New and Noteworthy

Tasktop Summer 2008

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Time Tracking

Tasktop's new dashboard includes a view of how you spent your time within particular date ranges. You can open the time tracking dashboard by selecting the Time Tracking Dashboard and create reports from the dashboard.

Back Synchronization of Due Date from Calendar

Synchronizing the due dates of tasks to your Outlook or Google calendars is easier than ever with the new feature of task list back synchronization. You can now change the due date of a task by changing the date on your calendar event. This change will show up when you open the task in the task editor. For shared repository tasks, this task will be shown to have outgoing change and you can submit the change to store the new due date in repository.

Working Set Trim / Starred List Trim

Two new window trims have been added to Tasktop in this release: a working set trim (right side of diagram) and a starred list trim (left side of diagram).

This trim gives you a way to easily access your starred list webpages. Selecting an item on the trim opens the webpage corresponding to the item. To enable the starred list trim go to Preferences > Tasktop > Web Browsing and select Show starred list on window  trim.

The working set trim shows you all the task working set in your workspace and the number of incoming changes for each working set. The current working set is bold, making it easy to see at a glance. Clicking on a working set from the trim will select the working set (if it is not already selected) or switch to showing all working sets. For tasks that appear in your task list that do not belong to any working set (for example in the unmatched category), incoming changes will be shown in an Other item on the trim. Selecting Other will select all working sets. To enable the working set trim go to Preferences > Tasktop and select Show task working sets on window trim.

del.icio.us Bookmarks

The Navigator view now includes your del.icio.us bookmarks. To enable del.icio.us bookmarks, go to Window > Preferences > Tasktop > Web Browsing.

Tasktop allows you to use the SendTo menu (the drop-down menu located in the top right corner of the browser window) to add web pages to your collection of del.icio.us bookmarks, as well as removing bookmark and removing tags.

Create Repository Tasks Offline [Mylyn]

Task List snapshots are now taken hourly in order to safeguard against mistakes and system crashes. The amount of space used by the snapshots has been reduced by ensuring that only the information relevant to the Task List is captured. The restore dialog can be invoked from the Task List view menu, File -> Import -> Tasks or the Window -> Preferences -> Tasks page.

Task List Restore Improvements [Mylyn]

Tasks can now be created, saved, and edited when disconnected from the task repository. This supports drafting new tasks before they are ready for submission, as well as creating the tasks when offline and commit them when connected.

Task Content Assist [Mylyn]

The task editor now provides content assist for inserting references to tasks (invoke via Ctrl+Space). This can be used when referring to tasks in comments or in places where the task's key/ID should be used as a reference, such as subtask listings and fields indicating a duplicate. Instead of copy/pasting the task key/ID, you can now invoke content assist and start typing a word within the task. Matches from open task editors and recently activated tasks will appear above the separator in the list. In addition, content assist in the task editor has also been improved in the other fields, such as CCs, which will now allow you to specify multiple people by separating entries with a comma.

Scheduled Presentation Improvements [Mylyn]

The Scheduled presentation now provides a container called Unscheduled, used to show all tasks that have not been scheduled. This means that in Focused mode, you will see all tasks with incoming information that have not been scheduled, enabling use of this presentation for reviewing incomings. This container also ensures that all tasks can be searched for using the Find box without needing to switch to the Categorized presentation. In addition, you can now toggle between the Categorized and Scheduled presentations with a single click of the toolbar button in addition to using the drop-down. Note that the workday start/end preference has been removed since tasks do not go overdue until the day's end (see Task Scheduling Streamlining entry below).

Empty Context Indication [Mylyn]

If a task context is empty, any view that has been automatically focused will display a message prompting you to use Alt+click or to unfocus the view, or use other mechanisms such as Open Resource to start populating the task context. Note that while we recommend the auto focusing, even though it can take a few days to get used to, you can turn off it off via Preferences -> Tasks -> Context -> Views, and use Navigate -> Quick Context View instead. Note that the Java Editor's landmark annotations, which created editor gutters markers landmarks, have been moved to the Incubator.

New Notification Popups [Mylyn]

The rendering of the notification popups has been improved, and on Eclipse 3.4 the popups fade into and out of view (Compositing window manager required on Linux). The popups can be interacted with and will not disappear when the mouse is over them. Click the incoming arrow to mark the task read, or the hyperlink to open the task.

Empty Context Indication [Mylyn]

If a task context is empty, any view that has been automatically focused will display a message prompting you to use Alt+click or to unfocus the view, or use other mechanisms such as Open Resource to start populating the task context. Note that while we recommend the auto focusing, even though it can take a few days to get used to, you can turn off it off via Preferences -> Tasks -> Context -> Views, and use Navigate -> Quick Context View instead. Note that the Java Editor's landmark annotations, which created editor gutters markers landmarks, have been moved to the Incubator.