Pimlical Android Help

Tasks View

The Tasks View uses an event selection list to display Tasks (and/or Floating Events) in a dedicated list that is not constrained to being in a chronological order. It also uses the Due Dates for organizing by date (as opposed to the display date which is used in a view) and has convenient buttons for quickly changing the priority or urgency of an event. Some of this can be accomplished of course by using a filter that displays tasks with the Find function, but the dedicated Tasks View provides a more convenient way of managing tasks.

Invoking the Tasks View

To invoke the Tasks View, use menu | Tasks View. You can also put this menu item on the Command Bar as a button (to do that, go into menu | Preferences | Commands/Functions and pick one of the preference items for the Command Bar - such as CommandBarViewButton1). The Tasks View will display a Thumbtack icon( ) on the command bar.

The tasks that are displayed in the Tasks View are controlled by a Pimlical Filter. The default filter is Tasks_Only and this is set in the preference: DefaultTasksViewFilter. After the view appears, there is a Filter button that you can tap to select a different filter. You should only select filters that display Tasks and/or Floating events. In addition to the Filter button are buttons to create a new Task or to bring up the Template Selection List (which will only show tasks (and floats if the current template is set to display floats) in the template list).

The Tasks View appears as an Event Selection List with the addition of two large buttons for the Priority and Urgency.

You will typically want to set the preference SelectionlistIconStatusSize to a larger value than SelectionListIconSize so that the checkbox for the task (or circle for a float) is easily selectable to mark an item as completed (or incomplete). If you only want to change the size of this icon for the Tasks View, you can always attach a custom preference file to the Tasks_only Filter and change it just in that preference file.

Items displayed in the Selection List of Tasks/Floats



At top, Pimlical displays the total number of tasks in this view (5 in this case) and the filter that is being used to create that view (in this case Tasks_Only).

At top right is the Hide/Show button which can be used to alternately hide or show items that are currently being hidden by the filter. The button with the Green CheckMark exits the Tasks View.

On the line below is a button to create a new task (and a long-press on that button will create a floating event), a button to bring up the quick entry templates (only those templates that create tasks or floating events (if the filter displays floating events) are displayed in that list. Finally, there is a Filter button that allows you to select different filters for this view. The filter list only displays those filters that include tasks and/or floating events. To set a filter as the permanent default for the Tasks View, set the preference: DefaultTasksViewFilter to the filter you want to use.

In the left margin of every row is a tall, thin, vertical bar that shows the default color of the category that the item is assigned to (default colors for categories are set in menu | Select Categories).

At top left, If the Task/Float has a due date, the days past-due or days till the due date are displayed in a colored box  - red if the item is past-due and green if it is due in the future. Items due today show Today with a dark gray background.

Next on the top line is the due date if the task or float has a due date, followed by  any user-assigned icons, and any system icons. If there is no due date for the item, then (No Due Date) is displayed for the item. Any system icon can be tapped for additional information about the event. If the Task is timed, the starting time for the task is displayed immediately below the due-date box.

On the next row is the Status icon for the Task (Checkbox) or Float (Circle) which can be long-pressed to toggle the status setting between Completed and Normal status. This is followed by the Priority and Urgency buttons for the event. By default, the buttons are only shown if the Priority or Urgency has been set for the item, but you can force those buttons to always display by setting the preference: HidePriorityUrgencyButtonsIfNotSet to false.  The order of the two buttons is governed by the preference: ShowUrgencyFirst which can be set to true or false). Following the buttons is the description of the Task or Float. This can optionally include the location and note associated with the item (depending on preference settings), and the number of lines displayed is controlled by the preference: MaxLinesInTasksView. In addition to the description, the category, location and note will also be appended depending upon the preference settings (IncludeCategory, IncludeLocation, and includeNote).

Sorting Tasks 

Tasks are sorted based upon the settings in the filter. To change the sort, tap on the Filter button and select the filter you want to change. Go into the Sort tab ( ) and change the sort criteria. Note that you can sort on any one of a dozen criteria (due date, icon, category, status etc.) and on a dozen levels. In other words, if you pick due date as the first sort criteria and two items have the same due date, Pimlical then compares the two items based upon the second sort criteria, and if those match, it proceeds to the third sort criteria, all the way down to the very last sort criteria (and if that matches, the items are then sorted by uniqueID in order to ensure a stable sort that always displays the items in the same order).