ToDoList 6.5 RC1 (Beta 6) - An effective and flexible way to keep on top of your tasks

By .dan.g., 30 Jun 2012

This is an old version of the currently published article.

Downloads

Latest Executable + Plugins (6.4.10) - 1.5 MB (Includes all associated resources)
Application Source (6.4.10) - 2.7 MB (Includes all plugins - compiles under VC6/VS200x)
Gantt Viewer for ToDoList [^]
Windows Mobile Version [^]
ToDoList Reminder [^]
NetDrive [^] - for sharing tasklists online
DropBox [^] - for sharing tasklists online
AutoHotKey [^] - for automating ToDoList
Org-Mode [^] - bi-directional converter

Beta Executable + Plugins (6.5.RC1) - 1.7 MB (Includes all associated resources)

todolist2/todolist.png

Latest Update (6.5 Beta Release)

In addition to User-Defined Task Attributes, allowing you to extend ToDoList in almost any direction, 6.5 contains the following new features:

Added support for relative dates in 'Find Tasks'
Added table support to rtf comments
Added full-justify support to rtf comments
Added increment/decrement font size to rtf comments
Added checks to prevent overwriting taskfiles when exporting to 'tasklist'
Added preference to control visibility of default task icons
Added support for filtering on calendar view
Allowed exporting of multiple tasklists with 'selected task' filter
Added 'Task Recurrence...' command to Edit menu
Added 'Go to Task Dependency' command to Edit menu
Added 'Sort' command to top of Sort menu
Added icons to rich text context menu
Added missing commands to rich-text context menu
Added time estimate/spent alpha key to set units (eg typing '10d', will now set the value to 10 and the units to days)

Introduction

You know how it is - you start work on one project and halfway through, you find one or two side-projects crop up that have to be solved before you can continue on the original project.

This is one such project with the added twist that it too started its life as a side-project. Here's what happened:

<Cue wavy screen effect>

I can only imagine that the planets must have been in (mis-)alignment or something, because at one point a few months ago, I was suddenly fielding emails on four or five separate articles I had previously submitted to CodeProject, some asking for features and others for bug fixes.

Foolishly or otherwise, I largely agreed with all the points raised, and subsequently found myself with fourteen or fifteen separate issues to resolve.

The situation was also made worse because I was trying to use CodeProject to keep track of all the things I had agreed to do, meaning that I had to continuously trawl the comments section of each article to remind myself of what I was supposed to be working on.

It even got to the stage where I was worrying that I'd fail to deliver on something - silly I know, but there you are!

Keeping a list on paper was a definite step in the right direction, but since I do all my coding on the same machine, it seemed somewhat inelegant, and anyway, we all know what happens to crucial bits of paper left lying around on desks and such.

The next step was to hunt around on the web for a tool to meet the following requirements:

Simple interface
Support for hierarchical data
Numbered items/subitems
Open file format
Freeware

Simple, huh! not!

I will admit that I did not spend weeks searching, but I am still surprised at the general lack of software matching my needs.

On reflection, I think that the reason may be simple: people are so used to commercial software being 'feature-rich' that when they come to design software themselves, they (not unreasonably) think they too need to cram as much in as possible, often leading to software where a lot of essential functionality is hidden away in the menu bar.

So, surprise, surprise, I decided to write something myself.

However, it's fair to say that I did not originally intend to post it on CodeProject and am only really doing so because I had a heap of fun solving some very interesting problems and these are what I think make it worth it.

Using the Software

There's really very little I need to say here since every feature/function is explicitly visible in the interface.

