357502 - Not possible to create task with "All day" dates (no times)

Status: NEW

(Calendar :: Tasks, defect)

Description

[David Tenser [:djst]]

The "All Day" checkbox is not available in the New Task dialog. This forces the user to enter times when they are not relevant. This makes maintaining e.g. project deadlines unnecessarily complicated.

Use Case: Matthew uses a calendar to keep track of project deadlines. Many of the deadlines span over several days, sometimes even weeks. In order to have a graphical overview of the deadlines, he has checked the [View > Tasks in View] menu item. However, because Tasks require times to be set for the Date and Due Date fields, the whole calendar's main area is literally filled with large blocks of deadline tasks. Because of this, Matthew has no choice but to create events instead of tasks for the deadlines.

Comment 1

[David Tenser [:djst]]

Attachment: Not a nice way to show a project period/deadline

The attached screenshot shows what I mean. Instead of being a one-line entry at the top of the calendar view, it's filling up the entire calendar area. 

Also, the text is repeated on each day, making it look like separate items.

Comment 2

[Stefan Sitter [:ssitter]]

Provoking question: If you have a defined start and end date for a task why don't create an event instead? Why do you need a task? 
That question goes hand in hand with the running discussion 'What are tasks? What are events?' [http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.apps.calendar/browse_thread/thread/efe4339a0022ef6f/801d81203b2f1a06#801d81203b2f1a06] 
Maybe you want to contribute to this discussion?

Comment 3

[David Tenser [:djst]]

(In reply to comment #2)
> Provoking question: If you have a defined start and end date for a task why
> don't create an event instead? Why do you need a task? 
> That question goes hand in hand with the running discussion 'What are tasks?
> What are events?'

Thanks for asking. :) To me, the answer is simple: A task is something that needs to _get done_, and an event is something that is going to _happen_. Tasks has the benefit of showing up as nice checkboxes in the sidebar, where you can sort tasks by priority, etc. 

Of course, tasks should probably be improved in more fundamental ways in order to really get useful. For example, there should be a visual indicator how close you are to the deadline, it should be easier to modify the progress (perhaps a progress bar embedded in the task list item which you could click in to modify?), the alarm should be relative to the deadline (Due Date), not the start date (Date), and so on. 

All in all, there are many things that make Tasks such in Mozilla Calendar, but at least I can motivate why this bug should be fixed. :)

Comment 4

[David Tenser [:djst]]

s/such/suck

Comment 5

[mozilla]

This is the same as task #281214
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=281214

I believe this is a very important feature and find it very annoying that a time must be set.

Virtually every other program that I've used that has tasks allows you to create tasks due on a particular date without having to set a time - for many, if not most, this is the default action, while adding a specific time is option.

Tasks are generally due by a specific date whereas events happen at a specific time.

Comment 7

[Christophe Humbert]

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.1) Gecko/20090715 Lightning/1.0pre Thunderbird/3.0b3

Steps to reproduce
1. Create A new task
2. Delete the time 
3. Save and Close

This is working but the task appears with a due date AND Time (the time being the hour you have created the task)

Comment 8

[Felix Möller]

Still there with Thunderbird 9 and Lightning 1.1.

Comment 9

[laurenthaas]

Still there with Thunderbird 38.2.0 and Lightning 4.02...

Comment 10

[tristan.kairou]

Still there with Thunderbird 38.5.1 and Lightning 4.0.5.2

Comment 11

[Tim Ruffing]

An additional symptom is this bug is that Thunderbird does not handle incoming all-day tasks properly:

1. Thunderbird receives a task created by another application (via CalDAV-Sync in my case) with an all-day due date.
2. Thunderbird correctly interprets the due time as "All Day (floating)".
3. However, if the task is opened in the edit dialog, 
 - the due time is shown as 0:00
 - Options -> Show timezones is not ticked
 - If I tick it, then "Local Time" appears next to the due date (but in gray/deactivated?!).
3. By setting a (non-floating) start time now, I can create a task with floating due time but non-floating start time. This is forbidden by RFC 5545.

So this bug is not only a feature request but a real defect.

In the end, I somehow ended up with a task where both the due time and the start time were non-floating but the due time is before the start time due to different timezones. This is forbidden by RFC 5545 as well. It broke my synchronization with DAVDroid on Android, which correctly rejected the task.

Comment 12

[juliangrasshoff]

Isn't the all-day condition just aktivate if the event has just the fomat of

DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:YYYYMMDD
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:YYYYMMDD

rather than

DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:YYYYMMDDHHMMSS
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:YYYYMMDDHHMMSS

So why can't lighting read the time for task if it were for events?

Comment 13

[Paul Morris [:pmorris]]

Thanks for working on this Max.

Comment 14

[mu88]

I've came across this issue a couple of times. If someone gives me a bit of advice, I can imagine to work on this issue.