How to lock/float list on board when scrolling

[Jocelyn Groff]

Hi! I'm brand new Trello and am wondering if there is a way to do what I want. I have two lists at the left of my board titled "Weekly" and "Daily." Each day my child makes a new list titled with the date, and moves cards from Weekly and Daily to today's task log. I've already figured out how to use a rule to ensure that the card "stays" on the Weekly or Daily list after it's moved to today's task log list. (The card doesn't really stay, but it's copied to the top of the list from which it's being dragged. If there's a better way to do this, I'd love to know that as well!) What I want to do is lock/float/hover the Weekly and Daily lists so that when my daughter scrolls down the board to get to today's list, she's not dragging the card forever and ever down the line, so to speak. Just like the sidebar is visible at all times even when you scroll (unless it's collapsed), I would like the Weekly and Daily lists to also be visible. Is there a way to get it so that those two list appear as the left-most two lists of the screen at all times? Thanks in advance!

[XavRab]

Hi Jocelyn,

I don’t think it is possible. But what about showing your daughter about :
- right-click on the card in Weekly or Daily list that you want to move to today’s task log
- choose "move card" option
- select today’s list

and boom, the move is done without divescrolling...

Does this helps ?

[Jocelyn Groff]

Thanks! Yes, we are aware of that :) One thing I love about Trello is the dragging feature, though. It's satisfying and doesn't require multiple clicks!

[Riley Madden]

Hi @Jocelyn Groff ,

Thanks for reaching out! Just wanted to add to the great response from @XavRab - currently we don't have a way to "lock" or "freeze" a list in place, but the Right Click -> Move option is a great way to accomplish this. I wanted to add a few other ways in which users accomplish similar scenarios:

• You can have one "main" list on the left-side that contains two cards for weekly and daily tasks, and each card contains a checklist containing your needed tasks
• You can create monthly lists instead of daily lists and create individual cards for each day within the list, and use our copy checklist feature to quickly grab the checklist items from your main cards
• You can use Butler to automatically create cards every day in specified lists, or even create Buttons for your board or cards to create new cards and copy the checklists at the same time. I'd recommend viewing our help article here for additional assistance on utilizing Butler, if needed: Creating and managing Butler commands

Hope this helps, we invite you as always to keep exploring our Community posts for additional assistance, or contact our support team directly if needed.

Cheers,

Riley at Trello

[Jocelyn Groff]

Thanks, Riley! I'm thinking Buttons and Calendar Commands are going to be my new best friend!

Also, I'm wondering if you could answer these questions for me:

1) Can I have [today's date] automatically be the name of whatever list I create on a given day?

2) Is there a way to know how many lists are on my board without having to count them all? And if not, am I able to set up some way for my lists to be automatically numbered? For instance, let's say I create a new board, and I make my first list; it would automatically add the number "1" to the name of my list (or something like that). The next list I make will have a 2, and so on. But when I archive a list (which I only do when I create one by accident), I would need the numbers to readjust accordingly, because I wouldn't want the archived card counted. The reason I ask is because I have a list for each school day, and I need to know track how many school days we've completed on a given day. This was working great for me in the daily log Excel spreadsheet I'd been using up to this point, but I switched to Trello because I loved the drag feature, and I figure that once I get Trello to do everything I need to do, it will be a little more convenient (and prettier and more fun)!

[Riley Madden]

Hi @Jocelyn Groff ,

Happy to help! Hoping you're able to make the most of Butler and the Calendar commands.

Can I have today's date automatically be the name of the list?

Yes! When creating your list with Butler, you can put {date} as the name of the list and it will automatically pull today's date as the name of the list. For today, it would be named 'December 21, 2022'. A full of list of possible variables that you can use in Butler can be found here.

Is there a way to know how many lists are on my board without having to count them all?

This one is a bit trickier. Currently, there isn't a way to keep track of an increasing value automatically (like Excel can do with columns) nor is there a native list-counter. However, I have 2 ideas:

1. Add a card to a new dedicated list every time it's completed and then count the number of cards in the list to see how many days have been completed. Here's a step-by-step:
   • Create a new list titled "List of Days Completed" (or something similar).
   • Once your tasks are done for the day, create a new card in this list with today's date.
     • You can use Butler to add a button to do this automatically using variables from question#1!
   • In the top-right corner, select 'Filter' and enter in an asterisk *
   • Now every list in your board will display the total number of cards in the list, so you'll be able to tell how many cards are in the "List of Days Completed"
2. Export your board as a CSV file and use Excel to count the number of lists. You'll need to count the number of unique items for columns 'List ID' or 'List Name' where Archived = FALSE. Keep in mind you may have extra lists than just the days you make a list for, such as templates.

If you haven't already, we always invite you to check out the [Power-Ups library|https://trello.com/power-ups] to see if there is a Power-Up that can help with your scenario. Please note that some Power-Ups are not developed by Trello/Atlassian and may incur a separate subscription cost.

Hoping this helps!

Riley at Trello

[XavRab]

Hi @Jocelyn Groff 

Reading @Riley Madden ’s answer, another solution comes to my mind, involving only native Trello automation. It just tested it, it works like a charm.

- Create a single card named "Nb of lists"

- In this card, create a checklist named "List of lists"

and set up the following rules :

Rule 1 :

- any time a new list is created

- find a card named "Nb of lists"

- add an item named {listname}

(optionnally, mainly for aesthetic reasons you may want also to check this item by adding a step to the rule)

Rule 2 :

- any time a list is archived

- find a card named "Nb of lists"

- remove an item named {listname}

When you create a list, an item is added to the checklist in card "Nb of lists", and since it is a native checklist, you’ll see the number of total items in the checklist on the face of the card. If you also check each created item (option mentionned) then both numbers (before and after the /) will always be equal, and the checklist widget appear in green.

When you archive a list, the item named after the list is removed from the checklist, and the number of items decreased accordingly.

Hope this does the job !

[XavRab]

Or @Jocelyn Groff probably you could also do the trick with :

- a rule that creates a new card in a specific list (dedicated to counting the other lists), anytime a new list is created, and removes the card when the corresponding list is archived

- a "Dashcard" (with the free Trello’s power-up) that will display the number of cards present in that specific list

[XavRab]

And finally @Jocelyn Groff if you have a paid Trello plan, since you have at your disposal the "custom fields", you also could set up a specific counter field, and use the basic arithmetic capabilities of custom fields to increase / decrease the counter, and set it to be displayed on the front of a dedicated card.

https://support.atlassian.com/trello/docs/working-with-custom-fields/

[Jocelyn Groff]

Wow, you guys are amazing! Now I have to decide which of these methods to use! I also just discovered calendar and "card done" powerup, which I think lends itself super well to my reason for using Trello.

I don't have a paid account, but if I ever need to export the boards showing what we did in a given school year, I would just pay the $6 that would allow me to export my boards that month. (I personally don't need any exported copy of my boards; I would only ever need to export them if I had to turn them into the state, in the event that my homeschool records were being audited, which should never happen.

[XavRab]

Or you may just pay 3 $ for one month with the Tiny Power-Ups Club, including the Table View power-up, which features CSV export according to its short description and to its title although it is not specifically referenced in the full description.

[Jocelyn Groff]

Thank you!!!