Improvements to the Springpad web app: Advanced Filter, New Trash Feature and lots more!


Posted on 31st January, by katin in Under the Hood. 55 Comments

We’re happy to announce our most recent improvements to the Springpad web app! We’ve rolled in a few popular requests: custom background images, removal of ads, and the creation of a “trash” area where deleted items can be viewed & restored. Plus, we’ve added advanced filter to the web app, including giving you the ability to create filters and save them for later. Check it out!



Custom Background Images
Make Springpad your own! In addition to the pre-canned options for home screen background, you can now add a url to any image that you’d like to set as your Springpad home screen. Add a custom home screen image under Settings-> Design -> Customize on the web app, and your new background will also sync to Springpad on your Android, iPhone, iPad or Extension.
Note: This feature is only available on Chrome & Safari browsers.

Advanced Filter
Filter your stuff in Springpad by tag, notebook, and lots of other useful details. Whether in All My Stuff or any of your Notebooks, click on Filter Results to display the advanced filter panel.

Custom Saved Filters
Available when you Filter Results in All My Stuff or any of your notebooks, create a Saved Filter to access your favorite searches again and again – just click Save this filter. Then, when you add new items that match the criteria of the filter, they will also be visible in your filter. Saved filters are displayed on the left side of the web app, below Types and Tags.

New Trash Feature
When you delete items from anywhere in Springpad – on the web or on one of our mobile apps – they’ll be sent to the trash! Access your trash from the home screen on the web app, then choose to restore your items to their original location or permanently delete them.

And a bug fix:
Retain last view:
Now when you navigate between notebooks in the web app, your last view/sort will be retained.

We have big plans for Springpad in 2011 and are excited to be implementing some top-requested features in the near term! So, stay tuned – there’s lots more to come…





55 Responses to “Improvements to the Springpad web app: Advanced Filter, New Trash Feature and lots more!”

  1. Ross LaRocco says:

    The rate of updates is awesome Katin. It doesn’t matter what they are, it’s just instantaneous awesomeness.

  2. [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Ross LaRocco, Dustin Fisher, Gutenbyte, Pete, katin @ springpad and others. katin @ springpad said: Improvements to the Springpad web app: Advanced Filter, New Trash Feature and lots more! http://bit.ly/exr6yW [...]

  3. Tim says:

    The wallpaper customization is cool, but in the latest Safari the image url field does not show up. Or rather, it is vertically “squished” so that you cannot enter a url.

  4. Dawid Lorenz says:

    So there’s hoping all these basic webapp features requested by users ages ago will get resolved by Christmas…

    Btw, any plans to extend Android app (ie. saving last sort/view for notebook)?

  5. JJ says:

    I appreciate the filtering enhancement. Was glad to discover that this evening.

    Custom backgrounds are nice, but custom notebook color options would be much more useful. Any chance of seeing that soon? Cosmetic improvements are the easiest to implement and the meager 12 options available now make me kinda sad.

    Also, why is such a simple feature as selecting a custom image limited to WebKit browsers? That’s far more peculiar than putting out an extension for Chrome but not Firefox.

    • brittni says:

      Tim – Can you try using Safari 5? The latest stable version.
      David – We’ll be updating the Android app soon and that feature is likely to be included.
      JJ – No plans for custom notebook themes but great idea! We wanted to push out the custom background feature as soon as we could, so on Chrome and safari could be worked on, it’s possible they’ll be more support in the future.

  6. Mark Hewitt says:

    Guys, this is it. This is the point where I must come to Boston and offer sexual favours to the entire Springpad team :) Thankyou thankyou thankyou!

  7. paul says:

    hum no ads? I want to understand…

  8. Rich says:

    Regarding the bug fix. It is 50% there I think. I can sort tasks by due date and it remembers that sort when I leave the notebook and return. But if, say in a folder I sort tasks by due date, then go to view everything and then go back to tasks, the sort is lost.

  9. Paul says:

    Woww! as of now (latest filtering update) Springpad is THE best application on the internet. All functionality I ever wished for and implemented in the best possible way is now available. You guys are great! Where can I donate my gratitude in Euro’s ??

  10. Ed Schmookler says:

    Why not have “completed” as a filter for tasks?

    In most to-do’s of various kinds, the tasks disappear from view when completed. There is seldom usefulness of having a task still appear when it is completed, unless you are looking again for the item. Why make us delete them?

  11. Anthony says:

    Great update – I randomly found the custom background this morning and gave a muffled yelp of pleasure in the office. Nice to see filtering also – the “I want this” vs “I have this” type feature was almost useless before.

    Happy to see the ads removed from the left column as they were space hogging – but is this missed revenue now?? Is the cat at SP HQ still getting fed???

  12. Kintarasan says:

    Thanks for putting back in the filtering that I was really disappointed that you removed when you revamped your product. Now it makes using Springpad so much better!!!

    Keep the updates coming! :)

  13. Feed Dog says:

    Thanks so much for the filter feature! It’s a big part of what got me into Springpad in the first place, and I’ve been missing it since the upgrade to the new interface. Now we get the best of both worlds!

