This was an overdue release but is out none the less. Some comments on the main features:
- A long time frequently requested feature was finally developed: printing! This is only the first version so expect changes but so far you can print cards and entire sheets in black & white. I didn’t include color because I think people are using this feature just for reference (is that why you wanted them?) and it would be a waste of ink but let me know what you think about that. The scaling effect when printing single cards is not ideal but it was the easiest route for the first implementation of the feature. I hope in later versions to make TaskCard produce real .rtf files so the printing will be crisp like a real document.
- There was a really annoying bug that was causing the close sheet button which hovers above the thumbnail image to vanish after editing any text so regrettably I had to remove it until I can resolve the issue. In the mean time you can contextual-click on the image to close the sheet but I will fix that eventually.
- Dashboard activation really does behave like Dashboard now because there is a hot key you can set in the preferences which currently defaults to F1.
In the latest round of development I made some features which are complete or nearly complete and I will introduce them in upcoming versions when they are ready.
- iCal support is finally in the works and will be ready for 1.4 or 1.4.5. The system is that you make a card which shares the name of an iCal calendar and all the tasks will sync. Tasks are just to-do items but if you assign a date to a task it will be become an event. This is really handy for using the iCal alert system and you can sync tasks to/from your iPhone using the calendar app. The iPhone calendar app isn’t very ideal for entering tasks quickly but I bet there are other apps which sync with iCal that you could use for TaskCard also.
- URL attachments are like file attachments except they hold a URL which will launch in your default web browser. When typing a task that starts with http:// it will turn into a URL automatically after you hit return.
- There is a new separator item which will draw a horizontal line in the card to help you keep sections organized.
- QuickLook is enabled for file attachments on Macs running 10.6 or higher.
- This was also a long requested feature which I finally did some work on, which is saving and opening cards like normal documents. TaskCard was originally designed for temporary information but for project management and long time users the sheets were getting cluttered so the feature needed to be developed.
- I developed exporting cards as text but I finally did importing so you can load plain text files as cards. The tab indents in the document are represented in the tasks as sub-tasks so it’s pretty powerful for importing text lists in cards.
Finally I would just like to say that I will without a doubt get undo support working soon. I know how annoying that is to delete a task and not be able to recover it. The feature is a little troublesome to implement so I have been lazy to make it. Sorry!
As for the iPhone/iPad versions… I’m really busy but this is on the schedule. Since the release of the iPad I’m much more interested in that because TaskCard lends itself perfectly to the design. However on the iPhone I don’t see an obvious way you’re supposed to fit all the cards on that tiny screen. The two systems seem to fundamentally conflict in my mind so if you have any ideas please let me know and I’d like to talk with you about them. I personally don’t use an iPhone because I like to be away from computers after programing all day so I could use some advice.
The best plan for TaskCard on the iPhone seems to be a little note pad type application that keeps notes while you’re out then syncs with TaskCard when you get home. Nothing fancy, just a place to keep your ideas so they’re not lost. But with the development of iCal sync it appears like we could leverage iCal to work with TaskCard and potentially even use a 3rd party app and not have to do anything at all. Please let me know if you know of any good iPhone apps that sync with iCal and maybe we can do a cross promotion together.
Lots of other requests like: find/replace, emailing cards, tab to indent sub-tasks and scrolling cards will have to wait for the later months. 😉 Thanks for all your comments and suggestions. Please keep them coming!