Nevertheless, the following list of basic capabilities and omissions may go someway to answering any questions that arise:

Files are stored in XML format with .xml file extension.
Trying to load a non-tasklist file will generally fail (unless you read the code to see how to circumvent it).
The number of items/subitems is limited only by memory (although performance may be the deciding factor before you exhaust memory).
Marking a parent item as 'done' will also gray-out child items, but they are not disabled or automatically marked as 'done'.
An ellipsis (...) indicates that an item has sub-items.
All items can be expanded or collapsed (by double-clicking).
Top-level items and sub-items are created using different toolbar buttons.
There are task-specific context-menus.
The previously open tasklists are re-opened on startup.
The tasklist is automatically saved when closing the software or minimizing it to the system tray.
The priority of a task is shown as a grayscale box to the left of the item.

Points of Interest

Here's where we come to the side-projects I was talking about, the first two of which I intend to work up into follow-up articles.

They are:

The 'ordered' tree control, which incorporates a non-client gutter for displaying the item numbers.
The idea stemmed from research I did into alternative designs for a tree-list control, which did not solve it by creating a hybrid control incorporating a tree and a list.

The hybrid control seems such an obvious solution that I suspect few people have stopped to question it, but it has still always struck me as looking far too much like hard work to be truly elegant ('square pegs' and 'round holes' spring to mind).

One possible idea is to implement the 'list' portion entirely in the non-client area of the tree. I.e., shift the right hand client edge to the left and then render the list portion in the resulting non-client area.

Whilst I've yet to get round to building a proof of concept, it was nevertheless this ongoing mental debate which prompted me to try to solve the requirement for numbered items and subitems by rendering the item/subitem numbers in the non-client area.

Without going into too much detail (as this will subsequently be an article of its own), this is how I got it to work:
- Handle TVM_INSERTITEM and TVM_DELETEITEM to know exactly when items are added and removed.
- In these handlers recalculate the width of the gutter required to display the widest 'dotted' item/subitem number. (Note: this is not necessarily simply the deepest subitem.)
- If the required gutter width changes, call SetWindowPos(NULL, 0, 0, 0, 0, SWP_FRAMECHANGED | SWP_NOMOVE | SWP_NOSIZE | SWP_NOZORDER) to force Windows to recalculate the non-client area of the control.
- Handle WM_NCCALCSIZE when it does, and offset the left border by the required gutter width.
- Handle WM_NCPAINT for painting the numbers.
This is necessarily an over-simplification, but it captures the essence of the solution, and all that essentially remains is lots of fiddling about to ensure the non-client area gets redrawn at the the right times to stay synchronized with the client area.
Embedding .RC control definition data directly in a .cpp file to break the dependency on binary resources (a.k.a. 'Runtime Dialogs').
This is an idea that has been floating about for quite some time and which has only recently gelled into a workable solution.

The problem, put simply, is that if you want to take advantage of the resource editor in Visual Studio (and who doesn't), then you very quickly find yourself stuck with having to load dialog templates from resources compiled into the binary file.

This further means that if you want to make use of a dialog across multiple projects, then either you need to copy and paste the dialog template between project .RC files, or you need to build the dialog into a DLL from which it can be accessed.

'Runtime Dialogs' (a snappy title I coined myself) is a solution that neatly sidesteps both the nuisance of copying dialog resources between resource files and the extra work (and maintenance) involved in packaging dialogs in DLLs.

And it works like this:
- First, you design your dialog template in the resource editor, create a CDialog derived class using class wizard, and wire up all the controls just as you normally would.
- Next, you #include "runtimedlg.h" and change all instances of CDialog to CRuntimeDlg.
- Then, you cut and paste the control definition section from the appropriate section in the .RC file and embed it directly in the dialog's .cpp file as a static string (with a bit of tweaking to handle double quotes and such like).
- Finally, in the constructor of your dialog, you simply call CRuntimeDlg::AddRCControls(...) passing the control definitions as a string.
- And CRuntimeDlg takes care of the rest including, if required, auto-sizing the dialog to suit the control layout.
I'm certainly not suggesting that this is a 'win-win' solution for all situations but it certainly has merits in its closer coupling of dialog template to dialog code which makes sharing dialogs across multiple projects a breeze.