  14. Rick says:

    Thanks for the improvements/fixes. One problem I see still with the sorting (I think someone else also pointed this out): when inside a folder if you switch to, for example, the Board, and them back to Everything, you lose the sorting. Also hope to see these “retain sorting” features supported in droid & iphone (I use both).
    I just started using this app yesterday, so there is probably still a lot I haven’t figured out, but a couple of suggestions (unless I just haven’t figured out how to use it yet):
    * Improved drag/drop for pictures, etc. on the web app
    * Beef up the droid app
    * syncing with Outlook Notes would be cool

    Thanks!

  15. Jeff says:

    This is all really useful, the problem is it’s making springpad too useful.
    that makes it scary when you invest effort and your life in it, but no ability to back it all up yet for safety.

  16. Anthony says:

    @Jeff: I can’t say I’m worried about Spingpad becoming too useful – each time there are enhancements I’m japanese school girl type of excited. BUT yes I see what you’re saying – a feature to easily manage and backup the data we have would be incredibly useful.

  17. Philipp says:

    Hi,

    When will it be possible to also have an Email option in the iPhone quicklinks? Gould Be Great to have that incorporated soon.
    Philipp

  18. Dusan says:

    Would be useful if a board could have pages, a board sometimes gets filled up, and i dont need to start a new notebook,
    so like multiple boards in one notebook, and u can tab between them or something

  19. Dusan says:

    Also, allow the ability to adjust the width of tasks on the board, they are usually a little too long for me

  20. ap says:

    Will you be adding indenting ability?

    For example, I see Springpad offers a Shopping List. However, without indenting it makes it hard to create a list. For example, if I wanted to create a checklist for 3 stores, I have to put both the store name & list of items to buy all on one line. This doesn’t make it very easy to use.

    Also, I agree that a strike-through line is also needed. If you check an item off it stays on the list. If not a strike-through, at least some kind of shading so it doesn’t stick out.

    With these features, I think Springpad would be a great app to use over some of the other checklist apps available for Droid.

  21. Improvement. I figured that the feature I am proposing would be a “Snooze Alarm.”

    If a reminder(using a note) goes off at 2:30pm as I wanted it to, but I don’t actually do the thing I wanted to be reminded of, and all I do is acknowledge it on my Droid X, so that the note is still “alive” but no longer reminds me…I can easily forget to even look at them. How about a daily reminder beginning with the next morning (every morning) until I actually erase the note? I understand I can easily look at a list of alerts and/or the springpad weekly update I get emailed to me. How about the next morning it pops up again, “Alan, did you address this?” choices “Yes delete” “No. Set new reminder time”

    I use the “note” as my to-do list or tasks. I do not really use the tasks in springpad. why should I when I can set a specific time for a reminder? Unless I am looking at the task list constantly, I would never see the task and would ultimately forget about it. Google calendar is an OK calendar, but it also has a similar task bar. If I want to use that and set a time reminder, I have to set it as an event in the calendar.

    Second suggestion. When you flag a note as Important, nothing really special happens. Of course there is the tiny red flag, but the notification is nothing different so the audio portion is nothing special to REALLY GET YOUR ATTENTION…the visual portion at the top of Droid X screen where the notification is before you use the pull down screen. Maybe a specific notification that is slightly annoying and a flashing icon that takes over the home screen. Maybe only a five minute interval snooze. If I am going to flag something as important, I want it to come across as IMPORTANT.

    Third. When I make a new note, why should I have to hit a menu button separately just to bring up the “set the reminder time”? How about a hot button icon I can put on my home screen?

    So your note feature is mostly all I use on your app, and for me that is one of my most productive apps.

    Sincerely,
    Dr. Alan Schreiber
    727-424-4505
    dralandc69@gmail.com

  22. Featurelist says:

    Do you have the list of prioritized features somewhere online for users to see what exactly is under consideration, in progress, coming up, etc.? That would be nice to see on an ongoing basis (and yes, you’re allowed to even mark some as dumped or infeasible later ;) ).

    Thanks!

  23. Pete says:

    Woo! Custom wallpapers. Who needs support for non-US websites when we have custom wallpaper!

  24. Luc says:

    Karin, your app is increasingly appealing. Are you considering adding a contact or address book function that would allow us to synch our iPod and the web app such that I could add new contacts in the iPod or in the web? This way, I could use Springpad as a backup to my iPod contact list.

    Tks much!

  25. Dawid Lorenz says:

    Just realised that “Retain last view” feature doesn’t really work. It only seems to work for a single browser session, not forever (ie. when I log in from other computer, notes are stored by Added date again).

  26. Vaughn says:

    Still nothing on the ability to delete checked items from a shopping list without doing it one at a time?

  27. Kari says:

    I agree with the people above that you need to be able to delete your completed items on a checklist or task list without doing it one at a time. It is really time consuming and annoying!!

  28. Myself says:

    Still no way to export/backup? How can anyone use this for anything that matters to them, without export or backup? How does a web-app like this even make it to it’s first beta release without export or backup? This matters a heckuva lot more than “custom background images”, guys. And why would anyone put enough info to an app that they would need an “Advanced Filter”, if that app doesn’t have any way to export or back up data?

