Empty tasks are now automatically removed

Thank you all for sharing your feedback with us and sincere apologies if this change has created some issues in your workflow. I just wanted to share a quick tip you might find useful to continue using Empty tasks. If you create a task and just had a space in the title, your task won’t be deleted but will look empty :slight_smile: Just thought it might be useful to some you!

Let me know if there is anything else I can help with!

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My projects typically have long lists of tasks (I use list view), and I used to be able to insert empty lines (task entry) to act as spacing between “header tasks” I create, which makes the long list a lot easier to scan.

Suddenly, I can’t seem to do that anymore. When I try to insert a blank task line with a hard return, as soon as I move the cursor off that line, it deletes the empty line. I can still see empty lines in past project tasks I created, but for new entries, I can’t do this anymore. Is this a bug? Is there a fix or workaround? Right now dozens of lines of tasks are jammed together and it makes it more difficult for me to find what I’m looking for. Thanks.

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It’s not a bug, it’s by design now - but there is an easy solution: just put a blank space in the task title. See this thread for the details:

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Thanks for jumping in @Phil_Seeman, merging this thread with Empty tasks are now automatically removed - #23 :slight_smile:

Thank you, @Phil_Seeman! It worked!

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I HATE how you can enter blank tasks with the latest update.

I like the blank tasks to help me visually separate and categorize tasks.

PLEASE put this feature back!

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HI @Alex_Chang,

There is a workaround for you to continue using blank tasks, please check out this post.

Thank you

@Marie, A very brief toast notification could go a long way:

Empty task removed automatically.
Use a single space in a task for a blank line.               [Undo]

I don’t think this would get annoying because people would likely learn, with or without this notification, not to keep adding empty tasks that just get removed.

Just a thought!

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I love Asana and I’m happy with innovation. Yet, adding “improvements” for one user is a pain for others. A simple tooltip or notification would have stopped 100% of us coming to this forum for help. A toggle on/off would be useful for new features. And an option to create gaps between tasks would negate the need for the empty task hack.

Keep up the good work, but please don’t assume that one group speaks for all. Leave the rest of us breadcrumbs. The real issue here is that your task list is too dense for many of us, and we’d like to be able to tweak the layout.

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Briefly describe (1-2 sentences) the Bug you’re experiencing:
I am no longer able to create extra space in a project by hitting enter to add extra empty rows. All empty rows in all of my projects have been automatically collapsed for some reason. This is endlessly annoying as we use Asana for planning and the empty rows are indicators that something needs to go there in our brainstorm and project plans. Also, it makes the whole thing harder to read if we are no longer allowed to use empty rows as needed. I am not sure why this design choice would have been made or if it is a bug in the last update, as I know there were a LOT of issues.

Steps to reproduce:
Simply try to hit enter twice after any task, you will not be able to.

Browser version:
ALL IE, Chrome, Mozilla

Upload screenshots below:

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Hi @Angela_Rose

It’s not a bug but is actually part of Asana’s UI now:

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That is terrible news. How do we express our thumbs down, this is an awful addition to the UI. If someone wants to remove extra spaces, they should be able to figure out how to do it themselves.

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Please create a feature where we can toggle this off, it is really crippling to those of us who use spaces.

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Some are finding the workaround of adding a space or hyphen is meeting their needs. I appreciate this doesn’t address existing project used cases where these tasks have been removed.

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So basically you are adding an extra step for something that used to be extremely simple? Again, please put in the feature request for an enterprise level toggle off switch, this is a terrible change to the UI.

Angela

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I do the same! Works for me.

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Like others here, I too rely on blank lines to make visual sense of my groups of tasks. I would like the option to toggle this feature off, or for Asana to revert to the old standard.

IMO - philosophically, Asana should make design choices that empower a wider range of user preferences instead of limiting options and behaviors. If some users are frustrated by blank lines, they can just delete them.

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Amen. The Tab+N replacement drives me bonkers

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Briefly describe (1-2 sentences) the Bug you’re experiencing:
(Chrome, Windows 10)
Until a recent update, I could create empty lines in the task list by hitting enter.
I cannot do that anymore.

Steps to reproduce:
In My Tasks, put the cursor in the task name in the list.
Hit enter.
Hit enter again. No additional lines are created.

Browser version:
Chrome 71

Upload screenshots below: