The launcher said "2 things to check today". The Today screen, right behind it, said "No tasks". Both were sincere: a supplement to restock counted for the first and did not exist for the second. A musher should not have to guess which sentence to believe. The phone should say what is due — so now it does.
What you see
Under "During the day", above the tasks, a group of lines. Each has its pictogram, two lines of words, and an action at the end:
- Urgent messages to confirm: a single line ("2 urgent messages to confirm"), whatever the number. It opens the messages.
- Whelping coming up: a litter whose due date falls within the next seven days — "Nanga · Whelping expected on Oct 17 · D−5". It opens the litter.
- Heat expected: "Aurora · Heat expected around Oct 30", give or take thirty days. It follows the rhythm you set for the female. It opens her sheet, on the Health tab.
- Supplements: a season that starts, a season that ends, a stock to buy again, within fourteen days — "Omega-3 · starts on Oct 15". It opens the sheet of the first dog concerned, where the action is done.
- Backup: "Back up again — the last one, made on this phone, is 41 days old", past thirty days. It opens Manage › Kennel › Backup.
"No tasks today" now only appears when nothing is due. And the launcher's number is finally the number of lines: "3 things to check today", you find three. On a breeding kennel, the lines of the "Breeding" card (puppy weigh-ins due, litters to watch, inquiries) count too — one per category, not one per litter. On rest days or after the session, when the launcher used to say nothing, a "3 things to check today" link under the card leads to Today.
What others see, and what they don't
Every kennel member reads the same supplements, heats and litters — it is the same data as on the dog sheets. What is waiting for a confirmation is yours: "2 urgent messages to confirm" counts those you have to confirm, not those another member already did. The backup line is about your phone only; nobody else sees it, and it says nothing about backups made elsewhere. Nothing leaves the kennel.
What it does not do
It never says "never backed up". The phone only knows its own backups: you may have made one from the website or from another phone. With no backup date, it stays quiet rather than ask for something that may already be done. The day the backup date reaches the server, it will be able to say so — this is not an oversight, it is a choice of the product owner.
It does not list a female that is in heat. That is a state, not a thing to do: it lives on her face in the Pack. The line announces the heat to come.
It sends nothing. No notification: the lines are there when you open the screen. Supplements are read online; offline, their line is missing — the screen does not say "no supplements", but if nothing else is due it shows "No tasks today" without knowing that a supplement is waiting. Urgent messages are counted, offline, from their last copy (see Read your chores and messages without signal).
Not yet: the heat e-mail. The reminder e-mail still works out its date from the gap between the heats you entered, and ignores the rhythm you set. So the Today line and the e-mail can announce two dates for the same female. The fix touches the database: it is prepared, not applied.
Three choices we made
List them, rather than take them out of the count. We could have removed supplements from the launcher's number: one screen less to maintain. But "the phone says what is due" does not live well with a reminder that is counted and hidden. We had to show them.
One calculation for two screens. The count and the list read the same source. That is exactly what had drifted: two derivations of the same fact, and one screen contradicting the other.
A "nothing" that knows how to wait. Today only says "No tasks" after reading all its sources. A false "nothing" flashing for half a second before a supplement shows up would have been worse than a few moments of spinner.
The windows are those of the website and the e-mails, not new thresholds: seven days for whelping, thirty for heat, fourteen for supplements, thirty for backup.