Cloud Tasks

Task list screenA very simple webOS client for Remember The Milk.

Description

This is intended to be a very simple, very easy to use, task list application that syncs with Remember The Milk. It grew out of my frustration with existing RTM clients which were very pretty but required you to navigate through several screens just to see your tasks. I wanted something that had the simplicity and directness of the task list application on my old Palm Vx.

So in this application all tasks are displayed in a single list, which is the main screen. Tasks can have a description (obviously), a due date, and a recurrence which is written in plain English (e.g. “Every Tuesday”).

I wrote this application for myself — I’m making it available to others on the off-chance that they find it useful. Because of that there are plenty of missing features I just don’t have the inclination or time to add. Sorry about that. If you’d like some features added I’d encourage you to download the source and add the features yourself. It’s licenced under the GPL v2 for the good of the community. If there are features you’d like and you don’t want to add them, then just pretend you’d never heard of this in the first place and you won’t be any worse off.

Features

Task list

  • All tasks appear in a single list.
  • Font small enough to ensure you can see as many tasks as possible in a single glance (but still large enough to be readable and tappable).
  • Tasks ordered first by due date, then alphabetically.
  • Task list shows each due date in format easiest for quick recognition. So tasks due this week are listed as due “Today”, “Tomorrow” or only day of week; tasks due later show day and date; tasks due more than 12 months away also include year.
  • Overdue tasks indicated by due date in red.
  • Tasks not yet due appear slightly greyed out.
  • Recurring tasks indicated by symbol in task list.
  • Tasks which have been given nonsense recurrence instructions flagged with a warning icon after they’ve been rejected by the server at the next sync.

Add/Edit task

  • Set task description.
  • Cursor starts in task description box so you can just start typing. That’s one less tap.
  • Set task due date, or no due date.
  • Calendar popup to quickly see and pick a due date.
  • Due date defaults to today.
  • Set task recurrence using plain English, e.g. “Every Tuesday”. See the RTM repeat format page for details.
  • Swipe back to save task changes.
  • All new tasks go into your RTM Inbox list.
  • Complete task with green button.
  • Cancel task edits with grey “Cancel” button.
  • Delete task with red button.
  • Deleting a repeating task gives the option to delete the entire series (although not entirely sure if this is useful).

Synchronisation

  • Authorisation screen to enable syncing with your RTM account (Cloud Tasks menu > Authorise…).
  • Deauthorise syncing (Cloud Tasks menu > Deauthorise).
  • Tries to sync any changes as soon as they are made.
  • Tries to sync every hour to pick up any remote changes. But will only do this if running; it doesn’t run in the background.
  • Sync Now option available via main menu.
  • Works offline: will save up any changes if no network connectivity, then sync them all later.

Screenshots

Click on an image to see more

Download and install

The latest stable version can always be downloaded from GitHub:

For installation instructions see the guide at PreCentral on how to install homebrew applications.

Licence and source code

This software is licenced under the GPL version 2. The source code is available at Github. If you think the application can be improved I would encourage you to download it and develop it.

What it doesn’t do

You’d be amazed how much this application doesn’t do. Because I developed this only for myself I didn’t take time to add any task list features that I don’t use. If you need any of the following things then I’d suggest you look at another application such as CowTasks or take the source code of this one and develop it further yourself. Here are just some of the things that aren’t included:

  • Task priorities
  • Different task lists
  • Undo
  • Tags
  • Locations
  • Search
  • Notifications
  • Any kind of preference settings such as choosing whether the first day of the week is Sunday or Monday.

Known bugs and changelog

Version 1.0.6 (15 May 2011)

  • Fixed bug in which a date set for a task would sometimes change by one day after syncing.

Version 1.0.5 (9 May 2011)

  • Fixed bug in which syncing sometimes generated a “Cannot read property” error message.

Version 1.0.4 (24 April 2010)

  • Fixed bug in which dates in the task list scene did not respect timezone, so tasks could appear a day out in that view.

Version 1.0.3 (17 April 2010)

  • Editing a task’s recurrence but keeping it the same no longer initiates a sync.
  • When deleting a new, recurring, but unsynced task you are no longer asked if you want to delete the entire series.
  • Fixed bug in which you couldn’t edit an unsynced task which has a recurrence.
  • Fixed bug in which electing to delete an entire series of a task which hasn’t been synced causes all unsynced tasks to be deleted (until you restart the app).
  • Fixed bug that when deleting an entire series of a task which which hasn’t been synced only the current task’s deletion status is persisted in the database.
  • Known issues:
    • Dates in the task list scene do not respect timezone, so tasks can appear a day out in that view.

Version 1.0.2 (31 March 2010)

  • Fixed bug so that error no longer appears when syncing with an empty list.
  • Known issues:
    • Cannot edit an unsynced task which has a recurrence.
    • Electing to delete an entire series of a task which hasn’t been synced causes all unsynced tasks to be deleted (until you restart the app).
    • When deleting an entire series of a task which which hasn’t been synced only the current task’s deletion status is persisted in the database.

Version 1.0.1 (27 March 2010)

  • Fixed bug so that app now works regardless of your timezone and daylight saving.
  • Known issues:
    • Error notification appears if you try to sync with an empty list.

Version 1.0.0 (10 March 2010)

  • Known issues:
    • Problems with timezones and daylight saving, so it only works reliably in Britain in the winter.

Help and discussion

To discuss this application please go to the Cloud Tasks discussion thread in the PreCentral forums.