New and Noteworthy





  • Tasktop Beta 2008



      If you have 5 minutes, help evolve the Tasktop by filling out a quick survey.

0.9.3

2008-01-22

  • Web Search Improvements

    Although the Tasktop minimizes the need to search the web once you've located interesting sites, searching the web is still still part of our daily lives. This release of Tasktop includes a few enhancements to the Web Search:

    • You can now select your default search engine right within the search selection popup. Open the popup by clicking the search engine icon to the right of the search text box. In the top right of the launch popup you will see a combo box from which you can choose your default search engine. This engine will be used as the default when a search is launched.

      Tip: Temporarily search using an alternate search engine, Wikipedia for example, by clicking the search engine icon and choosing Wikipedia from the popup. Execute this same search but using a keyboard shortcut by pressing Right-Arrow, w, Enter. To add your own engines to this list of available engines, click the Configure link at the bottom of the popup.

    • To execute a search you can now either click the new magnifying glass rendered within the search text box or press enter.

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  • New Document Creation

    Once your document folders are linked into the Tasktop's Navigator view, they are accessible and can become part of your task contexts.  Now you can easily create Office documents within linked folders by right clicking on the desired folder, choosing the New option, and selecting from one of the available document types. When you create a document within a linked folder through another application, for example when saving an email attachment or creating a new document in Word, Tasktop will notice this new file adding it to your context. Instead of having to re-locate the document in your files system, it is immediately accessible via Tasktop's Navigator view.

  • Agenda

    The Agenda popup is a compact overview of your tasks for the week drawn from your Task List, Google, and Outlook calendar events. To open the Agenda popup, click the button or associated hyperlink in the lower right corner of the Tasktop application window. Along with the scheduled tasks, the popup also includes an interactive calendar to aid planning. Use the links provided on the right column of the popup to open your Google or Outlook calendars within Tasktop. You can click Refresh Events to manually initiate refresh of the calendar information and pressing Configure will open the Configuration Perspective containing a number of views for customizing Tasktop including setup of Calendar Synchronization. To view your agenda in further detail, press the Show All button in the lower left corner of the popup to reveal This Week's Events page.

  • Configuration Perspective

    When configuring Tasktop, there is no need to pollute your working perspective with multiple configuration views. Simply open the Configuration Perspective via the Help (menu) > Configure Tasktop and configure your Tasktop all from within this single perspective. It includes three different views, the Task Repositories view for adding shared task repositories, Calendars view for configuring synchronization of your tasks with Google and Outlook calendars, and the Web Applications view for configuring your default web applications. When done with configuration, return to your previous perspective by pressing the Close Configuration button located in the top right corner of the window.

  • Embedded Calendars

    You can easily view and modify Google and Outlook calendars without leaving Tasktop. Calendars can be configured via the Configuration Perspective to synchronize events to and/or from your Google and Outlook calendars. Tasks within your Task List can be synchronized to calendars based on scheduled or due dates. Setting a date on a task will result in the task appearing in your calendar. Easily reschedule tasks in your chosen calendar and Tasktop will propagate these changes to your Task List for you.

    • Google calendar within Tasktop
    • Outlook calendar within Tasktop

  • This Week's Events

    Get a better view of the events scheduled for this week and beyond.  From the Agenda popup, press the See More... link to open the This Week's Events page.

  • Time Tracking

    When you have a task active, Tasktop will track the exact time you spend within Tasktop and the time spent working in applications outside of Tasktop. To view the time spent on a task, open the task editor and select the Planning tab. Under the Personal Planning section, the time spent working on the task is presented under the "Active" time. To make the time spent on a task more visible in Tasktop, enable the task timing and progress bar via Window (menu) > Preferences > Tasktop > Time Tracking. Once enabled, look for the timing progress widget in the lower right corner of Tasktop: . Once you activate a task and begin to work, the hours and minutes you spend working will be reported here backed by a green progress bar: . The green progress bar grow from left to right until the time you have spent exceeds the estimate time set within the Personal Planning section of the Planning editor. Once you have exceeded your estimate, a red bar will begin to grow from right to left indicating the proportion of time spent over the estimated time:

  • Feature Overview

    The Feature Overview has been updated and now includes a a Web Links section for one click access to this New & Noteworthy page, the Tasktop survey, and our privacy policy. Additionally, when your Tasktop trial is about to expire, you will receive a warning indicating the number of days remaining in the trial along with a link to purchase a Tasktop subscription. Note that your 30 day trial period will not take effect until after Tasktop 1.0 is released. The feature descriptions have also been updated so be sure to click and explore the Feature Overview.

