GoodTask is perfect... except for one single feature

I’ve used almost every task manager under the moon, have been doing heavy task management for many years, and GoodTask is amongst the best. Simple yet very powerful, easy to use, and syncs much metadata to Outlook via Reminders.

There’s only one part of the app which I find extremely frustrating, and it’s subtasks. The way they are implemented makes it unnecessarily hard to use them with Outlook or outside of GoodTask, even though the plaintext code syncs through. The format of the code makes that data hard to use in Outlook (hard to quickly separate different subtasks, and hard to modify without breaking things).

I used a Calendar app called CalenGoo, which also utilized plaintext code to make subtasks. Calengoo’s approach was very user friendly. The developer used brackets in front of the text to indicate subtask items:

[ ] Task1 = Active subtask
[x] Task2 = Completed subtask

So I could open an Outlook item, type “[ ] Call John” into the Notes field, and get a subtask in CalenGoo. An extremely simple and elegant approach.

It would be so much easier if GoodTask did something similar, instead of the current one-line text code with a complex structure. Perhaps still use special code in the beginning and end of the subtask list but a simple, human-readable format for the individual subtasks. I realize that this would require some programming changes, but the end result would be so useful for the users.

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Thanks for the feedback. Your suggestion makes perfect sense but GoodTask uses the field to manage other features too so it's using JSON format at the moment. Managing along with other notes makes it harder to keep good looking text string in that field. It would be easier if there is a dedicated space for subtasks but unfortunately there is not. :cry:

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I have to agree that I would love a markdown format such as Wanderling described. It would also make the notes so much more readable if I do end up in Reminders, or when I archive them. I also understand the reason you use JSON because I am liable to type anything into that notes field. Would it be possible to consider a format like:
[[subtasks
[ ] Task A
[ ] Task B
]]

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I have to agree with Wanderling and denrael.
An easier way to use the subtasks in other tools would awesome

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