Task Board : Another GTD methodology | Similar to GitHub Projects Planning

[Tu2_atmanand]

“Document your progress while completing your tasks”

(It’s in process of getting approved for Community Plugin Marketplace, but still sharing here to get attention of interested developers and users to take this plugin to its full potential)

I’m excited to share a new plugin I’ve been working on called Task Board, inspired by the amazing functionality of GitHub Projects Planning and Tracking and the CardBoard plugin.

I have been using the GitHub Projects Planning Boards from a long time now, because of its ability to view and manage all issues/tasks in one place. It’s a powerful tool that has helped countless developers build incredible projects.

Task Board: Bringing GitHub Projects Planning power to Obsidian

The core idea behind Task Board is to bring the functionality of GitHub Projects Planning inside Obsidian, allowing you to work privately and locally. I was initially drawn to the CardBoard where the idea of viewing all the tasks from the vault on a single board amazed me a lot (before that I was using Kanban plugin). But it lacked some features and wasn’t actively maintained. So, I decided to create a new plugin from scratch!

What Task Board is intended to do :

• Scan all (or specific) files in your vault to extract tasks and display them in a single, centralized location.
• Manage tasks from this central hub: edit, update, add, and delete tasks with ease.
• Similar to the GitHub editing functionality : add comments, record resources, add sub-tasks, and much more…
• Create different types of views.
• And lot more functionalities mentioned in the Task Board development roadmap

Benefits for Obsidian Users

Task Board goes beyond software projects. Imagine you’re conducting extensive research in Obsidian, documenting everything as you go. But you’re also adding tasks scattered throughout various files. Now, it will be a nightmare if there is no tool to scan all these tasks and to view and manage all these tasks from a single place. And most of the user wont even use this type of GTD methodologies if they aren’t aware of plugins like CardBoard or Task Board.

But thats not it, consider the same example and now image that, while doing the above research work you also want to document your progress on specific tasks, but not necessarily within the main content markdown file. Keep this small research separate but connected to this task, so you can review it anytime.

For example, consider a task that requires a small research (separate from the main research going on) to find the best solution. Task Board should have the functionality to:

• Allow you to document all the things you are finding related to this task.
• Break down the main task to create sub-tasks for it.
• Add different kind of files related to this task.
• Mark the best solution as found, similar to how solutions are marked here in the Obsidian Community.
• Task Activities : All activities like adding comments, resources, adding/editing any meta-data( like tags, due date, etc.), or changing titles are considered “Task Activities,” and their timestamps will be recorded. This will help you to find out at what time which activity was done.

Current Stage and Collaboration

Right now, Task Board offers the core functionalities of CardBoard along with several additional features. However, to fully realize its potential, it requires implementing the functionalities outlined in the Task Board development roadmap.

This is where I’d love your help! If this idea interests you and would like to have this power inside Obsidian, please consider joining the plugin development or just to contribute in other ways like suggesting features, reporting bugs or translating language.

Would like to hear all your thoughts and discuss more in this topic to implement the best features and the GTD methodologies in this plugin.

Support

I hope you found my contributions helpful!
If you did, I’d greatly appreciate it if you could consider supporting my work through a small donation. Your support helps keep this project alive and encourages further development.

Don’t forget to give a star on GitHub !

GitHub - tu2-atmanand/Task-Board: An Obsidian plugin to view and manage your tasks...

[Tu2_atmanand]

Biggest Optimization - V1.2.0

Task Board plugin - Introduction

To everyone following this topic, you might have wondered why the plugin development has been given a pause and why some of the simple features have not been implemented yet.

The pause in development was intentional because I’ve been working on optimizing the plugin to address one of its biggest performance challenges. While this issue might not have been obvious at first glance, it had significant implications for performance and resource utilization.

Previously, whenever you made changes to a task, the entire board of task cards was being re-rendered instead of just the specific card you updated. This was inefficient and posed a performance bottleneck. As a developer, I prioritize creating tools that are not only functional but also stable and optimized. I couldn’t have ignored this issue, although the plugin would have been worked just normal. So, here it is, finally the issue has been solved, and I am ready to proceed.

To address this, I’ve implemented React’s memoization concepts to minimize unnecessary re-calculations and re-rendering. Alongside this, I reworked how task segregation is handled. Now, all calculations are done upfront, columns are created, and tasks are populated efficiently. This change has significantly improved performance, making the plugin much smoother and faster.

With this optimization done, I’m excited to continue with the remaining features on the roadmap and deliver an even better experience.

Release notes : Release 1.2.0 · tu2-atmanand/Task-Board · GitHub

Additionally, I’ve added a new page to the documentation about the Vision of this plugin: Vision | Task Board Documentation

Sneak Peek: Get ready for the biggest feature coming soon! The future update will introduce Drag and Drop Task Cards, aligning the plugin more closely with true Kanban methodologies. This will be one of the most fascinating and essential feature of this plugin. Stay tuned!

