Repeating Tasks

I think this feature is very necessary - we all have periodic tasks to do. I think a good approach to the period selection would be to enter the length of the period in days and the start date of the task. The period should be interpreted in a clear way, e.g. the task reappears after the last day of the period, i.e. after hour 23:59. Codewise, this should be done perhaps by modifying the existing task class, or deriving from it a periodic task class, i.e. GTG should not create singular tasks for every due date.

Also, perhaps another attribute is necessary: end date. Some periodic tasks could have an end date, others repeat infinitely. Perhaps the user could be let to enter a number of desired repetitions.
This functionality can in fact go very deep - these periodic tasks could also have an amount of anticipation days (which would be like the start date of a normal task: it would determine the amount of days you have between the time you start working on a task and its due date).
Adding all this information to a task might be sometimes unnecessary and boring, so as with the normal tasks, a default behavior needs to be defined.

Wolter> this feature is hard to design to be powerful enough and simple enough to use. There were some researches how other programs implement repeated tasks but nobody start to specify how it should be done.

There are many questions to solve, for example:
  * do we use existing system (ical) or we implement just subset of features
  * how to implement that? Should we just generate tasks on the behalf or we should implement a new type of task? What about infinite tasks (every monday do....)
  * when should a task be shown? If tasks repeats every day, I want to see tasks for the next/this week, but if the tasks repeats every week just once, I don't want to see all 7 instances. How to find the right time constant for that?
  * how to set repeating for a task?
  * ...

I created the very first version of specification (spec)/blueprint there: https://live.gnome.org/gtg/blueprints/repeated_tasks

You could help writing the spec, discussing about it. If you want to learn how to write such a spec, read Spolsky's howto: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000036.html

Is this still in the making? In fact, for me, this is the biggest downside of GTG. So many things I have to do on a weekly basis, and no way of putting it in GTG.

Hi Lucas,
   Sorry but I have since moved on from using gtg. I am currently using
remember the milk.

Cheers,
Arun Tejasvi Chaganty
Sent from my mobile phone
Please excuse any brevity.
On Dec 17, 2014 9:15 PM, "Lukas Barth" <email address hidden> wrote:

> Is this still in the making? In fact, for me, this is the biggest
> downside of GTG. So many things I have to do on a weekly basis, and no
> way of putting it in GTG.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to a
> duplicate bug report (613385).
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/734622
>
> Title:
> Repeating Tasks
>
> Status in Getting Things GNOME!:
> New
>
> Bug description:
> This is a wanted feature that would complete my transition to Ubuntu.
> I'd love to be able to create repeating tasks.
>
> For example, I have a task that is "Keep up with 2011 Finances". A
> subtask for this would be "Weekly Financial Record Keeping", which I
> need to do every week. Currently, to do this, I would need to create
> 52 tasks and change the start date for each to the beginning of every
> week. This would be a pain to do manually.
>
> Another example: I have a folder where I collect new info that I need
> to read and process. I tend to do this every two weeks although I
> sometimes procrastinate it out for 3 weeks. I would need this to
> repeat 2 weeks after I completed it.
>
> For people who have tasks like this, this makes keeping task list up
> to date much easier. For people who don't need it, it can be ignored
> easily.
>
> As far as implementation goes, this can be added under the start and
> due date in the task window. You would need a repeat drop down with
> "None" (the default), "Daily", "Bi-weekly", "Weekly", "Bi-monthly",
> "monthly", "Quarterly", and "Yearly". Then you would need an option
> for "Depends on Previous Completion". An alternative would be a number
> field and a Drop down for "Days", "Weeks", "Months", "Quarters",
> "Years". You could also have an option for end date or repeat n times
> although not 100% necessary.
>
> Programatically, for non-completion dependent tasks, you could go
> ahead and create a number of tasks with start dates specific to the
> repeat option choosen. When a task is completed, you can check if it
> is a completion dependent task and create a new one if it is. If you
> only wanted to offer one of the two repeat types, I think that
> completion dependant tasks are more common and probably easier to
> program.
>
> Repeat can be refined later, but getting some sort of repeat would
> greatly improve this app.
>
> Just as a note, I was previously using Mac app, The Hit List, which is
> my basis for the repeating task explanation. Also, if you end up
> deciding against this, maybe a duplicate task option would be a good
> compromise so I could duplicate and change the start date.
>
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>