Integration experiences: Egretlist, to-do list based on Evernote

Application: Egretlist [ iTunes link ]
Developer: MindsMomentum
Location: Puerto Rico
Platform: iPhone
Category: Productivity, Task Management

About the application

Egretlist is an iPhone to-do list application that is directly related to your Evernote account. It finds all your notes containing task flags, arranges them in a convenient order and synchronizes any changes you make with Evernote in the future. The application shows not only the to-do lists, but also any related content that is in the corresponding note, including pictures and attachments.

In addition to good design and functionality, Egretlist is attractive to us because it is one of the first applications focused solely on expanding existing Evernote functionality.
')
Tip: To insert a task checkbox into a note, use the keyboard shortcut Shift + Cmd + T (Mac) or Ctrl + Shift + C (Windows).

Download Egretlist from the AppStore




We were so impressed with Egretlist that we even interviewed Juan Arzola, one of the developers. Our conversation below.

About the developer

- Tell us about yourself

I am a software developer at MindsMomentum in Puerto Rico. In total, the company employs six people, and two of us, including me, worked on the Egretlist.

- What prompted you, as an Evernote user, to create this application?

Since I am a developer, in my daily work I start from tasks. And programming involves working with various projects. I use Evernote to organize and view all the details on them. I also work with a variety of images and documents, and I like the fact that in Evernote a note can contain not only a list of tasks for this task, but also the necessary additional data. Evernote is great for me, allowing me to be relatively free to write notes, but nevertheless easy to organize and achieve my goals.

Creating Egretlist, I took the Evernote function as the basis for inserting task flags into notes, and decided to try to improve this feature. I wanted to create an application that would use the organizer functionality already built into Evernote, just more task-oriented. Moreover, all my data has already been stored in Evernote. Egretlist extends existing functionality and provides additional support to people who use Evernote to build plans and maintain a list of tasks.

- What do you hope to give to users?

Many people use Evernote to organize their affairs and tasks, but they do not have a system that allows them to directly sort them. Task managers are an excellent solution, but they are usually available only for one platform, and if there are multiplatform solutions, then you still have to open the application for data entry. Evernote is available on various platforms and provides many ways to send information to a notebook and then organize data. This makes notes with to-do lists a much more flexible and sophisticated way to manage tasks.

- What potential do you see in Evernote as a developer?

I, as a developer, really like the fact that the Evernote API is really easy to understand. It allows you to do everything that can be native client applications Evernote. This gives developers ample opportunity for creativity and the belief that if some functionality appears in Evernote, it will be available to third-party developers; This allows developers to do a lot and opens up a wide scope for development planning. Powerful clients mean a lot of opportunities.

Developers also will not encounter any obstacles in the process of building their application. This is great because you will not see any of us by the way that when you’re halfway through the development, a certain obstacle suddenly appears that makes further development impossible.

- Did you like to develop under Evernote?

Yes very. The people from Evernote really helped deal with compatibility issues. The documentation was easy to understand and easy to use.

- How long have you been using Evernote?

More than two years.

- How do you most often use in Evernote?

I mainly use it for organizing tasks and projects. I have a separate notebook for each project. All information related to a project is stored in this notebook. When the project is completed, I make an archive of this notebook and then delete it from Evernote.

- What versions of Evernote are you using?

Most of the time I use Evernote for iPhone and Mac, as well as a web clipper in Safari. Sometimes I can use a web clipper in Linux.

- What are you planning to add to the application in the future?

As we continue to work on the application, we will monitor how Evernote will evolve. If there is a new feature of interest to the egretlist, we will add it. We also monitor how people use Evernote. For example, notes can be grouped not only by notepads, but also with the help of tags, so we are now developing such functions that will be convenient for people who prefer to use tags.

Evernote API

We can only offer developers among users of Habr to join the Egretlist team and more than a thousand other developers using the Evernote API when developing new applications. Here are examples of integrations that might push you to create your own application .