Michal Marek Earlier this year, a simple and elegant task management app called Clear hit the App Store. This is an act of developers from the group Realmac Software, who enlisted the help of designers and programmers from Helftone and Impending, Inc. The application was a huge success immediately after its release. But how will it hold up on a Mac that lacks a touch screen, when Touch gestures are the main domain of Clear?
It is not difficult to describe the interface and functions of the application, because Clear for Mac copies its own almost to the letter the iPhone counterpart. Again, we basically have three layers of the application at our disposal – individual tasks, task lists and the basic menu.
The most important and most used level is of course the tasks themselves. If you open an empty list with no items in it yet, you will be greeted with a dark screen with a quote written on it. The quotes are mostly at least hinting at productivity - or motivating productivity - and come from practically all periods of world history. You can come across the lessons of Confucius from the period before Christ and the memorable sayings of Napoleon Bonaparte or even the recently spoken wisdom of Steve Jobs. There is a share button below the quote, so you can immediately post interesting quotes on Facebook, Twitter, email or iMessage. It is also possible to copy the quote to the clipboard for later use.
You start creating a new task by simply typing on the keyboard. In the event that some tasks already exist and you want to create another one in the place between two others, just place the cursor between them. If you place it correctly, a space will be created between the given items and the cursor will turn into a capital "+". Then you can start writing your assignment. Of course, tasks can be reorganized later, by simply dragging the mouse.
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A level higher are the already mentioned to-do lists. The same rules apply to their creation as for creating separate tasks. Again, just start typing on the keyboard, or determine the position of the new entry with the mouse cursor. The order of the lists can also be changed using the Drag & Drop method.
The basic menu, the top layer of the application, is used by the user practically only at the first launch. In the main menu, only the most basic settings are available – enabling iCloud, turning on sound effects and setting the display of the icon in the dock or in the top bar. In addition to these options, the menu offers us only a list of tips and tricks for using the application and finally a selection from different color schemes. The user can therefore choose the environment that will be most pleasing to his eye.
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A unique feature and proof of the revolutionary control of the Clear application is the movement between the three described levels. Just as the iPhone version is perfectly adapted to the touchscreen, the Mac version is perfectly designed to be controlled with a trackpad or Magic Mouse. You can move up a level, for example from a to-do list to a list of lists, with a swipe gesture or by moving two fingers up the Trackpad. If you want to move in the opposite direction through the application interface, drag down with two fingers.
Unchecking completed tasks can be done either by dragging with two fingers to the left, or by double-clicking (tapping with two fingers on the Trackpad). When you want to remove completed tasks from the list, just use the “Pull to Clear” gesture or click between completed tasks (“Click to Clear”). Deleting individual tasks is done by dragging two fingers to the left. The entire list of tasks can be deleted or marked as completed in the same way.
Is it worth buying?
So why buy Clear? After all, it only offers the most basic functions. It can be used at most as a shopping list, a list of things to pack for a holiday and the like. However, it definitely cannot replace more advanced to-do apps like Wunderlist or native Reminders, let alone GTD tools like 2Do, Things a OmniFocus. If you want to successfully organize your life and daily tasks, Clear is definitely not enough as a primary application.
However, the developers knew what they were doing. They never tried to design competition for the titles mentioned above. Clear is interesting in other ways, and is essentially an area in productivity software itself. It is beautiful, intuitive, easy to use and offers revolutionary controls. Entering individual items is fast and therefore does not delay the completion of the tasks themselves. Perhaps the developers created Clear with this in mind. I myself sometimes ask myself whether it is not counterproductive to spend half a day organizing it and writing down the duties that await me right after I have thought them through and written them down in the appropriate software.
The application is austere and even primitive, but down to the smallest detail. iCloud syncing works great, and if there are any changes to your to-do list as a result of this syncing, Clear will alert you with a sound effect. In terms of design, the application icon is also very successful. Clear for both Mac and iPhone works flawlessly and the developer support is exemplary. It can be seen that the developers from Realmac Software want to improve their work and this is not a project without a future that is created once and then quickly forgotten.
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[app url=”http://itunes.apple.com/cz/app/clear/id504544917?mt=12″]
probably a bit of a pointless question, but is it possible to add a task, for example, by dragging a file onto the application icon in the dock?
It's a great simple, minimalist app. It's like scratching off tasks on paper, so if you're looking for something similar, this app is just for you.
To rudolf matejcek: you can't add a task by dragging a file onto the application icon in the dock.
Great! I was waiting for this review!!! Diki
In my opinion, an excellent application for a list of daily tasks. I've been using it practically since its launch on iPhone, and now I immediately bought it on Mac as well. Synchronization works perfectly for me, the user interface is excellent. 5*