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dmfs / opentasks

A task app for Android
Apache License 2.0
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Hide date and time functionality for GTD #107

Open PanderMusubi opened 9 years ago

PanderMusubi commented 9 years ago

For people who are using Getting Things Done (GTD) time management method, see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done, this app very good. However, when using tasks in GTD, these never have a start or due date. Those are destined to be calendar events. I know this is part of the VTODO in iCalendar format and all apps working with it should support it.

If people are never using this, it would be good to have a general option to hide all data functionality in the GUI. It will make the GUI more easy to use and (new) people using GTD will not be tempted to use dates in tasks while they should actually create calendar events for this. Thirdly, it will make creating tasks faster because you don't need to scroll past the fields for dates to get to the priority setting etc.

See screenshot feature-request-show-date-functionality-GTD.png how it would look if this feature request is implemented. This general setting would also show/hide the DUE and START tabs.

If Tasks is GTD-friendly that could lead to positive publicity in the GTD-community (which is not so pleased with tasks offered by Google, Evernote, etc. that allow deviating from their method) and increase the number of people using Tasks.

feature-request-show-date-functionality-gtd

jkufner commented 9 years ago

Deadlines are one of the most important features of tasks. Ever since I turned on displaying tasks in Lightning calendar, their usefulness raised thru the roof for me.

PanderMusubi commented 9 years ago

Stricly speaking, according to GTD, you should have made calendar events instead of tasks. Tasks withing GTD are typically without date/time info but can be started at any time.

jkufner commented 9 years ago

"Strictly speaking" and "GTD" in one sentence does not make sense ;)

If you use event for a task, you cannot mark it done, so you have to keep that info in your mind, but then you don't need to write the task down at all.

How do you keep track of deadlines according to GTD?

dmfs commented 9 years ago

Interesting idea. I don't mind adding an option to hide all date fields but wouldn't it be better to make it a "GTD mode" option instead? Or even better a separate app that's fully GTD optimized? We could make that an add-on to the task app that uses the same database or a standalone app that doesn't require the installation of this task app. I think certain things are easier to change if we don't need to support both "modes" (normal and GTD). However I need to read more about GTD, because I don't know to much about it.

PanderMusubi commented 9 years ago

Well, GTD leaves it up to you what software to use. One could use tasks with due dates as calendar events but that is not really where they are made for. Thunderbird offers an option to convert a task (without a date) to a calendar event (with a date), for example.

So it would help GTD but I would simply keep it as proposed: "Hide date and time functionailty" so people can use it as they want.

dmfs commented 9 years ago

ok, we'll think about that. We're planning a couple of UI/UX changes anyway and I guess some of them will already satisfy some of your requirements for GTD. The next update already brings a few styling updates. Version 1.2 will contain more UX improvements in the editor and details view.

PanderMusubi commented 9 years ago

:+1: I think also some non-GTD users would like to have a simple task list. This is a requirement found for many apps, some users want many options, others want as less as possible. A good app can cater both groups of users.

jkufner commented 9 years ago

It is more about having a good options than having a lot of options.

untitaker commented 9 years ago

I think a better/simpler way to support GTD would be to make the Tasks app provide a read-only calendar that contains tasks with its due dates.

rejhgadellaa commented 8 years ago

Maybe have a 'add date/time' button-of-sorts, like how you add a reminder in Google Calendar? That way it takes very little space by default but can be accessed right there when you need it?

PanderMusubi commented 8 years ago

GTD is very clear that datetime related stuff needs to go into your calendar. But apart from GTD – you can organise it any way you want – perhaps I should rephrase the feature request to disable datetime functionality in this tasks app, for whatever reason you want to. There are other users that for other reasons do not want to be bothered by datetime functionality (which shoudl remain in this app as the VTASK format supports it) when they are not interested in that. Is that a more generic way of requesting this?

jkufner commented 8 years ago

I use task with dates heavily and I find due date & start time as absolutely critical features.

If you want stuff with date in calendar, put it there - for example Thunderbird can show tasks in calendar views (I use it every day). No need to cripple OpenTasks.

  1. září 2016 16:15:54 CEST, Pander notifications@github.com napsal:

    GTD is very clear that datetime related stuff needs to go into your calendar. But apart from GTD – you can organise it any way you want – perhaps I should rephrase the feature request to disable datetime functionality in this tasks app, for whatever reason you want to. There are other users that for other reasons do not want to be bothered by datetime functionality (which shoudl remain in this app as the VTASK format supports it) when they are not interested in that. Is that a more generic way of requesting this?

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PanderMusubi commented 7 years ago

I support that it keeps the calendar functionality, only that certain user can choose not to have it shown in their GUI.