Pocket Informant 8

51 of 89

Task Priority Manager

The Task Priority Manager (TPM) is an extremely powerful and intuitive way to organize using the A-Z/ 1-99 priority system. In the normal Group By Priority mode, you will see your tasks in priority groups, and you can drag/drop the tasks manually to renumber or deal with your tasks. However, although the Group By Priority mode is useful for working through your tasks, the Task Priority Manager mode, selected from the group by menu, has some distinct benets. When you enter this mode it shows you all 26 letters or headers. You can then drag the tasks throughout the list and the tasks will be assigned numbers just like in the Group By Priority mode. However, when you exit the Group By Priority Manager to any other mode it will ask you if you want to resort your tasks. This will renumber all your tasks starting from 0 to 99 in order. The manager can be ltered, so that renumbering can be applied to just a subset of tasks. TPM is meant to be used for reordering and re-prioritizing your tasks. In TPM mode, simple things like marking off tasks is visually disabled. While in TPM mode no changes are actually made until you exit out of the mode. It is a virtual mode so if you soft reset the device while in this mode, none of your changes will have been committed. Pocket Informant is smart enough to ask you to commit your changes when you change modes.

Priority Header Labeling

When working with Group By Priority or Group By Priority Manager, you can assign labels to the A-Z priorities. To do this, tap and hold on the header you want to edit. Select the Edit Group Headings menu item, type in your text, and press OK. From then on, you will see these labels used in the A-Z contextual menus (though not the Task Editor itself due to space and typing issues) as well as the Group By modes. In the screenshot above, you will see that A, B, and C have been labeled as Marketing, Development, and Business.

Hierarchical Tasks (HT)

Hierarchical tasks allow you to create parent-child relationships within your task list. Pocket Informant makes it easy to create your hierarchy as well as maintain it.

Pocket Informant 8

52 of 89

Note that hierarchical tasks do not work in conjunction with the various Group By modes.

Enabling Hierarchical Tasks

To turn Hierarchical Tasks on, tap on the Group By menu, and choose Hierarchical Tasks. Any previously-created hierarchies will re-appear.

Creating a hierarchy
You have two ways to create a list: Drag and Drop The easiest way is to drag a task on top of another task to create a relationship. Because the display supports selecting, multiple selection (up/down stylus movement), tap/hold, and drag dragging requires that you drag quickly diagonally. Then just drop the child task on top of its new parent task. Create as Child There are two ways to create a new task immediately as a child of another task. Tap and hold on the prospective parent, choose Child Tasks and tap New Child Select a task either by tapping or using the joy pad. Make sure you have the New Entry bar on (selected using the button on the toolbar for Pocket PC only). Enter the subject of the new task. Tap on the New Child icon to the left of the new task, and a new task will be created as a child of your selection.

Forced Tasks
In some cases, you may need a parent task to display even if it normally would not. For example, if you have a parent that is not overdue, but a child is overdue and you have selected the Overdue lter - Pocket Informant will force this parent task to display. Its color by default will be grey to denote that it is a forced task.

Direct Property Editing

Some tasks elements can be edited directly from the task view, without going into the editor: Tapping on the blank space at the far end of a task subject provides a contextual menu that lets you change the importance of the task. Tapping on the displayed icon of a task will display the Category editor for that task. Tapping on the dots or the letters/numbers in the priority column lets you edit the A-Z/ 1-99 priorities from a popup menu.