ToodleChrome Dec2009
Tags: browser, Chrome, extension, Google, GTD, tasks, todo, ToodleChrome, Toodledo | 85 Comments
Update 2011-Nov: 0.74 renames the extension to “Toodledo Tasks” in order to comply with Google’s branding policies. Get it here.
Update 2010-Nov-07: The 0.5 update fixes the popup issue and adds a couple features. Check out the details here.
Update 2009-Dec-12: The 0.4 update now includes an option to add a badge indicating how many tasks are due. I ended up foregoing the Toodledo API and instead decided to implement a solution that uses the Toodledo RSS feed (which can be customized) and the Google Ajax Feed API. This way the extension doesn’t need to ask for a username or password. While the Toodledo RSS feed is a public one, it is a unique address, and users can change the feed url or disable the feed entirely if necessary.
The ToodleChrome extension is based on Toodledo, a web-based todo application that I’ve come to rely upon on a daily basis. I primarily access my todos via an iPhone app called Todo by Appigo, but there are often times when I want to add some items from my browser.
Tooodle does have a web interface, but I’ve found the slim/mobile version of the site faster and easier to use, especially in conjunction with Appigo’s iPhone app. To make things even more efficient for my workflow, I thought I’d put together a quick and simple extension for the beta version of Google Chrome (my current browser of choice, mainly because it’s fast). Extensions will eventually be enabled in the regular version of Chrome but for now it’s limited to the stable beta.
If you are a Chrome beta user like myself, and need a good way to manage your todos, give the extension a try. It’s listed in the Chrome Extensions directory, and I hope to add some updates via the Toodledo API in the future (specifically, to show due and overdue items in the icon badge). Until then, I hope this small contribution makes it a little easier to keep on top of things.
[Check out ToodleChrome at the Official Google Chrome Repository] [Update: or in the Chrome Web Store]




Thank you. Simple and really useful.
I like the logo too.
Great Extension and nice plain simple logo.
Any chance of making the badge show a count of what is overdue/today only instead of complete number of tasks due?
When you set up your RSS feed, you can have it display only your “Hotlist,” which doesn’t show a complete list of all your tasks (I think it only shows tasks that are overdue/due very soon).
Would this solve your problem?
Essentially, the extension works by polling your RSS feed (which you can customize on the Toodledo site).
I have it set up for Hotlist, which is much better than all tasks. While it works for pairing down the number tasks greatly, it still grabs (and shows a number in the badge) tasks I do not want, not a Hotlist user myself.
Thinking of specifically how the badge on the iPhone app works. Not a big deal or a deal breaker for usage, just figured if you were going to do any more work on the extension the ability to customize the badge would be a great option to add – understanding you have to dig into the API and not just the RSS feed.
Thanks for the feedback, it’s definitely appreciated.
I see what you mean by not being able to customize the Hotlist list itself (seems like I’ve actually changed the way I create todos since I started using the Hotlist!).
While I don’t have a timeline, I do plan on doing more work on this extension (0.5 limited update is already done), so I’ll do some more research into the API and see what I can come up with. I’d like to make some promises about implementation, but this is all I can offer for now.
Thanks for the plugin, very useful! Would be cool to have more options!
Love your extension, but really need it to be integrated with Tasks in Google Apps.
Using Chromium 4.0.304.0 (36813) I am unable to paste into the fields when adding a task (via context menu or keyboard). Don’t know if this is Chromium-related or extension-related.
@Bo: Thanks, glad you like the extension. This one is for Toodledo, though. If you’re looking for Google Tasks integration, there are some great add-ons made by Google in the extension repository.
@Cory: I noticed that too. It’s currently a problem with the Chrome/Chromium builds (other extensions have the same problem). Hopefully they fix it soon.
hi,
first nice extension for chrome to use toodledo. it´s possible to make the window longer. in the add dialog you have to scroll down to hit the save button but there is enough space to make the window longer.
thx
@Mike: thanks, that’s something I can put into the next release.
