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A short video showing how to use task comments in Nozbe Personal

Why Add Comments to Get a Task Done Faster

When working in a private project:

You can comment on any task. Even if you’re working all by yourself, it’s a great way to add additional information to a task. This way, when you get back to it any time later, you have all the information required to get it done.

When sharing projects with others:

Through comments, you can center your team’s communication around tasks. This is how we work at Nozbe Personal. We don’t send emails to one another, we communicate through tasks, and we share projects with each other. You can invite another team member to your project with a few clicks. You can read about it here.

Types of Comments in Nozbe Personal

To add a new comment, just click on “Add comment” as you can see below:

You can comment on a task with a text, a checklist, a file attachment, Evernote note or with a Dropbox, Google Drive, One Drive or Box file. Just use the “Text” button and the list of possible versions of comments will appear:

When you add other than text type of comment, the shortcut to that type will appear in the new comment area:

Third party attachments: Evernote, Box, Dropbox, Google Drive and One Drive

If your account is not yet synced with Evernote, Dropbox, Google Drive, One Drive or Box - you’ll find these comment options under “More”. Clicking one of the “Connect” buttons here will forward you to the Evernote, Dropbox, Google Drive or Box site to sync your account with your Nozbe Personal account:

To read more about our integrations, visit their dedicated chapters on this page:

File Attachments

Just like adding an attachment to a project, you can add a comment to a task in Nozbe Personal with a file, link or a picture - choose the “Attachment” option. Click on the “Choose file” button to browse for a file or drag and then drop it here.

In the comment window, the various attachment options can be accessed directly by selecting the icon of the attachment you wish to add.

Checklist

Sometimes a task needs a few steps to make sure it gets properly done. For this, it’s really useful to add a checklist. Choose the “Checklist” option:

Enter a checklist item and hit enter. Compose your list and click “Save” when you are finished.

Select the three dots (1) in the top right corner of the checklist comment to edit (2) your checklist. You can reorder the list by drag and drop, change or delete your checklist items in the edit view. Do not forget to save the changes made. You can also pin (3) the checklist as your favorite comment on the top of the comments list, copy it to the clipboard (4), create a task with this comment (5) or delete it (6).

You can also see your progress above the checklist items.

More about checklists

Check out our blog and read about different ways to add and edit a checklist, or how to change a text note into a list. You can also learn why a checklist is a handy tool in team collaboration.

Text Comments and Markdown Writing Style

Text comments can be formatted to feature boldface, italics, numbered lists, bullet points, etc. with Markdown. To preview the comment, just click on “Preview this comment” at the bottom of the comment window.

Quick reference guide to Markdown

To format use 1, 2 or 3 asterisks: *italics*, **bold**, ***bold and italics***
To add a quick bullet point, use an asterisk and space, like this:
* one thing
* another thing
* third thing

Example of a Markdown formatted text

To give you an idea, look at this text written in markdown:

I am a *very* **professional** productivity guy. I use:  
* Nozbe Personal for tasks  
* Evernote for notes  
* Dropbox for files  
And these three apps ***work beautifully*** together! 

Here’s how the saved comment in Markdown will look like:


I am a very professional productivity guy. I use:

And these three apps work beautifully together!


It is also possible to add a list, within a numbered list, as a task comment. To do this just type:

1. task A
2. task B
3. task C
 - x
 - xx
 - xxx
4. task D  

Do not forget to put a space in front of -

Here’s what it should look like before adding a comment:

and this is how the added comment will look like:

Sometimes it may be necessary to divide a comment into a few sections. It you’d like to highlight the name of these sections, you can use “#”, “##” and “###” in front of a text line to change it into a header.

For example, here’s how your headers should look when you’re typing:

# Header One
## Header Two
### Header Three
#### Header Four

And here’s how they’ll look after you save your comment:

You can also type three asterisks, ***, in a new line of text to create a horizontal line. Use this if you want to divide paragraphs within one comment:

To learn more about Markdown, read the official documentation.

You can also use Markdown in checklists. However, it is limited to links, blocks of code, bold and italic. Here is an example how to use it in checklist:

Final checklist:

Editing or Deleting Comments

When you wish to edit or delete one of your comments, just click on the three dots at the bottom of the comment window.

In this view you can edit, pin, copy to clipboard, create a task with this comment or delete it.

When you go back to one of your old comments and edit it, and then accidentally switch to another view without saving the changes- don’t worry. Nozbe Personal has you covered with the autosave function. When you go back to the comment, you will see the message “Comment has unsaved changes” informing you that you have to check it. Just click on that information to either cancel or save the changes.

In the case of file attachments and 3rd party attachments, you can edit the description of the file.

How can I mention someone in a comment

Here’s how mentioning works: when you add a @mention in a comment to a task, the person you’ve mentioned will receive a push notification about your mention in that task. To mention someone, just type in the name of that person preceded with a “@” sign (e.g., @John, @Marty, @Hannah) in a comment to a task and choose the person you want to mention from the suggestion list that appears.

Please note that to send the notification, you have to meet the following conditions:

  1. The person you’re mentioning must have “When someone mentions your @username in a comment” option enabled in their Nozbe Personal account Settings (“Notifications” tab);
  2. That person has to be using Nozbe Personal on an OS X, iOS or an Android device;
  3. The mentioned user must have access to the project where you’ve added your comment with a @mention;
  4. The user you’re mentioning has to have a name or a nickname set in their account settings (“Account” tab, “Personal information” section). Their name is displayed above each of their comments, as well as in the “Team” tab.

Please note that you don’t have to write the whole username after @ symbol. To mention Jack Schneider, you can write: @Jack Schneider or @Jack or even @Jac. Make sure that the phrase you put after @ symbol matches only one username.

This function is handy in cases when you need someone feedback on the task but do not want to change responsible person parameter.

How can I add a dial-out hyperlink to telephone numbers?

You can quickly create a hyperlink to a telephone number by adding “tel:” prefix to the number in the comments section. The comment you’re adding should look like this:

When you add that comment, Nozbe Personal will create a dial-out hyperlink from it:

To call that number, click or tap on it.

New Comments - List of all tasks with unread comments

When you share projects with people, and they add a comment to any of your tasks, look out for a green bubble with a number on it - it means that there are some unread comments in your projects.

You can view all tasks and unread comments from all projects in the Comments panel.

If you don’t want to go through each of the comment in this view, you can mark all comments as read by clicking on the black icon at the bottom of that view.

You can mark a task as unread after reading it. It will appear in New Comments list again after performing this action. To do so just use "Mark as unread" option in three dots menu.

If someone mentions your name/nickname in a task in a shared project, you will see it as well. It will be in a separate section called “Mentions” -> “Tasks you were mentioned in”.