I too love the app! I've been using MLO on-and-off since it was a PocketPC 
product. Previous to my current implementation, which I've been in for the 
last six months or so, I never fully committed to using MLO as my sole task 
and project manager. Since I've dived in whole hog this time, it has become 
an invaluable tool in my quest for "mind like water" (I often wonder if I'm 
the only one who finds that phrase awkward and ridiculous sounding) and 
I've explored and expanded the feature-set items I use regularly, with wild 
success. Since taking the comprehensive plunge, I've truly been 
experiencing a mental freedom devoid of the stress and anxiety that I'm 
missing something. Coupled with the automated list limiting features, I've 
finally got a GTD implementation that let's me collect EVERYTHING! while at 
the same time, boils my daily to do list into a flat, manageable 10-12 
items.

So, aside from a few idiosyncratic and personal nice-to-haves that it 
doesn't do (yet, hopefully) I consider the desktop version to be "feature 
complete", for my uses at least. But, as the modern computing platform has 
evolved to include 5-inch touchscreens that we carry with us everywhere we 
go, there's always new work to do. Mix that multi-platform smartphone 
environment, each requiring a separate and non-reuseable codebase that has 
to be built, maintained, and extended separately, along with the rise of 
the MacOSX platform providing a user-base large enough to make writing 
software for it sustainable, the Development and Management of a product 
that supports them all is a software company's biggest challenge, and a 
development team's manager's largest headache and source of nightmares.

In this modern computing environment, the write-once, run-anywhere holy 
grail (that Java was supposed to be, but never can be while the windowing 
system and UI elements have to be hosted in the sandbox) is the software 
maker's idea of heaven. With the release and refinements of the HTML5 
standard we're closer to that than ever before.

This is all to come around to my suggestion that the Android, iOS, and any 
other mobile platform currently in development be frozen at the next 
version in favor of an HTML5 version which will be functional on any 
platform that supports a strict HTML5 browser. Additionally, it opens up 
the online feature that many (myself included) would love to have. 

I can only speak for myself, but I would anticipate that one might object 
to such a proposal because regardless of the advanced capabilities of the 
HTML5 environment, it will never be able to reproduce the full 
functionality of the desktop OS version. To which I'd answer, first, you'd 
be surprised, and secondly (and more importantly) it wouldn't need to. 
Something I've been noticing in recent years is the common perception or 
belief that a 5 - 12" touchscreen based interface should and can do 
everything a multi-monitor keyboard and mouse based interface can do. 
Spelled out this explicitly, its an obvious straw man, but this is truly 
what seems to be a commonly held belief and conviction in the 
IT/Computer/OS/Device Manufacturer industries. I think the realization is 
starting to dawn that these very different platforms have very different 
use cases, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, and each with 
their own ideal solutions to different problems and activities. Rather than 
these small screens directed by touch replacing or subverting the 
workstation, instead, they're an extension, and an addition to the 
capabilities granted to us by their use. 

This is all to say that the online and mobile versions of this fantastic 
don't need to be of the kitchen sink variety, but rather, only need to 
provide the capability to perform the kinds of tasks suited to on-the-go 
mobile task management. I'm not going to go into any more detail here since 
the last 45 minutes shoudln't have been spent writing this, but I'd be more 
that happy to discuss these ideas further if anyone is interested in 
engaging. 

Just two last quick things to mention. The first is to offer an real-world 
example of a company and software tool that took exactly this approach when 
they turned to implement their online-based outliner tool on mobile 
devices. Prior to getting back into MLO this was my go-to tool for task 
management. And while it's a fantastic tool, my task list of hundreds of 
items finally out-grew the manageability capability of straight-up 
hierarchical outliner (though the developers have added many features 
beyond basic hierarchical list management since, including due dates, 
tagging, and dozens of other features). It's called Checkvist, and can be 
found here:

https://checkvist.com/auth/index_b?utm_expid=12887342-5.NGwmvD7YQZqaulJjAq0RVw.1&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fcheckvist.com%2Fauth%2Flogin

The second thing is a comment only tangential to the OP but it addresses 
comments I've been reading recently that indicate a dissatisfaction in the 
userbase with the MLO development team's seeming withdrawal from the 
community and lack of current information, regular updates, and a general 
silence from what was once a largely interactive relationship. This is 
common as products and companies grow as the challenge to produce 
commercially viable software quickly starts to put the community 
development in the backseat. I beleive this happens primarily due to 
antiquated software project methodologies and I want to suggest to the MLO 
management team that they take a look at these two modern approaches to 
product creation software development. The first is:

Running Lean
http://leanstack.com/
 
And the second, probably much more commonly known:

Agile Methodology
http://agilemethodology.org/


On Tuesday, 30 September 2014 10:32:46 UTC-4, osaga wrote:
>
> Will an online client version of MLO every be complete? It seems very 
> logical to do this.
>
> Love the app,
> Thanks
>

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