Today we’re thrilled to be able to announce a big new addition to Basecamp: You can now attach files and post comments on to-dos and milestones. Previously this functionality was only available on messages.
Watch a bigger version of this video on the 37signals Product Blog.
A quick look at how it works
A green comment icon after a to-do or milestone means there are new comments on that item. A dark grey comment icon means there are comments on that item, but you’ve already read them. And if an item doesn’t have any comments, you’ll see an empty comment icon when you hover over that item. Clicking the comment icon will take you to the comments view for that to-do or milestone.
Deeplinking: A happy side effect
This new feature comes with a great side effect: You can now deep link to individual to-do items or milestones. Previously you could only link to a to-do list or the milestones section, but now you can link directly to individual to-dos or specific milestones.
Project management is communication
This new feature is directly in-line with Basecamp’s core premise: Project management is communication. Before you had to keep all your discussions in the messages section. That worked, but it required you to discuss one part of your project in another part of your project. Now you can have discussions about to-dos and milestones right on top of those to-dos and milestones.
We hope you love it
We’re really excited about this new feature. We think it’s going to help you get a lot more more out of Basecamp. Thanks again for your continued support!
Jason Fried wrote this on Sep 08 2008 There are 42 comments.
malumu 08 Sep 08
Awesome. We were wondering what’s the best way to connect to-dos and beefier messages together.
Thanks!
Avon Blake 08 Sep 08
This is great news. The to-dos have been far too lonely until now. Thanks for the update.
Bruno Bergher 08 Sep 08
This is great! To-do deep linking is a great feature by itself, but being able to attach a layout to a to-do list or comment on it is just great. We’ve been waiting for this.
Thanks!
Philip Arthur Moore 08 Sep 08
Wow. Up until now I had been really frustrated with the disconnectedness between the messages and the to-dos. You guys have truly outdone yourselves this time around. Thank you for making all of our businesses run a bit more smoothly.
Ole Begemann 08 Sep 08
It’s great to see that you guys have included this in the API , as well (and already updated the docs, too!). Shows that you really care about third-party developers.
afruit 08 Sep 08
This is an example showing how the addition of a feature can actually make the overall system seem simpler.
Instead of working around the concept that I had to always rely on messages for ongoing dialog, I now can just settle on the concept that I can create a dialog anywhere.
KC 08 Sep 08
Thanks 37signals – I’ve been waiting for this for a long time.
Tearful Appreciation 08 Sep 08
I do believe I’m going to cry. Yes. Yes, now I’m crying.
James Urquhart 08 Sep 08
Great work, guy’s! Was always wondering when you were going to add comments to other parts of projects. :)
Fred Lee 08 Sep 08
Sweet! This enhances our workflow much better. My team has been using the to-dos as pseudo Agile/XP story card list. This will be much better. Thank you!
Colt West 08 Sep 08
I would love to be able to know when (via email) when a To-Do has been completed by the person it has been assigned to. How about adding that feature!?
johnny rodriguez 08 Sep 08
great new feature!
Ed Unlike 08 Sep 08
Finally, yeah. To-Do´s with Comments and Files make our editors more than happy!
Chris Nagele 08 Sep 08
This is a really big deal. A single feature changes Basecamp from a communication tool to a task management system. Now we need to figure out how to associate to-dos in Beanstalk commits :)
Helenita 08 Sep 08
Will you ever be able to make comments private?
Chief Ingredient 08 Sep 08
Thank you!!! This is an amazing feature add.
Paul Smith 08 Sep 08
Can you explain “deep linking” in more detail. I don’t get what you mean. Great job though, I’ve always thought this should be in Basecamp.
MI 08 Sep 08
Paul: Before the update, you could only link to a todo-list or the milestone section as a whole. Now you can link directly to a specific milestone or todo item.
Paul Smith 08 Sep 08
Oh I see, I thought “deep linking” was some kind of feature, but you just mean you can link to a specific to-do/milestone. That makes sense now. Thanks!
