Advanced task options

[n0x32schneider]

I would like to propose (and would also contribute to it) advanced options for tasks.

I would like to use the tool not entirely for productive work like coding, but also to allocate time for other activities.

E.g. practice musical instruments (this does not count as a scheduled break), clean a room, etc.
These kind of activities should be done regularily, but not at fixed time slots, or in a specific order.

Adding advanced task options, that give the ability to define task lists (and in accordance introduce time slots that can be used for these kind of tasks), and assign a daily/weekly/monthly quota to each task would solve this.

With this feature, things like deadlines for tasks could be implemented aswell. Or suggestive scheduling for tasks, to prioritize different things at different times (based on criteria like deadlines, time of the day, personal preference of a task).

Would this suggestion be in accordance with the general idea of the project?

[Hanziness]

Thank you very much for the feedback! I think that adding more functionality to the task list is certainly a great idea, but I also think that only a subset of what you proposed could be implemented.

The main reason is that I rather think of this app as something that one can open anywhere and quickly add one or two tasks if that helps them instead of being a full-blown task management solution. This is due to the fact that is that there is no back-end (and thus no log-in and server to store data) for the app, so switching browsers/devices (or just clearing the browsing data) would erase data that might have took at least 10-20 minutes to build up (with setting deadlines, defining multiple task lists etc.). The result (in my opinion) is that people would probably not use these advanced features due to the risk of losing so much work - this is a limitation of the app running only in the browser.

I think the task list is something to keep short-term goals in, so making it relatively feature-less and thus quick, accessible and easy to use makes more sense than building something along the lines of a Freedcamp or Trello.

Still, I think some of the things you proposed could be added to the project. The task list is quite basic at the moment. Previously, it had manually adjustable priorities and the tasks had an additional "description" field. While priorities were replaced by manual drag-and-drop, some more features could certainly be added (like deadlines and reordering based on those deadlines?). I'll have to think about it 🙂

[n0x32schneider]

Sounds good. Deadlines (and maybe a few algorithms for the smart ordering), I would help/implement them, in case you want the feature.

Would you think it is feasible to add (optional) persistent data at any point? I am self-hosting the app for example, and I would greatly benefit from a backend that could handle data storage.
To keep it transparent, it could be a feature that can be excluded for the server-side, and would have to be specifically activated by the user in the GUI, should the option exist.

[Hanziness]

I think these two sound great, I'd greatly appreciate your help with them.

A back end for the app is currently very much out of sight. The app was designed to be client-only for multiple reasons:

1. It was designed for intra-day use (i.e. for tracking small tasks for the current day, not for tracking tasks across multiple days and weeks - there are much better task management solutions for that)
2. Setting up a back-end increases the complexity of the app by a lot (it needs a lot of setup work, it would require authentication, a proper way to sync etc.)
3. Costs versus income. The app is free. It does not generate any revenue for me as it is still a small project and people generally won't pay for something that's already available for free. Hosting the web app is free on Netlify, but a back-end would make the app more costly for me - which is kind of counter-intuitive as I've put a lot of work into it and as of now it only generated loss. This is the curse of free and open-source software development.

Because of all these, it's highly unlikely that there will be an option for a dedicated back-end and I'm not planning on making the app paid or introducing features that are behind paywalls. One possibility would be to introduce a subscription-based back-end access (where people pay a tiny amount for cross-browser sync), but I'd first want to expand on the current features and improve the app, perhaps spread it as a PWA into app stores, and then think about this.