Task Management/ Calendaring

janaremy

My dream application would have a task management system built into it that could track research goals and 'to-do' lists. Right now I use hiveminder and googlecalendar for managing my research (as I discuss on my blog), but I would love to see it integrated directly with Zotero.

hamed_fcs

I suggest adding anew field to every entry called tasks, it might be special kind of note
and create function in zotero to collect all tasks in one place and allow adding section to task and resolve them.
technically the task maybe just a note with special header inside the note sections with preset separator
and the resolve is just an modification to the header
this could be helpful for individuals and groups
the group could use this function as communication method and task method also for both group and individual library

zuphilip

I find this idea of adding tasks by using notes quite interesting. The question is then maybe, what can be accomplished by the standard zotero functions for supporting to deal with tasks. I try to think aloud:

• One would like to seperate then tasks from "normal" notes. This can be done by using a special tag, e.g. "MY_TASK". Also "open" and "finished" tasks can be tagged this way.


• A todo list could then be created as an saved search for the special tag.


• The tasks are connected to the according book, article by adding the (task)note just as a child of the item.


• For priorizing different tasks you can use also tags like "important", "negligable" and mark these tags with colors.


• Sometimes it is helpful to have something like "due date" in the todo list. All notes have already two dates (created at + last acessed at). Could these fields be used as due date(s)?


• Tasks/Notes can be shared with other people within groups. If one person is assigned to a task, that could also tagged.

What do you think?

hamed_fcs

Nice to here that;

I think tags could be used and might be faster than using the note header but the header is important and maybe at later versions it could be colored as special kind of note.

yes special search could "poorly" do the job but it's not efficient because in TODO we expect to read only the tasks we need not parent Items and tasks under them.

yes using special tags for prioritizing could do the job, but still it depend on the view method

As I said because Zotero need special view method for suggested tasks and discussions so the date could be inserted in the note itself using special format.

the expected view should view only the tasks and allow ordering them by dates, priority, modifications ,,etc.
when you open a task it could be view the parent Item and the other childs.
to use tasks as discussion at groups the task "note" view should allow adding the new respond in clearly separate section, or showing deferences in colors like wiki but this I think require more sophisticated programming.

using this method I think it's require only adding special view and some special queries no modification to zotero database or core program.

what do you think?