Tasks: Remove sidebar

I’ve agonised over this decision, but, ultimately, I’m going to simplify the Tasks UX to remove the sidebar.

Motivation

• simpler to dev/maintain (v important for solo founder)
• more predictable UX
• works better with HTML conventions/browser expectations e.g. around history

To expand on the more predictable UX, there’s a tension between user expectations here with edit-in-place vs good old fashioned HTML forms. With the sidebar design, users saw it as a dynamic, edit-in-place style UX, and had expectations around that. E.g. ‘I should be able to edit everything in place, and why is my input not autosaved?’.

By reverting to a simpler, edit -> save style UX, we not only dramatically simplify the code, but also reset user expectations about how the feature should work.

There is also an associated benefit of removing the sidebar - it allows for stripped back task pages, with no distractions. This fits in with the broader Macro design, and helps you focus.

The risk with this approach is that users may not find the UX slick enough compared to tools like Trello, however our goal with Macro is for a simple approach where the value derives from the entire product, rather than individual features within it. Hopefully, the new Tasks UX achieves this goal. 🤞