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Tasks.org – Open-source ToDo app for Android with CalDAV sync (tasks.org)
206 points by freetonik on June 23, 2020 | hide | past | favorite | 99 comments


Was looking for a "grocery list" type of application and this one seems to be the fastest and most user friendly one in all of F-Droid.

Two small improvements I would suggest:

1. A sorting order where checked tasks are moved at the bottom, keeping only the unchecked ones on top. (I could not find this if it's already implemented). Note: I want to see all of them, just have the checked ones moved.

2. The save button on task creation is a bit weird. It occupies the top row, together with the delete button on existing tasks, but the checked button is floating on the right. You might want to unify the look of these 3 buttons.

Otherwise, good work! I'll be using it from now on. Normally I'd use Orgzly for tasks, but grocery lists are a bit different, you want to be able to operate them with one hand while carrying your groceries with another. This app allows that while Orgzly is a pain to work with as it requires multiple actions to mark a task done. I know this from personal experience.


Thanks for the feedback! I plan to implement #1, and I get a few complaints about #2. I'm not sure what to do about it, but currently there are preferences to hide the check button altogether, as well as an option to save when back is pressed


I've enabled those two settings now, fits my fingers better. Thanks for the hint!

As for the look of those buttons and where to put them, not sure if my suggestion is good, but how about having them floating as a row at the bottom of the screen, and right above the keyboard when it's active. This is sort of how it looks like in `Simpletask` (another task app on F-Droid that I tried out and liked).


I'm curious about 2. I just downloaded and the first thing I noticed was how hard it is to use the save one handed. When I create a new task, I have only a single button in the top LEFT, which is the save icon. I can't reach that even with my giant hands on a OnePlus 8 Pro. I have no idea what the "checked" button is people are referring to, I even turned on the "hide" option for it and saw no change. In editing an existing list I see Save on the left, and 3 dot menu with Discard and Delete.


When you edit an existing task there is a big button on the app bar with a checkbox that completes the task. The button is not visible on a new task. Since you toggled on the "hide" option it will not be displayed at all.

If you toggle on 'Look and feel > Back button saves task' then you can use your back button instead of the save button up in the corner


Thanks, make perfect sense. I was really confused for a minute when checking the box on the home screen "deleted" the list (it just hides them as completed, which aren't shown by default).

I can see some really nice shortcuts that must make it very quick and easy to use once you're used to it, but take a little learning.


"Our Groceries" is a great little shopping list app.

(I'm not affiliated with them, I just use and like their app)

They even have a web interface to the same lists: https://www.ourgroceries.com/overview


This seems to be an online service, not an offline app. While I understand its usecase, it's not what I'm personally looking for.


No, it can be used offline perfectly fine.

Edit: I think I get it now, you prefer to not have the online component at all.


Try shoppinglist.google.com, is integrated with google home if you use that.


If that was an offline app, and especially not google owned I'd use it.


What I want to see someday is a task manager that has "timeouts" for completed tasks. I don't want to schedule laundry and grocery shopping for the exact same day and time every week. Nor do I want it sitting in my to-do list forever.

What I want is to be able to add "laundry" as a reoccurring task and set the timeout for a week. After I do my laundry, I can mark it done, but it'll automatically get added to my to-do list again a week later. It should be marked low priority at first, but increasing in priority every day until it's sitting at the top in bright red letters. This should nicely correspond to the amount of clean clothes I have left.

So many tasks are like this. Except for hard appointments, I rarely set a day/time to get something done. Instead I have a list of tasks that I need to do regularly, and once I've done them, they won't be needed for another x amount of time. Oil changes, cleaning tasks, etc.


Tasks has two features you might be interested in

One is the ability to schedule a repeating task based on the completion date rather than the due date. The other is to hide a task until a particular date

I use these two features together for all of my habits/chores that I don't need cluttering up my to-do list


Check out the android app "Regularly", it does exactly what you want.

It is the simplest, most well designed app I have encountered... and it is free.


I used "Regularly" and it worked great. I've now upgraded to my own system which plugs into my dashboard and can generate graphs. Each time I complete a task I can give it a score, which is then graphed. I just use it for my weight, but you could use it for anything.

I should really tidy it up and promote it!


I made a multi-user version of this idea a while ago, just to keep track of household tasks with my girlfriend, and I’ve been working on polishing it into something others can use: https://onit.today

It’s web only right now, with reminders over email, but I find it useful for exactly the sort of tasks you describe!


> I don't want to schedule laundry and grocery shopping for the exact same day and time every week. Nor do I want it sitting in my to-do list forever.

I use TickTick and use their 'Habits' feature for this.


