task

Tasks - Compound Microformat

Initial draft

Purpose

The Problem: Currently there is no extensible hypertext format for creating, exporting, and sharing project TASKS. Tasks and ToDo items are typically handled by proprietary desktop software clients like mail programs and calendar applications that are not:

• open to the web development community
• extensible for future usage scenarios
• interoperable between applications
• portable between systems
• accessible for persons with disabilities

Participants

• Walter Stevenson

Examples

The following examples demonstrate the ways in which people currently assign tasks, on- and off-line:

Web Based Task Management

• BaseCamp ToDos
• Remember the Milk Beta
• Sourceforge TaskCoach
• Microsoft Outlook Tasks and SharePoint
• Trimpath ToDo Manager
• TaskFreak Task Manager
• GotoCode Task Manager

Desktop Task Management

• Microsoft Project
• Mac Mail ToDos
• Mozilla Thunderbird Calendaring Extension: Lightning
• The Omni Group OmniPlan

Vision

To create a fully-functional Task Microformat for 1) open use in home-grown clients, widgets and applications and 2) adopted for integration with existing software applications such as Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, Mac Mail, and other popular programs.

Previous Formats

The Task Microformat may be based loosely on elements found in the VTODO spec. VTODO is part of the RFC2445 iCalendar spec used for describing task items. VTODO is fairly straight-forward, as it doesn't contain any nested entities, and has a fairly small list of properties. Most of these it shares with VEVENT, suggesting a Task Microformat be modeled on hevent in hcalendar, and the ground assumption is that htodo should work just like hevent with respect to these properties. The shared properties in this case might include:

class, created, description, dtstamp, dtstart, geo, last-mod, location, organizer, priority, recurid, seq, statusm summary, uid, url, duration, attach, attendee, categories, comment, contact, exdate, exrule, rstatus, related, resources, rdate, rrule, x-prop

The unique properties of the existing VTODO format are:

• completed The date/time the todo was completed
• due The date/time this todo is due
• percent Integer from 0-100, completion status

As the data types for completed and due are the same as, e.g., dtstart, then the usage should be the same. For example,

<abbr class="due" title="2007-01-01T13:10:05.0Z">January 1, 2007</abbr>

Model Implementation (Code Snippet)

