Boards that stay readable

A kanban board is a set of columns, one for each stage of work. Each task is a card, and the card moves along as the work does. Every devBoard project has one. It is made for freelancers and small dev teams who want to see where things stand at a glance.

How it works

A card shows four things: the task's key, its title, the people on it and one chip. The chip is the due date if there is one. If not, it is the priority. Dates that are late or due today stand out. Other dates stay quiet.

Tags (labels) show as a thin colour bar along the top of the card. The key line also has a small type icon and the epic or task the card belongs to. If the card has subtasks, it shows a count like 2/5. An epic is a big piece of work split into smaller tasks. A subtask is a step inside a task. Subtasks sit under their task as short lines, each with its own status. The rest is one tap away, inside the task.

Columns are simple:

• A new project starts with To do, In progress and Done.
• An admin can add columns, up to 20 per project.
• Rename, recolour, reorder or delete any column. When you delete one, you pick where its cards go.
• One column is where new tasks land. You pick which one.

Each column sits in one of five groups: Backlog, To do, In progress, Done or Cancelled. The group is what the rest of the app reads. My Work, saved views and the GitHub link all use the group, not the name. So you can rename Done to Shipped and nothing breaks.

On a Mac you drag a card to any column. Drop it between two cards to set its place. A phone shows one column at a time, with the column names and counts in a strip on top. Swipe to the next column. Press and hold a card to send it to another one.

Each project has a board view and a list view. The list shows the same columns as groups you can fold. The app remembers your pick for each project.

With a keyboard, N adds a card to the first column. With a task open, 1 to 9 moves it to that column. The keyboard page has the rest.

An example: Luka, Mira and Ivan

Luka, Mira and Ivan are a three-person studio. They ship a mobile app. Their project started with three columns. Mira is an admin. She added In review and put it in the In progress group. She also added Backlog on the left, for ideas nobody has picked up.

On Monday Luka drags "Fix the login crash" to In review on his Mac. Mira sees it move on her Android phone. She reads the fix, then presses and holds the card and moves it to Done. Ivan never opens the task. He sees the bug icon move across the board and knows it is out of the way.

What it does not do

• No calendar, timeline or Gantt view. Board and list are the two views.
• No swimlanes, and no cap on how many cards a column holds.
• No custom fields on the card. The four things are fixed.
• No automation rules. A card moves when someone moves it, or when GitHub tells it to.
• Members and guests cannot change the columns. Owners and admins can. Guests cannot move cards at all.

Set it up

Make a project and the board is there, with three columns. To change them, an admin opens the board and clicks Board columns in the header. Next, learn how to set up epics, tasks and subtasks. Or go back to all devBoard features.