Maybe "Loop habit tracker" could work for you. You will find it on F-Droid


Does anyone know whether there is an open-source application that could be used as a companion app to edit todo lists on the desktop?


Currently the Nextcloud Tasks (web) app offers the greatest feature parity with the app. Thunderbird + Lightning + TbSync is another option. There are some others but I haven't used very many. I've heard from a couple users that run tasks.org on their desktop with Bluestacks


Personally I'm using todoman, though that's not really an "app"


first, I love the app, I really love that it syncs to Google tasks, but there is no way to "plan your day". What I would like to be able to do is pull up all my upcoming tasks, ordered by due date, and choose what tasks should go on my agenda for the day, and have those tasks populate on a list that starts fresh every day This allows me to prioritize what I want to focus on that day when I have multiple competing priorities. Microsoft To Do (formerly Wunderlist) does this really well, so well that even though I don't use anything else in the Microsoft ecosystem I still keep using the app. That feature makes me such a sticky user that I am willing to accept my entire organized life living on its own Microsoft island away from my email/calendar/etc unable to sync with everything else I use.

Food for thought, but again overall this is awesome and I love it.


Thanks for the feedback! This is one of the more frequently requested features, so I am planning to add this


Great! That's also my only wish for Tasks. Thanks for the app!


That is awesome to hear!


Really good ToDo-App, I especially like that it's fully offline-capable and that the import/export feature works flawlessly. Also the create-todo screen is just great with predefined timestamps and everything is customizable! So a big thank you alexbaker! Just set up liberapay yesterday.


Thanks, I appreciate the feedback and support!


How did you end up getting "Tasks.org"? Seems like that domain would have been taken a long time ago.


There is a brief explanation buried a little further down


Where? I don't see anything like that on the homepage.


Sorry! I meant down further in the HN comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23613234


I've been debating subscribing to Todoist so I can get notifications, but after seeing this it looks like I've found something better to subscribe to :)

Keep up the good work, this is really feature rich!


I am subscribed on todoist until september but I will move to tasks.org after that.


I've tried it quickly (I'm currently a Google Keep user but I'm looking for some alternatives) and it seems very nice! Maybe somebody knows: is there any way (even considering sync to some CalDAV service) to share a list/multiple notes between multiple users with different accounts? I find this feature really important to share grocery list and similiar!


Nextcloud supports list sharing, you can find some free providers at nextcloud.com/signup. EteSync also supports list sharing.

The app itself doesn't include any sharing functionality, but if you set up list sharing through your provider then the shared lists will appear on both user's devices


Hey, thanks for the reply! I will look into this list sharing feature and consider if try to self-host Nextcloud! In the meanwhile I will try Tasks locally, really nice app :)


Have you tried any apps designed for grocery lists? In my house we use AnyList and it's excellent. One of my favorite features is the Amazon Echo integration. If I'm making something in the kitchen and realize that we are low on eggs, I can just say "alexa, add eggs" and it adds eggs to my shopping list in the correct category. If eggs are already on the list it will tell me and ask if I really do want to add it again.

Even without the smart speaker integration, it's core functionality is really good. Almost anything I add to the list it correctly auto-categorizes it.


Glad to see this app in the front page of HN. Absolutely love the app. The biggest props for me are caldav sync. It allows me to self host and get away from the figure ecosystem.

I just setup a mail in as box instance and boom! Mail, Calendar, Contacts, Todo list, and storage all outside of Google in a heart beat. And this app is just the best for managing Todo items. Just love it!


I absolutely love Tasks.org especially since it now supports end-to-end encryption using EteSync (which I created)!

Glad to see it getting love here!


I wish timewarrior [1]/taskwarrior[2] would have had more attention. They also have an Android application [3] which is open source too. And a rich system of plugins and extensions [4].

[1] https://timewarrior.net/

[2] https://taskwarrior.org/

[3] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=kvj.taskw

[4] https://taskwarrior.org/tools/


The thing that stopped me was synchronization, as you needed to run dedicated software for that. Has that changed?


This looks pretty cool. I've been looking for a to-do app with subtasks on Android. But in what format does Tasks.org export in? As in: Would I also be able to edit / modify the tasks on the terminal on my desktop?


Tasks exports json backup files, but editing these and importing them would not be convenient. You could synchronize with CalDAV or EteSync and look for a CLI client (e.g. https://calcurse.org)


Thanks, though now I see I can't create sub-sub-tasks and so on, so it's only hierarchical to one level only. Is that correct?


Sorry for the late response! Tasks supports infinite depth subtasks for offline, CalDAV, or EteSync tasks. Google Tasks are limited to a single level


Really great app. The CalDav sync was what makes it stand out from other F-Droid apps in the same category and allows integration with NextCloud. Really helps when becoming a Google heretic.


