Mytasks is a command line task manager. While there are a number of such tools available today, Mytasks provides certain functionalities which I struggled to find when I was searching for a tool.
-
Linking tasks - With mytasks, you can add any number of subtasks to a given task. Although the goal of any todo list is to help finish tasks, you need some way to organize them when things get out of hand.
-
Adding information - Any number of details can be added to a given task in the form of key value pairs. Details like project, tag, parent task id, description are recognized and displayed by default. Any other details (priority, deadline etc) can be added by the user as per requirement.
-
Easy installation - This is a python based project and can be installed on any machine with Python 2.7 or higher. It takes less than a minute!
While taskwarrior would have sufficed for my requirements, I spent more time trying to install Taskwarrior in my work machine than I spent building mytasks.
Mytasks requires python 2.7 or higher. It works on Linux, OS X, and Windows (with Cygwin).
Installing and setting up mytasks is simple. After downloading the source code, create a directory to store the tasks.
mkdir ~/tasksdir
Add the following alias in ~/.bashrc.
alias tasks='python <path_to_code>/mytasks.py
--task_dir /<home_dir>/mytasks/'
Finally, run
source ~/.bashrc
There are four main functionalities provided - add, list, update, fin.
###Add### Each task in mytasks is stored in a tree structure. In other words, each task has a parent task, a dictionary containing key value pairs and a list of sub-tasks or child tasks.
To add a task, simply provide all the necessary key value pairs. No key is needed for task description. It will be stored in desc by default.
tasks add <task-description> <other properties>
Note: Any property apart from task id, parent task id , description, project name, tag name will not be displayed by the list functionality as of now, even though the key-value will be added to the task. The option to configure the display will be added in the upcoming release.
For e.g:
$ task add complete README for mytasks. project:mytasks
To view the tasks
$ tasks list
Task Id Parent Id Task Description project tag
18550 0 complete README for mytasks mytasks
Note that, the parent of each task is 0 unless specified. In other words, task 0 is the 'root' task.
$ tasks add complete usage section parent:18550
tag:documentation, sample project:mytasks
$ tasks list
Task Id Parent Id Task Description project tag
18550 0 complete README for mytasks mytasks
17031 18550 complete usage section mytasks documentation,
sample
$ tasks add grow and sell potatoes, become a millionaire project:farming tag:sample expected_issues: don't have farmland.
$ tasks list
Task Id Parent Id Task Description project tag
16378 0 grow and sell potatoes, become a farming sample
millionaire
18550 0 complete README for mytasks mytasks
17031 18550 complete usage section mytasks documentation,
sample
###List###
As shown in the previous examples, to see all tasks simply type tasks list. Currently, this command displays the task id, parent task id, task description, project, tag and the number of sub-tasks.
Options to display other properties will be provided in the next release.
The list of visible tasks can be trimmed based on two parameters.
- -f or --filters: Filter the tasks based on any property or key-value pair. Note: the default key is project. For other keys, the key name has to be provided as well.
For e.g.
$ tasks list -f mytasks
Task Id Parent Id Task Description project tag
18550 0 complete README for mytasks mytasks
17031 18550 complete usage section mytasks documentation,
sample
Or,
$ tasks list -f tag:sample
Task Id Parent Id Task Description project tag
16378 0 grow and sell potatoes, become a farming sample
millionaire
17031 18550 complete usage section mytasks documentation,
sample
- -l or --level: This can be used to specify the depth upto which the tasks should be displayed. Level 1 implies all first level tasks with parent=0.
$ tasks list -l 1
Task Id Parent Id Task Description project tag
16378 0 grow and sell potatoes, become a farming sample
millionaire
18550 0 complete README for mytasks mytasks
Similarly, level 2 includes sub-tasks (or children) of the above tasks.
$ tasks list -l 2
Task Id Parent Id Task Description project tag
16378 0 grow and sell potatoes, become a farming sample
millionaire
18550 0 complete README for mytasks mytasks
17031 18550 complete usage section mytasks documentation,
sample
###Update###
To update a task
tasks update <task_id> <updated key value pairs>
The key value pairs mentioned in this command are added to the task if they are new. Otherwise, the existing values are replaced.
For example,
$ tasks update 16378 desc:grow and sell watermelons, become a billionaire tag:big plans
$ tasks list -f farming
Task Id Parent Id Task Description project tag
16378 0 grow and sell watermelons, become a farming big plans
billionaire
###Fin###
To mark a task completed use tasks fin <task_id>
Currently, completed tasks are removed from the file as well. An option to archive finished tasks will be provided in the next release.
For example,
$ tasks fin 17031
$ tasks list
Task Id Parent Id Task Description project tag
16378 0 grow and sell watermelons, become a farming big plans
billionaire
18550 0 complete README for mytasks mytasks
This project is heavily inspired by sjl/t.
This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details