I’ve been working away at the task template code for the last few weeks and I think it is complete enough to do another alpha release of Tasks Pro™ 1.5. Task templates have been most requested feature to date, so I’m quite glad to have something for people to start playing with. There is still a fair amount of polish to be done, but much of the functionality is in place.
Tasks Pro™ customers can download version 1.5a2 from the normal customer download area.
I’m planning to get an alpha of Tasks with the template functionality ready for release soon after I get feedback and bug reports on this release (to avoid maintaining both codelines in this early stage).
Adding full template support has been a major undertaking.
- I’ve had to add new types of tasks (template task and template note) and the associated code to deal with the new task types.
- Support for duplicating templates (and associated template tasks).
- Support for creating a template from an existing task tree.
- An interface to do the deploying of task templates.
- There is an option to ‘inherit groups from parent task’ when deploying a template. This is either checked or not by default depending on your Preferences.
- An option to enable templates (or not).
- A new permission so you can determine which users are allowed to create and edit templates.
- When deleting a template, also delete the associated tasks, etc.
- If a user is set as the owner for a task template, prompt to re-assign the template before deleting the user.
- Associated changes to the install and upgrade scripts.
I currently have a new main menu item for Templates, but the menu is getting quite crowded and I’m considering moving that link into the Admin area. I’ve left it like it is for now and I plan to move it in the next release and see which people like better. I’m leaning towards tucking it into the Admin area because I don’t think accessing the list of templates for editing will be a primary function for most users.
I’m also not yet happy with the new icons and the template deployment interface is still up for discussion. Let me know your ideas and suggestions on those as well.
Popularity: 3% [?]
Louis adds this Comment:
I know you must get this all the time…how soon before UseTasks might see “Task Templates”? We are really quite excited about it and knowing when you expect to have it as part of UseTasks would help with the anticipation.
September 23rd, 2004 at 8:26 pm
Alex adds this Comment:
The Use Tasks accounts are upgraded whenever there is a new release version (not alpha and beta releases).
September 23rd, 2004 at 8:42 pm
Alex Jones adds this Comment:
Have you considered making the email option include a “Outlook acceptable task”, by this I mean I could use your tool to manage the overall set of tasks and know that by sending the tasks in that format they will show up in the “tasks” portion of Outlook to the people they get sent to.
Main reason, is that any time on-line is not an option (laptop users feels this far more) I have to pour through all my email rather than simply choosing the tasks item in Outlook (I am talking about hundreds of tasks here fyi). Not sure how easy it would be to facilitate being able to mark the task complete in Outlook and having it send the email to taskspro with the updated info?
Just a thought, great looking app btw. Have you given any thought to adding an export/import function for excel/project/etc. as those are the types of apps people like me typically use for managing projects, and it would be nice to be able to comile the list in excel and then simply upload the thing in one shot and v.v.
September 28th, 2004 at 11:02 am
Alex adds this Comment:
Syncing is very complicated. Right now I’m concentrating on making the best task management tool I can.
September 28th, 2004 at 11:08 am