Feature: Task Notes in Markdown Format

[thesoundhead]

I propose the following:

• make the Notes field in tasks larger in size - some tasks have a lot of context that would be nice to be viewable in one chunk without scrolling up and down to get an overview of everything
• support Markdown formatting (edit mode) and rendering (viewing mode)
• move the Complete button to another location, since in the current location it can easily be confused with the Edit mode button, which happened more than twice to me

[ulsklyc]

Three proposals, three different answers.

1. The field is too small: confirmed, and it contradicts its own design note. The task notes field is a textarea with rows="2". Two lines for the only free-text field a task has. The comment directly above it in the source argues the opposite case, that the note belongs next to the title because "a summary cannot carry free text", and then the field itself is sized like a summary. Easy to fix and clearly right.

2. Markdown: confirmed, and the building block is already in the house. renderMarkdownLight() lives in public/utils/html.js and is used by the notes module and the dashboard. Tasks render their description as plain text instead. So this is not a new capability, it is one that was never connected. Rendering in the read view is straightforward; the editor side would follow the notes module, which already has a toolbar so nobody has to memorise syntax.

3. The Complete button: I cannot reproduce this, and I would rather ask than move something blindly. In the task detail view the two are not adjacent at all. Edit is a header action at the top of the panel, and Complete sits in the footer next to Archive and Delete. What is crowded is something else: on desktop a task row ends with up to three identical ghost icon buttons (add subtask, pencil, archive), and those are hidden on phones, where tapping the row opens the read view instead.

So before I move anything: where did it happen to you, on the row or inside the opened task, and on a phone or on a desktop browser? If it is the icon row, the fix is about telling three identical buttons apart, which is a different change from moving Complete somewhere else. Getting that wrong would make the thing you actually hit harder to reach.

The first two are accepted regardless. Thanks for the report, and especially for the third point, since the surface it points at has a real problem even if it is not the one described.

[thesoundhead]

Thanks for the quick reply and for confirming points 1 and 2. Elaborating on point 3, it was more meant as a personal UX/UI problem, which might be a problem for other users as well: When trying to access a task's edit mode quickly, I automatically (muscle memory) would expect the edit button to be on the bottom. So whenever I was in that situation, I accidentally clicked the Complete button. Unfortunately, I do not have a good suggestion on how to solve this, since I am not a UX/UI expert. Hope this clears things up.

[ulsklyc]

Two of your three points are in v2.7.0:

• The note field is six rows instead of two, so a task with a paragraph of context is readable in one piece.
• Markdown renders in the read view - headings, lists, checkboxes, bold, inline code - through the same renderer the Notes module and the dashboard use, so a checklist in a task looks the way it does everywhere else. The editor itself stays plain text for now; the notes module's formatting toolbar has not been copied over.

I am leaving this open for your third point, because it is the one I still cannot place. In the task detail view "Complete" and "Edit" are not adjacent: Edit is in the panel header, and Complete sits in the footer beside Archive and Delete. What is crowded is a different spot - on the desktop a task row ends with up to three identical ghost icon buttons (add subtask, pencil, archive), and those are hidden entirely on phones, where tapping the row opens the read view instead.

So, whenever you get to it: was it on the row or inside the opened task, and on a phone or in a desktop browser? If it turns out to be the icon row, the fix is about telling three identical buttons apart, which is a different change from moving Complete somewhere else - and getting that wrong would make the thing you were actually reaching for harder to hit.

Thanks for the report. The first two points had been sitting in plain sight, and the note field in particular contradicted the reasoning written directly above it in the source.

[thesoundhead]

Thanks. I can confirm the first two points are solved to some extend.

The editor itself stays plain text for now; the notes module's formatting toolbar has not been copied over.

The toolbar would be nice to have there as well, e.g. so you do not have to type - [ ] manually for a checkbox on mobile.

As for point 3: Yes, "Complete" and "Edit" are not adjacent. I was referring to the opened/focused task view for both, mobile and desktop. In both views I automatically hit the Complete button several times, although I wanted to edit the task. This might be just me, though, and I leave it up to you to address this or close this issue. I can adapt.

[ulsklyc]

The last of the three points that I could act on shipped in v2.42.0.

@thesoundhead your first two - the note field being too small, and Markdown rendering in the read view - went out in v2.7.0. What was still missing was the writing side: the read view rendered Markdown, but putting it there meant knowing the syntax. On a phone, typing - [ ] is exactly the detour you were describing. The task note now carries the same formatting toolbar the notes module has.

It is the same toolbar, not a second one. That distinction is the whole reason this took a separate change rather than a copy-paste. The buttons had lived inside the notes module; they now live in a shared component both draw from. Two copies of thirteen buttons drift, and the checklist button is where drift would actually hurt: a checkbox written in a task has to be the same characters as one written in a note, or the renderer draws a box in one place and plain text in the other.

Moving it turned up a bug that a copy would have duplicated instead of exposing. The placeholder text a button inserts on an empty selection was hard-coded German. Clicking "Link" wrote [Linktext](url) no matter what language the household was set in - and unlike a mislabelled button, that text lands inside your note, where it stays. 23 of 24 languages had it. It now comes from the translation.

Your third point is the one I still cannot place, and I am closing this thread anyway rather than leaving it open indefinitely on a question that has been waiting a fortnight. To recap it honestly: you reported that "Complete" and "Edit" are easy to confuse, and in the task detail view those two are not adjacent - Edit sits in the panel header, Complete in the footer next to Archive and Delete. What is crowded is a different spot: on desktop a task row ends with up to three near-identical ghost icon buttons.

If it still happens to you, please open a new thread for it with where it happened (the row or the opened task) and on what. It deserves its own place rather than a fourth reply under a Markdown ticket - and if it turns out to be the icon row, the fix is about telling three identical buttons apart, which is a different change from moving Complete somewhere else. Getting that wrong would make the thing you were reaching for harder to hit, not easier.

Thanks for the report. Two of your three points were sitting in plain sight, and the note field in particular contradicted the reasoning written directly above it in the source.