Chucky Eggs Nested Tasks

[Guest All-Purpose Guru]

BTW, I should reiterate-- this app ROCKS. It does EXACTLY what I need, and works almost flawlessly.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

[Guest chucky.egg]

Thanks for the sample, I see what you mean.

Let me have some time to play with it, but in principal it should work. I like the idea, and it is something I wanted (having reset my own device and had to re-nest everything) so I'll see what I can do.

this app ROCKS. It does EXACTLY what I need, and works almost flawlessly.

Thanks for that, much appreciated, but what do you mean "almost" flawlessly?

Aside from re-structuring have you had any issues/errors that I've missed?

[Guest Doublevision]

Hopefully it's an easy fix. I love this app; it's a cornerstone of how I get things done.

I use this app as a main part of my GTD (Getting Things Done) methodology-- I was bemoaning the fact that "all I want is my tasks to appear in a heirarchy" and poof, there your app was. (Actually, I heard about it on the Modaco podcast.)

I use Nested Tasks to show the heirarchy of projects (in GTD, any task with more than one step is a "project", which I create in a heirarchy in Nested Tasks) and the "Next Task" (which is the one thing that you have to do next) is the ONLY task in that heirarchy that is set to "High Priority".

Firstly, Chucky Egg, this application is superb, especially as it continues to work with Exchange. So thanks.

Two points/suggestions

1. As mentioned in the quoted, making use of this app for GTD is really useful. I have an idea for another application which allows emails to be converted straight into tasks thus keeping the inbox free of tasks. Maybe this could be part of your further development!?

Not going to double post so see http://www.modaco.com/content/pocket-pc-software/271123/gtd-idea-looking-for-software-to-convert-email-straight-to-task/

2. Can the link that appears on the Windows Mobile homepage for 'Tasks' point straight at your app rather than the standard application? i suspect this needs a registry change but have been unable to find a generic method. Maybe it could be an option for your nested task?!

Thanks again! :D

[Guest BruceT]

I have found this extremely useful since I found this application. Thanks very much for this. Just a few questions/comments:

1. Is there any way to order tasks other than alphabetically? I have ended up adding "1" "2" or "z" in front of tasks in order to provide this, but it is of course a hack.

2. It takes quite a few clicks in order to move a task into a "folder". Menu->Navigate to Cut->Enter->Navigate to Folder->Menu->Navigate to Paste->Enter->Navigate to "Here"->Enter. (There are six clicks with using the touch screen, but my fat thumbs always click the wrong thing on these small menus.)

Maybe you could add a "Move to..." menu item that would have a list of all "folders" (tasks which already have sub-tasks). This could look like:

Move to...

-> Shopping

-> Housework

-> Books to Buy

-> Root

This optimizes the case of adding a new item to an existing "folder". The case of changing a Task into a Folder could use the existing method, but this is probably less common.

3. It would be nice if a Refresh happened after renaming an task, to re-sort the items based on the new name.

4. It would be very nice if it would remember which nested tasks were expanded versus collapsed on start and after refresh. The existing options allow all to be collapsed or all to be expanded, but remembering the previous state would be much better.

Thanks for this great application!

-Bruce

[Guest chucky.egg]

I'm afraid I'm not developing this app any more - I moved to Symbian a few weeks back, so I'm not using WM (for the moment at least), and I don't have any spare time to continue improving it.

1. It could work that way, at the moment it's just the order that items get entered into the PIM database
   
2. Yeah, I agree - too many taps. There's no reason why you couldn't have a context menu to list the existing Parent tasks
   
3. Refresh should happen automatically as you change the item as long as you make the change thru Nested Tasks (changes through sync'ing or through the built-in Tasks app don't get spotted until a refresh)
   
4. Remembering the previous state would require some way of recording that, and (for my money) one of the strengths of the app was that it didn't have any external references. It could be recorded in Categories or something, but not all of the PC Outlook fields exist in the WM PIM database
   

The previous suggestions also included a way of recording each Tasks "Own ID" and "Parent ID", so that it could automatically detect and repair broken nesting, but my feeling was that this further mangled the Categories view in PC Outlook. I was planning to re-develop it to use text in the Task body instead of the Category field to record this. That would have been quite a big job though and I never got around to it.

I was given a licence for Visual Studio by Paul and MS, so Nested Tasks was something that I wanted but also a way of me putting something back into the community.

What I'll do (when I get a chance) is ZIP up the code and post it here so anyone that wants to can continue developing it. You'll have to bear in mind that I'm a hobbyist developer, not a programmer by trade, so the code isn't too pretty!

[Guest BruceT]

What I'll do (when I get a chance) is ZIP up the code and post it here so anyone that wants to can continue developing it. You'll have to bear in mind that I'm a hobbyist developer, not a programmer by trade, so the code isn't too pretty!

I'm still highly reliant on Nested Tasks and was thinking I could take a look and see how difficult a few tweaks would be. Are you still willing to post the code?

Thanks!

-Bruce

[Guest chucky.egg]

Hi Bruce

Sorry, I don't come here often any more, but I will try and post the code (depending upon size!) so you - or anyone else - can do with it what you will. I'll have a look at it tonight.

I should reiterate that I am not a "proper" developer, so the code works, but might look fugly to a professional/experienced eye.

[Guest chucky.egg]

hi folks, sorry for the delay.

Attached is a ZIP of the source code for Nested Tasks (incl the settings app)

it was written in C# VS2005

Feel free to develop it for your own use, or for the community. You may also use this code as the basis for a commercial application, if you're really that desperate!

Enjoy

Chucky

Nested_Tasks_source_code.zip

[Guest BruceT]

I have added support for a couple of the suggestions I had in comment #54, namely a new "Move To..." menu and support for reordering (refreshing) after certain operations, such as cut/paste.

(I should say that I have never programmed in C# or for any Windows versions, or for mobile devices, or UIs or packaged cabs, etc., so hopefully I haven't messed anything up!)

I'm hoping to add support for remembering which folders are collapsed, and having some way of supporting ordering other than alphabetical, but it will have to be in the next ~85 days or so before my 90 day Visual Studio trial license expires!

Thanks Chucky.egg for posting the source code. I can upload my changes if anyone wants them.

-Bruce

NestedTasks.CAB

[Guest chucky.egg]

Ah, bless.

Nested Tasks lives on.

I'm glad