This document addresses basic setup and configuration of Taskfile. For more in-depth information on using taskfile for day-to-day see “Taskfile Internals” for descriptions of all components within Taskfile.
To install Taskfile:
Clone the taskfile repository. For example:
git clone http://cyborginstitute.com/git/taskfile.git
Copy the primary taskfile.make into your default notes directory where you keep your text files [1] (e.g. “~/notes”) and rename it as needed. For example:
cp taskfile/taskfile.make ~/notes/makefile
(Optional.) Copy the taskfile.project to another project folder (e.g. “~/projects/”) and rename it as needed. For example:
cp taskfile/taskfile.proejct ~/projects/makefile
Congratulations! You have now installed Taskfile. Continue reading, and consult “Taskfile Internals” for more information regarding your Taskfile system.
| [1] | Because Taskfile recurses into all sub-directories, you can place the makefile anywhere, as long as you have tasks below this point in the hierarchy. At the same time you may want to chose carefully because Taskfile must scan (and create a mirror every directory (and potentially every file) within this directory tree every time you refresh your list. Use symbolic links and groups of folders to limit your taskfile as needed. |
The default configuration is sufficient for most basic uses: if all the project files you use are in a single folder, and you do not need to generate multiple lists, you may only have to modify the following variables at the beginning of the makefile, which control the input and output of the taskfile build system:
Including whitespace and comments, the makefile is under 200 lines, and only 20-30 lines, or so, are relevant to the operation of Taskfile. Complete documentation of all taskfile elements is in the internals page.
There are many possible customizations. However, there are two major classes of customization for Taskfile systems:
Creating different aggregation selections and outputs, to separate work domains that don’t share any contextual overlap.
Currently, by default, Taskfile supports a single todo.mdwn output. However, there are two additional outputs possible in the default taskfile, if you un-comment and modify several lines. Using these targets and variables as an example you can create any number of unique aggregations.
Consider the following: In addition to adding targets to build a secondary tasklist, you must also ensure that those items on that secondary items do not end up on your primary list (unless you want them to.)
Modifying the output of the taskfile output to enhance capability with your own preferred text file editing system.
Currently, Taskfile produces Markdown output that allows for a double square bracket “wiki link” syntax (i.e. [[link]]) to the page that contains the original source of the task item. Modify the transformation in the sed expression in the end of the $(OUTPUT) target. Alternatively, you can add an additional expression (e.g. “-e s/^TODO/TASK/”) to the end of this statement (before “| sort -u >> $@”.)
Because Taskfile is just a makefile, and a reasonably simple makefile at that, there are a number of options and directions that you may chose to take if you want to extend Taskfile. This section contains a list of possible extensions and enhancements to Taskfile:
Additional output formats:
Make exists to generate output according to custom specifications, so it’s trivial to add new output formats to a makefile, assuming you have generic converters. Consider the following “extension,” which uses Multi-Markdown to convert the standard markdown output of Taskfile to PDF.
taskfile: [...] $(OUTPUT_FILE_NAME).pdf
$(OUTPUT_FILE_NAME).tex:$(OUTPUT)
mmd2LaTeX.pl $<
$(OUTPUT_FILE_NAME).pdf:$(OUTPUT_FILE_NAME).tex
pdflatex $(OUTPUT_FILE_NAME).tex
Integrate into emacs (or other text editor:)
There are a number of functions and keybindings in the taskfile.el that you may find helpful. These functions make it possible for you to:
See also
Git Integration:
Run Taskfile as part of a pre-commit hook to update the taskfile before committing the repository.
Conversely, you may want to exclude your Taskfile output from version control because it’s always possible to generate the taskfile.
Scheduling with Cron:
Because re-generating the Taskfile output is efficient, it’s safe to run as a cron task.
While the initial distribution of Taskfile should be as simple and “base” as possible, we can include any good and appropriately licensed extension in the default distribution. See “Contribute to Taskfile for more.