Still working on this?
Just wondering if you were working on an updated version at all and what features you might add? By far this is one of my used and useful extensions.
If you are still working on it recently noticed that the Hotlist count on the extension does not match the Hotlist count within Toodledo.
@Jon. Yup, I still plan on doing a fairly basic update, but other obligations have been keeping me from getting to it.
What kinds of discrepancies are you seeing with the Hotlist count? Mine’s adding up properly at the moment.
In terms of other features, I haven’t had much time to look into the API. However, some recommendations such as customizing the size of the popup window or adding options/tabs to show additional shared lists can be added without burning too much of the midnight oil.
Eliot – hotlist on extension shows one more than there is. So if I have 20 on Toodledo extension shows 21, but if I count the number in the hotlist in extension I count 20.
One other feature that would make it much easier is a actual calendar drop down for due dates instead of the list selector – something more in-line of what Toodledo has. That is the one thing that I constantly think of using it.
Hi Eliot,
Thanks so much for this extension. Not sure I’m using the badge properly–it shows numbers that don’t really match up with my hotlist or my to-do-today tasks. Which RSS feed sets up “Today’s” tasks only?
Thanks!
– Dan
@Jon and @Dan
Thanks for the feedback. The badge shows the number of items in your Toodledo RSS feed, which you can customize in your settings (it pops up when you access the Options page of the extension. Mine just shows the Hotlist).
Please try opening your RSS feed and see how many items are listed there. That will give me an idea of whether the problem is with the extension or with Toodledo itself.
@eliot,
Thanks for the reply. I think the problem is mine–I think I’m not sure how the Toodledo RSS feed works. If I set it up without limiting to the hotlist, then the badge gives me 30 tasks. But I have 240 tasks…is Toodledo’s RSS limited to 30?
I should add, if I restrict to hotlist, it gives me 25, though I have 27 items on my hotlist. Does the extension have “Use Toodledo’s Settings” for it’s hotlist settings, or is it a basic, “within 14 days” setting?
One more–Sorry!–but if I shut off the RSS, but leave the badge on, it just says “1.” Is that affecting the count, maybe?
@Dan Thanks for checking it out. I just looked into it further and I think it may be a combination of Toodledo and Google’s API (which I’m using to poll the RSS feed for the task count).
Google’s API seems to be limited to 30 items per RSS feed, so that’s why you’re seeing 30 instead of 240.
In terms of the badge and the hotlist count not adding up, I’m still not sure. I just tried it out and mine add up correctly. Do you use subtasks?
@eliot,
I figured out the 25–some hotlist tasks that I saw on my Toodledo screen had been cleared on my iPod Touch app, but hadn’t been synced. Sorry for the confusion! Thanks again for the great extension!
–Dan
At the moment i can’t download it! Looks like the Servers are down, but allready 3 days?
Daniel
@Daniel Just tried it and it looks like it’s working. The extension is stored on Google’s servers, so hopefully they’ll have it resolved soon if you are still having problems.
Hey ! I discovered this extension a week ago, and it’s great.
Just 1 thing : the badge counter has allways 1 more task than the real hotlist. And I don’t see the excess task in the ToodleChrome panel, only in the badge counter.
Is it a bug, or a setting mistake I’ve made ?
@Sanji Hey glad you like the extension. There are a number of reasons why the badge might not match up with your hotlist. Make sure that you’re using the right RSS feed for the badge (in the extension Settings/Options). You might also have a project with subtasks. Sometimes Toodledo counts the Project as an item, in addition to all the subtasks. It might also depend on whether you’re using any other programs that integrate with Toodledo and that haven’t synced yet (see a previous post above). Hope that helps.
Well…
1) I’ve tried checking/unchecking the “Hotlist only” option. The badge counter changes. Total is OK, but not hotlist.
2) I haven’t any subtask : free account
3) I use several other programs : iPhone app, Outlook sync. But all are OK.
