Suggestion for improved Todo creation and handling (esp. on mobile)

Hi, there. I would like to suggest a change to the current Todo implementation in order to improve usability (esp. on mobile but also desktop)

My main problems with the current implementation are:

  • a Todo is exactly the same as a note, with the addition of a checkmark. So it is great for a task with a detailed description, but if you want to create a shopping list, you want to list many items without a description and you want to do it fast. So either you have to click a lot because you need to create individual Todo notes and close them before creating the next or you create a list with - [ ], which makes the check mark of the todo-note redundant.
  • creating a Todo list with - [ ] on mobile is very uncomfortable because you always need to type it out manually for each item. There is no one-click action to create a new Todo via GUI or return button. (I understand that this is because of limitations with the editor)

I suggest the following:
When clicking on the create todo button, do not directly open the new todo-note. Instead, remain in the current notebook view and allow us to quickly edit the title of the newly created Todo inline:

This allows for quick creation of todos that only consist of a title. So you can write down many of them in a short time. To improve visibility which notes have text in their body and which notes have an empty body I suggest to add an icon to the right side. Here, three light dots indicate that the note has no text in its body and three dark dots indicate that there is text in the body. These dots can also function as a button to open and edit the body of the note. That way, we free up the center of the todo so that a basic click on the todo title re-enters title edit mode. The dots can also be used with drag and drop to reorder todos in the notebook.

For desktop I would also like to be able to directly edit the title of a new todo. Right now I need to click the title field with the mouse first. I would also like to create an additional Todo by pressing return or a similar key.

Please let me know what you think.

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This will be fixed in the next release (beta editor only). See

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The pre-release features a new markdown toolbar that has all three types of lists implemented. Android pre-release 2.9 is now available (Updated 23 October)

There is already the ability to choose what you want to focus on note creation in your Configuration > Note. "When creating a new to-do:"

@Daeraxa
Thanks a lot for the quick reply. I will wait for the new feature and see how well it works, then :slight_smile:

You are right, there is indeed a setting for that on desktop and it is working correctly now that I tried it again. Don't know why it did not work for me when I tested this, maybe I did something wrong.

Edit: I think this is what happened last time:
Create a new todo on desktop, do not type a title but click on an empty spot in the list of todos for this notebook (this will deselect the newly created note), now click on create new todo again -> it will not create a second empty todo but it will also not focus the title of the already existing todo. Instead the note flashes for a moment and you have to use your mouse to select the title field.

Is this worth a bug report? Hitting the button to create another new todo should probably still respect the setting of Configuration > Note. "When creating a new to-do:"

Yeah I can replicate that, happens with normal notes as well. Essentially Joplin won't let you have two preliminary notes at a time so removes one of them and reselects the original which has the effect that cursor gets deselected from the title line.

Honestly I don't know if it counts as a bug or not and it would be pretty low priority at that but there isn't any harm in logging it.