Application Design and Overview

Archiving and Deleting Items

You have the option to delete or archive items whenever you choose to Edit or Reorder items in a folder or goal. Alternatively you can choose to delete an item by a swiping gesture from left to right in a list view. You also can archive items from within the edit view of the item itself.

As you complete tasks, you will want to clear them from your list periodically. Completed tasks are important to retain for Alloy Tasks to understand what you have accomplished and better prioritize the things you haven't accomplished yet. Spent too much time working on your new book? Wonderful, but LifeNotes knows that your gardening is also important, because you told it gardening was important to you. Well, you can focus on your book, but eventually your To Do list will show your gardening items as being more important because that goal is being ignored.

Archive. Removes an item from view.

Just because LifeNotes needs to be able to look over your past accomplishments, it doesn't mean you need to as well. When you mark an item as archived, it removes it from display in any of your lists. It will also remove it from display on your other devices when they sync. Archive is much like a delete, it just moves items to a place where they are retained until Alloy Tasks doesn't need them anymore and then they will be automatically deleted. You can archive your folders, goals, lists, tasks, and tag lists. They are not marked as completed, just removed.

Why keep things archived?

Some things, like repeating tasks, need to be remembered over years so that when it comes time to bring them back again you will have them at your disposal. Other archived tasks help LifeNotes understand how to prioritize what still needs to be done. In time, completed tasks that don't repeat lose their importance and are automatically deleted.

We also hope to implement some metrics in time so you can see what you have accomplished in your various goals. For this reason alone, archived tasks will be kept for at least 1 year, and will be configurable in future versions of this app.

Auto Archive: Let us clean up for you.

One Application Setting you may wish to visit is Auto Archive. LifeNotes will periodically archive completed tasks for you as you dictate in these preferences. Mark tasks completed over your day, and wake up tomorrow morning to a fresh list cleared of the items you completed the day before. Is it important to keep some items around indefinitely after completion and not have them Auto Archived? You can turn off Auto Archive for any item, folder, or even your goals in their preferences. Setting Enable Auto Archive to ON tells the auto archive feature look at that item, and items it may contain, and periodically archive items you have completed. Turning this setting OFF tells LifeNotes to leave the item and items it may contain alone when it comes time to Auto Archive.

Delete an item permanently.

You follow the same procedure for deletion that you do for archiving an item. You will have an option to delete the item if it is available, and you can easily delete it. Like archiving, deleting an item will sync the change with the server to delete it from all other devices that have access to it. You may not delete an item contained in a folder that someone else is sharing with you, only folders you are the owner of (you may, however, archive items). This is done purposefully so the original owner of the folder can determine what information should be permanently deleted.