Capturing a todo

That is deliberate. Most of what you add is something you want out of your head rather than something you want to do next, so adding it does not claim a place near the top. When something does deserve to be up there, you say so, either with the life-ring as you type it, or with surface afterwards.

The box at the bottom

The box at the bottom of the window reads Capture anything… Tap or click it and it opens for typing.

• Send it with the orange arrow at the end of the box, or by pressing Return.
• Come back to it later by clicking or tapping away. The box closes but keeps what you typed as a row in the list; tap that row and your text is back, with the cursor where you left off.
• Put it down by clicking or tapping away, by pressing Esc, or by closing the window. Every one of those keeps it; see below. On an iPhone you can also swipe the box down: it follows your finger, and letting go past a short distance puts it down, while a shorter swipe lets it spring back.
• Move it to the Trash only by saying so: the trash button in the swipe on the draft's own row, Move to Trash in its menu, or the Move to Trash button above the box while you are editing it. Nothing else throws a draft away.
• Float it as you add it using the life-ring in the box. It then arrives already pinned to the top, and in Today, instead of at the bottom.

If you have not typed anything, there is nothing to keep and the box simply closes.

What you did not finish typing

Something you stepped away from does not disappear, and it does not hide either. It is still there after you quit Float and come back, too. It waits as its own row at the bottom of the list, showing the words you had got to, with a dotted circle where a todo would have its circle for marking it done, and the word Draft underneath. If you leave more than one, you get a row for each.

• Pick it up by tapping its row. The box opens with your text in it and the cursor where you left off, still marked as a draft, under the words Caught this draft for you., with a Move to Trash button beside them if you decide against it after all.
• Opening the box itself always starts something new. The circle at the bottom of the window, the button on your phone and quick capture on a Mac all give you a blank line; what you did not finish is in the list, where you can see it.
• Move it to the Trash by swiping the row, or by right-clicking it on a Mac and long-pressing it on a phone. It goes to the Trash, the same as any other todo you move there, so you can fetch it back later, still wearing its dotted circle there, so you can see it was something you never finished. Undo also appears for a few seconds.

The two circles are worth telling apart, because they sit in the same place on a row:

• A dotted circle means something you have not finished typing. It is on the waiting row, and in the box while you are finishing it.
• A faint plain circle in the box means the box is empty and ready. It stays plain while drafts wait, because opening the box always starts something new.
• Neither one is a todo. Only a real todo has a circle you can tap to mark it done, and that one is drawn in a stronger colour.

A long todo wraps. The box grows downward as you type, to three lines, and then keeps scrolling with the end of what you are writing in view. The circle and the arrow stay up on the first line so nothing else moves. Three lines is a lot for a title; if you are still going, what you are writing is probably a note, and the note icon underneath is the better home for it.

You can set a due date, a reminder, a repeat, a note or tags while you are still typing, using the small icons underneath. Once one is set, it shows what you set, as far as there is room: the date, the repeat's rule, as many of your tags as fit. Those are described in Due dates, reminders and repeats.

Paste something enormous (a whole email, a page of a document) and Float keeps the first part of it rather than all of it. A title holds about a thousand characters and a note holds a great deal more; you will not meet either writing a todo.

Typing a date into the title

If you type something like pay rent friday or call mum at 3pm, Float recognises the date or time and offers it. Accept it and the words come out of the title and become a real due date or reminder; ignore it and the title stays exactly as you typed it.

Quick capture on a Mac

You do not have to switch to Float to add something. Press the shortcut and a small box appears over whatever you are doing; send the todo and it disappears, leaving the app you were in still in front. Press the shortcut again (or Esc) and the box goes away but keeps what you typed. The next time you open it, it starts blank.

Whatever you leave in it joins the list in the main window, as a row of its own, so it is never somewhere you cannot see it, and that row is where you move it to the Trash.

Set the shortcut with Quick capture keyboard shortcut in Settings → General. Help → Keyboard Shortcuts lists it first, under Anywhere on your Mac, with a link back to that setting, and the menu bar life-ring prints it next to Open quick capture. If you have cleared it, both say so rather than showing a shortcut that does nothing.

Turn on Show Float in the menu bar, also in Settings → General, and Float puts a life-ring in the menu bar at the top of the screen. It offers Open Float and Open quick capture, the second printing whatever shortcut you have set, so you can open either without going to the Dock.

The shortcut on iPhone

Press and hold the Float icon on the Home Screen and choose New Todo. Float opens ready for you to type.

The Quick Capture widget and button (iPhone)

The Quick Capture widget is a small square with its name and a coral plus in the corner. Add it to your Home Screen the way you add any widget, and tap it: Float opens with the box ready to type in, exactly as if you had tapped the plus inside the app. The Today widget has the same plus in its corner.

On a Mac there is no Quick Capture widget, because you already have the shortcut and the menu bar life-ring. The Today widget's plus opens quick capture there, if you keep that widget on your desktop.

It comes as a Lock Screen circle too, for the row of widgets under the clock, and there is a Quick Capture button as well, for Control Centre, the Lock Screen's corner buttons, or the Action Button. Put it on the Action Button and adding a todo is one press, from anywhere.

None of these adds a todo by itself. Each opens a box you already use, with its dates, reminders and repeats, because that is where you decide those things. After your free month, they open the same card the box does.

If Low Tide or a reminder's screen is open, finish with it first. On iPhone, the shortcut on the Home Screen, the widgets and the button do nothing while one of those is up, because the box would open behind it. From search, Done or the Trash, they take you back to your list and open the box there.

Where a new todo lands

At the bottom, just above the box you typed it in. That is the point: adding something never asks you to decide where it goes, because deciding is a separate job from remembering. When you are ready to decide, use float, surface and sink to move it up.

If you have anchored anything, a new todo goes in just above the anchored band, since anchored todos stay below everything else. A todo you left half-typed waits in the same spot.