Admittedly, I'm somewhat confused why you posted this here.

You're not accepting new accounts, and the blog post is a couple of paragraphs saying that you wanted to re-invent the to-do app, but there is nothing concrete.

I wish you luck, it sounds like there is a lot of potential, just nothing verifiable yet.

Hi - I posted the blog post vs. the direct link thinking the blog post is a decent intro to the app, and people could click through to signup if they so chose.

The signups were limited to 15 per day, but I bumped that to 250 (that should be live now).

I think the gist of what I want to do is not so much re-invent the wheel, per se, but simply re-imagine my own to-do system into a web app, and share that with others; perhaps someone else will find it as useful as I have.

I think it would be great if I could set my to-do list for the following day (as this is what I usually try to do at night for the coming day).

You can actually "hack" pat.io to do this. Add the items you want on tomorrow's list, and then hover over each one and click "Shift" - the item will disappear until tomorrow.

nice, thanks. one more small feature request: I'd love to be able to reorder my list on the fly, for example by dragging all the completed tasks towards the top of the list and the still-to-be-completed ones towards the bottom - something I can't do on paper :)

coming soon :)

p.s. but now I got a "shift" and my clean record is gone :-/

Hi there, here are my thoughts:

Overall very good. I like the URL recognition. Here're my nitpicks:

General: * If we select the time zone, let us know whether you've taken into account DST. * I would prefer an e-mail-less signup process as I don't feel there's a need for it. AFAICS password retrieval is the only use and I can't see any evidence you've implemented that. Why do I have to give an email address if I don't even need it to log-in? For the free service, I think you should consider ditching the need for email addresses. * To-do, unless a branding decision, should not be capitalised unless grammar dictates otherwise. c.f. 'Add this To-do' button. * Consider moving the 'Add this To-do' button to the side of the to-do entry box. * Consider changing OS-native buttons to graphic/css buttons which fit in with the style/colouring of your site.

Ease of use: * Whenever I can see the to-do list, any typing whatever should go into the text box. You can do this with a javascript key bind. Why should I have to deal with clicks and focus when the only point of that page is to jot down items and tick them off? * Personally, I would advocate a log-in boxes on the front page as well as signup boxes, but I guess that's a design choice. * Why insist on alphanumeric only usernames particularly as this isn't a restriction for passwords? As a minimalist site, I shouldn't have to worry about what I type in, or be informed about the rules until I break them. The rules should be (as far as possible - and this is where the 'art' of design comes in) the same as I assume. Therefore, unless you have a technical issue, I suggest you allow as many punctuation and non latin characters as possible for both passwords and usernames. Only when I try and use one that's not possible to use due to technical limitations do you apologise and give me the rules. * It's difficult to delete many items. I don't mind hitting delete myself many times, but the delete button only comes up when you go over the main part of the to-do list meaning there's a lot of mouse movement to delete. If that's a design choice/attempt to stop accidental deletions, fair enough, otherwise it would be good to have it changed.

Bug: * If you manage to click/select the input box before the page has loaded you can end up with the wrong font and no 'Add this To-do' button. Additionally, pressing return doesn't actually add the to-do although it still brings up the 'Hang tight' box.

As I said, good site!

Thanks very much. I'll digest all of these and see what I can come up with.

On the email issue, I may just ditch usernames, as I need email for password recovery (didn't get to build that yet), plus one or two email based features.

Thanks so much for taking the time to really analyze the site and provide this great feedback.

I like the SMS integration, here's a suggestion: use twitter for free SMS. Basically create a Twitter bot, ask users to follow your Twitter bot. Then all they need to do is to tweet their Todos, DM or @, both ways should work just the same.

This saves you on paying for SMS while adding a really cool feature - adding todos using Twitter.

Thanks for the suggestion. I'm recovering from a bike accident, so having a marathon coding session is a bit hard right now, but I'll definitely try to build that. I can enable actual SMS for your account if you email your username to kyle AT pat.io -- should work for most countries

Or have people input their phone's email address to receive messages on their phone. Won't broadcast your todos via twitter, but still will help you avoid having to pay for SMS.

The personal organizer software problem is a tricky one. It is unique in that even the slightest inconvenience or diversion in the workflow can render the application unusable, because the very purpose of the app is to offload that sort of trivia from your mind.

Because everyone has different habits and thought patterns, there is no one workflow that suits everyone and the cognitive overhead introduced by a flexible workflow, while tolerable in other kinds of applications, is show stopping in a PIM app. Workflow for a particular person may also vary between contexts e.g. work, home, hobbies, socializing, etc.

As such, I fully encourage the proliferation of todo apps with slight variations in design. However, I believe that we will ultimately need something highly adaptable that can be "programmed" to the detailed specifications of each user. What sort of "programming" would be both remedial enough for the layperson and flexible enough to cover the entire domain remains a mystery.

FYI, I use this: http://todoist.com

Very well said. I built pat.io for that very reason - other things had been unusable for me. Hopefully we do see the advent of a truly flexible, adaptable system sooner than later.

I dig this actually and I am going to try it out for a week or two. The shift feature and stats page are definitely cool features. Maybe add a simple #tagging option so you can color code or filter your lists? I don't know if that is breaking too far away from your minimalist approach - but as it would just be "extra text" you can add "if you want" rather than more interface/gui I figured it would be a nice addition.

Thanks! I have plans for hashtag-style support, definitely. Keeps things simple, but also is a somewhat intuitive (esp. for Twitter users) approach.

You should give me a better reason to sign up than just saying it's a minimalistic to-do app. A screenshot, a tour, anything.

Oh, I see you have a link to a nice screenshot buried under "Help". If you were to bring this link out into an introductory sentence before the sign-up form, it's look much better.

Thanks for the feedback - I've updated the signup page to include some basic "what is this" info and a link to learn even more.

It looks better now.

Another thing is requiring both email and username. You didn't build a social site, I don't need a username/nickname for anything. Usernames are annoying, just another detail to remember. Just use email as ID; if you want to go an extra mile, allow any id suggesting email address as the reasonable choice - look at instapaper.com for inspiration.

Yeah, after this and a few other people mentioning it, I'm considering ditching usernames.

I like how simple it is. Well done.

Thanks!

Out of curiosity, why did you limit sign ups?

Other than that, I like your approach. I find a lot of to-do apps out there have a lot more in mind than just keep track of what you want to get done.

I limited signups while I make my hosting set up a bit more robust. Dev server can't handle too much.

Thanks very much! I found that too. To-do apps have a habit of trying to be too much.

Apologies for the title. I'm a bit new to HN, and was unaware of the titling styles. Should I edit the title?

Thanks for the feedback. The shifts actually are pushed back into your list the following day. I'm planning on a "shift for N days/weeks" feature to delay that longer than just 24 hours.

It'd be nice if it saved old to-dos so you can retrieve your history and remember what you've done.

Email support AT pat.io -- this is in development and I'd be happy to let you test.

the description of how you handle your written/paper to-dos is the same as how I do it normally.

i will try this out for a bit

the "Shift" feature seems like a good idea. I often find myself shifting a task into another day.

yeah, i liked it too.. app seems OK to me, i like the burn down chart as well

will todos auto shift to the next day if it doesn't get check off before the end of today?

Yep!

thanks!