I really don’t get it…
I got it !
I’ve got a task with top priority, but with a startdate in several month.
Toodledo (web or iPhone app) don’t put it in hotlist until we reach the start date.
You do.
Do you think you could manage the counter the same way Toodledo does ?
Thank you
@Sanji hmmm. Try opening the RSS feed for your hotlist and see how many items are on there. What the extension does is merely grab your selected rss feed, and then count how many items are on it. So it could be that Toodledo is putting your top priority item on the rss feed, but not on their web interface.
Yes, it is.
The task is in the file, with a 2011 start date.
btw, your counter badge show me the “fake” task, but if I click on the ToodleChrome icon, the tasks list don’t show it.
You do filter on the window, but not on the counter.
But I’m gonna ask Toodledo too.
@Sanji please let me know what Toodledo says about this. Since the issue is due to the construction of the rss feed itself, which comes directly from Toodledo servers, it would be hard for me to create a fix.
Hey !
Quick answer from Toodledo :
“Thanks for the bug report. We’ll get this fixed in the next update.”
In the forum : http://www.toodledo.com/forums/2/7533/0/hot-list-and-rss-feed.html
Hi Eliot,
like the (idea of your ) extension very much. However when I click it my dropbox is only 1/2 inch wide and not as shown in one of your pictures. Is that a Google thing or can I adapt it myself.
@John hey thanks for the feedback. Try uninstalling the extension and then reinstalling it. If that doesn’t work, it might have something to do with your screen resolution. What resolution are you using? If you could send me a screenshot that would help me figure out what’s happening. Thanks.
@Eliot hi and thanks for your response. Resulotion is 1280*768. Changing res. (800*600) has no effect. Mailed you the printscreen.
I have the narrow bubble popup issue too. It started when I upgraded to Linux dev build 7.0.536.2 and before that version the window size was as expected.
I reported it at http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=58353 but I’m not familiar enough with Chrome development to go through their revision logs to see if something related changed.
@John @Peter hey thanks for the info. Are either of you using any sort of CSS modifying extension (like Chrome Stylist)?
I noticed in the screenshot that some of the styling is not how it normally would be (i.e. “Email” and “Password” are white, and there’s no text beside the icons).
@eliot hi. as far as I know no CSS modifying. The only screen influencers are Adblock and Bfilter. Switching them off makes no difference. No text beside the icons is just because I removed the name/text.
Btw all other popup windows (evernote, lastpass, instapaper) just work fine.
Hope this info helps.
@John. Hmm, might be that another extension is conflicting with ToodleChrome. What happens if you disable all other extensions. Does it still give you the same problem?
@Eliot, hi Yep, still the same problem. Tried another computer, same problem. When you look at the Google extension site for the Toodledo extension under reviews you will see more and more people reporting this problem. Looks as if there’s a google problem. thanks anyway
@Eliot, hi. some additional info. Installed extension on 3rd cpmputer with chrome 7.0.517.24 installed. Toodlechrome worked OK. Upgraded Chrome to 7.0.544.0 and problem was there again. Seems clear to me.
I”m using Chrome 8.0.552 on Mac OS X.
ChromeTodo is showing only half of its screen..
its really bugging me i spend half an hour tyring to figure out but i guess its a bug..?
@ Rahz Yes, a couple of other users investigated and it looks to be a bug in Google Chrome itself. Hopefully they fix it in the next release.
I fixed the frames height:
iframe#tdciframe {border:0;width:300px; height: 400}
iframe#tdciframemini {border:0;width:200px; height: 300}
I ended up making the change myself in order to resolve the ‘popup size’ problem. If you downloaded your extension from Google’s official repository, Toodlechrome should update itself automatically next time you relaunch the browser.
Thanks to everyone for the feedback.
Eliot, it functions now great. Thanks a lot for all you efforts.
Great extensions now to be used to its full potential. Thanks again.