  • Toolbar and Menus

    A number of toolbar and menus improvements have been made including:

    • The Tasktop toolbar now includes a button for launching new email creation using your default email client
    • The help menu of the Tasktop application has been updated and simplified.
    • The Tasktop toolbar has been updated so that the perspective switcher is no longer needed by default. If you use multiple perspectives, you can re-enable them via Window (menu) > Preferences > Tasktop, under Advanced on this preference page. Note that enabling the perspective switcher will require a restart of Tasktop. Additionally, the icons representing the Tasktop, and Configuration perspectives have been updated:

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0.9.2

2008-01-07

  • Partner Connectors

    Tasktop now makes it easier than ever to install connectors for some of the industry's leading task repositories including JIRA, CollabNet Enterprise Edition, and Rally. With Tasktop's new installation technology, partner connector install is now effortless. In addition, each connector is tested to work with the supported version of Tasktop and Eclipse, saving you the time and configuration debugging that can result from manual installation.

    To install a partner connector, click on the button in the main toolbar to open the Feature Overview and select the Partner Connectors tab. Each partner connector has the option to install, create an account, or find out more about the partner connector via their web site. To install, simply click the install hyperlink. After accepting the license agreement the partner connector will be installed. It is that simple.

  • Browser password management

    Tasktop's web browser now provides simple password management to ensure that you don't need to repeatedly enter login credentials for protected sites. When logging into a new website, Tasktop will ask if you would like to save your credentials. On subsequent visits, Tasktop will automatically enter in your previously saved credentials.  When multiple accounts exist for the same web site, Tasktop will prompt you to choose which account to use.

  • Auto update

    Tasktop will now automatically install updates weekly if available. This functionality can be disabled on the Tasktop preferences page: Window > Preferences > Tasktop. To manually initiate a Tasktop update, open the Tasktop Feature Overview page via Help (menu) > Tasktop Feature Overview and under the Services section press the Tasktop Updates hyperlink.

  • Mylyn update

    This version of Tasktop includes Mylyn 2.2, which provides numerous task management benefits. The most dramatic of these is the redesign of the Archive category in the Task List. Additionally the presentation of popup notifications has been improved. To find out more please see the Mylyn 2.2 New and Noteworthy.

  • Mylyn update

    With this release many of the Tasktop graphics including icons, and splash screen have been updated. Tasktop application users will need to download and install Tasktop 0.9.2 from tasktop.com to see the new splash screen (vs. using the update mechanism).

    Tasktop application icon as it appears on your desktop and system tray. Double click to start Tasktop.
    Focused Tasktop web browser window. Upon pressing a new browser window will open that is monitored by the active task. When a task is active and this browser window is used the pages visited become part of the task context.
    Unfocused Tasktop web browser window. Upon pressing a new browser window will open that is not monitored by the active task. All browsing activity that takes place in the unfocused browser window is not retained by tasks, active or otherwise.

  • The new Tasktop splash screen themed for the winter release.

0.9.1

2007-12-17

  • Eclipse 3.4M4 Support

    Tasktop for Eclipse (plug-ins only) are now available for Eclipse 3.4M4. To enable the 3.4M4 plug-ins update site visit https://tasktop.com/support/download/ and click the download for Eclipse hyperlink. On the license acceptance page that follows you will be given the option to choose between Eclipse 3.3 and 3.4. Choose the 3.4 option for an update site that is 3.4M4 ready.

  • Search from location bar

    The location bar of any browser tab in Tasktop now supports entering search text.

    Upon entering search terms in the location bar, pressing enter will result in execution of your search with your default search engine (configurable via Windows > Preferences... > Tasktop > Web Browsing).

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  • Close Configuration

    To facilitate returning to the previous perspective after activation of the Tasktop configuration perspective (i.e. via Web Launch configuration option), the Web Launch trim area now offers a Close Configuration button. Pressing this button will revert the Tasktop back to your previous perspective.

  • Search File Contents

    In the 0.9.0 new and noteworthy (below) we told you all about fast finding within the Navigator and that you can launch file content search by pressing the button. Now when pressing this button, the text already entered in the Navigator's Find field is placed in the File Content Search dialog for you - one less step for you when trying to find files.


0.9.0

2007-12-03

  • Find in Navigator

    To get started bring files into your task context, the Find facility is a great option but until now performance has been average. A lot of work has gone into improving the Navigator's find performance this release and we are sure you will agree - it is incredibly fast! In addition to performance improvements you will see a new button appear after finding. If you don't immediately see the file you are searching for, pressing this button will reveal files more deeply nested in your file system that mach the search criteria.

    To search based on file contents, press the button now accessible from the Navigator view.

