The Hit List for Mac support

If you are looking for information about The Hit List for Mac, this is the place to start. If you can’t find the answer you need, feel free to email us.

Why does the Today list show tasks due in the next 3 days?

The Hit List shows tasks that are due in the next 3 days in your Today list if they don’t have a start date set. This is because it wants to make sure that you’re not surprised by these tasks on the day that they are due since a task could take more than a day to complete.

If you specify a start date of a task, however, a task will not show up in the Today list until that start date, no matter what the due date is.

Global search

We have plans to implement a global search on The Hit List for Mac in the future, but for now, you can create a smart folder to search all your tasks.

Create a smart folder with the following rule and call it “All Tasks.”

Smart Folder Rule

You can now search in this smart folder to search all your tasks.

Unchecking “Show all completed” still shows completed tasks

Having the “Show all completed” checkbox on will show all completed tasks. However, having it off will not hide all completed tasks.

By default, The Hit List shows tasks completed in the last 3 days even if the “Show all completed” checkbox is turned off. This is so that you can review what you have completed recently.

To hide completed items you can do one of two things:

  1. Go to Task -> Hide Completed Tasks in the menus. The keyboard shortcut is the tilde key (`).
  2. In The Hit List’s preferences window, set completed tasks to hide after 0 days. This will hide completed tasks immediately

How can I tag multiple tasks at once?

Drag multiple tasks to a tag in the source list to tag them all at once.

How do I create a newline when editing a note?

In the outline view, you can type option-return to create a newline.

If you’re going to edit a lot of notes, though, we recommend the card view. You can just use a regular return there.

How do you completely reset all preferences in The Hit List?

To reset all preferences in The Hit List, please follow these instructions:

  1. Quit The Hit List if it’s running.

  2. Delete the following file:

    Your Home Folder → Library → Preferences → com.potionfactory.TheHitList.plist

  3. Locate your library; by default it’s in:

    Your Home Folder → Library → Application Support → The Hit List → The Hit List Library.thllibrary

  4. Backup your library file somewhere.

  5. Right click on the library file in Finder, then click “Show Package Contents.”

  6. Delete the options.plist file in it.

  7. Relaunch The Hit List.

How do you turn off automatic tag suggestions?

In General preferences of The Hit List, there is a checkbox for “Predict tags when editing task title.” Turning off that preference will stop tags from being suggested.

tag-suggest

How to fix a corrupted library

The Hit List automatically keeps backups for the most recent 5 saves and for the most recent 7 days. If your library becomes corrupted or unreadable for any reason, you can follow the instructions below to restore it from a recent backup.

  1. Locate your library. By default, it’s located in: Your Home Folder → Library → Application Support → The Hit List → The Hit List Library.thllibrary
  2. Make a backup of your library by copying it somewhere.
  3. Right click on the library in Finder and choose “Show Package Contents.”
  4. Inside you will find a “Backup” folder. Double-click it to open it.
  5. Inside the Backup folder there is a file called “Latest.thlbackup.gz”. Double-click to uncompress the backup file.
  6. Copy the extracted file to your Desktop then open it. This should restore your The Hit List library from the backup.

The most likely cause of a corrupted library is syncing via Dropbox. We strongly recommend that you do not use Dropbox to sync The Hit List.

Can I move my direct-purchased copy to the Mac App Store?

Unfortunately not without re-purchasing a new copy. The App Store has no way to migrate existing users to the Mac App Store purchase history (and uses an entirely different, Apple-specific, way of securing purchases).

I’ve bought The Hit List via the Mac App Store but it’s asking me for a license key

It may be that you have the trial version of The Hit List running on your system. Simply trash The Hit List from your Applications folder and re-download it from the Mac App Store.

The font in the heading looks weird

If the font in your list header looks like this:

Header Bad

when the screenshot on our website shows this:

Header Good

that’s because you do not have font smoothing turned on for your monitor.

Mac OS X automatically turns on font smoothing based on the model of your monitor, but it doesn’t always get this right. Depending on your monitor, you may have to force font smoothing to turn on. Here is how you do that:

  1. Open Terminal.app. It’s located in /Applications/Utilities
  2. Paste the following into Terminal.app and press return

    defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain AppleFontSmoothing -int 2
    		
  3. Restart The Hit List.

After you do this, text should look better in The Hit List. If you want the new setting to apply to all the other apps, you should log out of Mac OS X and log back in, or restart your computer.

What happened to the Archive button?

The archive button that was in the public beta version of The Hit List was removed because you now hide tasks, not archive them. Tasks will get hidden automatically in 3 days by default, but if you would like to hide them immediately, you can choose the “Task -> Hide Completed Tasks” menu. The keyboard shortcut for this is tilde (`), the same shortcut for the archive feature in the beta.

Instead of archiving tasks, you can now archive a whole list by control-clicking on it in the source list.

If you’d like, you can change how quickly tasks get automatically hidden in The Hit Lists’s general preferences window. If you want them to always get hidden immediately, you can set the number of days to zero.

Why am I having login issues with the sync service on The Hit List for Mac?

If you are having trouble logging into the sync service on The Hit List for Mac, the issue could be related to your OS X keychain. Make sure that in your keychain the account field for www.thehitlistapp.com sync service is set as your sync service username and not your email address.

Why does mdworker keep crashing and how do I stop it?

There is a bug in Spotlight that was introduced in OS X 10.7, a.k.a. Lion. It’s a bug that has been acknowledged by Apple and it’s already fixed in Mountain Lion, but it’s not fixed in Lion.

If you keep seeing crashes by mdworker, the tool that updates Spotlight’s index, you can turn off Spotlight indexing in The Hit List. To do so:

  1. Open the Preferences window in The Hit List by going to “The Hit List → Preferences” in the menu.
  2. Uncheck “Enable Spotlight indexing.”

Will iCloud sync be supported?

We’d like to support sync over iCloud, but it’s technically not a good fit at this time.

Are collaboration features planned?

While sharing and collaboration features are planned for a future version of The Hit List for Mac and The Hit List for iPhone, we cannot promise any specifics at this time.

Today, there is no way to share a list without sharing your sync account and all the lists and tasks in it.

Is there a Windows version coming?

Sorry, but there are no plans to develop a Windows version of The Hit List in the near future.

Can I add tasks using a custom URL scheme from 3rd party apps?

Yes. You can use thehitlist:// url scheme to add tasks to The Hit List. Please refer to the section of our online documentation on Custom URL Scheme.

Ask Support

If you can’t find the answer you need, feel free to email us.
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