Frequently Asked Questions about Paperless

Why doesn't Paperless let you assign due dates to items in checklists?

Paperless was never intended to be a time based task manager like one of the many "getting things done" clones. There are plenty of those out there, and personally that's not the way I work. I find that with most date based solutions, I end up spending a lot of time changing dates when priorities change - rather than actually focusing on getting things done.

With Paperless, if something is important, I just place it at the top of the checklist - and less important things are pushed further down. If priorities change, list items can quickly be rearranged accordingly. Based on feedback, many users agree with this simple approach.

Also, Paperless is used for more than just checklists/todos. So, in some ways, going the date based route and trying to turn it into a full blown time-based task management app that syncs with other time-based apps/services just doesn't make sense.

That said, I understand that setting dates are important to some people - so, I haven't completely ruled it out. I might add that feature in a future update, if I can figure out a way to do it without adding too much clutter to the apps user interface.

Can you add a feature to let you place lists within lists?

Perhaps. It would definitely be useful, so it's something I'm considering as I plan out future releases. I'd like to keep Paperless as simple as possible, so I'll only do it if I can figure out a way to implement it without making the user interface too complex. I haven't had time to fully think that through yet.

Will you add landscape mode to Paperless?

I plan on adding that in a future release.

Will you add a password lock feature to Paperless?

I plan on adding that in a future release.

Will you add a backup feature to Paperless?

Adding a backup feature is a high priority for me, and work is starting on that now.

ACK! There's no backup feature! How will I get all of my lists onto my new iPhone 4?!

Don't worry, you can backup your old phone in iTunes just before you set up your new phone - this is done simply by connecting the old iPhone to the computer you normally sync with. That backs up all application data, which you can then restore to your new phone. (and is something you would probably want to do anyways... not just for Paperless)

These support articles from Apple go into more detail:

"Transferring information from your current iPhone to a new iPhone"
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2109

"iPhone and iPod touch: About backups"
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1766

And here's a related discussion on the process of getting information off your old iPhone onto a new one:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2038778

How do I transfer my lists from the Lite version to the full version?

Unfortunately there's no easy way to transfer information from the lite version to the full version yet.

The backup/restore function I'm working on will allow for that... my apologies for not having that feature available sooner.

What you can do, is either:

1. go into each of the lists you've created and press the email icon - so that you can email each of the lists to yourself. Then you can have those emails open on your computer, so that you can type them back into the full version of Paperless.

or:

2. if you've written a lot of information within item notes, and don't want to retype it all, you can use the iPhone's copy/paste feature. If you're not sure how to copy/paste text on an iPhone, the video on this page should help.

Why doesn't Paperless sync with [my favorite online service/desktop application]?

I'm looking into syncing with various services/applications where it makes sense - but can't make any promises yet.

Will you add the ability to share lists with other users of Paperless?

I'd love for users to be able to share lists, so I'm exploring various possibilities there.

Get rid of the splash screen! Why are you wasting my time with that!?

This is an issue of perception. All iPhone apps display an image while they are loading... some developers have chosen to display a splash screen similar to what Paperless does, while others display a basic image of their apps interface. Either way, the application takes the same amount of time to load. I'll probably change the image Paperless displays while loading to be a blank representation of its interface (in the next update) - but again, it won't make any difference in how fast the app launches.

Will there be an iPad version of Paperless?

I would like to make an iPad version, but have some important updates to make first (as mentioned above) - especially backup/syncing.