  29. Myself says:

    Addendum: I started poking around with this to see what it was like, kinda liked it, started using it for stuff, went to go back up my data, and saw that there was no way to do it.

    Now, despite how useful I’ve found this app, I’ve got to abandon it for a different one. Because there is no way in you-know-where that I’m going to allow myself to become dependent on a system that doesn’t let me back up my data!

    It didn’t occur to me to even check for an export feature before I started playing with this. It just seemed so basic it didn’t occur to me that there wouldn’t be one. Lesson learned: doing my homework first this time.

    • brittni says:

      Myself – we’re are working on a backup feature right now (and I mean RIGHT NOW). Should be ready within the next couple of weeks!

      Luc – No plans for this right now but it’s cool idea! Thanks.

      Featurelist – Check out this for feature requests and status. Feel free to chime in! http://bit.ly/foKoOI

  30. Myself says:

    Brittni — glad to hear it! This could be a very useful app once backup capacity is in place. =^)

  31. Todd says:

    I am starting to get into SpringPad as I am someone who has tons of To Do lists. I am still using Google’s simple Tasks for 2 reasons though. Strike through or at least gray font for completed items and most important, indented items. I create work for a church and have a list items that need to be completed for a particular week to prepare for production. Each list is named by production date. Within each list, using indention I can separate into media that must be created, music prep, people notifications, post service wrap up, etc.

    I love the note features though. I have been looking for a long time for something like this as I have a Mac, PC, iPad and Android phone so I am thrilled to see them all in sync. I have used Evernote, but find it hard to scroll and find items. I prefer scrolling over having to type correctly in a search field. On a phone, its easier to go into a notebook and scroll to a recent item than to search a notebook.

    I like the Android update. Thanks

  32. Gina says:

    What’s the point of filtering by tags when you can do so on the left hand menu? What about the ability to find items that DON’T have a tag? A lot of the time if an item doesn’t get tagged and I want to go back and tag them, I have no quick way to find the “non-tagged” items.

    • katin says:

      Gina – the top filter allows you to select multiple tags at once. We are planning to add an “untagged” filter in eventually – sorry to make you wait!

  33. Hana says:

    These are great new features, but I seem to have a problem with the filter – only Public, Tags,Notebooks,Priorities, Rating, Source & Action columns are available in the filter list. No course, cuisine, etc. I utilize these in each recipe, so they should be showing up, correct? (and the scroll bar is fixed, with all categories displayed on the screen). Any help would be appreciated. I can’t wait to use this feature:D

  34. Rich says:

    The app is great but this needs an easier way to remove completed items. If you complete a task it should just disappear or be archived instantly. I think that would make it much more effective and attractive to use daily.

  35. Ricardo says:

    The “untagged” in the filter would be really great!

  36. Jason says:

    The untagged filter is far and away my most anticipated feature. It would make GTD in springpad almost flawless.

  37. Niklas says:

    +1 for “untagged”. Would make Springpad truly kickin’ for GTD

  38. Bharath says:

    I am able to view the month which i have created the notebook but not the date can u pls help me with that

  39. Tina says:

    I’m really hoping the next feature that shows up is allowing mass delete for completed tasks/checked items.

  40. Marcio Rodrigues says:

    Hi there,
    1st post here.
    First of all, thanks for the nice app! I use it a lot.
    Regarding the ability to delete checked itens, I think it is really a must. I use “hide completed” but I have noticed that, as I have many checked itens, navigation and inclusion of new itens in the Android app have become somewhat slower… not sure if it is the cause, but I guess it is.

    Thanks!
    Regards,
    Marcio

  41. muldup says:

    Filtering for Untagged items an items that is not included in a Notebook will be rally helpful for my GTD system.

  42. elebe says:

    Will the upcoming Android app update include the posibility to save filters, as we can do in the web? That would be very useful…

    Thanks!

  43. Tina says:

    Is there still no way to copy and re-use Check Lists? I need this desperately. I move checklists from day to day, knocking off or adding items I’ve done, not done, or repeat daily. This copy function is such a no-brainier for to-do lists! Please!

    • Devin says:

      Hi Tina – Not right now, but there is a workaround: email a checklist to yourself and click the link in the email to add a copy of it to your account. I hope that helps!

  44. Tina says:

    Thanks for your reply Devin, yes I am aware of that workaround.
    Having to use email is lame, and really inconvenient. I don’t always have access to email – especially when I don’t have internet access on my iPad.

    A copy function for many areas of Springpad is way overdue. For me, it is the biggest impediment to using the application more frequently.

  45. Melody says:

    Is there any way to send an item to the shopping list from the iPad or just on the web version? The add to shopping list button is not on the quick licks section on the iPad..that is a bummer. Also being able to check off the items at the grocery store one at a time would be much appreciated!

    • Devin says:

      Hi Melody – Right now, the add to Shopping List function or manually adding to a shopping lists are the two ways you can add items to shopping lists. There is no way to send to them, but that’s a good idea!

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