P.S.: In case it's not clear here, I used CRuntimeDlg to create CToDoCtrl which encapsulates the ordered tree together with the priority, date and comments controls as a single simple-to-instantiate control.

I'm also proposing to use them in the .NET port of my ProjectZip add-in for VC6.
Embedding the XML file in a web page.
This is possibly the most satisfying aspect of the whole project because it was completely unexpected.

What I mean is that, until recently, my knowledge of DOM and XMLDOM was virtually non-existent, as it's only since I've become more interested in the presentation of AbstractSpoon that I've been forced to get to grips with the various implementations of DOM and XMLDOM out there.

I'm pleased to say that the code on my site works under IE 6.0, Netscape 7.1, and Mozilla, although custom code was required to achieve this.

Generic MFC Classes that may prove Useful to You

The following table lists a wide range of utility classes written for this project. They can all be included in any MFC project provided you include any class dependencies too. Feel free to ask any questions relating to these specific classes and how to use them.

Class Name	Description	Class Dependencies (apart from MFC)
`CAboutDlg`	Customizable "Aboutâ€¦' dialog not requiring a dialog resource. Supports html encoded text	`CRuntimeDlg, CRCCtrlParser`
`CAutoComboBox`	Adds only unique items to the drop list and shuffles the list so that the last added item is at the top	`CHoldRedraw`
`CAutoFlag`	Encapsulates the setting and unsetting of a boolean variable thru the lifetime of the class instance
`CColorButton`	Non-ownerdraw button that displays the selected colour on the button face and displays the colour dialog when clicked	`CEnColorDialog`
`CColorComboBox`	Owner-draw combobox for displaying and selecting user defined colours
`CDateHelper`	Encapsulation of various rountines for calculating date spans and for formatting
`CDeferWndMove`	Encapsulation of the Win32 API
`CDialogHelper`	Re-implementation of the `CDialog` DDX/DDV rountines to avoid the MFC error messages when the user clears a number edit (for instance)
`CDlgUnits`	Encapsulates the `MapDialogRect` Win32 API
`CDockManager`	Class for managing the docking of one popup window to another.	*`CSubclassWnd, CHoldRedraw, CAutoFlag`
`CDriveInfo`	Encapsulates various rountines for querying about drives, files and disk space
`CEnBitmap`	Adds support to `CBitmap` for loading non-bmp files and resources.
`CEnBitmapEx, CColorReplacer, CImageBlurrer, CImageColorizer, CImageContraster, CImageEmbosser, CImageFlipper, CImageGrayer, CImageLightener, CImageNegator, CImageResizer, CImageRotator, CImageSharpener, CImageShearer, CImageSysColorMapper, CImageTinter`	Adds image manipulation funationality to `CEnBitmap`	`CEnBitmap`
`CEnColorDialog`	Adds saving and restoring of custom colours to `CColorDialog`
`CEnCommandLineInfo`	Adds functions for extracting and querying commandline switches
`CEnEdit`	Adds user-defined button capabilities to `CEdit`	`CMaskEdit, CThemed, CDlgUnits`
`CEnToolBar`	Adds support for using alternative resource or file images
`CFileEdit`	Adds buttons for browsing and displaying the file represented by the text in the edit control. Also shows the file's small icon.	`CEnEdit, CFolderDialog, CMaskEdit, CDlgUnits, CThemed, CSysImageList`
`CHoldRedraw`	Encapsulates `WM_SETREDRAW`
`CHotKeyCtrlEx`	Fixes a number of behavioural problems including the handling of certain keypresses
`CHotTracker`	Tracks the cursor movement over user-defined windows and posts event messages as necessary	*`CSubclassWnd,`
`CLimitSingleInstance`	Provides simple method to detect if another instance of an app is running
`CMaskEdit`	Adds simple character masking to `CEdit`
`CNcGutter`	Allows the UI of standard windows controls to be extended by supporting any number of columns to be added to the non-client area of the window. Favours tabular controls like lists, trees, etc	*`CSubclassWnd, CHoldRedraw, CThemed, CDlgUnits`
`COrderedTreeCtrl`	`CTreeCtrl` implementation of `CNcGutter` displaying a single column showing the hierarchical position of each tree item in '1.2.3.4' notation.	`CHoldRedraw, CThemed`
`CPasswordDialog`	Very simple password dialog not requiring a dialog resource	`CRuntimeDlg, CRCCtrlParser`
`CPropertyPageHost`	Simpler replacement for `CPropertySheet` allowing easier creation as a child window
`CRCCtrlParser`	Used by `CRuntimeDlg` for parsing dialog resource-like text
`CRuntimeDlg`	Adds support to `CDialog` for building dialogs at runtime ie. dialogs do not require a dialog resource	`CRCCtrlParser`
`CShortcutManager`	Class for handling application keyboard shortcuts.	*`CSubclassWnd, CWinClasses`
`CSpellCheckDlg`	Spellcheck dialog not requiring a dialog resource, which interfaces with `ISpellCheck` (interface to Open Office dictionaries)	`CRuntimeDlg, CRCCtrlParser, ISpellCheck`
`CSysImageList`	Encapsulates the Windows system image list (file/folder images)
`CTabCtrlEx`	Adds post rendering callback for the tabs without using owner-draw
`CThemed`	Encapsulates themed (XP) and non-themed (the rest) drawing of windows controls
`CTimeEdit`	Adds a button for specifying time units and provided routines for converting time to and from different time units	`CEnEdit, CMaskEdit, CThemed, CDlgUnits`
`CToolbarHelper`	Adds support for dialog toolbar tooltips, multiline tooltips and dropbuttons with menus	*`CSubclassWnd, CEnBitmap, CEnBitmapEx`
`CTrayIcon`	Encapsulates the `Shell_NotifyIcon` Win32 API. Also provides balloon tips and animation	*`CSubclassWnd`,
`CUrlRichEditCtrl`	Adds support for recognizing urls, clicking them and setting custom url callbacks
`CWinClasses`	Encapsulates the ::`GetClassName` Win32 functions
`CXmlFile, CXmlItem`	Non-Unicode class for reading and writing xml files
`CXmlFileEx`	Adds encryption capabilities to `CXmlFile`	`CXmlFile, IEncryption`

