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Get Creative with Emoji for Smart Lists (and other stuff!)

mstackhouse1 says:
After skimming the forum I didn't see that anyone else has mentioned this yet, so here goes. Apologies if its been mentioned before.

Sometimes when you open your todo lists you are assaulted by a wall of plain text. Maybe a few colors, if you are using priorities. What if you could bring in some right-brained creativity to your left-brained lists?

For those of you using iOS devices and/or Mac OSX Lion, try naming your Smart Lists symbolically using Emoji--colorful icons--instead of words. In case you aren't aware, Emoji can be accessed via the Settings>General>Keyboard>International Keyboards page on your iOS 5.x device.

For example, many people have a "hot list" of items that is created via a Smart List saved search. Why not represent that with flames or rockets instead of words? Or a grocery list as an assortment of food icons? The possibilities are endless, and you are free to make a fresh change at any time.

Now, I don't personally use Emoji for regular lists or tags, because I want to be able to add items very quickly via twitter on the mac, and adding Emoji is a slower process there. But feel free to do that if it works for you. You can add them to your task titles too.

The Emoji sync and display just fine among iOS and Mac Lion computers, and are fully searchable just like text.

You will be amazed how much lighter and friendlier your Smart Lists and other items seem. Even better, you'll be able to see at a glance exactly what list is what without even thinking about it.
Posted at 12:10am on March 28, 2012
emily (Remember The Milk) says:
Hi mstackhouse1,

Creative tip! I just wanted to let you know that you're this week's Tips & Tricks Tuesday winner. We've upgraded your Remember The Milk account to have a free year of Pro. :)
Posted 11 years ago
(closed account) says:
Nice idea! However, adding emojis to the beginning of smart list names messes up the sort order between the web app and the iOS apps. In the iOS apps, emjois are sorted to the top, while they are sorted to the bottom in the web app. With a large number of lists, this creates a big usability problem.

I've noticed this sort order disconnect with symbols as well. In the web app, asterisks (*) are sorted above brackets ([), while the opposite is true in the iOS apps. Since I use symbols to sort frequently used lists to the top, this is pretty frustrating. I notified RTM support about this issue months ago.

Perhaps a more elegant solution to these issues is to allow manual sorting of lists, "pinning" certain lists to the top, and/or allowing for categorizing lists in folders.
Posted 11 years ago
mstackhouse1 says:
Thanks, Emily, glad you guys liked it!

And Essic you are exactly correct. The only way to influence the sort order would be to add a character or word to the beginning of the list name. I can see how list order would really make a difference if you use a lot of lists.

I agree the ability to do custom sort order for lists (as well as tasks!) or at least allow some sort of pinning would help in many ways. Great idea.
Posted 11 years ago
kswilfong says:
I have been able to move my favorite lists to the top of the list order by putting an underscore before the name (alphabetically it appears before any letters). But my smart lists are still all at the bottom, sorted separately.

Is there a way to get the smart lists to go to the top of the page over the other lists? I have dozens of regular lists but only maybe 5 or 6 smart lists and really hate scrolling down to locate them. I use the android APP mostly, not web based.

Thanks if anyone can help!

Posted 11 years ago
andrewski (Remember The Milk) says:
Hi kswilfong,
This isn't currently possible, sorry; lists are sorted above Smart Lists. Thanks for your feedback on this!
Posted 11 years ago
milkiglo says:
Emoji for rtm lists looks great in iOS!! If you have not already check out how to enable emoji on yr devices:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4976
Posted 11 years ago
mmcoyne2 says:
Is there a way to place the RTM icon on my Mac desktop like it appears on my iPad?
Posted 11 years ago
brendan says:
Hi mmcoyne2,
You should be able to create a shortcut to the web app on your desktop by dragging the URL or favicon from your browser to your desktop. However the icon used for the iPad app is not currently available for download, sorry.

Hope that helps!
Posted 11 years ago
rubyji says:
For symbols that work on multiple platforms, try these http://thenextweb.com/TwitterKeys/keys.php
Posted 11 years ago
roger.walter says:
good for you mstackhouse1 - I recommended this same thing about a year and a half ago - but wasn't selected for the tip of the week - way to go! :-)
Posted 11 years ago
olliebaum says:
Why is it that when I try to do this on the web app in Chrome that the emoji icons just show up as blank spaces. I'm just dragging from the Character viewer into the 'edit list name' field. I run Mountain Lion on a Macbook Pro and I do not have a RTM pro account. Is the only way to do this by editing list names on an iPhone?
Posted 11 years ago
milkiglo says:
Daring Fire Ball linked a list of descriptions for Emoji:
http://www.grumdrig.com/emoji-list/

Via:
http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/12/11/ios-emoji
Posted 11 years ago
milkiglo says:
@olliebaum I think it only works in mobile Safari and Safari - Not sure if they are still making Safari for windows...
Posted 11 years ago
doctapp says:
Trying to find a way of changing the order on the left hand menu. Clearly some improvements have been made since this post was started, as instead of alphabetical I can now manually choose the order of the individual smart lists so can have my "Overdue" smart list above the "Active this week" above "Active this month" above "Pending this week" etc. Due to small screen size of my android phone I can get 7 smart lists on display, (below 3 heading lines if you include the "Smart list" heading) and I have just put in an 8th smart list which scrolls of the bottom of the screen.

Is there anyway of putting the Smart List menu at the top of the screen on the left hand menu, ie above the List menu and above the Tasks menu, so that I can view the 8th smart list to keep an eye out for any numbers appearing on that list as well as having space for a 9th smart list on display. I could then scroll down if I ever wanted to get to the almost never used inbox and standard list heading options.

I know Andrewski said that wasn't currently possible 4 years ago. Has this now changed, in which case how do I do it, or if not and a developer reads this then please consider making this improvement in a future update. I'm sure that considering the immense power of the smart lists, that I'm not the only one that uses these lists as the main stay of my interface with remember the milk, so would appreciate being able to have them at the top of the left hand menu to maximise their screen space.
Posted 7 years ago
dave.liao says:
I wonder why I've never done this before!

I added emoji as a prefix some list names, which DOES spruce things up.

Unfortunately on Android it kicks those lists to the bottom of the list of lists... I guess I'll submit an Idea for that: https://www.rememberthemilk.com/forums/ideas/23825/
Posted 4 years ago
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