[Tu2_atmanand]

Task Board is Now Live!

Hello everyone!

I’m thrilled to officially announce the release of Task Board!

Task Board is now available on the Obsidian Marketplace and can be installed directly from the application.

Give it a try—I hope it enhances your task management experience in Obsidian, making it more efficient and autonomous.

Exciting new features are on the way in future releases! I’d love to hear your feedback to make the plugin even better.

Click here to install: Install Task Board

[macdonaldster]

Hi, this is very cool but I am noticing if I have a task in an indented bulleted list (which is how all my tasks are) they are not picked up by the Task Board, only if I remove the indentation.

• task ← not found

  • task<-- found

Is this intentional or maybe a config issue?

Love this otherwise.

[Tu2_atmanand]

Hii @macdonaldster, thank you for trying out this plugin and sharing the feedback.

Actually this is an expected behavior of this plugin. Because, I developed it such that, it only scans tasks without any indentation. The first reason for this was to allow users to decide if they simply want to exclude any task from getting scanned, they can simply indent it and it wont be visible on the Task Board. But the bigger reason for this functionality was, in older version of Obsidian, any indented task was not getting the same styling as a usual task. Or maybe it was the case in my vault for some reason.

But when I checked recently, i realized all indented tasks upto two levels were still getting the styling properly. So, I think this is doable and might be implemented in future inside this plugin.

[JAWFTD]

Hi, this is just the plugin I’ve been searching for in order to manage my tasks.
I have one question, I was wondering if there would be a chance to link “create a task” with the plugin QuickAdd.
I’ve been using this method with the “Tasks” plugin that allows you to directly perform the action of creating the task in a predefined file, So you would only need to perform the shortcut as the file is already set.

[Tu2_atmanand]

Hii @JAWFTD,
Thank you for sharing the feedback. I am glad you have found this plugin useful.

That’s actually a very good suggestion and a feature to add. At the moment, I cant give you a concise answer to this, since I havent used the QuickAdd plugin ever. But it seems like, the plugin is very helpful in terms of providing various APIs. So after proper analysis, I can decide to use the API to have this integration. Else if I feel, the integration not gonna work well, I can implement this functionality standalone.

I have created a new FR for the same, where I have described, what are all the possible things I have to consider, if I am doing this implementation on my own. Would love it, if you can join the FR and share your thoughts and more ideas : FR : Add new task directly to a predefined note · Issue #142 · tu2-atmanand/Task-Board · GitHub

Thank you!

[Tu2_atmanand]

Vote for multiple boards feature

Discussion : Multiple boards in single view VS Separate view for each board · tu2-atmanand/Task-Board · Discussion #145 · GitHub

Poll : Vote for multiple boards feature · tu2-atmanand/Task-Board · Discussion #146 · GitHub

Hi everyone!

After receiving feedback from a lot of user to have a board-wise filtering of tasks functionality. There remains a confusion of whether to convert the boards as individual Obsidian tabs or whether to keep them as it like usual.

Kindly go through the discussion first to understand this feature I am referring to, and then vote for the same based on the pros and cons of this new idea.

Open to hear your thoughts and suggestions for implementing this feature as efficiently as possible.

Thank you!

[Arxehci]

Looks very interesting. Had a quick play with it didn’t get far because it looks like you need your tasks to have tags on them for it to be picked up properly, in an organised way.

My tasks are messy and spread out into notes that live in different folders, that helps me keeps things in “order”. Would be nice to tell the plugin when creating a new board to monitor a specific parent folder for all tasks inside (or alternatively, I could fix my messy tasks/structure ^^; )

Only real issue I see, for myself personally, is that I cannot install this on my ipad version of Obsidian, which is my primary platform of use. If IOS support becomes a thing, I would probably use this more seriously.

[Tu2_atmanand]

Hii @Arxehci !

That’s actually an interesting workflow and a nice feature request. I never thought of this way of organizing tasks folder-wise.
The feature you mentioned is actually doable, a new column type can be born, which will collect tasks based on which parent folder they are coming from.

The only downside of this workflow I can see is. If suppose say, you have few tasks in some note, parentFolder-A/somenNote.md. All these tasks will be shown under the Column, say “parentFolder-A”. And similarly you have a note, parentFolder-A/differentNote.md, whose all tasks will be shown under the column “parentFolder-B”. Now, after the drag and drop feature is integrated in this plugin, and if you drag any of your task from first column and dropped in to the second column. Then these tasks should move from the somenNote.md to differentNote.md. Is this what your workflow should be. Because I see there might be some limitation with the drag and drop feature, although I am not sure at the moment, just putting my thoughts out.

If this workflow seems good, then you can create a FR for the same on GitHub.

Thank you for sharing you feedback!