* CSubclassWnd was originally written by Paul DiLascia for MSJ magazine. The version I use has been heavily extended to suit my specific needs. The classes that depend on it here need this extended version.

Further Work

Whilst this tool was originally intended for my personal use only, it is now a 'community' project, so if you find it useful and want to make suggestions for enhancements or bug fixes, then post below.

History

6.5 RC1 (b6) (30 Jun 2012)

Various translation-related fixes
Fixed crash when multi-sorting on custom attributes in list-view
Fixed draw-related statusbar bug when in Classic Theme
Fixed escaping of <br> in Freemind exporter
Fixed Find Tasks dialog docking bug
Fixed un-matched <ul> tags in Html exporter
Fixed bug when calculating the width of custom attribute date columns
Fixed bug displaying empty task title in Application titlebar in Maximize-comments mode

6.5.b5 (19 Jun 2012)

Fixed various translation-related issues
Fixed drag'n'drop bug causing Outlook to be unnecessarily started
Fixed Initialisation bug when restoring filters

6.5.b4 (14 Jun 2012)

Don't notify 'read-only' for delay-loaded tasklists
Fix crash when multi-sorting on custom attribute
Fix inserting file link in rich text comments
Recalculate combobox drop width after translation
Flagged task colour being ignored when colouring by priority

6.5.b3 (10 Jun 2012)

Fix loading of true-color task-icons
Only use MS Word for richtext conversion if version 12 or better (Word 2007)
Fix bugs setting custom attributes on multiple tasks
Increment line height to prevent icons being clipped when grid-lines are showing