Coming from a Taskwarrior perspective:

Is there a way to handle dependencies across tasks?

Can priorities be set by-project rather than by-task?

Can sharing work by-project, or must the entire tasklist be shared?

Are there good CalDAV command-line clients?


The app supports infinite-depth subtasks, but there is no way to link two tasks at the same level

Subtasks are themselves tasks, so their priorities can be set separately from their parents. Collapsible subtasks will be displayed in searches and filters, so if you have a custom filter for high priority tasks, you will also see their lower-priority subtasks

Sharing is done at the list level, and this is handled by your synchronization service

I haven't personally used any command line CalDAV clients so I have nothing to offer there, sorry!


Awesome.

Most of my dependency chains are tree-like, with minimal cross-linking, so infinite-depth subtasks will handle most of my use-cases.

Collaboration is essential to getting things done -- taskwarrior's siloed tasklists have been a big blocker for me. Very interested to explore what list-level sharing can open up.

Will have to give Tasks.org a try. Figuring out a desktop/cross-platform option is a long-term need, as most of my tasks are on the desktop. Capturing tasks (a la GTD) is as simple as popping open a terminal (Win+A for me)

  t add +[ListName] Thing I need to do
Ctrl+D

and I'm back to work. I can modify the task with dependencies and other decorations later. What I can't do with TW is project/list-level sharing and calendar integration, something Tasks.org appears to do gracefully.


Can I sync via DAVx5, or do I have to use the built-in CalDAV sync functionality? I'd rather configure everything in one place instead of two or three…


Tasks handles synchronization itself (using libraries released by the DAVx5 developer). There is a request for DAVx5 integration on the issue tracker (https://github.com/tasks/tasks/issues/554), which I am thinking about finally implementing


Thank you for the quick reply! That issue is pretty much the only one keeping me on OpenTasks at the moment. :)


I haven't looked too deeply into this, but I believe there are a few features supported by Tasks.org that aren't currently supported through DAVx5


I'm impressed they were able to get that domain.


When Yahoo originally shut down Astrid I re-released it the same day under the namespace "org.astrid" without changing the name or graphics. It was predictably yanked for infringement.

So I thought long and hard and came up with the name "Tasks" and changed the namespace to org.tasks. The domain name tasks.org was parked, and a few years later I bought it through a broker. I have no idea if I paid a fair price, but it was probably a relatively expensive outlay for a side project?


What did you end up outlaying?


$4k USD + escrow.com fees


That's definitely not a bad deal! Definitely seen worse at my job for domains that sit unused, and we aren't even really a tech company.


Worth it.


I've been using DAVx5 for CalDAV calendaring and OpenTasks (referenced by DAVx5) for CalDAV-synced tasks. Both are available on F-Droid.

How does Tasks.org compare to OpenTasks? The website doesn't seem to have any screenshots or describe any features, so I can't compare.

The thing I miss most in OpenTasks is recurring tasks. Can Tasks.org do recurring tasks?


I started out with OpenTasks after setting up Nextcloud, but soon hated it. Didn't feel intuitive among other issues I found. Still, I was forced to use it for a while, until I accidentally stumbled upon Tasks.org on F-Droid, and it's a lot better. It feels smoother, more intuitive, and overall has more features. Needlessly to say I switched over and haven't looked back.


Cautionary personal anecdote: DAVx5 has a nasty habit of completely hosing my entire contacts list, even when I wasn't using it in the foreground. It was even more insidious because several times this happened while I was actively using other apps that also interact with the contacts in my phone (e.g. k9 mail client), causing me to dump troubleshooting effort into several different red herrings. Since I do not "sync" my contacts to any third parties, I had to keep re-importing my contacts from a local contacts file until I was finally able to pin the problem to DAVx5.


Yes, Tasks.org can do recurring tasks. Some of the core features are listed on this[1] page which compares different syncing options.

1. https://tasks.org/docs/sync.html


I've been using this app for years. Funny to see in on HN. Well done. It is just the best TODO app out there.


Already have this installed and love it. Went through quite a few to find it. Recommended.


Heh, I went to check it out and turns out I already have Tasks installed. Works great!


Tasks dev here - thanks! It is the app formerly known as Astrid To-Do List Clone


I installed it. Great App. Thanks! 1. Are "Local Notifications" enabled. So a notification pops up when a task is due. 2. Do you have to keep the app running in the background for notification to be show.


Thanks! Yes everything is handled on your device. If Tasks is killed then you won't get any notifications. If you have any trouble you can visit tasks.org/notifications, or send an e-mail to support@tasks.org


I had to take help from tasks.org/notifications. It works now! It meets all my requirements: - Local notifications. (Connection to Internet not required) - No dependency on Google calendar - Ability to repeat tasks on a daily / weekly monthly basis

Thank you developing this app @alexbaker!


