= Simple task organizer syctask can be used to create, plan, prioritize and schedule tasks.
==Install The application can be installed with $ gem install syc-task
== Usage syctask provides basic task organizer functions as create, update, list and complete a task. Additional functions are to plan tasks you want to accomplish today. If you are not sure in which sequence to conduct the task you can prioritize them with a pair wise comparisson. You can time tasks with start and stop and you can finally extract tasks from a minutes of meetings file. The schedule task command will print a graphical timeline of the working day assigning the planned tasks to the timeline. Busy times are marked red. Meetings are listed with associated tasks that are assigned to the meetings. With the statistics command you can print statistical evaluation of tasks duration and count.
===Create tasks with new Create a new task in the default task directory ~/.tasks $ syctask new "My first task"
Provide a description $ syctask new "My first task" --description "Explanation of my first task"
Schedule a task with a follow-up and due date $ syctask new "My first task" --follow-up "2013-02-25" --due "2013-03-11"
Set a proirity for a task $ syctask new "My first task" --prio 3
Prompt for task input $ syctask new will prompt for task titles. Ctrl-D will end input.
Except for --description you can also provide short forms for the options.
===Create tasks by scanning from files When writing minutes of meetings tasks that should be followed up in syctask can be annotated so they will be recognized by the scan command. The following structure shows how to annotade tasks
Some text before
@task;
title;description;follow_up;due_date,prio
Schedule meeting;Invite all developers;2016-09-12;2016-10-12;1
Write letter;Practice writing letters;;;3
Some text after
The above annotation will only scan the next task because of the singular 'task' where the task values are separated with ';'. The line after the annotation '@task' lists the sequence of the fields of the task. It is also possible to list the tasks in a table, e.g. markdown
Some text before
@tasks|
title |description |follow_up |due_date |prio
----------------|--------------------------|----------|----------|----
Schedule meeting|Invite all developers |2016-09-12|2016-10-12|1
Write letter |Practice writing letters | | |3
Some text after
Call partner |Ask for project's progress|2016-09-14| |1
Even more text
The example above scans all tasks due to the plural 'tasks'. It also scans all tasks that are separated with non-task text and occur after the annotation and confirm to the field structure. Lines that start with '-' will be ignored. So if you want to skip only a few tasks within a task list prepend them with '-'. If you have tasks with different fields then you have to add another annotation with the new field structure.
Possible fields are
title - the title of the task - mandatory field!
description - the description of the task
follow_up - the follow-up date of the task in the form yyyy-mm-dd
due_date - the due-date of the task in the form yyyy-mm-dd
prio - the priority of the task
tags - tags the task is annotated with
note - a note for the task
Note: follow_up and due_date can also be written as Follow-up and Due-Date. Also case is ignored.
As inidcated in the list the title column is mandatory. Without the title column scan will raise an error during a scan.
Fields that are not part of the above list will be ignored.
# | Title | Who
- | ------------------------------------ | ---
1 | Schedule meeting with all developers | Me
2 | Write letter to practice writing | You
In the table only the column Title will be scanned. The '#' and 'Who' column will be ignored during scan. This table is also a table for a minimum scan structure. You need at least to provide a title column so the scan function will recognize the table as a task list.
Scanning tasks from files
$ syctask scan 2016-09-10-mom.md 2016-09-09-mom.md
===Plan tasks The plan command will print tasks and prompts whether to (a)dd or (s)kip the task. If (q)uit is selected the tasks already added will be add to the today's task list. If (c)omplete is selected the complete task will be printed and the user will be prompted again for adding the task.
Invoke plan without filter $ syctask plan 1 - My first task (a)dd, (c)omplete, (s)kip, (q)uit? a Duration (1 = 15 minutes, return 30 minutes): 3 --> 1 task(s) planned
Invoke plan with a filter $ syctask plan --id "1,3,5,8" 1 - My first task (a)dd, (c)omplete, (s)kip, (q)uit?
Move tasks to another days plan $ syctask plan today --move tomorrow --id 3,5
This will move the tasks with ID 3 and 5 from the today's plan to the tomorrow's plan. The duration will be set to the remaining processing time but at least to 30 minutes.
===Prioritize tasks Planned tasks can be prioritized in a pair wise comparisson. So each task is compared to all other tasks. The task with the highest priority will bubble on top followed by the task with the next highest priority and so on.
$ syctask prio
1: My first task
2: My second task
Task 1 has (h)igher or (l)ower priority, or (q)uit: h
1: My first task
2: My third task
Task 1 has (h)igher or (l)ower priority, or (q)uit: l
1: My third task
2: My fourth task
Task 1 has (h)igher or (l)ower priority, or (q)uit: h
...
syctask schedule will then print tasks as follows Tasks ----- 0: 10 - My fourth task 1: 7 - My third task 2: 3 - My first task 3: 9 - My second task ...