<form id="form1" name="form1" method="post" action=""> 
			<h2> Assign Task</h2> 
		  <p> 
			<label> <strong> Title:</strong>  
					<input type="text" name="textfield" /> 
			</label> 
		  </p> 
			<p> 
				<label class="priority"> <strong> Priority:</strong> 
					<select name="select7"> 
						<option value="Low"> Low</option> 
						<option value="Medium" selected="selected"> Medium</option> 
						<option value="High"> High</option> 
					</select> 
				</label> 
		  </p> 
			<p> 
				<label class="dtend"> <strong> Due date:</strong>  
					<br /> 
					<input name="radiobutton" type="radio" value="radiobutton" checked="checked" /> 
					<select name="select"> 
						<option value="January" selected> January</option> 
						<option value="February"> February</option> 
						<option value="March"> March</option> 
						<option value="April"> April</option> 
						<option value="May"> May</option> 
						<option value="June"> June</option> 
						<option value="July"> July</option> 
						<option value="August"> August</option> 
						<option value="September"> September</option> 
						<option value="October"> October</option> 
						<option value="November"> November</option> 
						<option value="December"> December</option> 
					</select> 
				</label> 
				<label> 
					<select name="select2"> 
						<option value="01"> 01</option> 
						<option value="02"> 02</option> 
						<option value="03"> 03</option> 
						<option value="04"> 04</option> 
						<option value="05"> 05</option> 
						<option value="06"> 06</option> 
						<option value="07"> 07</option> 
						<option value="08"> 08</option> 
						<option value="09"> 09</option> 
						<option value="10"> 10</option> 
						<option value="11"> 11</option> 
						<option value="12"> 12</option> 
						<option value="13"> 13</option> 
						<option value="14"> 14</option> 
						<option value="15"> 15</option> 
						<option value="16"> 16</option> 
						<option value="17"> 17</option> 
						<option value="18"> 18</option> 
						<option value="19"> 19</option> 
						<option value="20"> 20</option> 
						<option value="21"> 21</option> 
						<option value="22"> 22</option> 
						<option value="23"> 23</option> 
						<option value="24"> 24</option> 
						<option value="25"> 25</option> 
						<option value="26"> 26</option> 
						<option value="27"> 27</option> 
						<option value="28"> 28</option> 
						<option value="29"> 29</option> 
						<option value="30"> 30</option> 
						<option value="31"> 31</option> 
					</select> 
				</label> 
				<label> 
					<select name="select3"> 
						<option value="2007"> 2007</option> 
						<option value="2008"> 2008</option> 
						<option value="2009"> 2009</option> 
						<option value="2010"> 2010</option> 
					</select> 
				</label> 
			</p> 
			<p> 
				<label class="rrule"> 
					<input name="radiobutton" type="radio" value="radiobutton" /> 
					Recurs: 
				</label> 
				<label class="freq"> 
					<select name="select9"> 
						<option value="Daily" selected="selected"> Daily</option> 
						<option value="Weekly"> Weekly</option> 
						<option value="Monthly"> Monthly</option> 
						<option value="Annually"> Annually</option> 
					</select> 
				</label> 
				<label> At:  
					<select name="select10"> 
					  <option value="Early morning"> Before 7AM</option> 
					  <option value="7:00 AM"> 7:00 AM</option> 
					  <option value="8:00 AM"> 8:00 AM</option> 
					  <option value="9:00 AM" selected> 9:00 AM</option> 
					  <option value="10:00 AM"> 10:00 AM</option> 
					  <option value="11:00 AM"> 11:00 AM</option> 
					  <option value="12:00 PM"> 12:00 PM</option> 
					  <option value="1:00 PM"> 1:00 PM</option> 
					  <option value="2:00 PM"> 2:00 PM</option> 
					  <option value="3:00 PM"> 3:00 PM</option> 
					  <option value="4:00 PM"> 4:00 PM</option> 
					  <option value="5:00 PM"> 5:00 PM</option> 
					  <option value="6:00 PM"> 6:00 PM</option> 
					  <option value="7:00 PM"> 7:00 PM</option> 
					  <option value="Late night"> After 7PM</option> 
					</select> 
				</label> 
			</p> 
			<p> 
				<label> <strong> Start date:</strong>  
					<input name="radiobutton" type="radio" value="radiobutton" checked="checked" /> Today
					<input name="radiobutton" type="radio" value="radiobutton" /> 
					<span class="dtend"> 
					<select name="select11"> 
                      <option value="January" selected> January</option> 
                      <option value="February"> February</option> 
                      <option value="March"> March</option> 
                      <option value="April"> April</option> 
                      <option value="May"> May</option> 
                      <option value="June"> June</option> 
                      <option value="July"> July</option> 
                      <option value="August"> August</option> 
                      <option value="September"> September</option> 
                      <option value="October"> October</option> 
                      <option value="November"> November</option> 
                      <option value="December"> December</option> 
                                                            </select> 
					</span> 
					<select name="select13"> 
                      <option value="01"> 01</option> 
                      <option value="02"> 02</option> 
                      <option value="03"> 03</option> 
                      <option value="04"> 04</option> 
                      <option value="05"> 05</option> 
                      <option value="06"> 06</option> 
                      <option value="07"> 07</option> 
                      <option value="08"> 08</option> 
                      <option value="09"> 09</option> 
                      <option value="10"> 10</option> 
                      <option value="11"> 11</option> 
                      <option value="12"> 12</option> 
                      <option value="13"> 13</option> 
                      <option value="14"> 14</option> 
                      <option value="15"> 15</option> 
                      <option value="16"> 16</option> 
                      <option value="17"> 17</option> 
                      <option value="18"> 18</option> 
                      <option value="19"> 19</option> 
                      <option value="20"> 20</option> 
                      <option value="21"> 21</option> 
                      <option value="22"> 22</option> 
                      <option value="23"> 23</option> 
                      <option value="24"> 24</option> 
                      <option value="25"> 25</option> 
                      <option value="26"> 26</option> 
                      <option value="27"> 27</option> 
                      <option value="28"> 28</option> 
                      <option value="29"> 29</option> 
                      <option value="30"> 30</option> 