  • Working sets

    Task working set support has been available in Mylyn for a while now and has found favour with many developers. For those whose work week spans multiple organizational units, working sets help further focus the ui and minimizes information overload. Working sets allow grouping of task and resource containers together. Switching working sets exposes only the content in the working set, excluding all others from views such as the Task List and Package Explorer. Below you can see the user has created three working sets Mylyn, Personal, and Tasktop. Press the working set drop down button to create, edit, or choose your desired working set.

    Tasktop's Navigator view now supports working set visibility for both files and web content. With a working set enabled, web content browsed as part of an active task will be visible only within this working set. When switching to another working set, web pages viewed in other working sets will not be present in the Navigator nor in the web browser's history drop down. Note that if you change the content being displayed in the Navigator view via the view's drop down men, be sure to re-enable window working set support via the view's menu option Select Working Set.

    To clear all web history select Show All working sets, right click the History node in the Navigator view:

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0.8.14

2008-11-20

  • Locate on Disk

    When working within the Tasktop's Navigator view it is often desirable to reveal a file or folder in the native system file explorer. With Tasktop, you can achieve this by right clicking on the desired file or folder and selecting "Locate on Disk".

  • Bookmark Properties - Rename

    URLs can be long and illegible if a title is not provided within the page contents. You can now rename bookmarks within the Navigator by right-clicking and viewing the bookmark's properties page or pressing F2 on the bookmark.

  • Web Seach

    Search the web from within the Tasktop. Enter text in the web search text field and press enter to execute a search with your default search engine (configurable via Window menu > Preferences > Tasktop > Web Browsing). To post your search query to an alternate search engine, press the web launch button next to the web launch text box and choose from the available options.

    To configure the available search engines press the "Configure..." link located at the bottom of the web launch drop down. This will open the Configuration perspective which includes the Web Launch configuration view.

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0.8.12

  • Starred

    Sites you access regularly as part of your work day should be easily accessible. To facilitate this, you can now 'Star' web sites through the popup menu in the Navigator view or via the Send To button in the browser toolbar. Starred web pages will be available under the Starred node in the Navigator.

  • Bookmarks

    All your existing Firefox and Internet Explorer bookmarks are readily available within Tasktop. Additionally you can now create and file new Tasktop bookmarks.

  • Browser Send To

    The Send To button in the browser toolbar gives you quick access to common actions when web browsing. With this release we've added the following actions:

    • Print the web page
    • Save the web page to the file system
    • Add the web page to your Starred list

  • Support Page

    The feedback channels accessible from within Tasktop have been improved. Report bugs, email feedback, view the FAQ all from the Tasktop Support page accessible via Help (menu) > Tasktop Support.


0.8.11

  • Support Page

    Many tasks originate in email. Often, these tasks become lost in your inbox, scattered amongst various appointment requests, informational items, news alerts, and so on. With the introduction of Outlook email support in Tasktop, you can get the benefits of Mylyn's Task List and task-focused UI for email tasks. In addition to providing support for scheduling email tasks in your Mylyn Task List, you can also associate files and web sites with the task making them easy to recall later.

    To configure your Tasktop for Outlook email tasks, open the Tasktop Feature Overview page available via the main menu Help > Tasktop Feature Overview. Under the configuration section, click the "Setup Outlook E-Mail Tasks..." link. This will perform two actions:

    1) An @tasktop folder is created in Outlook

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    2) An '@tasktop email tasks' query is added to your Task List in Tasktop. Upon dragging an email into the @tasktop folder in Outlook, it will appear within this query within the Tasktop Task List (once the Task List synchronizes). Task List synchronization occurs once every 1/2hr by default (configure via Window (menu) > Preferences... > Mylyn > Task List). You can force synchronization on a particular query by selecting the query in the Task List and pressing F5..

    You can now view your Outlook email tasks within Tasktop or open the original email in Outlook using the associated toolbar button.

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  • Browser Windows

    For those with multiple monitors, it is often desirable to browse the web on one screen while working on another. Tasktop now supports this mode of operation in two different ways:

    1) From main toolbar menu's browser launch drop down menu choose "New Focused Browser Window". This will open a secondary window that acts strictly as a browser but is aware of the active task (so the pages you visit are added to the task).

    2) The second option is to launch a "New Browser Window" which acts as a regular browser and is not aware of your task activity. Pages added in this browser window are not added to the active task.

  • Linked Folders

    Linking folders you work with daily into Tasktop is easier than ever. Form the Navigator's toolbar, press the Link Folders button. In the wizard page, select the desired folders and upon pressing Finished they will become available in the Tasktop Navigator view.