Instead of conducting pairwise comparisson the order of the tasks in the plan can be specified with the -o flag $ syctask plan -o 7,3,10,9
The plan or schedule command will print the tasks in the specified order Tasks ----- 0: 7 - My third task 1: 3 - My first task 2: 10 - My fourth task 3: 9 - My second task
If only a part of the tasks is provided the rest of the tasks is appended to the end of the task plan. If you specify a position flag the prioritized tasks are added at the provided position. $ syctask plan -o 7,9 -p 2 Tasks ----- 0: 3 - My first task 1: 10 - My fourth task 2: 7 - My third task 3: 9 - My second task
===Create schedule The schedule command will print a graphical schedule with assigning the tasks selected with plan. When schedule command is invoked the planned tasks are added at or after the current time within the time schedule. Tasks that are done and scheduled in the future are not shown. Tasks done and in the past are shown with the actual processing time.
Create a schedule with working time from 8a.m. to 6p.m. and meetings between 9a.m. and 9.30a.m. and 1p.m. and 2.45p.m. $ syctask schedule -w "8:00-18:00" -b "9:00-9:30,13:00-14:45"
Add titles to the meetings $ syctask schedule -m "Project status,Management meeting"
The output will be Meetings -------- A - Project status B - Management meeting
A B
xxx-///-|---|---|---///////-|---|---|---|
8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
1
Tasks
-----
0 - 1: My first task
Adding a task to a meeting $ syctask schedule -a "A:0"
will print Meetings -------- A - Project status 1 - My first task B - Management meeting
A B
----///-|---|---|---///////-|---|---|---|
8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Tasks
-----
0: 1 - My first task
A task that is re-scheduled with $ syctask update 1 -f tomorrow
will be shown as done (green) in the schedule and instead of separator - it shows ~.
Tasks
----
0: 1 ~ My first task
A started task will be indicated by *
$ syctask start 1
$ syctask sche
Tasks
-----
0: 1 * My first task
===List tasks List tasks that are not marked as done in short form $ syctask list
List all tasks in long form $ syctask list --all --complete
Search tasks that match a pattern $ syctask list --id "<10" --follow_up ">2013-02-25" --title "My \w task"
===Inspect tasks Lists each unplanned task and allows to edit, delete, mark as done or plan for today or another day $ syctask inspect 0016 Create command for inspection (e)dit, (d)one, de(l)ete, (p)lan, da(t)e, (c)omplete, (s)kip, (b)ack, (q)uit
===Edit task Edit a task with ID 10 in vi $ syctask edit 10
===Update tasks Except for title and id all values can be updated. Note and tags are not overridden rather supplemented with the update value.
Update task with ID 1 and provide some informative note $ syctask update 1 --note "Some explanation about the progress on the task"
===Complete tasks Complete the task with ID 1 and provide a final note $ syctask done 1 --note "Finalize my first task"
===Delete tasks Delete tasks with ID 1,3 and 5 from the default task directory $ syctask delete --id 1,3,5
Delete tasks with ID 8 and 12 from the planned tasks of today. The tasks are only removed from the planned tasks and not physically deleted. $ syctask delete --plan today --id 8,12
===Settings The settings command allows to define default values for task directory and to create general purpose tasks that can be used for tracking and later statistical evaluation.
Create general purpose tasks for phone and talk $ syctask setting --general PHONE,TALK
List all settings $ syctask setting --list
===Info Info searches for the location of a task and lists all task directories
Search for task with id 102 $ syctask info --id 102
List all task directories $ syctask info --taskdir
===Statistics Shows statistics for work and meeting times as well as for task processing
Evaluate the complete log file $ syctask statistics
Evaluate work times, meetings and tasks between 2013-01-01 and 2013-04-14 $ syctask statistics 2013-01-01 2013-04-14
Evaluate yesterday and today $ syctask statistics yesterday today
===Task directory and project directory The global options --taskdir and --project determine where the command finds or creates the tasks. The default task directory is ~/.tasks, so if no task directory is specified all commands obtain tasks from or create tasks in ~/.tasks. If a project is specified the tasks will be saved to or obtained from the task directories subdirectory specified with the --project flag.
--taskdir --project Tasks in
- - default_task_dir
x - task_dir
- x default_task_dir/project
x x task_dir/project
In the table the relation of commands to --taskdir and --project are listed.
Command --taskdir --project Comment
delete x x deletes the tasks in taskdir/project
done x x marks tasks in taskdir/project as done
help - -
inspect x x lists task to edit, done, delete, plan
list x x lists tasks in taskdir/project
new x x creates tasks in taskdir/project
plan x x retrieves tasks to plan from taskdir/projekt
prio - - input to prio are planned tasks (see plan)
scan x x creates scanned tasks in taskdir/project
schedule - - schedules the planned tasks (see plan)
start - - starts task from planned tasks (see plan)
statistics - - shows statistics of time and count
stop - - stops task from planned task
update x x updates task in taskdir/project
===Files
ID id file contains the last issued id.
IDS ids file contains all issued ids.
Task files The tasks are named ID.task where ID is any Integer as 10.task. The files are saved as YAML files and can be edited directly.
Planned tasks files The planned tasks are save to YYYY-MM-DD_planned_tasks in syctask's system directory. Each task is saved with the task's directory and the ID.
