Task Coach Files

Tasks

• Copied tasks keep their prerequisites: tasks copied together wait for each other's copies, as the originals do, and for the same other tasks. A copy used to have no prerequisites.

Mail

• Task Coach no longer connects to mail servers or asks for mail passwords: a dropped mail is read only from what the mail program hands over. A Thunderbird mail is attached when Thunderbird hands over the mail itself (on Wayland, or when several mails are dragged on Linux), and on X11 one mail too, its file asked of Thunderbird (not in the AppImage, which lacks PyGObject); when it gives only the mail's address, a message says to save the mail as a file and drag the file. Such a drop used to log in to the mail server, or attach an empty or wrong mail.
• Mail sends a task's whole subject to the mail program: a subject with & or #, such as "R&D review", arrived cut ("R"), and with # the body was lost. On macOS these two characters become _.
• When a mail program refuses Mail's new message because it has no recipient, the message opens addressed to recipient@example.com, an address reserved for examples that accepts no mail: sent unchanged, it bounces. It used to be recipient@domain.com, a company's domain whose mail is delivered, and it replaced the recipients a task's description names. Any other failure is shown.
• Mail of several tasks puts a blank line between them; each description used to end in stray line-break characters.

Efforts

• A task's editor shows all the efforts of the task and its subtasks, whatever categories are ticked, as it shows all its notes and attachments: an effort added there no longer stays hidden.
• One task is tracked at a time. Start tracking takes one task, and a new effort, or one given no stop in its editor, ends the tracked one; a copied effort is no longer tracked.
• The Idle time notice keeps working on GNOME when GNOME Shell restarts (on X11); it stopped until Task Coach was restarted. On GNOME Wayland it now works on every Linux package but the AppImage (Arch used to need python-dbus, installed only on request). A desktop that does not answer holds Task Coach at most a second, not 25.

Lists

• After a click in a floating view (a view dragged out of the main window), the keys go to that view. They went back to the main window's list, so Delete could act on a task selected there.
• A change that moves a task in the list, such as Mark completed, moves its row instead of rebuilding the whole list: with 2,000 tasks the window no longer stops for 0.7 s.
• After a delete, every view keeps the selection on the same line, as most programs do: the row that moves into the deleted one's place, or the row above when the last row went. The task, category and note views used to select the row above.
• The effort and attachment views keep the selected item selected when rows are added above it or the view is sorted; the highlight used to move to another item.
• Columns can be moved: drag a column's header sideways and a line shows where it will land, before the first column, between two or after the last. Each view keeps its order, a hidden column comes back at its place, and a task tree's hierarchy follows the subject column. A click on a header still sorts, now at the release. On Windows the effort and attachment views, Windows' own lists, keep their order.
• In list mode the task rows start under their header's text; they kept the room of a tree's expand buttons.
• The lists have no rounded frame of their own inside their pane's.

Editors

• An editor opened for the first time shows its pages whole, the task editor's dates and priority included, instead of a 400x300 window that cut them off. On a small screen it takes at most 80% of the screen less its panels, title bar and buttons on screen; the pages scroll. A size you give an editor is kept, as before.
• An editor reopens with its tabs as you arranged them, moved or split side by side, as in the 1.x releases; since 2.0 only the active tab came back.

Dialogs

• On Linux, a dialog opened after another window closed, or at start (the Tip of the day), opens whole and in its place: centred on Task Coach's window, a reminder on its screen. It could open at the screen's top-left with its last lines cut off, such as the Tip of the day's "Show tips on startup".
• Every file dialog but Restore backup's opens in the folder last chosen in one of its kind (task files, each export, each import), else in the open task file's, else in Documents. Import CSV, Import template and Add attachment opened in the folder Task Coach was started from, on Windows its program folder; the exports stayed in the old folder after a Save As elsewhere. Attachments still remember their folder between sessions.
• The Backup Manager's window is titled "Manage backups"; its title bar was blank.
• Preferences keeps every change until OK or Apply, and Cancel drops it. Durations' Add and Delete and the Theme page's colours used to be saved at once and kept after Cancel. Apply is greyed until something changes, and again after it.
• Preferences > Theme: unchecking System for "Other Months Days Background" shows the colour then used; it kept showing the system's.

