Check out smart lists. You can enter the desired properties in a search box and then save the search as a smart list. Then whenever you add a task to the list you created with the saved search, you will have those attributes in your task.

This will work as long as you avoid the two words NOT and OR in the search. When RTM sees either of these words it gives up altogether in setting the meta info.
You must also avoid ambiguous searches like dueAfter, tagContains etc, these also (rightly) confuse setting meta info in RTM.

wow rajjan, you really are a wealth of information!
can you be more specific about which can be used and which not?
I saw nothing on the FAQ...
Thanks a lot!

I don't think there is a list as such, but if you can't figure out what attributes should be set, neither can RTM.

the best to work with would only be;

due date
tags
list
location

all other attributes are to specific and will not help you create tasks (you won't create a task that has an attribute due date set between today and next week)

These should all be unambiguous (see www.rememberthemilk.com/help/answers/search/advanced.rtm for the complete list):
list:
priority:
status:
tag:
location:
due:
completed:
added:
timeEstimate:
postponed:
as long as you avoid NOT and OR. Also avoid ">" and "<" in time estimates, priorities and postponed.

The rest results in ambiguous searches:
dueBefore:
dueAfter:
dueWithin:
completedBefore:
completedAfter:
completedWithin:
addedBefore:
addedAfter:
addedWithin:

Some meta info is set indirectly:
tagContains:
isTagged:
locatedWithin:
isLocated:
isRepeating:
noteContains:
hasNotes:

Some you can't set yourself:
isShared:
sharedWith:
isReceived:
to:
from:

I suspect I will want to edit this list, too bad that's not possible...

wow, thanks, Rajjan and Arvid!
Yeah... I agree with the editing thing. A more typical forum could be very good.

The FAQ should include links to this thread from several of the related entries - tis is such helpful information. Thank you for writing it up.

agreed ranbarton.
Arvid, emily, can you look into this?

any way to do this without smart lists? You can't publish smart lists.

Jeff, what would publishing gain you? This method is only useful for creating tasks, but they would all live in a physical list underneath regardless of this method. Would publishing that list be useful?

I would actually prefer it is it didn't auto tag my tasks. I want to be able to add a task from anywhere without having to click back to some kind of default list whenever I want to add without a particular tag. Is this possible?

Have you seen the quick add bookmarklet ?
https://www.rememberthemilk.com/help/answers/quickadd/firefox.rtm

Hi Ross,

I had a quick look, and that add on might be handy. But what I mean by anywhere is "In any list". For example, while I am looking at my projects list which I have tagged with "Project" I think of a task that I need to do that is not a project. For me to add this task I have to change the list I am looking at so that it does not get tagged with "project". Of course I do not rememebr to do this and have to change it afterwards. Quite often I don't notice until some time later and it is REALLY starting to get on my nerves as it is ruining the reliability of my entire system

You could also just keep two browser tabs/windows open, one for review/action the other for capture ?

yes this is true.. To just switch it off would be better though :)

this issue is still winding me up. I have a "waiting for" list where I can see that Bob was meant to get back to me about a particular job. So I want to quickly add a task to my context based list called "@calls"

Like this

Email Bob re Particular job #@calls


Surely not too much to ask??

edit

Email should be Call. i.e.

Call Bob re Particular job #@calls

My ugly fix is to add the NOT to my lists to stop it working. Wow, why did it take me so long to think of that??

AND NOT due:01/01/2001