Notes: Tasks & Task List

37signals

• demo movie: basecamphq.com/demos/todos
• crabgrass.grouphub.com
• www.43things.com
• todoist.com looks super clean and functional.

bugs¶

• if a task is assigned to you, but then you are removed from access to the page, then there is no way for to resolve the task or edit it.
• if a task list is visible but has no tasks (because you removed them perhaps), you then cannot drag tasks to the empty list to move them to that list.

current features¶

• very simple tasks designed to duplicate the functionality of basecamp todos.
• A page type of task list, consisting of a collection of tasks. This means that the permissions and tagging happen at the level of a task list, not at the level of an individual task.
• You can reorder tasks, assign them to a user in the group, edit/delete tasks, add details, and mark them completed or pending.
• Everything uses ajax.
• you can include GreenCloth markup in task details, so that you can link to other pages.
• you can move tasks from one list to another.
• you can assign multiple people to the task (from a list of people with access to the page).

page rules¶

• Your participation for the task list is resolved if all the tasks on the list are resolved.
• If you are watching a page, it becomes unread if a new task is added or a comment is added.

not working¶

• new tasks added/modified since your list page view should be highlighted.
• should show the date created and date updated.
• non-ajax version.
• if you make a task list for yourself, all the tasks should be assigned to you.
• no error messages if stuff fails.
• no “assign to all” convenience button.
• no graceful handling of groups with very large memberships (it just shows a checkbox for every user).

planned features¶

• ‘in-progress’ flag which can be used to indicate that the task is currently being worked on.
  this will allow you to also view a user’s task list and see a breakout of what they are currently working on.

• ‘waiting on’ flag which would allow you to tell the system that you are waiting on a task to be finished. this will make the task pop up somehow on the task lists of the people it is assigned to, and will also let them know that other people view this task as important. the idea is to try to take the ‘man’ out of project management. what does it mean to have non-hierarchical project management? ‘waiting on’ would be an experiment in answering that question.

• what’s changed? when you are watching a task list and you view the page after tasks have been resolved or added, that task should be hilighted.

possible features¶

• Perhaps a task list could have a have a date due. The task list will then appear as a ‘upcoming’ page. Basecamp does this with a separate “milestone” tool. Should the individual task have a due date, or should the entire list, or both?

• When you view a task that has been resolved since you viewed it last, there should be a notice at the top that says ‘resolved!’ in big letters.

• Categories for tasks? Many todo lists let you assign color or categories or contexts to your tasks (such as all the Getting Things Done inspired apps). Do we want to do this? Would it really be that useful? How could we do it in a way that keeps tasks clean.

• Priorities for tasks or task lists? What would be the advantage of this? Priorities are a very common todo list feature, but the cult of GTD has given priorities a bad name. Maybe we can just make due with the order that a task appears in the list.

• When you click create a new task, maybe the checkbox for your name should be checked by default

open source ruby apps with task lists¶

• Tracks is a web-based application to help you implement David Allen’s Getting Things Done™ methodology. It was built using Ruby on Rails, and comes with a built-in webserver (WEBrick), so that you can run it on your own computer if you like. It can be run on any platform on which Ruby can be installed, including Mac OS X, Windows XP and Linux. Tracks is Open Source, free and licensed under the GNU GPL.

• TaskThis. The source to TaskTHIS is made available, strictly as a learning aid, under a modified LGPL license. TaskTHIS is a modern, so-called “Web 2.0”, application for managing task lists. You can create tasks with notes and publish them via RSS, or share them so that others can add/complete tasks on your list!