working-with-tasks-fedora

This page will take the "Working With Tasks" page and tailor it specifically for Linux Fedora 16 using text and screenshots.

About Tasks

Tasks are the basic objects that you manipulate. Tasks can represent anything from a single little thing you have to do to a complete project consisting of different phases and numerous activities (i.e. subtasks).

Populated TaskCoach

This is TaskCoach populated with many different tasks.

Important observations about Tasks

• The difference of color in the tasks.
• Black
• Grey
• Green

TaskCoach allows for a custom color scheme. TaskCoach in this instance is sorted by Completion date. Black tasks are active tasks, grey tasks are inactive tasks (because their start date is the following day or later), and green tasks are completed tasks.

The preferences to edit this color scheme looks like the image below and can be found in Edit > Preferences > Colors

The couple categories that are currently displayed:

• Subject
• Categories
• Start date
• Due date
• Completion date
• Time left

TaskCoach allows for multiple different categories to be displayed. The ones currently displayed are not the only categories. To change the categories the user can right click anywhere on the category bar and will be presented with a multitude of categories to choose from. Below is an example of this task. The user right clicked on the category bar and was presented with all these options for categories. Also, another great feature of TaskCoach is that these are not the only category options. If you take notice to the options of "Dates", "Budget", and "Financial" there are 11 other categories that a user can choose from in there.

• The way tasks are sorted
  TaskCoach allows the user to sort his or her tasks by any of the categories present on the category bar. This is done by left clicking on the category the user would like it to be sorted by. The above
  example of a populated task-list the user had everything sorted by Completion date. The photo below is an example of it sorted by Start date. As is noticeable, TaskCoach sorts the tasks chronologically when
  dealing with dates.

Creating Tasks and their options in creation

To create a new task there are multiple ways to do this.
The New Task button on the button bar.
Clicking on this will bring up the field to edit the options and create an event.

• Right clicking on any task already created.
• Clicking where the mouse is positioned on the picture below will allow the user to edit the options and create an event.

• From the menu bar Task > New Task > New Task
• Using this method to create a task will being up the same field as all the other ways to create a new task.

New Task Options

After making a new task there is a form providing the user abundant space and fields to fill in information about the event. These options will be discussed below.

• Description
• Subject:
  • Allows the user to give the task a specific name.
• Description:
  • Allows the user to write more text denoting additional information about the task
• Priority:
  • Allows the user to give a task a number to signify its
    priority.

• Dates
  • Start date:
    • Allows the user to give a date and time when the task is started.
    • By default it is set to the current date and time.
  • Due date:
    • Allows the user to set a date that this should be finished by.
  • Completion date:
    • Allows the user to set or change the date it is completed on.
    • Checking this option makes the task show up as completed.
  • Reminder:
    • This allows the user to insert a date that the user should be reminded on this specific date about this specific task.
  • Recurrence:
    • Allows the user to have this reminder reoccur on specific intervals.
  • Maximum number of recurrences
    • This is the maximum number of times a reminder can reoccur.

• Prerequisites.
  Note: Great functionality that a lot of task assistant software do not handle is prerequisites. This allows an event to only occur after another specific event occurs.

• Checking off different events from the list of events will make them the current tasks prerequisite.

• Progress
  • Percentage complete:
    • This option allows the user to set a specific percentage of this task to be completed.
  • Mark task completed when all children are completed
    • This allows the user to specify if the task should be considered completed when all of the tasks under it are completed.

• Categories
  Note: The categories are ones that this specific user created himself.
  Categories can be of any type.

• By checking off one of these categories you are setting the current task to be apart of the category selected.

• To create new categories the user can click on the "New" button which in this image is the 4th button from the left in the button bar.

• Budget
  • Budget allows the user to set a time budget that this task needs to be completed by and to follow/track this budget. This option allows the same tracking but for monetary values as well.
  • Budget:
    • This allows the user to enter a time value that is set aside to complete this task in.
  • Time spent:
    • Time spent is calculated when the user instructs TaskCoach that he or she is currently working on this task.
  • Budget left:
    • this displays the time value that is left, essentially the difference of Budget and Time spent.
  • Hourly fee
    • This is a monetary value that is entered by the user and this task earns this amount of money every hour.
  • Fixed fee:
    • This is a monetary value that is entered by the user. It represents the amount of money earned with this task, regardless of how much time is spent on the task.
  • Revenue:
    • This is a monetary value calculated by Task Coach. It is equal to the Hourly Fee times the hours spent on the task plus the Fixed fee.‍‍

• Effort
  • While working on a task TaskCoach allows the user to track how much time/effort is put into the task.
  • As you can see, there is the new task that is being created and when this picture was taken the "Time spent" category was continuously increasing.
  • This allows the user to clearly see how much effort/time was really put into a project.

• Notes
  • Notes is another field that allows the user to keep more information stored about a specific task.
  • Notes also allows the user to search through their notes using the "Search" feature.

• Attachments
  • Attachments allow the user to attach a local file to this specific task
  • This is done with the "New" button.
  • The attaching process is modeled below.

• Below is the field that comes up when the user wants to attach a file
• This allows the user to browse to a local file and leave a name and description about the file.

• Appearance
  • This allows the user to make specific changes to this task.
  • Foreground color and Background color allow the users to change the color in the listing of this tasks foreground and background respectively.
  • The font can be changed to better suit the user.
  • There can also be a specific Icon given to this task.

Once all the fields the user desires to be filled in are filled in, he or she can click on and the task will show up in his or her task-list.