Schedule files The schedule is saved to YYYY-MM-DD_time_schedule in the default task directory. The files are saved as YAML files and can be changed manually.
Log file Creating schedule and task processings is logged to tasks.log. For example when a task is started and stopped this is action is saved to tasks.log.
Tracked file A started task is saved to tracked_tasks. A semaphore file is created with ID.track when the task ID is started. When the task is stopped the semaphore file is deleted.
General purpose tasks With syctask setting -g PHONE so called general purpose tasks can be created. These tasks can be used for time tracking and later statistic evaluation to determine the amount of disturbences e.g. by phone. These tasks are saved to default_tasks. The general purpose tasks itself are also saved to the .syc/syctask directory as regular task files.
Default task dir The default task that is used e.g. with list is saved to default_tasks_dir. This can be set with the setting command.
==Working with syctask To work with syctask and get the most out of it there is to follow a certain process.
===Creating a schedule ==== View tasks In the morning before I start to work I scan my tasks with syctask list or syctask inspect to get an overview of my open tasks. $ syctask list
==== Plan tasks Next I start the planning phase with syctask plan. If I have a specific schedule for the day I will filter for the respective tasks $ syctask plan
==== Prioritize tasks (optionally) If I want to process the tasks in a specific sequence I prioritize the tasks with $ syctask prio
==== Create schedule I create a schedule with my working hours and meetings that have been scheduled with $ syctask -w "8:00-18:00" -b "9:00-10:00,14:30-16:00" -m "Team,Status"
==== Create an agenda I assign the topics I want to discuss in the meetings to the meetings with syctask schedule -a "A:1,3,6;B:3,5"
==== Start a task To begin I start the first task in the schedule with syctask start -p ID (where ID is the ID of the planned (-p) tasks) $ syctask start -p 10
==== End a task To end the task I invoke $ syctask stop This will stop the last started task
==== Re-schedule a task If I cannot finish a task than I update the task with a new follow-up date $ syctask update 23 -f tomorrow
The task will be shown in the today's schedule as done.
==== Complete a task When the task is done I call $ syctask done 23
===Attachements
E-mails If an e-mail creates a task I create a new task with syctask new title_of_task. The subject of the e-mail I prepend with the ID and move the e-mail to a open topics directory.
Files If I create files in the course of a task I create a folder in the task directory with the ID and save the files in this directory. If there is an existing directory I link to the file from the ID directory
==Supported platform syc-task has been tested with 1.9.3. It also works in Windows using Cygwin.
==Add TAB-completion to syctask To activate bash's TAB-completion following lines have to be added to ~/.bashrc
complete -F get_syctask_commands syctask
function get_syctask_commands
{
if [ -z $2 ] ; then
COMPREPLY=(`syctask help -c`)
else
COMPREPLY=(`syctask help -c $2`)
fi
}
After ~/.bashrc has been updated the shell session has to be restarted with $ source ~/.bashrc
Now syctask followed by TAB TAB will print
$ syctask <TAB><TAB>
delete done list plan scan stop _doc help new prio schedule start update
To complete a command we can type
$ syctask sch<TAB>
which will complete to
$ syctask schedule
==Output to Printer To print syctask's output to a printer pipe the command to lpr
$ syctask schedule | lpr
This will print the schedule to the default printer.
To determine all available printer lpstat can be used with the lpstat -a command
$ lpstat -a
Canon-LBP6650-3470 accepting requests since Sat 16 Mar 2013 04:26:15 PM CET
Dell-B1160w-Mono accepting requests since Sat 16 Mar 2013 04:27:45 PM CET
To print to Dell-B1160w-Mono the following command can be used
$ syctask schedule | lpr -P Dell-B1160w-Mono
==Release Notes ===Version 0.0.1 Implementation of new, update, list and done commands.
===Version 0.0.4
===Version 0.0.6
===Version 0.0.7
===Version 0.1.15
====Version 0.2.0
Migrated from TestUnit to Minitest
Implemented timeleap {
}[http://badge.fury.io/rb/timeleap]
which allows to specify additional time distances to yesterday, today
tomorrow. Time distances come in two flavors as long and short forms.
Examples for long forms are
Examples for short forms are
====Version 0.2.1
syctask delete --plan====Version 0.3.1
====Version 0.3.2
====Version 0.4.2
syctask inspect prints warning with reason
why statistics cannot be printed==Development Pull from Github and then run
$ bundle install
New classes have to be added to 'lib/syctask.rb'
Debugging the interface can be done with GLI_DEBUG:
$ bundle exec env GLI_DEBUG=true bin/syctask
Building and pushing the gemfile to Rubygems
$ gem build syctask.gemspec
$ gem push syc-task-0.2.1.gem
==Tests The test files live in the folder test and start with test_.
There is a rake file available to run all tests
$ rake test
The CLI is tested with Cucumber. To run the Cucumber features in verbose mode
$ cucumber
or if you prefer cleaner output run
$ rake features
==License syc-task is released under the {MIT License}[http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT]
==Links
FAQs
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