This look pretty cool. But Google's advanced protection program doesn't let me download app from F-Droid anymore, i'm mad.


I'm in the same boat! You can download the F-Droid APK and sideload it with adb


Thank you for the tip !


Look, Google, you're making people safer already!

Also...you can exempt F-Droid from the protection, no?


As far as I know you cannot disable this protection. Even if you sideload F-Droid itself, it can't install other apps.


I can install it from Google Play, but F-Droid says “No version with compatible signature.” What does than mean, and what can I do?


The F-Droid version is built by the F-Droid build machine, not me, so it has a different signature. If you have the Google Play release installed then Android will only allow upgrades that are signed by me. If you uninstall the Google Play version then you should be able to install the F-Droid version


That's what I thought, but I don't have the Google Play version installed.

First I tried installing Tasks from F-Droid, but it said the thing about the signature (even if Tasks wasn't already installed). So I went to Google Play and installed it from there, then uninstalled it, cleared F-Droid's cache and rebooted my phone. Still F-Droid tells me that there is no compatible signature.

I have several other apps installed via F-Droid, and I have never encountered that message when an app isn't installed in parallel.

----

edit: added missing word


That is bizarre, and now that you mention it, perhaps this is related to https://github.com/tasks/tasks/issues/971


That sounds plausible.

I once had Astrid installed, but I can't remember if it's on this phone or the previous one. But that shouldn't interfere, should it.

I had OpenTasks, that also presents itself with a icon named Tasks, but uninstalling it didn't help either.


You should be able to have all three installed at the same time

Open up your device's settings, click on apps, and make sure Tasks.org is not there. If it is, tap on it, tap on the overflow menu, and select 'Uninstall for all users'

Then try downloading an APK from https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.tasks/ and side loading it

You can follow up with me at support@tasks.org if you would prefer


It's not in the lists of apps, so I can't remove it.

I'll see if I can install the APK directly.


Installing the APK directly went fine. Thanks.


Looks nice, but I'd need an easy web client too. Currently, I use ticktick (android app and web).


Tasks.org is nice, but I prefer Joplin. It's nice to see competition though.


This is really well done, any plans for iOS?


I would love to work on an iOS app, but I'm not sure if I'm able to (legally)? Perhaps someone could weigh in as I really don't know what I'm talking about...

This app is based on the source code from Astrid Tasks, which was licensed under the GPLv3. I'm under the impression that one cannot distribute GPL apps in the App Store, and I assume I would be legally required to license an iOS rewrite as GPLv3 since I'm intimately familiar with the original Android implementation.


> I'm under the impression that one cannot distribute GPL apps in the App Store

That meme is rooted in an analysis and statement that the FSF made about the App Store agreement several years ago. Those terms have changed many, many times since then, but the FSF has never revisited the question of compatibility. The best thing to do would be to either read the terms to make a decision for yourself if you're confident that you can grok them, or to seek advice from a lawyer if not. But don't assume there's anything solid that can be concluded from dead memes.


IANAL but I think one issue is that the end user can readily run or distribute a modified version - you need a) Mac hardware to comply with the toolchain/compiler, and maybe b) a developer account with Apple even to run a dev build on your ios device? Not sure about the last part, though - maybe an actual ios dev can elaborate?


IANAL but I asked FSF (Europe) about it and they said GPLv3 in the app store is fine.


Hey Tom!

Cool, maybe I'll have to buy an iPhone


Probably not a huge draw, since the native apps on iOS support CalDAV and CardDAV (For now).


I use Apple Reminders on my desktop, but the Apple Reminders app is fairly basic and doesn't support things like subtasks or tags. And unfortunately the app abandoned the CalDAV protocol in iOS 13/macOS 10.15

Technically the Apple Reminders app can still be used with third party CalDAV servers, and third party clients can still synchronize with iCloud, but icloud.com, icloud.com list sharing, and Apple Reminders with your Apple account on iOS 13/macOS 10.15 now use a proprietary protocol.


will this work with Fastmail's caldav?


Yes it does! The CalDAV URL is https://caldav.fastmail.com/. If you have 2FA enabled you will need to set up an app-specific password. E-mail support@tasks.org if you have trouble getting set up


amazing! installing right now :) thanks for supporting standards!


Installed!


is there something similar, but for notes ?


[flagged]


I am using it on my Android phone and syncing with my Nextcloud instance. Works like charm. On desktop I am syncing via Thunderbird.

I also sync my notes, contacts and other stuff via Nextcloud, as I don't wanna use Google.




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