Emin 08 Sep 08
At last you have done it. This was a biggest show-stopper for me since I have always struggled to link messages to to-dos. Now I am a much happier Basecamp user :-)
Nathan 08 Sep 08
Great! No more strong tags
chase 08 Sep 08
Is Basecamp down?
Ford Saeks 08 Sep 08
YOUR SYSTEM IS DOWN ! I love new features, but you’re killing my business!!!!
JF 08 Sep 08
Yup, we’re experiencing some downtime right now. We’re on top of it and hope to be back up shortly. Sorry for the inconvenience.
You can always follow the Status site to see what’s up: http://status.37signals.com
Sarah 08 Sep 08
Oh thank you thank you thank you!! This is great!
Don 08 Sep 08
I’ve been wishing for to-do comments for a while now. We’ve basically worked out a system with our clients where the to-do’s have turned into a conversation separated by [[[’s. The to-do comments are the perfect new feature.
Thanks!
Mark Shust 08 Sep 08
Thanks a million. This missing feature was the only reason we were not moving from our current Trac-based system because comments on specific todo’s are crucial when you have huge multiple todo lists.
JF 08 Sep 08
Thanks for everyone’s kind words! We put a lot of work into this so it’s really great to hear that it’s being well received.
Chad Davis 08 Sep 08
I came across the todo comments yesterday and it absolutely made my whole day. Thank you so much, it really makes a big difference.
Richard Frost 08 Sep 08
Love this update, already found it very useful and only been using it 1 day, keep up the great work!
Brian Morykon 08 Sep 08
Great feature guys, thanks so much. I was looking around today for an bug tracking system, but I think with to-do comments a little ingenuity Basecamp might do the trick.
What do you think about having the ability to edit the assigned user from the to-do comment page? You may have decided against this to keep the page simple, but I would find this very useful, especially in the bug tracking realm. For example, a to-do is originally assigned to a developer; the developer completes it and, instead of checking it off, adds a comment and reassigns it to QA for testing. Right now this requires a few clicks between the list and comment pages.
Perhaps “Assigned To” could go in the sidebar of the comment page as a dropdown menu. It could update via ajax on change. Doing this would also have the side effect of cleaning up the header, as “User Name:” could be removed.
Anyhow, just throwing that out there. Thanks again for the new feature and for listening to our feedback.
Dylan 08 Sep 08
We use the to-do feature on Basecamp to assign tasks to other team members and have found the lack of commenting restrictive as it made the communication strictly “one way”. This new comments feature is a great (and much needed) improvement in our eyes – thank you. And nicely executed too.
jan korbel 08 Sep 08
Good thinking and clever execution as usual guys! Just a quick question: I bet you tried it, but aren’t those pixel “words” in the bubble icon an unnecessary “clutter”?
Matt 09 Sep 08
Great update. Now we just need the much requested dues dates on todos and we will be close to project management utopia.
Paul Smith 09 Sep 08
@jan korbel I kind of like the pixel words, but I wouldn’t miss them if they were gone.
Martin Baker 09 Sep 08
Very cool. Are Basecamp customers going to get the same automatic linking on URL text pasted into todos that Backpack users get? The inconsistent behaviour is frustrating when I’m paying for Basecamp and use Backpack for free :-)
Jonas Cronfeld 09 Sep 08
AWESOME – it changes the whole way we use basecamp. And it’s so much for the better!
Chance Bliss 09 Sep 08
I’m very excited about this update. With direct linking, I think I can get many more people to use Basecamp in my office because of it. Great job.
Elizabeth Saloka 09 Sep 08
This is outstanding! Seems like such a little thing, but what an impact. Great job.
Bruno Bergher 09 Sep 08
Please don’t forget to bring these features to the ‘My To-Dos’ screen (clientsection.com/todo_lists) which joins all of the open to-dos assigned to me.
I use that screen all the time, so this would be the final touch to this great addition.
Jamie Stephens 09 Sep 08
This is exactly what our team needed. This gives us everything we need to do issue/bug tracking inside Basecamp instead of using another tool. Nice work and thanks!
Justin Reese 09 Sep 08
Game changer. In a single day, this has already made our workflow about 3x more useful and productive.
This discussion is closed.