Project shortcuts

Wherever you type in Projectous, a colon followed by a project's acronym or name picks that project, the way @ followed by a name picks a person. It saves reaching for a dropdown when you already know which project you mean.

When does a colon mean a project?#

Only at the start of the text or straight after a space. Everywhere else it is ordinary punctuation, so "meeting at 10:30", a web address or "a 4:3 crop" never opens anything.

There are two forms:

• : and a few letters, such as :web, opens a list of projects to pick from, filtered as you type.
• : and an acronym followed by a space, such as :WEB , picks the project at once and removes the :WEB you typed, keeping the rest of your text.

How is the project matched?#

Best first: an exact acronym, then an acronym that starts with what you typed, then an exact project name, then a project name that starts with it, then a client name, exact and then starting with it. Upper and lower case do not matter.

If nothing matches, nothing happens and your text is left as you typed it. If several projects match equally well, for example two projects sharing an acronym, Projectous does not guess: it shows the candidates, or tells you the acronym belongs to more than one project, and leaves your text alone until you pick one.

Where does it work?#

Timer notes. On a timer card in the Timers panel, the shortcut sets the timer's project. Two more forms work here:

• An acronym followed by a colon, such as WEB:, lists that project's tasks, most recently active first; keep typing to search them. Pick a task to put the timer on it, or pick Set project only, the first line, for the project with no task.
• Changing a timer's project this way takes off a task that belonged to the old project.

A new task's title. In the new task form, :WEB in the title files the task under that project and removes the acronym from the title. If the acronym is shared by several projects, saving tells you so and asks you to choose one.

Chat messages. In a message, : and a few letters lists projects; picking one lists its tasks. Pick a task to put a link to it in your message, or pick the first line to link the project itself. Typing an acronym followed by a colon, such as WEB:, goes straight to that project's tasks.

Search. In the search box, :WEB narrows the search to that project.

The chat list. Filtering your chats with :WEB , or with an acronym on its own as a word, shows only that project's conversations. An acronym that several projects share filters as plain text instead.

Where do acronyms come from?#

A project's acronym is set on the project. When a project has none, typing the start of its name still finds it. Keeping acronyms short and unique makes every shortcut on this page pick the right project first time.

A colon opened a list I did not want#

Keep typing, or press Escape to close it. A colon only means a project at the start of the text or after a space, so a time like 10:30 never opens anything.