                      <option value="31"> 31</option> 
                    </select> 
					<select name="select4"> 
                      <option value="2007"> 2007</option> 
                      <option value="2008"> 2008</option> 
                      <option value="2009"> 2009</option> 
                      <option value="2010"> 2010</option> 
                    </select> 
			  </label> 
			</p> 
			<p> 
				<label class="dtrem"> 
					<input type="checkbox" name="checkbox" value="checkbox" /> 
					<strong> Alarm:</strong> 
					<select name="select12"> 
                      <option value="January" selected> January</option> 
                      <option value="February"> February</option> 
                      <option value="March"> March</option> 
                      <option value="April"> April</option> 
                      <option value="May"> May</option> 
                      <option value="June"> June</option> 
                      <option value="July"> July</option> 
                      <option value="August"> August</option> 
                      <option value="September"> September</option> 
                      <option value="October"> October</option> 
                      <option value="November"> November</option> 
                      <option value="December"> December</option> 
                    </select> 
					<select name="select14"> 
                      <option value="01"> 01</option> 
                      <option value="02"> 02</option> 
                      <option value="03"> 03</option> 
                      <option value="04"> 04</option> 
                      <option value="05"> 05</option> 
                      <option value="06"> 06</option> 
                      <option value="07"> 07</option> 
                      <option value="08"> 08</option> 
                      <option value="09"> 09</option> 
                      <option value="10"> 10</option> 
                      <option value="11"> 11</option> 
                      <option value="12"> 12</option> 
                      <option value="13"> 13</option> 
                      <option value="14"> 14</option> 
                      <option value="15"> 15</option> 
                      <option value="16"> 16</option> 
                      <option value="17"> 17</option> 
                      <option value="18"> 18</option> 
                      <option value="19"> 19</option> 
                      <option value="20"> 20</option> 
                      <option value="21"> 21</option> 
                      <option value="22"> 22</option> 
                      <option value="23"> 23</option> 
                      <option value="24"> 24</option> 
                      <option value="25"> 25</option> 
                      <option value="26"> 26</option> 
                      <option value="27"> 27</option> 
                      <option value="28"> 28</option> 
                      <option value="29"> 29</option> 
                      <option value="30"> 30</option> 
                      <option value="31"> 31</option> 
                    </select> 
					<select name="select5"> 
                      <option value="2007"> 2007</option> 
                      <option value="2008"> 2008</option> 
                      <option value="2009"> 2009</option> 
                      <option value="2010"> 2010</option> 
                    </select> 
					<select name="select6"> 
                      <option value="Early morning"> Before 7AM</option> 
                      <option value="7:00 AM"> 7:00 AM</option> 
                      <option value="8:00 AM"> 8:00 AM</option> 
                      <option value="9:00 AM" selected> 9:00 AM</option> 
                      <option value="10:00 AM"> 10:00 AM</option> 
                      <option value="11:00 AM"> 11:00 AM</option> 
                      <option value="12:00 PM"> 12:00 PM</option> 
                      <option value="1:00 PM"> 1:00 PM</option> 
                      <option value="2:00 PM"> 2:00 PM</option> 
                      <option value="3:00 PM"> 3:00 PM</option> 
                      <option value="4:00 PM"> 4:00 PM</option> 
                      <option value="5:00 PM"> 5:00 PM</option> 
                      <option value="6:00 PM"> 6:00 PM</option> 
                      <option value="7:00 PM"> 7:00 PM</option> 
                      <option value="Late night"> After 7PM</option> 
                    </select> 
			  </label> 
			</p> 
			<p> 
				<label class="fn"> <strong> Assigned to:</strong> 
					<input type="text" name="textfield2" /> 
				</label>  
			</p> 
			<p> 
				<label class="cc"> <strong> Send a copy to:</strong>  
					<input type="text" name="textfield22" /> 
				</label> 
			</p> 
		  <p> 
			<label class="enclosure"> <strong> Associate a file URI:</strong> 
			<input type="text" name="textfield222" /> 
			</label> 
			<label rel="enclosure"> </label> 
		  </p> 
			<p> 
			<label class="summary"> <strong> Summary:</strong>  
			<textarea name="textarea"> </textarea> 
			</label> 
			</p> 
			<p> 
			<input type="submit" name="Submit3" value="Save and Close" /> 
			</p> 
			<hr  /> 
			<h3> Advanced Options:</h3> 
			<p>  
			<label class="status"> <strong> Status:</strong> 
				<select name="select8"> 
					<option value="Active" selected="selected"> Active</option> 
					<option value="Disabled"> Disabled</option> 
					<option value="Complete"> Complete</option> 
				</select> 
			</label> 
			</p> 
			<p> 
				<label class="privacy"> <strong> Privacy:</strong>  
					<input name="radiobutton" type="radio" value="radiobutton" checked="checked" />  Public</label> 
				<label class="privacy"> 
					<input name="radiobutton" type="radio" value="radiobutton" />  Private
				</label> 
			</p> 
			<p> 
				<label class="category"> <strong> Category:</strong> 
					<input type="text" name="textfield3" /> 
				</label> 
			</p> 
			<p> 
				<label rel="meta"> <strong> Tags:</strong> 
					<input type="text" name="textfield4" /> 
				</label> 
			</p> 
			<p> 
				<label rel="org"> <strong> Group / Team :</strong> 
					<input type="text" name="textfield32" /> 
				</label> 
			</p> 
			<p> 
				<label rel="par"> <strong> Parent Task URI:</strong> 
				  <input type="text" name="textfield6" /> 
				</label> 
			</p> 
			<p> 
				<label rel="dep"> <strong> Dependency Task (Critical Path) URI:</strong> 
					<input type="text" name="textfield7" /> 
				</label> 
			</p> 
			<p> 
				<input type="submit" name="Submit32" value="Save and Close" /> 
				<!-- Submit button must dynamically assign orignator, timezone, creation date, duration, 0% progress, etc. --> 
			<br /> 
			</p> 
		</form> 

See Also / Next Steps

To see the rendered output of the code above or to collaborate on the draft proposal, go to: activemechanics.com/resources/hTask