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Prevent Smart Add from recognizing dates?

jokeeffe says:

Is there a way to prevent the Smart Add parser from recognizing a date that should be part of the task description, rather than the due date of the task?

For instance, if I need to writeup the minutes from a meeting that took place on November 18, I might enter my task as

Create minutes for 11/18 meeting

However, Smart Add picks up the 11/18 as the due date of the task, and I end up with a task whose text is "Create minutes for meeting" and a due date of 11/18, which is not what I intended.

I know that I can select the task and change the task title manually, after creating it, but this ends up requiring two extra steps (change the task title and also change the incorrect due date). Any way of dealing with this?

Posted at 2:42am on November 20, 2009

leah.shalom ProPower Poster says:

Jokeeffe,

You can put quotation marks around the date in the name of the task. For example Create minutes for "11/18" meeting should prevent Smart Add from making 11/18 the due date for the task.

Leah

Posted 2 years ago

andrewski (Remember The Milk) says:

Yes, use quotation marks, as mentioned in our FAQ.

"Create minutes for 11/18 meeting" due 11/19 would work, as an example that has the "ignored" task name but also some other Smart Add parameters.

Hope this helps!

Posted 2 years ago

jokeeffe says:

Thanks folks. Sorry for asking a FAQ.

Posted 2 years ago

andrewski (Remember The Milk) says:

Not a problem, just for your reference in case you are looking for other ways to use Smart Add. :)

Posted 2 years ago

spamboy Pro says:

This does not work, at least for me. For example, I just entered the following task description in Smart Add:

Meet Jennifer on "Friday"

It saved the Task Description with quotes in it.

Posted 2 years ago

andrewski (Remember The Milk) says:

Hi spamboy,
Yes, it will do this; however, it would not use the date to set the task's due date. If the quotation marks are bothersome, you can rename the task to remove them.

Posted 2 years ago

spamboy Pro says:

@andrewski As you can see above, other people are reporting that using quotes works for them -- that they don't have to go through the added step of renaming the task. I am asking why this doesn't work for me.

It's an added burden to do this extra step, as my tasks are generated by emails -- if I cannot wrap dates in quotes to ensure they end up as part of the task name, then I have to log into RtM and edit my tasks as I email them.

Posted 2 years ago

andrewski (Remember The Milk) says:

Oh, perhaps I misunderstood; it sounded above like you were saying your task was added with the quotation marks (which will happen).

If your tasks aren't being added correctly, could you post what you sent and how it was added?

Posted 2 years ago

kwenglish Pro says:

My $0.02

Is there a pressing reason there is no escaping approach that will leave a clean list item (similar to \)? I love RTM, but using it for a lists with quantities (e.g., shopping or gift list) can be annoying/frustrating unless you just quote everything.

"3" two liter sodas

The two disappears, so am I to quote everything? Seems like there are other escape sequences built in for identifying fields, why not one for numbers or at least a notification/warning at the top that the number was dropped.



Posted 2 years ago

spamboy Pro says:

@andrewski I did: When I enter the following task description in Smart Add:

Meet Jennifer on "Friday"

It saved the Task Description with quotes in it, instead of saving it without quotes.

Posted 2 years ago

andrewski (Remember The Milk) says:

spamboy,
That's exactly what will happen currently. Based on the feedback here, I've added that to our list to investigate.

Posted 2 years ago

jhmorris says:

It's really frustrating to write a task like "Prepare for meeting on Thursday" and realise as you press return that the text will be truncated and need repairing. Glad to hear you will investigate this - I'd like to add my support for making a change in this area.

Posted 2 years ago

steveshay says:

There are some more examples and issues in this thread:

http://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/help/8829/

but the answers are still the same, it doesn't work as desired.

Posted 2 years ago

This topic has now been closed automatically due to a lack of responses in the past 90 days.