User guide

1. Install and first launch

Download the latest installer from the download page and run it. You'll see one or two security prompts the first time:

• Chrome's Safe Browsing may flag the .exe during download. Click Keep on the download bar.
• Microsoft Defender SmartScreen will say the publisher is unrecognized. Click More info in the warning, then Run anyway.

Both prompts appear because the installer isn't code-signed yet, not because anything is actually wrong. Detailed walk-through here.

On the very first launch, you'll see a Welcome dialog with nine starter templates: Personal, Home & finances, Solo freelancer, Sales, Developer, Marketing, Small business ops, Student, Minimal. Pick whichever fits how you'll use the tool — you can rename, hide, or add categories later from Settings, so don't agonize over the choice. Closing the dialog without picking just uses Personal.

2. Anatomy of the window

The main window is two columns:

• Left sidebar: a Today button, a Completed button, your categories (with the All filter at the bottom), and ⚙ Settings / ? About links at the very bottom.
• Right content: a ribbon at the top with the search box, add input, priority and category dropdowns, and a board / list toggle. Below that, the actual items.

Clicking any sidebar entry filters the right side to that category (or to Today / Completed / All).

3. Adding items

1. Type a title in the add box (the right half of the ribbon).
2. Optionally adjust the Priority dropdown (P0–B1) and the Category dropdown next to it.
3. Press Enter. The new item appears at the top of its section.

Two convenient defaults: the category dropdown auto-matches the sidebar filter you're currently on (so typing while you're viewing Sales adds to Sales), and the priority defaults to A1 for Today and A1 otherwise — change either before pressing Enter.

Ctrl+N jumps the cursor to the add box from anywhere in the window.

4. Priority tiers

Within any category view, items group into priority sections (P0 on top, B1 at the bottom). Empty sections collapse automatically. You can also collapse a whole section manually by clicking its header.

5. Categories

Categories are the buckets in the sidebar. Every item lives in exactly one. The starter templates seed a sensible default set; rename / hide / add / delete from Settings → Categories:

• Rename: type into the display name field.
• Hide: uncheck the box. Hidden categories disappear from the sidebar; their items move to Inbox when you save.
• Add: type a name in the bottom field, click Add category.
• Delete: click the ✕ on a custom category row (built-ins can't be deleted, only hidden). Confirms with a dialog before applying.

Inbox is special: it's the catch-all when nothing else fits, and it can't be hidden or deleted.

Category changes don't apply until you click Save changes in the Settings footer. Discard or closing the window throws away the edits.

6. Today view

Today is a virtual filter, not a category: every item still has its own category underneath. Marking an item for Today puts it in this flat list (no priority sections), focused on what you actually want to push through this calendar day.

• Mark for Today: expand an item and tick the Today checkbox, or drag the item onto the Today sidebar button.
• Unmark: uncheck the Today box, or drag the item onto a different category in the sidebar.
• Auto-clear: on the first launch of a new calendar day, any items still in Today get returned to their original category — so the list starts clean every morning.

7. Board mode and sticky notes

The pill switch on the right of the ribbon toggles between list view and a sticky-note board. Board mode lays your items out as 210×210 colored cards in a wrap layout. It works in every category view (Today included).

• Edit a card: click it. The title becomes editable; type and press Enter or click away.
• Notes: always visible on the card, always editable.
• Change priority or category: use the small dropdowns at the bottom of the card.
• Re-color a single card: click the color-picker icon at the bottom of the card and pick a swatch.
• Default color: set in Settings → Default sticky-note color; affects new cards only.
• Card font: pick from a list of handwriting and sans-serif fonts in Settings → Sticky-note font.
• + Add a note: the faded placeholder card at the end of the board. Click it, type a title, press Enter — it commits and a new placeholder appears.

8. Editing items, sub-items, links, history

In list view, click any row to expand it. You get:

• Title field with a small up-arrow to collapse the row.
• Notes multi-line text area. Save on click-away.
• Detected URLs: http/https links pasted into Notes appear as clickable chips below.
• Priority / Category dropdowns, Critical and Today checkboxes.
• Sub-items: small checklist below. Type into the sub-item input and press Enter to add. Tick checkboxes to mark items done. The parent's badge shows e.g. (2/5) when collapsed.
• Audit log: a chronological list of Created / Edited / Completed / Reopened / PriorityChanged / DeptChanged events at the very bottom of the expanded row.
• Delete: the Delete button is at the bottom of the expanded panel; prompts for confirmation.

