Re: [Php-calendar-discussion] Task management in the future?

[Nathan B. <na...@sl...>]

Sean Proctor wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> 
> On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 09:41:51 -0800, Nathan Barham <na...@sl...> wrote:
> 
>>Are there any plans to add task management features to php-calendar in
>>the future?
> 
> 
> No, but I guess we can change that. I'm not sure what you mean by tasks.
> 
> 
>>I'm thinking of something simple where tasks are tracked in a table much
>>like the events are now, with a few added fields for say status, owner,
>>and any notes related to the task.
> 
> 
> I'm unclear on the difference between a task and an event.

I'm thinking of tasks as todo items, where each item has a due date, and 
a status of "completed" or "not completed", that could be scheduled just 
like events, but that would carry forward and be dispalyed on the 
current day (or otherwise remind you) if the due date is in the past and 
the status is not yet "complete".  I suppose the main difference from 
events as I understand them is the notion of status, and that an 
incomplete status would cause the task to somehow jump out at you once 
you have moved past the due date.

I would still want to schedule them in the same manner as events, 
especially retaining the ability to schedule them in a recurring manner, 
i.e. weekly, monthly etc..  Basically this is what Outlook allows you to 
do with tasks.

Examples:

Send client John Smith a check on the 15th of every month (recurring 
every month)

or ..

Call client John Smith on the 17th (one time task)


> The plans
> for the next version include a kind of labeling. Where you could add a
> label to an event. Just now I thought of adding comments to events, so
> I put that on the todo list. If you use labels for status and comments
> or the description for your notes, the only thing you're missing is
> the owner.

Actually I suppose owner would not be that important, assuming I could 
make separate calendars for different purposes.  What's still missing is 
some way to be reminded if a task is late in being completed, i.e late 
tasks showing up on today's date in the calendar, or just a pop up on 
login that said "Hey all this stuff is late!".

> Events kind of have an owner now, but that is just the
> person who created the event.
> 
> It seems to me like tasks are just a more specific version of events.
> I'm trying to not add very specific features to the calendar that only
> impact one set of users.

Understood.  I was just wondering if php-calendar was going to head in 
this direction.  I want to get users away from Outlook, but I don't 
necessarily need all the project management stuff, complexity, learning 
curve etc that comes with some of the other open source solutions out there.

 >  If I can add the functionality you need in a
 > general way, then I'll do it.

Thanks for even considering it.

Nathan