Counters in MLO-Windows
Counters allow you to glance quickly over the list of views and understand how many different tasks require your attention. You don’t even need to open each view.
For example, you can see how many tasks in your Inbox waiting for your processing. Or you can see how many overdue tasks appeared in the Active Actions view and compare them with the total amount of your active tasks.
Counters consider tasks exactly in the given view: default (1) or custom (2). The only requirement is to have the view enabled in your current profile so that you can give instructions to make a count.
Options for tasks to count: All, completed, not completed, started or overdue. Each type of counters has its own color and icon:
To set up counters for a default view
- Click on the "gear" button on the views pane or simply right click on any view.
- Select "Manage views…";
- In the pop-up window click on the view you wish to set up counters for;
- In the "General" tab on the right check "Show Counters" and adjust the options
For example, for the "All tasks" view you may want to see two counters: the number of completed tasks and the number of all tasks.
To set up counters for a custom view
Let’s say, you need to count overdue tasks among the tasks marked with red flag. Your steps will be:
- Create a view showing only tasks marked with red flag.
- Right click on the newly created view on the left;
- Select "Manage views…";
- In the "General" tab on the right check "Show Counters" and select "Overdue" under "Counter".
In our example we have 93 completed tasks (out of 537) and 2 overdue tasks marked with red flag at the moment.
Additional settings
- Unlimited hierarchy applies to counters as well. You can specify whether to count only top level tasks or tasks with subtasks.
- If you enable "Hide If Zero", the counter will not appear until at least one task with the given criterion appears. Thus, this option can be viewed as an additional soft notification, along with reminders for time, place and review already available in MLO.
- Counters can be enabled for tabs as well, or rather for the view opened in the tab.
First you need to configure a counter for the required view, then open this view in a tab and turn on a counter for the tab: Right click on the tab and select "Set up Workspace…", then check "Show view counter on tab".
This feature lets you easily check whether items from the tab requires your attention, with no need to open it.
