Tasks Pro 1.5a2: Task Templates

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.

This post is part of the project: Tasks Pro™. View the project timeline for more context on this post.