[...] the newest version of the browser were running into problems with some extensions that uses popups. ToodleChrome 0.4 is one of these extensions. It looks as though the Chrome/Chromium dev team has changed the way [...]
[...] ToodleChrome is in the Chrome Web Store! The extension is still free, of course. Previous posts on this extension are here and originally here. [...]
Just updated to V.7 with settings to show badge for due today and past due. I have 2 but badge shows 1.
@SteveB Would you happen to have a screenshot? If you could provide me with some extra info I can work on figuring it out (also, sometimes users have a hotlist or specific list showing, and those numbers may be different than what number is displayed in your badge – this is normal behaviour since your list may show items that are starred, high priority but later due date, etc).
Great extension, please add the ability to right click a web page and add the url to the task as you can in Firefox.
There are many web pages I visit that require an action and if you could right click the web page, and have it add the url to the task note, this would be great addition or upgrade.
@Phil Glad you like the extension. I won’t rule it out completely, but the feature you seek requires integrating with the API. At the moment, I don’t have any plans for the Toodledo API, but if I do, your request will be on the list of features.
Great extension! Would like option to add folders during task creation (eg, choose folder “”).
Thanks for the great work!
love this. how about an app for android phones?
When I click on the newly installed Chrome extension, it gives me the option of “Hotlist”, “Starred”, “Folders”, etc. but when I press anything (eg; Folders) it displays all tasks automatically. Any suggestions? Otherwise, the layout is great and the program itself has aided in getting me and my fiancée on track with shared responsibilities on my iPhone and her android. Thanks
@rnr: hmmm, have you tried reinstalling the extension? Or if you can send me a couple screenshots, that may help me diagnose the issue.
@ron: have you checked out the Android marketplace? Lots of good stuff there for Toodledoers.
I love the extension, I am only having one problem. When I click on any of the options; Hotlist, Starred, Folder, Context, etc., it will go directly to all tasks without giving me the Hotlist, Starred, Folder, etc. view. Any advice?
I have tried reinstalling. I will send screenshots tonight. thanks
Hi, first thanks for this great extension!! I have a small problem. My default page is hotlist, and by default it is sorted by priority I suppose. I would like it to display in due date order so I click the “shuffle” button on the right, choosing due-date. My question is how can I keep this setting, because once I close the extension and reopen it again, all the tasks in the hotlist is sorted by priority again. Any solutions? Thanks.
@motta: Thanks for checking out the extension. I see what you mean about sorting. I’m sure you’ve considered making your default start page organized by Due Date? I don’t know if you can have Hotlist as your default and also have that sorted a certain way, but I’ll look into it. It is likely not something I can change, but rather something Toodledo controls.
Hi. Just installed your chrome extension for Mac. Works great, but I can’t seem to get the badges to work at all. I have several tasks that meet the selected criteria (within 3 days or within 1 week), but still no badge is displayed. Thx.
@Mike: can you check that you have RSS feeds enabled? (Click the “Show Badge” checkbox, then the “Toodledo > RSS” link to RSS feeds for your Toodledo account. Once you click the “Enable RSS Feed” checkbox, you have to also click “Save Changes”). That should get it working, but write back if not.
I love the extension, but my badge only shows the number 30 no matter what setting I have it set to, from due today + overdue, to due in next seven days. I have my RSS feed enabled and setup correctly in the extension, and I can access the RSS feed without troubles through something like Google Reader.
@jeremiads: Thanks for the feedback. Could it be that you have 30 items due today and no other items due? If so that might explain why it shows 30 for both timeperiods. If that’s not it, what does your rss feed look like (i.e. how many items are in your RSS feed?). That’ll help me troubleshoot the problem for you. Thanks!
There is a bug in ToodleChrome. My badge count was way higher than the actual tasks due today, and I painstakingly went through all my tasks to find out what was up.
It turns out that I had about 4 tasks where the date modifier in Toodledo was set to “Due On” instead of “Due By”. “Due On” inserts an equal sign (=) before the date.
