When a reminder arrives
Tap a reminder's notification and Float does not just open your list. It shows you the one todo the alarm was about, and asks what you want to do with it.
This screen exists mainly so you can put something off. Everything else you might do to a todo you can already do from the list; not now, ask me later you cannot.
Not the same thing as Low Tide
The two screens look related and are asking quite different questions, so it is worth being clear:
| Low Tide | A reminder arriving | |
|---|---|---|
| Why you are here | It is the day you picked | An alarm you set went off |
| How many todos | The undated ones you have left alone, one at a time | Only the ones whose alarms have gone off |
| The question it asks | Where does this belong now? | Now, or later? |
| Lets you put it off | No | Yes, that is the point |
What you see
One todo, on water rather than sand. How dark that water is tells you how far down your list the todo actually sits, and nothing else. A floated todo shows up near the top in bright water. One you have been ignoring for months shows up genuinely dark, which is the honest answer to why am I only hearing about this now.
The time of day and the weather do not affect this screen. Darkness means one thing here, so it is not also doing a second job.
At the top is the moment the alarm went off: 9:00 AM. Which way from here? If more than one reminder has gone off and is still waiting, a count sits under it, and it ticks up as you deal with them.
What you can do
The card in the middle is the same card the list shows, with the same two controls on it:
- The circle at the top-left marks the todo done.
- The life-ring at the top-right floats it.
Above and below the card, Surface and Sink, the same two moves as everywhere else, in the direction they send it.
An anchored todo whose reminder comes before its day shows Unanchor above the card instead, with the anchor symbol beside the words, and no Sink below it. Anchored todos wait in the order of their dates, so surface and sink are not offered on them (see Float, surface, sink, anchor); unanchoring it sends the todo back to its place in the list. There is no Undo for it here, just as there is none in the list: to put it back, anchor it again. Once the todo's day has come, it is with everything else that is due, and this screen offers it Surface and Sink as usual.
At the bottom, two buttons:
- Snooze, the filled one, because it is the reason this screen exists.
- Dismiss, the quiet one. It changes nothing at all. The todo stays where it is, and the next waiting reminder comes in behind it.
Each choice sends the card off the way it means: up for surface, unanchor and float, down for sink, a short drop for done. Snooze and Dismiss leave the card where it is and simply fade it, because neither of them moves the todo.
Snoozing
Snooze opens a short list of three:
- Shortly: a small nudge, to the next quarter hour.
- This evening, or Tomorrow evening if your evening has already been and gone. You set what counts as evening in Settings → Dates & Times.
- Tomorrow: tomorrow, at your default time for reminders, also set in Settings → Dates & Times.
They are listed nearest first, so once your evening has gone by, Tomorrow may come before Tomorrow evening.
Snoozing only moves the alarm. The todo does not move, and Float offers you an Undo afterwards.
Answering without opening Float
You do not have to open Float to answer a reminder. The notification has four buttons of its own: on iPhone, press and hold it; on a Mac, click Options or the arrow on the notification.
- Snooze briefly, Snooze until evening and Snooze until tomorrow move the alarm, the same three steps as the screen.
- Complete marks the todo done. A repeating todo comes back for its next time, with its reminder, exactly as it does when you tick it in the list.
Complete from a notification has no Undo, because a notification has nowhere to put one. If you pressed it by mistake, the todo is in Done, and you can bring it back from there.
On a Mac the buttons are dependable only when Float's notifications are set to Alerts in the Notifications section of System Settings. Set to Banners, a notification slips away on its own, and the buttons may not be there to reach.
After an alarm has gone off
The bell leaves the todo and the reminder field stops showing a time, because an alarm that has already rung should not still look like it is set for 8:15 AM. Set a new one if you want another.
Float still remembers when the alarm was, though, and two things use it:
- Defer the todo and its alarm comes along. It keeps its place beside the todo's date, and its time of day, so if the todo is due today and its alarm went off this morning, pushing it to tomorrow means the alarm rings again tomorrow morning, and the bell is back on the todo. See Due dates, reminders and repeats.
- A repeating todo keeps its alarm for the next one in the series, at the same time, so there is nothing to set again there. If you finish one so late that the next one's alarm time has already gone by, that one comes back without a bell, and the alarm comes back on the first one still ahead of you.
A todo you finish or move to the Trash still shows the reminder it had when you open it in Done or the Trash.
If a reminder never went off at all, Due dates, reminders and repeats has the things to check.