-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TaskToday - http://dalelane.co.uk/tasktoday/ tasktoday@dalelane.co.uk -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contents: 1) What is this? 2) What is shown? 3) How do I run it? 4) What other files are involved? 5) In what way is this a widget? 6) What do the percentages mean? 7) Quirks 8) Thanks to 9) Disclaimers 10) Problems? Comments? Suggestions? ================================================================================ What is this? ================================================================================ A desktop widget which displays dashboard-style at-a-glance view of your Microsoft Outlook task list. ================================================================================ What is shown? ================================================================================ 'busy' This is an indication of how busy you have been today. Essentially, it is a count of how many tasks in your Outlook task list have been completed today. A higher weighting is given to higher priority tasks, while lower priority tasks have a lower weighting. 'stress' This is an indication how much work you have left to do - how much stress you are under! Higher weighting is given to tasks that are due soon (even higher for overdue tasks! Higher weighting is also given to high priority tasks. Conversely, tasks without a due date, or low priority tasks have lower weighting. ================================================================================ How do I run it? ================================================================================ Run TaskToday.exe All the DLLs included need to be available. Easiest way to do this is to put them all in the same directory, and run the exe from there. Alternatively, you could put them somewhere else that is in your PATH. ================================================================================ What other files are involved? ================================================================================ It reads your Outlook data file - reads only, not write - honest! TaskForm.conf is written to your APPDATA (an environment variable) directory. This is used to persist configuration information. Feel free to view this file if you are interested in it's contents - it's intended to be human-readable. ================================================================================ In what way is this a widget? ================================================================================ It can be run 'Always on top'. (Right-click anywhere on the app for a menu). That's about it... so not really that widget-y. But 'widget' makes it sound more cool! ;-) ================================================================================ What do the percentages mean? ================================================================================ The percentages refer to how today relates to the busiest you have ever been since you started using this app. So, '50% busy' means you have done half as much work as you did on your busiest ever day. Clear as mud? Let me put it another way - TaskToday maintains a high-tide-type maximum value. Every time it calculates a value based on the weightings of your tasks, it compares this value with the maximum. If it is less than the maximum, the percentage shown is today's value as a proportion of the maximum. If it is greater than the maximum, the percentage is set to 100%, and today's value becomes the new maximum. 'busy' and 'stress' values are calculated differently, so different maximums are maintained for each. ================================================================================ Quirks ================================================================================ Tasks which have a Category of "Waiting For" do not contribute to your 'Stress' count. For those not familiar to this, it is a GTD (Getting Things Done) concept - things which you are waiting for someone else to do. As such, they're not really stuff which you have to do, and therefore shouldn't make you any busier. While on the topic of GTD, TaskToday assumes that everything you have to do, and have done today, is in Outlook. This is because, as a GTD-devotee (where collecting everything is a key part), everything I have to do *is* in my task list. ================================================================================ Thanks to: ================================================================================ http://support.microsoft.com/kb/323116/en-us - for how to create a smooth progress bar without needing .NET 2 http://www.bobpowell.net/tipstricks.htm - for how to create a transparent label http://blogs.msdn.com/eric_carter/archive/2004/10/10/240568.aspx - for how to safely handle MS Outlook opening and closing ================================================================================ Disclaimers ================================================================================ 1 - All tasks are not equal in the time or effort needed to complete them. I know! This is meant as a bit of fun... nothing more. Please don't read too much into it, or assume that I do. I just like being able to monitor how much stuff I've got on my plate at a glance. 2 - The colours are tasteless. Erm.... okay. Yeah, if I can be bothered, I'll provide a way to customize it. In the meantime, you're stuck with a colour scheme that goes with my desktop! ================================================================================ Problems? Comments? Suggestions? ================================================================================ As it only reads, as opposed to writes to, your Outlook file, I think that it is unlikely to do anything too nasty to your data file. But, obviously the usual warnings apply - backup any data that you can't afford to lose as I can't offer anything other than my apologies if it ends up eating your Outlook data file! That said, I welcome feedback. If you have any problems with it, please let me know!