6.5.b2 (06 Jun 2012)

Fixed creation of new tasks via shortcut when editing task title
Fixed alternate line colouring
Fixed slow rendering of comments after task titles
Fixed restoration of filters on tasklist loading

6.5 Beta Release (02 Jun 2012)

Moved labels above fields for easier translation
Added custom user-defined attributes
Added support for relative dates in 'Find Tasks'
Added table support to rtf comments
Added full-justify support to rtf comments
Added RTF support for increment/decrement font size>Added checks to prevent overwriting taskfiles when exporting to 'tasklist'
Added preference to control default task icons
Added support for filtering on calendar view
Allowed exporting of multiple tasklists with 'selected task' filter
Added 'Task Recurrence...' command to Edit menu
Added 'Go to Task Dependency' command to Edit menu
Added 'Sort' command to top of Sort menu
Added icons to rich text context menu
Added missing commands to rich-text context menu
Added time estimate/spent alpha key to set units (eg typing '10d', will now set the value to 10 and the units to days)
Moved Calendar to tabbed view
Made preferences scrollable => scalable
Restored last custom filter on startup
MS Word now used for RTF2HTML conversion
Improved 2 way conversion with FreeMind
Heaps of fixes and tweaks

6.4.10 (19 Jun 2012)

Fixed drag'n'drop bug causing Outlook to be unnecessarily started
Fixed Initialisation bug when restoring filters

6.4.9 (09 Jun 2012)

fix bug where last comments character is being truncated
Fix -cmd commandline switch
Fix "task due within the next 7 days" incorrectly showing overdue tasks
Fix GanttViewer problem with %done
Fix bug with status filtering
Fix focus bugs when maximizing tasklist/comments
Fix slow rendering with large comments

6.4.8 (26 May 2012)

Fixed bug where last comments character was being truncated
Fixed '-cmd' commandline switch
Fixed "Tasks due within the next 7 days" filter incorrectly showing overdue tasks
Fixed GanttViewer problem with loading percent done
Fixed bug with status filtering

6.4.7 (04 May 2012)

Fix Korean (and other Asian language) input in the comments field
Refresh the due date field when completing a recurring task
Update the list view after creating a task in task tree
Correct inverted backup location options

6.4.6 (06 Apr 2012)

Fix various commandline bugs
Remove restriction on parent/child selection in task selection dialogs
Fix 'View Dependecy' bug when tasklist is checked in

6.4.5 (02 Apr 2012)

Added <no risk> and <no priority> commandline options ('n')
Added 'percent done' commandline option
Fixed ISO date problem when exporting from list-view

6.4.4 (20 Mar 2012)

Fixed issue with editing start, due and completion times

6.4.3 (18 Mar 2012)

Fixed incorrect file extension when transforming
Fixed resizing issue
Fixed 'Copy All' issue in commandline dialog
Fixed 'Pos' not being exported

6.4.2 (15 Mar 2012)

Fixed restoration of previous filter
Fixed focus issue when changing percent done with Incomplete tasks filter
Fixed restoration of previous Export settings

6.4.1 (13 Mar 2012)

Fixed bug in edit field placement
Fixed bug with focus switch when editing dates
Restored scroll performance
Restored date alignment
Fixed bug in preferences initialization
Fixed bug where 'Move task' options are disabled for new tasklist
Fixed bug with registry importing of preferences