All the tasks with “Due On” dates in the next week or two were being counted in the badge count of ToodleChrome, even though I had set ToodleChrome to only display tasks due today. After I changed all those tasks to “Due By” instead of “Due On,” by badge is now showing the right count.
It would be great if this could be fixed!
@Chris: Thanks for taking the time to troubleshoot the issue. I don’t have too much free time at the moment, but I’ll take a closer look.
Hi eliot!
Thanks for sharing this nice plugin.
I’m having a problem with it at work. It’s layout is really narrow and it doesn’t adapts to the toodledo list.
http://marquex.es/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/toodledo.jpg
There you can see how i see my todo list. I’m using Chrome 14.
Some idea to make it usable??
Thanks and cheers
@marquex: There’s a new version of Chrome out, so give that a try and let me know if you still have the problem. Thanks.
I am updated to the latest version of Chrome…and have the same problem as Marquex above – the layout is really narrow when I click on the icon to “add a task”….any other ideas? THANKS!
The extension is showing very slim when I click the app in the bar. I can’t see the list to know which to pick.
@India, @marquex and @Lucien: Which version of the extension are you using? Google is in the process of re-approving the extension so it’s unavailable for download at the moment. If you downloaded the extension from another source, then it will likely be out of date (the skinny popup window was an issue a few versions ago, and has since been fixed). Thanks!
I’m not clear on this. I DO have the extension installed on my laptop computer…and it is a skinny pop up. I also have it installed on my desktop computer at my office, and it works fine. You made the comment that “it’s unavailable at the moment”, yet I used it today on my office computer AND it still pops up “skinny” on my laptop. So back to the original question, where do I find an installation for my laptop that will appear “normal” and not skinny???
@Lucien: can you tell me what version of the extension you’re running? Please click the Wrench icon > Tools > Extensions > scroll down to ToodleChrome and tell me what number is beside the name. Thanks.
“Lucien” wrote:
> 0.4
@Lucien: ok this is the issue. The extension is now at version 0.7x. Google is still processing it, but the newest version should be available soon in the Chrome Web Store.
I’ll post a new comment here when it’s available, so you can subscribe to this thread to be notified.
great, thanks!
“Lucien” wrote:
> I just checked the extension on my office computer, and
> it is 0.73. It works fine. So how do I get that version?
@Lucien: You would have to download it from the Chrome Web Store. However, since Google is still approving the new version of the extension, you can’t download it at the moment. Subscribe to this thread and you’ll be notified when Google makes it available again.
how do i subscribe to this thread?
Can you also make the extension available on here so that we don’t have to wait for the extension to appear in the Chrome store?
Hello everyone, I’m not sure what’s happening on Google’s end, but the extension is still unavailable at the Chrome Web Store. I’ve made the extension available here, if you’d like to get it installed right now: [Update: it's back in the Web Store through the link in the post]. The extension has been renamed to “Toodledo Tasks”.
Thank you! Looks good.
Greetings everyone, after communicating at length with Chrome staff, the extension is back on the Web Store. Get it at: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ballhmoamkbbfadiealjmgmhbbnellbc
Is there a possibility that I can create a task from some selected text or URL?
@smika, not at the moment. That functionality would require integration with the Toodledo API. I’ve been looking into it; but I don’t have much spare time these days, so there’s no timeline for implementation.
RSS display changes so the tasks aren’t visible:
I subscribed to my rss feed. When I bring it up, it shows a “normal” readable list (like all my other feeds) but it only lasts for a split second. Then it disappears, or rather the first line looks blank and the top of the list text is barely visible. So my 39 tasks are not visible unless I click on the expanded view.
I haven’t seen this symptom on the blog, but I can’t seem to shake it. I have been up and down the google reader forums.
@Mark: Are running into trouble with the extension, Toodledo itself or that particular RSS feed? The extension isn’t related to Google Reader, but the RSS items might not be visible in Reader if you are only “showing unread items.”