Referencing todonotes by custom counter value?

Question

I have my todonotes set up as follows:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{todonotes}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\usepackage{setspace}
\usepackage{kantlipsum}

\newcounter{todoListItems}
\newcommand{\sstodo}[2][]
{\refstepcounter{todoListItems}{1}
\todo[caption={\protect\hypertarget{todo\thetodoListItems}{}\arabic{todoListItems}. #2}, #1]
{\begin{spacing}{1} \hfill \hyperlink{todo\thetodoListItems}{#2} \end{spacing} }}

\makeatletter\let\chapter\@undefined\makeatother


\begin{document}

\listoftodos

\kant[1] \sstodo{First}

\kant[2] \sstodo{Second}

\kant[3] \sstodo{Third}

\end{document}

As you can see, I have a custom counter set up to count the todos (instances of the custom \sstodo) and print the value in the list of todos. I'd like to be able to reference a given todo and have the number of the todo pulled printed with the \ref. I'd like to do this in a way where the labels for the todos are automatically generated.

I also realize that I might be thinking about how to accomplish what I'm looking for in the wrong way. What I'm after is an easy way to cross-reference todonotes that doesn't require manually adding a label to each todonote. The purpose of this is to allow for easy referencing of todo items among collaborators.

I tried using the solution here but was unable to get it to work (though that is what made me change my \addtocounter to \refstepcounter).

Answer 1

I'm not entirely clear what you want this to look like but here's one possibility:

To set this up, I used xparse which provides \NewDocumentCommand. This allows for more than one optional argument. This changes the syntax of \sstodo in a backwards-compatible way. Basically, it should work as before but if you want to specify the label explicitly (perhaps because the contents of the todo note is unsuitable as a label), you can write

\sstodo(mylabel){My complex todo note}

Here's the code:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{todonotes}
\usepackage{xparse}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\usepackage{setspace}
\usepackage{kantlipsum}

\newcounter{todoListItems}
\NewDocumentCommand\sstodo{O{}d()m}{%
  \refstepcounter{todoListItems}{1}
  \IfNoValueTF{#2}{\label{#3}}{\label{#2}}%
  \todo[caption={\protect\hypertarget{todo\thetodoListItems}{}\arabic{todoListItems}. #3}, #1]
    {\begin{spacing}{1} \hfill \hyperlink{todo\thetodoListItems}{#3} \end{spacing} }}

\makeatletter\let\chapter\@undefined\makeatother


\begin{document}

\listoftodos

See todo notes \ref{First}, \ref{Second} and \ref{firstnew}.

\kant[1] \sstodo{First}

\kant[2] \sstodo{Second}

\kant[3] \sstodo(firstnew){Third}

\end{document}

It occurred to me after I posted this that you might want the following instead:

If so, you might prefer:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{todonotes}
\usepackage{xparse}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\usepackage{setspace}
\usepackage{kantlipsum}

\newcounter{todoListItems}
\NewDocumentCommand\sstodo{O{}d()m}{%
  \refstepcounter{todoListItems}%
  \arabic{todoListItems}%
  \IfNoValueTF{#2}{\label{#3}}{\label{#2}}%
  \todo[caption={\protect\hypertarget{todo\thetodoListItems}{}\arabic{todoListItems}. #3}, #1]
    {\begin{spacing}{1} \hfill \hyperlink{todo\thetodoListItems}{#3} \end{spacing} }}

\makeatletter\let\chapter\@undefined\makeatother


\begin{document}

\listoftodos

See todo notes \ref{First}, \ref{Second} and \ref{firstnew}.

\kant[1] \sstodo{First}

\kant[2] \sstodo{Second}

\kant[3] \sstodo(firstnew){Third}

\end{document}