9. Critical pin

Tick Critical on any item to pin it to the top of every view — no matter the filter or sort order. Visual cues:

• List view: title gets a yellow highlight, bold, larger font.
• Board view: the card gets a bright amber glow effect.
• Anywhere: a red 📌 pin badge appears next to the title in the collapsed row.

When a critical item is completed, the highlight drops and it looks like every other completed item.

10. Age colors

Items that haven't been touched fade through colors so you can spot stale work at a glance. Thresholds scale with priority — P0 ages much faster than B1.

The color resets to normal whenever you open or edit the item — so simply expanding to look counts as touching it.

11. Completing items and the Completed view

Check the box on any item to complete it. A green checkmark animation plays, the optional completion sound chimes, and the row fades and moves to the Completed-today strip at the bottom of the current view.

Undo: Ctrl+Z or uncheck the completed item to bring it back. You can also reopen any historical item from the Completed view.

The Completed sidebar entry shows all checked-off items bucketed by date: Today / Yesterday / This Week / per-month groups for older. Each row has a Reopen button. The search box still filters here (by title or notes substring).

12. Search

Type in the search box on the left of the ribbon. It filters live across the current view by title (and in Completed, also by notes). Combine with any category filter — searching while on Sales finds only matching Sales items. Clear the box to restore the full list.

13. Drag and drop

• Reorder within a section: drag a row up or down inside the same priority tier. The order persists.
• Reassign category: drag any row onto a category button in the sidebar. The item moves to that category.
• Add to Today: drag any row onto the Today sidebar button.
• Remove from Today: while in Today view, drag the item onto any category button — clears Today and reassigns category in one move.

14. Keyboard shortcuts

15. Settings overview

Open with ⚙ Settings in the sidebar. Everything here is buffered: changes apply only when you click Save changes. Closing via the X or clicking Discard throws away the edits.

• Toast notifications — Windows toast on launch for active P0 items and items due today.
• Start with Windows — registers a HKCU Run entry.
• Chime reminders — periodic audio nudge when there are unresolved P0 items; configurable interval.
• Play completion sound — the click feedback when you complete an item.
• Default sticky-note color — swatch picker for new cards.
• Sticky-note font — picker for the card title and notes font family.
• Import / Export — bulk move items in and out.
• Clear all items — nukes the database. Confirms first.
• Categories — the full category editor described above.

16. Import and export

Export: writes every active (non-completed) item to a CSV or .txt. CSV columns: title, priority, category, notes, deadline, created. The text format puts one item per line, optionally prefixed with bracket tags like [P0][Sales].

Import: pick a CSV or text file. CSV requires a title header; priority, category (or department), and notes headers are optional and matched case-insensitively. Text files use the same [P0][Sales] title bracket syntax — anything without brackets becomes an A1 item in Inbox.

The import always confirms the count before writing. Roundtripping export → import preserves everything except history.

17. Updates and tray behavior

On launch the app pings GitHub for the latest release (24 h cooldown). If a new version exists, a blue banner appears at the top of the window with a Download link. The check is silent if you're offline or already up to date.

Closing the main window minimizes to the system tray — the app keeps running. Double-click the tray icon to restore. Right-click for an Exit option. Launching the app a second time signals the running instance to come to the front rather than starting a new window.

18. Where your data lives

Everything is stored locally in %APPDATA%\PrioritiesTool\priorities.db — a SQLite database. No accounts, no cloud, no telemetry. Log files (rolling daily, 7-day retention) sit next to it in a logs/ folder.

Uninstall via Settings → Apps leaves your database untouched. Delete the PrioritiesTool folder under %APPDATA% for a clean slate.

19. Troubleshooting

The taskbar still shows the old icon after I upgraded.

Windows icon cache. Restart Explorer (Task Manager → right-click explorer.exe → Restart) or run ie4uinit.exe -show in PowerShell.

A category I deleted reappeared.

Built-in categories can't be deleted, only hidden. If you wanted it gone, uncheck its box in Settings and save.

Today items moved to Inbox overnight.

Expected. Today auto-clears at the start of each calendar day and items return to whatever category they came from before joining Today.

The app won't start after an upgrade.

Check %APPDATA%\PrioritiesTool\crash.txt for a stack trace. If the database itself is corrupted, rename priorities.db to priorities.db.bak and relaunch — a fresh DB is created.

SmartScreen blocks every release.

Expected for unsigned binaries: every new installer is a new file hash, so SmartScreen evaluates each one independently. Code signing is on the roadmap to remove the warnings for everyone.