got it
Hey Matt!
I ran across a few issues in PaperTrail - first, when trying to move tasks up/down (i opened papertrail guide file as an example and expanded all to the lowest level so everything is visible) the cursor jumps like crazy. It’s not an end of view issue, it happens even when im trying to move anything in the middle of my view. Here are 2 vids showing the crazy jumps, I’m visually getting lost of whatever it is I’m moving and where:
Second - i can’t move a whole branch between Projects (with ctrl+alt+cmd+up/down, Move to cmd+\ works). Simply nothing happens when you get the branch to the bottom of current project and where the next one begins. Move ctrl+cmd+up/down works, but if the branch is folded it gets messy, it unfolds the branch and moves ONLY the parent (which for me is really undesirable as if the branch is folded, I’d expect the whole thing to move, not just the parent item). CMD+z gets messed up too and only undoes 1 action, won’t go further after this.
Three - when i move a folded branch with ctrl+alt+cmd+up/down the focus gets lots after the first action, so i can’t move it more than 1 line without recalling the cursor with arrow keys. I also can’t move 2 or more folded branches with this command, it only moves the first line out of however many i selected. If i use ctrl+cmd+up/down it messes up the branches with only moving the parent items and breaks undo.
The app is lovely, but these edge cases (if you can call em that) are making the experience less than stellar for me. Hopefully this was constructive enough for you to look into if you investigate and feel the same.
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Thanks for the detailed report. It’s exactly what I need to get to the bottom of things.
@Hickz what OS are you running on your iPad?
I’ll get these reproduced and fixed ASAP.
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Whatever the latest patch of iPadOS 26 is what I’m running.
I really need to get myself a new iPad, but thankfully it wasn’t needed for these fixes.
Once again, thanks so much for the detailed report. All three were real bugs, and your write-up made them straightforward to track down.
Everything below is fixed and will be in the next release:
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- Cursor jumping during move up/down: fixed with changes to how lines are moved and how document is rebuilt.
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- Moving branches between projects: This was an old decision by me that pre-dated the “let’s try to do everything the same as TaskPaper”, what can I say but it seemed to make sense at the time
Anyway, good catch! Move Branches Up/Down (⌃⌥⌘↑/↓) now crosses project boundaries. Move Up/Down (⌃⌘↑/↓) on a folded item now moves the whole folded branch as one unit instead of splitting the parent off from its children. - And the undo bug was deeper than it looked: any structural command (so a bunch, but not all) was silently wiping the undo history after one ⌘Z. That’s been totally redone; undo now steps back through every move, interleaved correctly with typing.
- Moving branches between projects: This was an old decision by me that pre-dated the “let’s try to do everything the same as TaskPaper”, what can I say but it seemed to make sense at the time
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- Folded branches and multi-select: the cursor now rides with the folded branch, so you can press the shortcut repeatedly without re-placing it. Selecting two or more branches and moving them now moves all of them together, and the selection stays on the moved block so you can keep going.
Your report also led me and automated testing to find and fix a batch of related edge-case bugs for folded content. So thanks again, this made the app better well beyond the three things you hit.
What I find so interesting about this app, and TaskPaper as a format, is that people use it in so many different ways. Now that I’ve seen a bunch, I would say that I am a very light/casual user. So feedback from more heavy/serious users is essential for good app health.
Perhaps the app will never truly be bug/quirk/edge-case free, like most software, so it’s important that people keep sending in their findings so I can increase testing code coverage and getting it behaving as well as I can. I think we’re doing OK for an app that is not yet 1 year old (my first local version was 19th Aug 2025), compared to TaskPaper’s 19 years.
Also, PaperTrail is currently ON SALE for a limited time.
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Glad to hear it was helpful!
the beauty of plain text is it’s adaptability and freedom from lock-in.
I don’t think Jesse intended Taskpaper to be used as I use it now: I have a project list at the top of my file, and a daily log running at the bottom (keeping track of what I’ve done as a journal of sorts). This is why I wanted to move branches between projects (which are weekdays in my case).
I’ve tried many apps before (Godspeed came closest but iOS/ipad apps are atrocious, unfortunately; Things, which is great but Apple only; others which I don’t want to list cos I’m ashamed to admit to even myself how much time I’ve wasted on this fruitless quest of finding THE app). I’ve ran Taskpaper/PaperTrail as my main system for 2 months now and it’s the KISS (keep it simple, stupid) solution I’ve been looking for all along. The only thing I kinda miss is native reminders, but there’s reminders export here. (One thing I intend to do is try all of this with Bike, as I absolutely love how it feels on Mac, but would miss iOS/ipad apps for now, and it’s not entirely plain text but has its own advantages in the form of attachments, links, attributes and rich text)
I digress. PaperTrail is tremendous value at full price, nevermind the sale
With each release it’s getting closer to what Taskpaper already is on Mac for me. Thank you for this gem
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Thank you!
I also just launched a pixel art editor, Dottie, that I’ve been working on alongside PaperTrail.
My life in apps is at: https://www.gingerbeardman.com/apps/
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1.4.2 is released!
Possibly the fastest review I’ve ever had.
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