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Paul Beckingham
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TUTORIAL
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TUTORIAL
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Task program tutorial, for version 0.9.0
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----------------------------------------
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This guide shows how to quickly set up the task program, and become proficient
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with it.
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Quick Setup
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-----------
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Build the task program according to the directions in the INSTALL file. This
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transcript illustrates a typical installation:
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% ls
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task-0.9.0.tar.gz
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% gunzip task-0.9.0.tar.gz
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% tar xf task-0.9.0.tar
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% cd task-0.9.0
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% ./configure
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...
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% make
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...
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% make install
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You need to make sure that the installed task program is in your PATH
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environment variable. The next step is to create a configuration file for the
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task program. This file resides in your home directory, is called .taskrc, and
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contains various configuration settings. Use the provided SAMPLE_taskrc file
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as a starting point for your own:
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% cp SAMPLE_taskrc ~/.taskrc
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% mkdir ~/.task
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Your .taskrc files contains an entry that points to the .task directory
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belonging to user bob. Change this entry to point to your own home directory,
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and the .task directory you just created. Your task program is now ready to
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use. Verify that task is properly installed with:
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% task version
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[show sample output]
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Simple Usage
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------------
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Let us begin by adding some tasks:
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% task add Book plane ticket
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% task add Rent a tux
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% task add Reserve a rental car
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% task add Reserve a hotel room
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That's it. You'll notice immediately that task has a very minimalist
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interface. Let us take a look at those tasks:
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% task ls
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ID Project Pri Description
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1 Book plane ticket
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2 Rent a tux
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3 Reserve a rental car
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4 Send John a birthday card
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The 'ls' command provides the most minimal list of tasks. Each task has been
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given an id number, and you can see that there are no projects or priorities
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assigned. Wait a minute - I own a tux, I don't need to rent one. Let us delete
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task 2:
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% task 2 delete
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Permanently delete task? (y/n) y
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Task wants you to confirm deletions. To remove the confirmation, edit your
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.taskrc file and remove the line:
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confirmation=yes
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or change the yes to no.
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While projects and priorities are not necessary, they can be very useful when
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the list of tasks grows large. Let's assign a project to these tasks:
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% task 1 project:Wedding
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% task 3 project:Wedding
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% task 4 project:Family
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% task ls
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ID Project Pri Description
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3 Family Send John a birthday card
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2 Wedding Reserve a rental car
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1 Wedding Book plane ticket
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Notice that the id numbers have changed. When tasks get deleted, or have their
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attributes changed (project, for example), the ids are prone to change. But the
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id numbers will remain valid until the next 'ls' command is run. You should
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only use the ids from the most recent 'ls' command.
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Now that projects are assigned, we can look at just the Wedding project tasks:
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% task ls project:Wedding
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ID Project Pri Description
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1 Wedding Book plane ticket
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2 Wedding Reserve a rental car
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Any command arguments after the 'ls' are used for filtering the output. We
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could also have requested:
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% task ls ticket plane
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ID Project Pri Description
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1 Wedding Book plane ticket
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Now let's prioritize. Priorities can be H, M or L (High, Medium, Low).
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% task ls
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ID Project Pri Description
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3 Family Send John a birthday card
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2 Wedding Reserve a rental car
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1 Wedding Book plane ticket
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% task 1 priority:H
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% task 2 prior:M
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% task 3 pr:H
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Ambiguous attribute 'pr' - could be either of project, priority
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% task 3 pri:H
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% task ls
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ID Project Pri Description
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3 Family H Send John a birthday card
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1 Wedding H Book plane ticket
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2 Wedding M Reserve a rental car
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Notice that task supports the abbreviation of words such as priority, project.
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Priority can be abbreviated to pri, but not pr, because it is ambiguous. Now
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that tasks have been prioritized, you can see that the tasks are being sorted
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by priority, with the highest priority tasks at the top.
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The 'ls' command provides the least information for each task. The 'list'
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command provides more:
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% task list
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ID Project Pri Due Active Age Description
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3 Family H 4 mins Send John a birthday card
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1 Wedding H 5 mins Book plane ticket
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2 Wedding M 5 mins Reserve a rental car
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Notice that task can have a due date, and can be active. The task lists are
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sorted by due date, then priority. Let's add due dates:
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% task 3 due:3/25/2008
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% task 1 due:5/31/2008
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% task list
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ID Project Pri Due Active Age Description
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3 Family H 3/25/2008 6 mins Send John a birthday card
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1 Wedding H 5/31/2008 7 mins Book plane ticket
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2 Wedding M 7 mins Reserve a rental car
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If today's date is 3/23/2008, then task 3 is due in 2 days. It will be colored
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yellow if your terminal supports color. To change this color, edit your
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.taskrc file, and change the line to one of these alternatives:
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color.due=<foreground color> on <background color>
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color.due=<foreground color>
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color.due=on <background color>
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Where color is one of:
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black
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blue
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red
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green
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cyan
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magenta
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yellow
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white
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All colors are specified in this way. Take a look in .taskrc for all the other
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colors you control.
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Advanced Use
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------------
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Commands:
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- task add
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- task list
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- task long
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- task ls
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- task done
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- task completed
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- task delete
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- task start
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- task summary
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- task history
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- task next
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- task <modify>
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- task /from/to/
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- task projects
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- task tags
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- task info
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- task active
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- task overdue
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- task calendar
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- task stats
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- task usage
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- task export
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- task version
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Interacting with the Shell
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--------------------------
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- Escaping shell metacharacters
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