Traskpro blog

While new features have been sparse for the last week lots of back end changes to Traskpro have been occurring to make the site faster and better for it’s users. In addition getting out of some the old ‘painted into a corner’ bugs fixed architecturally a lot of minor tweaks to the user interface have occurred.

Most noticeably a lot of content updates have occurred which change the messaging on the log in page, emails sent to users, and other small tweaks that should help make Traskpro a little easier to get into for new users. A lot of this content is thanks to Alissa, the Traskpro writing goddess.

Alissa also had some cool ideas for documentation and use cases so keep an eye out here on the blog for some more formal user stories, how-to’s, and general self help for Traskpro beginners and power users alike!

The last couple of days of development have seen several small to medium sized changes in Traskpro. The mail features have improved significantly, dash tagging has been added (more on what that means in a minute), and tasks can now be set to repeat on a specific schedule.

Improved mail output
For a short while now Traskpro has been able to eail a copy of a view to the user. This feature has been refined in several ways. First off the email that it sends is much more cleanly formatted and is easier to read. Secondly the capability to specify an email to send the view to has been added.

This makes it easy to share a list with a friend. Make sure all the tasks you want to share have the same tag, or show up in the same search result and click the “mail these tasks” link in the sidebar. Just enter your friends email address and presto - they have a copy!

-dash tagging (dash tagging)
Just like dot tagging dash tagging allows inline entry of tags within tasks. The difference being that any word with a preceding dash will be removed from the task. This lets the task entry form be used to fully enter tasks like a life management command line. Here is an example of using dash tagging to add tags to a task inline:

.Call .Bill tomorrow about the .vacation plans -high -personal

In this case the special tag of ‘high’ sets a task to high priority, and adds the tag ‘personal’ along with the dot tags of ‘call’, ‘bill’, and ‘vacation’. Sure it’s just as easy to tab over to the tags field, but adding dash tagging enhances the flexibility, and makes it easier to capture information off line.

To capture tasks off line just use your favorite text editor to capture tasks as you think of them, one per line. In these tasks you can use a combination of dot tagging, dash tagging, and the due: trigger to set all of your tasks primary attributes. When you next get online take the text file and copy and paste the results into the ‘add more tasks’ pane to add them all in an instant.

Repeating tasks
Finally at the behest of Alissa, a beloved ‘Friend of Traskpro’ the ability to have tasks repeat on a schedule has been added. Now while adding tasks with the ‘add more tasks’ pane or when editing tasks the option to have a task repeat on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

This feature makes it easy to set re-occurring reminders for things you need to do every day or week. Some examples of things that would be good to try for this new experimental feature might be:

• Take my vitamins - daily
• Water the plants - weekly
• Pay homeowners insurance - monthly

When you set a task to repeat it will automatically re-activate on the set schedule. When a task re-activates it will have a due date set for that day to help remind you that the task needs doing, and to let you track how long it has been since the task was last activated. Tasks that have been deleted using the ‘delete task forever’ link will not re-activate.

Please note that this task is still in an experimental stage - please let us know if you find any inconsistent or unexpected behaviors. Future improvements include more granularity surrounding the schedule on which a task reactivates.

With a thankful nod to Traskpro power user Alissa a new way to enter due dates for tasks has been added. Simply add ‘due:’ and then the tasks due date at the end of the task. Make sure that after ‘due:’ the only thing is the date because other information would be lost. An example of this feature in use would be to enter the below as your task text:

Pick up dry cleaning due:tomorrow

The due date itself will be added but stripped from the task, so only “Pick up dry cleaning” would remain. As with other ways to enter due dates almost any entered date will work - July 7th, next month, tomorrow, next Friday, and other variants of dates get translated and set - all with intuitive entry as the main goal.

For extra power-user goodness you can combine this with the .tagging feature to use the task entry field like a command line. For instance:

.Call .Alissa to thank her due for the .ideas due:friday

In a single line of entry with no duplication you have added the task to thank Alissa, set a due date, and tagged the task with call, Alissa, and ideas. Try the feature out - more results with less action by the user is always a win!

And no, don’t worry Jake - I won’t actually remove the due date or tag entry fields, I’m just making them unnecessary for true devotees of the Traskpro mindset!

Thanks to the wonders of Remote Procedure Calls (RPC) Traskpro just got a little easier to use. Now the changing of task priority and completion of tasks happens instantly and behind the scenes - all without needing to refresh the page. Traskpro now sends your requested edits to the server, and visually updates your view when it receives confirmation that the database has been updated.

Tasks that are completed will have a line striking them through to clearly indicate that the task is no longer relevant. Re-activating a task is easy: just uncheck the check box and the task will be set back to an active state. The next time you change tag contexts completed tasks will vanish unless you have elected to view all tasks and not just active tasks.

These first baby steps have been a great proof of concept for using RPC technology. In the near future editing of tasks will happen in a similar manner enabling page loads to be further reduced and application responsiveness to continue to improve.

This new feature has been tested in Firefox, Safari, and on Internet Explorer. If you have problems with these new features let me know and be sure to include what browser you are experiencing the problem with so it can be better diagnosed. As always feedback of any kind is always welcome - just leave a comment or click the Feedback link from within Traskpro.

A very alpha version of the email export functionality on Traskpro just went live. Using it is as easy as clicking a link - just click the “mail me a copy” link under the current view heading at the top of the sidebar and a copy of the current view will be emailed to your login email address. This makes taking a ‘copy to go’ of your to-do list a breeze for offline access.

This feature works perfectly but still has a lot of work to go. The current implementation exports text-only emails and can be a bit hard to read if you have a lot of tasks. In the coming weeks this will be expanded to send HTML format mails with easier to read formatting and printer style sheets making taking tasks on the go easier than ever.

Have an idea for this feature that would make it better or easier to use? Leave a comment and let me know - Traskpro thrives on user feedback!