Go Scribi

Boards

Columns and cards. A card's state is the column it is in — there is no second answer to keep in step, and nothing to tick.

Columns

Columns are yours to name. One of them can be marked as the one that finishes: a card reaching it is done, and the date it arrived is when it was finished. A column can also carry a limit — a count it warns you about going over, rather than a rule it enforces, because a board that refuses work is a board people stop using.

Cards

A card has a line of text, and optionally: a colour, an estimate, a due date, somebody it belongs to, and a description in Markdown behind its marker. Nothing but the text is required. The estimate is a number this application does not interpret — points, hours, shirt sizes, whatever your team has agreed.

The log

Every card keeps a record of where it has been: made here, moved to there, and how long it waited in between. The log keeps the column's name as well as which column it was, so renaming or deleting a column later does not quietly rewrite what happened.

The archive

Finished work goes to the archive, which is not the bin. It is off the board, still on the note, still searchable, and still in the export. A board you have used for a year stays readable without losing what it did.

Filtering

/ opens a box that keeps only the cards that match. It does not reach the server: the whole board is already on the page, so filtering is instant and works on a train.

Every key

A board is the same work a checklist holds, in columns — where a thing has got to matters more than whether it is ticked. It takes focus when it opens, so a new board can be typed into straight away.

  • Tab does nothing here, on purpose. On a checklist it indents and on a map it makes a child, and both of those are about depth — a board has none, because a board is exactly two levels. So Tab does what it does everywhere else on a page and moves to the next control.
  • There are two kinds of thing to be on: a card, or a column's head. Pressing up from the top card of a column lands on its head, and down from a head lands on its first card. Renaming, colouring and moving then mean the same kind of thing on both, and which one you get depends on what you are standing on.
  • Making things is the exception, and deliberately so: Enter always makes a card and Shift+Enter always makes a column, wherever you are standing. A new board is three empty columns, so an Enter that made a column when you were on a column head left no way to reach a card at all.
  • The arrows follow the screen, as they do on a map: left and right move left and right because that is where those cards are. On a checklist the same keys fold, which is what left and right mean when everything is in one column.
  • Esc saves. It does here, on a card's details, and on a checklist row and a map node and a map's note — everywhere in this application, so there is no interface where the habit costs you what you just wrote. Throwing something away is always a button you have to mean.
  • A card is finished by being in the column that means finished, not by being ticked. There is no tick on a board — the column IS the state, which is the whole reason a board is not a list.
  • A limit on a column is advisory and nothing is ever refused. A limit that blocked a move would teach people to lie to the board: they would rename the column, or park the work somewhere it cannot see, and then the board is wrong about the thing it exists to be right about.
  • Filtering by who has a card DIMS the rest rather than removing them. Every card stays where it is, in its column's count and on the arrow keys, so the shape of the board does not change under you while you are reading it — and the picker at the top right always says which way you are looking at it.
  • Archiving is how finished work leaves the board. Deleting is not finishing — a card deleted today comes back the moment you restore last Tuesday, because it WAS there last Tuesday. An archived card stays in search and in the export, and comes back one at a time.

Moving around

↑ + ↓
The card above or below in this column — and up from the top card is the column's own head
← + →
The nearest card in the column to the left or right
Esc
Over to the notes and folders — and Esc there brings you back

Moving a card

Shift + ← + →
Move this card to the next column that way
Shift + ↑ + ↓
Move this card up or down its column

Finding one

/
The box above the board — type to keep only the cards that match, including what they say in their descriptions and what is in the archive. Esc empties it
@sam
In the box: only cards given to Sam. And due:overdue, size:>3, age:>2w, tasks:left, in:doing
Esc
In the box: empty it and go back to the board

Whose card is it

m
Only your cards — everything else dimmed, and nothing removed
f
Round the people who have cards on this board, and back to everybody

Changing things

Enter
A new card — below this one, or at the top of the column whose head you are on
Shift + Enter
A new column, after the one you are in
e
Rename this card, or this column
n
This card's details: its description, who has it, when it is due, how big it is, and everywhere it has been
@
Give this card to somebody, from the people in this workspace
c
The next colour, and none again after the last
a
Archive this card — off the board, still in search, and back again whenever you want it
A
Show or hide the archive, at the end of the board
w
How many cards this column should hold — advisory, and nothing is ever refused
Shift + Delete
Delete — asks first if a column has cards in it
Shift + Backspace
The same, for a keyboard with no Delete key

Details

n
Open them — a card's description as it reads and everywhere it has been, or a column's limit and whether it is the end
e
Write them: the description, who has it, when it is due, how big
Esc
Save what you wrote and go back to reading it

Everything else

?
Show or hide the Help panel above the board
y
Copy a link to this — paste it into any note and it comes back here
Y
Copy its web address instead — to send to somebody rather than to paste into a note
s
Everything about this note that is not its content — its settings, its history, who can see it

While editing

Enter
Save
Esc
Save and stop editing