115023 - (cal-todo) To Do [tasks] tracking bug (Calendar Requirements Document, section 16)

Status: VERIFIED INVALID

(Calendar :: General, defect)

Description

[Chris Charabaruk]

A while ago, on n.p.m.calendar, I wrote:

> A To Do list should also allow for differing priorities on each item in 
> the list. The To Do List I was working on for a while (until I 
> accidentally deleted it) had the usual Highest|High|Normal|Low|Lowest 
> scale for items, and anything that helps me prioritize my messy life 
> would be great. :D
> 
> Mike Potter wrote:
> 
>> _*To Do List*_
>>
>>     A todo list should interact with the calendar, allowing you to jot
>>     down things you have to do, and dates they should be completed by.
> 

Now, I can come up with a quick and dirty to-do list on the left, probably can
come up with a dialog for adding and editing to-do items (if the event diag
isn't used), leaving only dealing with ical stuff.

I'm assigning to self, but for the time being there's bigger fish to fry, and
I'd like to have some comments before I actually begin working on such a list.

Comment 1

[Chris Charabaruk]

Accepting.

Comment 2

[xyzzy]

I would like finer-grained control over the priorities.  Such a scheme could
coexist with the proposed scheme if each level had a corresponding "level":

100 -> Highest
75  -> High
50  -> Normal
25  -> Low
0   -> Lowest

This permits intermediate priorities, which would be very convenient for me.

Comment 3

[Chris Charabaruk]

I was using a scale of 1 to 5, going from Lowest to Highest, I didn't (nor do I
now) see the need for priority levels in between those.

My original To Do list had the following: Summary, Priority, Due Date, Notes. I
didn't get much further than an an <outliner> on a XUL page and some JavaScript.

Anyways, I have further comments on this: "jot down things"
Lotus Organizer has it's notepad, and I have my JotPad applet (Win32 only) which
should have an updated version by tonight (at
http://www.meldstar.com/~ccharabaruk/crap/jotpad.zip). It's a bunch of pages,
each with it's own title. Something like this in Calendar would also be
appreciated, since I keep a lot of notes like that, and would rather not pollute
my documents directory with them. Of course, there is still the ability to save
the notes as text files, heh. Anyways, this belongs under another bug, and I've
filed bug 115226 regarding this.

Comment 4

[Chris Charabaruk]

My JotPad is elsewhere, see comments in bug 115226 about it.

My concern is where to put To Do events. Obviously, we'll want to keep them in
.oecalendar, but I'm uncertain whether or not we can fit it into the whole iCal
thing that's going on. Comments?

Comment 5

[Chris Charabaruk]

[RFC2445] 4.6.2 To-do Component (Pgs. 54-5) is just right for this. It even has
priority. The example from the iCalendar RFC is:
     BEGIN:VTODO
     UID:[e-mail]
     DTSTAMP:19970901T1300Z
     DTSTART:19970415T133000Z
     DUE:19970416T045959Z
     SUMMARY:1996 Income Tax Preparation
     CLASS:CONFIDENTIAL
     CATEGORIES:FAMILY,FINANCE
     PRIORITY:1
     STATUS:NEEDS-ACTION
     END:VTODO

Comment 6

[Peter Lairo]

Please take a look at Lotus Organizer's ToDo features. Lotus Organizer is the
"Mother" (this means *best*) of all calendars/PIM's. :)

Comment 7

[Mike Potter]

We're still trying to get a calendar out, let alone a to do list! :)

Comment 8

[Chris Charabaruk]

Mike: To Do shouldn't be hard at all... Considering that there's a VTODO type 
event (see comment #5), adding To Do functionality on the backend should be no 
problem. As for front-end, however, for now just list them with other VEVENTs.

Comment 9

[Chris Charabaruk]

Changed Summary field to match the other tracking bugs regarding the Calendar 
Requirements. Sorry for spam, and see bug 122643, I guess. :)

Comment 10

[Chris Charabaruk]

bug 135896: sidebar tab for to do events
bug 135897: backend support for VTODO

Comment 11

[Chris Charabaruk]

Bugspam: Adding meta keyword to tracking bugs, something they should have had
from the start. :P

Comment 12

[Peter Lairo]

Attachment: Screenshot of suggested UI and features

Comment 13

[Chris Charabaruk]

bugspam: bug 145981 is the ui tracker.

Comment 14

[Chris Charabaruk]

Bugspam: saving my sanity by applying the "cal-todo" alias

Comment 15

[Chris Charabaruk]

Bugspam: Assigning this one to mikep, too.

Comment 16

[alge]

bugspam: This is called "tasks" in the UI so adding "tasks" to summary

Comment 17

[Rajesh Raheja]

Would it be possible to see the tasks in the calendar along with other events,
so as to be able to plan the day.

Comment 18

[Mike Potter]

New contact from [e-mail] to [e-mail]
Filter on string OttawaMBA to get rid of these messages. 
Sorry for the spam.

Comment 19

[Dominik Kuropka]

It should be possible to create sub-tasks to a given task.

Comment 20

[Strazhce]

My SW version: Sunbird v. 0.2
1. Performance issue: delay between commanding Edit task/Edit event and the
dialog to come up is unreasonably long.

2. When I add task through "Week/Multiweek/Month view -> pop menu on the day XY
-> New task...", it would be user friendly to prefill start date of the task to
value XY.

3. Tasks are visible only in Multiweek view. Not in Month view. 
They aren't in week view as well, but it may be a bit tricky to come up with
wise (= most effective for user) placement of tasks. Same about Day view. 
My idea: IMHO it may be OK to place them by start time or/and by due time.

Comment 21

[Simon Paquet [:sipaq]]

We don't need this tracking bug, because the underlying requirement document is outdated and has therefore been removed.