Screens

• Every window opens whole on a screen, so that after a change of monitors Task Coach can always be seen and moved. Its window, saved partly off screen, across two screens or on a screen that is gone, opens centred on the screen it was most on, or on the main screen when most of it was on none. It used to stay partly off screen while its title bar showed, or open at the edge of the nearest screen.
• A floating view opens on the screen of Task Coach's window, as editors do: saved elsewhere, or partly off that screen, it opens centred on the window. It used to open where it was saved, even on a screen that is gone.
• On Linux, a floating view opens above Task Coach's window; at some starts it opened behind it, out of sight.
• A window larger than its screen opens at 80% of it, centred. Task Coach's window used to fill the screen, and an editor was placed and sized by the system.
• Every dialog opens within 80% of the screen, centred, its contents scrolling: Preferences, Help, About, License and the Backup Manager could fill a small screen, Preferences at least 1250 pixels wide. The icon picker is a little taller (80% of the screen, was 75%).

Backups

• Restoring a backup over a task file first keeps the file as a backup, so a restore can be undone. A restore used to lose the file's latest saved version for good.
• File > Manage backups lists each backup with the time its contents were saved, to the second. It showed when the backup was replaced, to the minute: the newest backup was the save before the latest, and autosave's backups of a same minute looked alike.

Tray

• The Linux tray menu no longer holds Task Coach for seconds after each change to a large file's tasks: it changes only what changed, about 15 ms with 2,000 tasks instead of 1.7 to 2.4 s.
• The tray menu's task icons follow the tasks: a task turned overdue shows so. They stayed as they were until a task was added, renamed or completed, and the first menu after opening a file had none.

Starting

• Task Coach's window appears at once, and the file opens in it. With a large file the window used to stay blank, or black, until the file was read.
• While a task file opens or merges, the pointer shows busy and the status bar says so; the status bar used to say "Closed".
• The task list appears once, complete with its colours and icons; its rows used to appear plain and take their colours a second or two later. Opening a large file is faster: with 2,000 tasks 1.1 s instead of 1.8 s.
• The tray icon appears once the file is open, its menu complete.

Settings and quitting

• Settings, Preferences included, and the window's layout and size are saved while Task Coach runs, not only when it quits: a logout, a shutdown or a crash no longer loses them. The settings file is replaced in one step, so a crash or power cut never leaves it empty.
• A saved task file is on disk before it replaces the old one, so a power cut right after a save leaves the old file or the new, never an empty one.
• Told to end by the system (a shutdown, a restart, kill), Task Coach saves the open file without asking and quits, instead of waiting on "Save changes?" that nobody can answer.

Removed

• Todo.txt: Export as Todo.txt, Import Todo.txt and the automatic import and export on saving (Preferences > Files). Made for the Todo.txt Android app, withdrawn in 2017; with automatic import on, a task whose line another app removed from the .txt file was deleted with its efforts. Existing .txt files are left as they are; CSV and iCalendar remain for exchanging tasks.
• Spoken reminders: "Let the computer say the reminder" (Preferences > Reminders, Linux and macOS). With it on and no espeak program, which Debian and Ubuntu do not install, a reminder did not show at all. Reminders still show and play their sound.

Packages

• Task Coach no longer needs keyring; the AppImage and Flatpak hold about 19 MB less.
• Task Coach no longer uses dbus-python (python3-dbus): PyGObject, which it already needs, makes its D-Bus calls. The Flatpak no longer asks to talk to the desktop's screen saver.
• The Flatpak may use the network, for the start-up check for a new version only: it failed there at every start, so the Flatpak's users were never told of a new release.