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Meta-locations (e.g. 'Supermarket' might include multiple local grocery stores)

kendel says:
I'm really loving Remember The Milk (more than I really like to admit) but there is one limitation that is a real problem for me.

I want to be able to assign multiple locations to a task.

For instance, if I put a task in to Remember the Milk, I can buy milk at my local grocery store... or at Walgreens... or at 7-11. When I tap on Nearby I'd like it to remind me to get milk if I am near anyone of those locations.

The same for getting the oil in my car changed. I could have that done at Jiffy Lube or at Lube It Good! (Ok... I made up the name "Lube It Good!"... but you get the idea).

Can someone tell me if they figured out a work around for this limitation? The only thing I've come up with is tags but its not the same thing.

And RTM developers... could you please...PLEASE... make it so I can assign more than one location for a task?

Love this app!
Posted at 10:45pm on November 25, 2008
karsten.seiferlin says:
I agree very much.

I have the same idea about shopping locations, but I solved it by tagging. I have a tag called "supermarket" which does the job. Nevertheless I'd like to see multiple locations per task.
Posted 15 years ago
(closed account) says:
I there is a grocery selling milk products I wanted to.
Posted 15 years ago
jhollington says:
I'd actually like to see the location feature expanded to support multiple places for a single "Location", perhaps either by Google address search or being able to put in a list.

As an example, OmniFocus does this already and it's very useful for chain stores... I can enter "Loblaws" as a business search for example, and the "Nearby" feature will pick up any Loblaws that's within range, not just the one that I specifically tag on the map, which can be great when looking at an errands list and discovering that you actually can pick up milk nearby even though you didn't necessarily realize it.

Posted 15 years ago
alysson says:
This is a good idea!
Posted 15 years ago
(closed account) says:
I'd like that too!
Posted 15 years ago
braden says:
I like that too!
Posted 15 years ago
clcook says:
Sounds like a job for "Auto Locations". If I could setup an auto-search for locations (i.e. geograhic, place name or category, zipcode, etc.) similar to Nav systems, along with and/or/not logic I could then tag a task with that auto-location. I could see the iPhone getting pretty busy while on the move though. Maybe an "only search when stopped" checkbox...

This could open up another whole catgory of 3rd party services for Nav systems! I was just imagining how cool it would be to see pins pop up on my nav showing me unexpected places to get milk... I digress...

Posted 15 years ago
jhollington says:
Well, I don't think it would make the iPhone overly busy, as the search doesn't happen in the background. Not only can *no* app run processes in the background when it's not *running*, but in the case of RTM, it only initiates a location search when you actually hit the "Nearby" link... I'm pretty sure it doesn't dynamically update/refresh your location even if you leave it on that screen, and it certainly doesn't do it if you're elsewhere within the RTM application.

Posted 15 years ago
clifford.mathew says:
Like the other particpants in this thread, I also would like the feature of grouping together a number of locations as "Grocery Stores" or "Post Offices" and assign the "group" as the location.

I am new to RTM, so I have not figured out how to share a single list with my wife.

My wife and I both use the iPhone, and I would like to maintain a shared list with her, so that either of us can buy the milk, depending on who is near the grocery store and check it off from the list.

Posted 15 years ago
(closed account) says:
I cast my vote for this as well.
Posted 15 years ago
(closed account) says:
Great idea, and this would likely draw more users to use RTM. I wonder how difficult it would be to implement, however, since none of the location-focused apps do this yet. I tried out Proxymind, for example, because I was intrigued by location-focused note organization ... but I ran into the same problem -- you could only attach a note / to do item to *one* location rather than several.

If RTM -was- able to implement this feature, however, it would give them another big advantage over potential competition.
Posted 15 years ago
jhollington says:
Well, I would envision it working in one of two ways:

1. Multiple locations in the same manner as multiple tags. The existing UI for tag selection on both the web app and the iPhone could just as easily be applied to locations, and since the iPhone app's location search works on the principle of searching locations and listing tasks, it would be much different than displaying the content of tags. This would probably be the faster and easiest thing for the RTM folks to do, I suspect, and would likely deliver the functionality that 90% of users would actually need on a regular basis.

2. Expanding the location feature to allow for business search in the same way that OmniFocus presently handles this. In this case, you could simply enter "Best Buy" as the location *name* and the iPhone app would go out and search for nearby locations. While this is a cool feature, it does have the limitation of being only as reliable as the data source used for the business search (I think OmniFocus uses Google, and does tend to miss many known instances of the location, at least up here in Toronto).
Posted 15 years ago
gearsmithy says:
This is a fantastic idea, I would pay extra for this feature.
Posted 12 years ago
(closed account) says:
Completely agree with this one. For example, if I'm trying to create an errand for the "store", getting a gallon of milk shouldn't limit me to one location :)

From a business side, if I travel between multiple offices I shouldn't be stuck limiting it to a single one.
Posted 12 years ago
docsmooth says:
++ for "meta locations" that include multiple locations in them. I'm not a fan of "multiple locations per task" as much as "add a meta location that's pre-defined to included multiple locations". That way, if there are 3 or 4 grocery stores, i don't have to remember to tag all of them.

The feature would have to allow a single location to show up in multiple "meta" groups, to allow "milk" to live in the "grocery store" and "convenience store" groupings, or maybe all "grocery stores" in "convenience store" group.
Posted 7 years ago
sherry_zhou_98 says:
This would be very useful. Right now, the location feature isn't quite as useful as I would like, I'm using it more as tags than as true location notification. Having multiple, grouped locations would make the location-based alerts much more powerful.
Posted 7 years ago
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