php-calendar-discussion

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

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

Are there any plans to add task management features to php-calendar in 
the future?

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.

-Nathan

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

[Sean P. <spr...@gm...>]

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

Sean

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

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

[Sean P. <spr...@gm...>]

Hello,


On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 13:51:48 -0800, Nathan Barham <na...@sl...> wrote:
> 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.

Ah, I see. An interesting thought. Maybe we could do something like
this with labels. You'd create a task label or something, then we
could create a view for labels. And you could view all tasks before
today or up till today through that. So when you complete something
you could remove the task label or switch it to a completed label, and
you'd no long have to see it with the other tasks.

Do you think that would suffice for your purposes? Even if it would, I
need to warn you that it could be a long time until I get around to
implementing this. I have a full page of things that I want to do as
well. With this one, it's now 11 items. And the time that I've been
spending on the calendar recently has been pretty scarce.

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

This one is tough. It would require having a label for each occurance
of an event. I guess that is doable. I'll have to think about it more.

Sean

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

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

Sean Proctor wrote:
> This one is tough. It would require having a label for each occurance
> of an event. I guess that is doable. I'll have to think about it more.


Yes I see now that your events table does not track each occurrence of 
an event individually, so what I'm suggesting results in a conflict.  I 
wonder if a separate db table for tasks where each task _is_ tracked 
individually, perhaps coupled with a new eventtype for tasks, would make 
it easier to add this feature?

Anyway, without the ability to schedule tasks in a recurring manner, and 
then track them individually (and also retain the ability to edit them 
collectively), it won't really be what I'm after.  Which, I see now, 
means that I'm asking for quite a lot.

Still, if you were to decide to add such a feature, I would patiently 
wait for it, and help if I could.  It would replace the one feature of 
Outlook that we can't seem to live without or easily replace.  It would 
be simple to use and deploy, and the ability to share the info would be 
a huge bonus.


Nathan

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

[Sean P. <spr...@gm...>]

Hello,


On Thu, 10 Feb 2005 08:10:45 -0800, Nathan Barham <na...@sl...> wrote:
> Sean Proctor wrote:
> > This one is tough. It would require having a label for each occurance
> > of an event. I guess that is doable. I'll have to think about it more.
> 
> Yes I see now that your events table does not track each occurrence of
> an event individually, so what I'm suggesting results in a conflict.  I
> wonder if a separate db table for tasks where each task _is_ tracked
> individually, perhaps coupled with a new eventtype for tasks, would make
> it easier to add this feature?

I think having labels for specific occurrences of an event is a good
idea regardless. I'm just trying to think of a good way to accomplish
this. Maybe it'll be become clearer once I rewrite how occurrences are
stored. Anyway, this is on the todo list.

Sean

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

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

Sean Proctor wrote:

> I think having labels for specific occurrences of an event is a good
> idea regardless.
> I'm just trying to think of a good way to accomplish
> this. Maybe it'll be become clearer once I rewrite how occurrences are
> stored. Anyway, this is on the todo list.


Awesome Sean, many thanks.


Nathan

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

[Gabriel H. <Ga...@ga...>]

On Wed, February 9, 2005 9:51 pm, Nathan Barham said:
> 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.
>

Brilliant idea!

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

[Gabriel H. <Ga...@ga...>]

On Wed, February 9, 2005 7:04 pm, Sean Proctor said:
> 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. 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. 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. If I can add the functionality you need in a
> general way, then I'll do it.
>

I'm not exactly sure what Nathan means but what I would find useful is a
task list. For example maybe an event that is not assigned a date and a
list of all these event types to the left of the calendar.

Gabriel