[Jestre]

I just tried to install this plugin, and I get the following error:

I think I saw on the original Reddit post that this is not compatible with tasks so I’m wondering if that plugin has to be disabled or removed first, though I thought I read that it simply didn’t read those tasks.

Thoughts?

ObsVersion: 1.8.9

[Tu2_atmanand]

Would kindly request to try installing again, v1.3.0 has been just now released!

Also, I am not sure which Reddit post you are referring to. This plugin is absolutely compatible with Tasks plugin, unless you are trying to do anything specific. In fact some of the feature of this plugin will work much better if you have Tasks plugin installed.

[Tu2_atmanand]

Task Board v1.3.0 | Big Changes

Task Board Release v1.3.0 | Big changes

Those who are following this plugin from the start will know the limitation this plugin had on the format of your tasks. For this plugin to work properly, users were forced to separate their metadata/properties using a pipe symbol (|). This was initially done to keep a universal format for all your tasks and to make your tasks look a little neat. And also I think I went with this approach maybe because the development was a little easier.

But now, this version has removed this restriction all together, allowing you to use any format you, write your tasks however you want. You are free to place the task properties in any order and Task board will still able to scan them and update them without any issue.

Second-biggest change is the date range for the dated column will not going to support infinity anymore. This is done to remove the confusion and to make things more intuitive compared to earlier. Now it will be more easier to understand how to select the range for the dated column using the relative date number. Please refer this for better understanding : Types of Columns | Task Board Documentation

Here are some highlighted new features in this release :

• Tasks Status : This version brings you a new feature of adding status to your tasks. The status will work seamlessly with the Tasks plugin and supports the popular icons as per the ITE Theme Alternate Checkbox CSS Snippet.
• Robustness : Task Board is now robust enough to work with all your custom task formats. No need to restrict yourself anymore with the pipe symbol (|) functionality to separate your task properties (metadata). Write your tasks the way you want in your notes and Task Board will preserve the format.
• Confirmation Popup : After adding any property in the Edit task modal, a confirmation popup will be shown if you accidentally close the modal without saving.
• Hide metadata : A new setting option to hide the metadata from showing inside the Task Item card on Task board for a clean look.

Checkout the video to know more!

Release Notes : Release 1.3.0 · tu2-atmanand/Task-Board · GitHub

Cool new features coming in the future releases !

[AzHousePro]

I updated to the latest version, and it stopped seeing my upcoming tasks. Since I only had a couple, I went in and reentered them. Now they show up in multiple columns.

[Tu2_atmanand]

Hii @AzHousePro !

Would like to ask if you have gone through the following updated docs : GitHub - nothingislost/obsidian-hover-editor: Transform the Page Preview hover into a working editor instance

The working of this plugin for dated types of columns has been updated, so you will need to make those small changes in your board level settings, for the plugin to work properly.

Let me know if your bug is something else. Please report it on GitHub and provide some more on how it happened and for what kinds of tasks it happened.

Thank you!

[AzHousePro]

I installed that additional plugin, restarted Obsidian and reran the import routine, but still seeing the same thing.

[Jestre]

Thank you, I tried with 1.3.0 and it successfully installed today. I set the mode to tasks compatible (sorry for the earlier confusion), but now when I create a task (via Task Board) and set the due date to today, it puts it in the overdue column, and if I schedule one for tomorrow, it puts it in the Today column.

And I’m not sure if it is just me, but the rescan button doesn’t do anything. I create two test tasks (one today, one tomorrow), and since I was going to take a screenshot I copied those two items to a new new note, then moved my regular tasks note out of the scanned folder (in config). When all four showed up, I tried to rescan, but nothing happened.

[Tu2_atmanand]

Hi @AzHousePro,

I would request to open a new issue on GitHub, it will be easier to solve this bug there with more info and better discussion.

Thank you!

[Tu2_atmanand]

Hi @Jestre !

@Jestre

but now when I create a task (via Task Board) and set the due date to today, it puts it in the overdue column, and if I schedule one for tomorrow, it puts it in the Today column.

Yeah, actually this is a known issue, and its been bugging me from a while now, as I didnt realized the importance of UTC time calculations. The plugin will work just fine for anyone who is in the IST timezone but for few other time zones, this issue occurs. I am working on a global solution here : [Bug] The board tasks are offset by 1 day - today's tasks appear as "Over Due", etc. · Issue #130 · tu2-atmanand/Task-Board · GitHub

Looks like different countries have different calenders and different timing synchronizations, so its a little challenging thing to achieve then I thought, but will fix it soon.

Also, I have provided a workaround in the same issue in my first comment. If you can make it work, please let me know, will help to understand this global timing synchronization better.

Thank you for reporting this and for your time!

[ramnathk]

Any chance I can specify filters using other YAML (not just tags)? I have ‘type’ for notes, and tags are more domain specific, so I’d like to only filter by specific ‘types’ of notes