6.4 Feature Release (08 Mar 2012)

Added support for 'natural' sorting (a la Explorer-sorting)
Added support for 'new' style file-open dialog under Vista/Windows 7
Added file version to backups, so that no new version will overwrite the backups of a previous version
Added preference to Calendar plugin to specify font size
Added 'task path' column to list
Added option to display entire sub tree of filtered task
Added options to expand due/started tasks only
Added 'selected tasks' filter
Added 'and parent task' to selection dialog
Added 'Tags' task attribute
Added preferences to better manage backup paths
Added commandline switches for the remaining task attributes, and to control how new tasks are created
Added much-improved Outlook drag'n'drop support
Added support for unc paths in comments field
Added 'selected tasks' filter
Added options for specifying backup paths
Added 'include parent task' to selection dialog (Export, Print, Transform)
Added 'Save Tasklist As' to tasklist tabbar context menu
Added 'Recalc from start date' to recurrence dialog
Added popup dialog for choosing how to link to files in richtext comments
Added support for military time to start/due/completed time droplists (eg. 0530, 1705)
Added support for edit fields to be positioned to the right of the task view. Useful for wide, shallow displays.
Fixed position field to retain order when sorting
Fixed listview to calculate it's own column widths
Fixed focus bug when setting task icon from list view
Fixed initial hidden state of tree/list tab
Fixed filtering to filter out parent tasks with empty attributes
Fix filtering to filter out parent tasks with empty attributes
Fix focus bug when setting task icon from list view
Fixed bug with archiving encrypted tasklists
Fixed bug with delay-loading of encrypted tasklists
Fixed Html exporting of user-defined 'flagged' colour
Fixed user-defined colours not being rendered in html export
Fixed display bug when moving mouse 'time spent' field's buttons
Fixed date alignment bug
Fixed bug when checking out after toggling inclusion of username
Fixed bug where filter droplists did not auto-expand when adding a new longest entry
Changed MLO file extension to .ml
Fixed initial state list sorting bug
Fixed priority not getting imported in Csv
Fixed bug when not importing all csv attributes
Fixed bug allowing edits on readonly comments field
Fixed bug with task icon indices
Fixed 'half-visible task' bug in list view
New Spanish translation
Updated Chinese translation

Status-bar panes are now hidden to match column visibility
Preferences file sections are now sorted
Allowed user to edit tree/list icon when it's next to the title text by double-clicking
Html images are now saved to subfolder of html file (when exporting)
Speed-up tree building
Allow user to edit task icon by double-click tree/list icon when it's next to the title text
Always show droplist buttons in mapping dialogs

6.3.9 (27 Nov 2011)

Fixed bug where focus was lost after closing calendar
Fixed bug where simple text comments context-menu delete option did not work
Fixed bug loading user-task icons

6.3.8 (15 Nov 2011)

Correct calculation of parent dates for GanttProject exporter
Save/restore state of 'Add Logged Time' dialog
Save preferences to file after closing preference dialog
New French and Chinese translations
Minor tweaks to the translation system

6.3.7 (09 Nov 2011)

Fixed very significant memory leak
Fixed various translation related bugs

6.3.6 (04 Nov 2011)

Fixed iCalendar exporter date formatting bug
Fixed bug with xml header after changing formats
Fixed bug saving reminders
Fixed memory leak with encrypted tasklists

6.3.5 (29 Oct 2011)

Fixed bug encrypting Unicode tasklists
Fixed bug where task path was out of sync with selection
Fixed bug where focus was lost after closing calendar

6.3.4 (26 Oct 2011)

Fixed crash when jumping between tasks with different comments formats
Fixed reminders not being saved when computer is shut down
Fixed IME bug not triggering save
Reverted 6.3.3 sorting change as this broke multi-sorting

6.3.3 (22 Oct 2011)

Fixed bug with sorting of category and alloc-to droplists
Fixed bug not saving comments when changing app preferences
Fixed bug with some input field heights
Preferences now saved as Unicode
Sort tasks with same sort value by 'raw' position

6.3.2 (18 Oct 2011)

Fixed bug where due tasks notification displayed ID and comments when only titles was requested
Fixed various translation-related bugs
Fixed bug with default priority/risk when importing from the clipboard
Fixed Filter bug where options were not being restored for newly saved tasklists
Fixed Web-Update-Wizard crash
Fixed bug where separator choice was being ignored when exporting to csv