or perhaps your gym workout list.

The new toolbar is handy, and I think feels solid designed as an extension of your keyboard. We’re dropping the natural language parsing trigger for reminders in favor of this placement, as it’s much more obvious and easy to invoke. (Same for the text shortcuts we had for simple styles.)

Don’t worry if you prize Clear’s minimalism, we also include a new setting you can opt-into that lets you toggle the toolbar with a vertical swipe.

This update is set for phased release, and will be rolling out in auto-updates through the week, but you can grab it from the App Store now.

Please report any issues! There are some backend changes, so we’ll be keeping an eye on any crash or bug reports coming in.

With this update out, we will be focused on preparing an iOS + Clear Web TestFlight for the forums next.

[huett]

@phillryu , this update is a delight! New elements and functionality I didn’t know I needed, but now they’re here, I know I will use every day. Thank you and the team, this is great!

[phillryu]

Awesome to hear!!

[Jeff]

This is a fantastic update. Thanks for this!

The only change I would like to see is the ability to have recurring tasks appear in their original order rather than in the order I check them off. I use Clear to help with my daily routine, and while I sometimes do things out of order due to time or energy or priority constraints, I don’t want any changes to one day’s routine to reflect the next day or against my typical intention, if that makes sense (I acknowledge that this could just be me, though, I’d be interested to hear what other people think regarding repeat tasks.).

[r1y3]

I’ve been eagerly awaiting the repeating tasks and want to be able to use them, but I’ve found that trying has confirmed my hunch that I really need them to resurrect in placement order. I have a few set routines that I may sometimes skip around on to a small degree, but ultimately I need them laid out intentionally as a guide.

[gatu]

Love the regenerating tasks!
That said, ever since updating, the app’s performance has been significantly worse for me. It hitches often during regular use, when scrolling, swiping through tasks, adding tasks, etc. I’ve restarted my phone and it’s still occurring.
Has anyone else been experiencing this?

[ben]

We’ve received a couple reports describing similar issues. Could I have you reach out via the Support feature or by emailing help@impending.com and we can get into further troubleshooting?

[Juxto]

I agree that this is a very-appreciated update

Yes, makes sense — I also really want recurring tasks to regenerate in their original order. I have several daily routines, and having to manually re-order every day is not ideal.

I’m hoping for an eventual settings option to allow users to choose to restore a pre-set order with with “Pull to clear”

[Juxto]

fwiw, no hitches or glitches for me since updating.

[Klippityklop]

Agreed! It’s been a good build on my end so far. Haven’t noticed any issues.

[chrisss]

Hello.

Just my two cents on the repeating items. I’m not yet a pro, so I do not use them, but I would love to have them reappear in the same order I’ve added them initially.

For now, the only two lists where I’d like to use the repeating feature would be a packing list (for my trips) and a daily routine list. And in both cases, I would surely love for the items to reappear in the position I initially added them

[phillryu]

You’re not alone in requesting this change or setting, but I haven’t figured out a simple version of this.

For example let’s say you set up a packing list with repeating items in the order you’d like. What if you add a few more repeating items to it over time? Do they always regenerate at the ‘end’ of this list from that point on? The word ‘initially’ in your request is pretty tricky!

I might be overthinking it, but I like how the current behavior is simple, but also kind of adapts to your behavior over time. Like if you started packing things in a different order, the ordering would reflect this.

[chrisss]

Hey there! I totally get your point.

When I was thinking about it, I saw the items as a list of things with their own unique index. So I thought it was easy to recreate them where they were.

But here’s a simpler idea: what if we tried something a bit more straightforward?

In the two examples I gave, I’d always use headers to group items into different categories.

So, let’s start by recreating the items under the same header they were originally created. If a header was used, of course

It’s just an idea.

I think I’ll get the pro and try using the feature as it currently is. Maybe using it won’t feel weird at all

Thank you for your reply.

[phillryu]

I think that is an interesting angle.

So with simple headers, I’m not totally sure if we should assume people are using it for subsections of their list. Even though I have to imagine that’s the most popular use case, with Clear’s open sandbox nature I could see others sometimes using it to emphasize more important or difficult tasks, and things like that.

(We’ve also had some requests come up to let you drag a header subsection around as a group of items, but I’m not yet confident in shipping that one for the same reason. Not entirely ruling it out though for future!)

There’s some philosophy with the app to avoid ‘smart behavior’ overall, which has its tradeoffs, but I think it is some part of Clear’s personality. Like it’s a manual car, but we try to make it feel good and efficient vs. automatic.

Let me know if you do end up trying it out, I would be curious if it ends up being useful as is, or you have any other ideas or feedback come up.

[MattT]

What about an option to have checked-off recurring items remain place? Then being reset in place? No sorting involved?

[r1y3]

This is an interesting solution. ↑

Not trying to nitpick, but yeah, the long-awaited recurring items feature has been unfortunately unusable to me the way it is now. Every list it applies to really needs to reset in placement order.

[phillryu]

It could be a real preference for some people. (Checked items remain in place.) I would wonder if pull to clear and its animations still feel correct with items spread through a list, but it’s the kind of thing if we have a more open-ended R&D push in the future, we may experiment with this.

[hanche]

Obviously use cases are many, and what is good for you may not be good for me and vice versa. At the same time, a proliferation of options does seem to go against the philosophy of the app. A real conundrum!

I have just recently found out how to use the recurrent items for my use case:

I have a number of tasks that I want to do at irregular intervals, typically a week or two apart. Exact timing is totally unimportant, just that I don’t let too much time pass. Here is how I handle it.

My list has date items, and task items. Below each date item are one or more task items, that I completed on that date. Most recently done on top.

On a day when I perform some of these tasks, the first thing I do is to create a new date item, obviously with today’s date as the text. I mark it recurrent, and immediately swipe to mark it “done”. Then as I complete each task, I swipe those too right. Now when the day is over, or perhaps when reviewing the list on a later day, I swipe the list up, so the done item now ends up on top, with the date item before them all. To find tasks that may be (over-)due, I just look near the bottom of the list. Easy! (When a date item no longer has any associated task items underneath, I just delete it.)

Of course, this workflow depends on the current behaviour of recurrent tasks.