add import/export

[Guillaume Desmottes]

It would be nice to be able to easily import and export the tasks list.

[Walter Leibbrandt (walterl)]

I'm willing to handle this bug. More details are needed, though.

How would the import/export be initiated? "Import..." and "Export..." items on the "File" menu? Which formats should be supported (for both import and export)?

From a GUI point-of-view, what is the preferred work-flow? A druid-type dialog, or directly open a open/save dialog when the menu item is activated, or something completely different?

[Bertrand Rousseau (bertrand-rousseau)]

Thanks for your help, Walter!

For now, the tasks are stored in XML, so I guess the simplest way to export them is to use XML too. I like simple UI choices, so I would recommend you to use a simple UI for export: just a filechooser, or a simple dialog showing some options (with for instance, check boxes allowing to choose to export tags, tasks, etc.).

[mikesol (mikesol)]

I have my personal computer and my work computer and if i want to do something in home its very frustranting don't know what task are done.

I wish this feature

Meanwhile, where is the task xml file located? I think that I can sync this manually?

Thanks in advance

[Lionel Dricot (ploum-deactivatedaccount)]

Please, don't add more "me too" ! It's not useful at all and it starts to become really boring and annoying. Just mark this bug as affecting you and subscibe to it but don't add useless comment anymore ! (this is valid for all backend related bug)

[Bertrand Rousseau (bertrand-rousseau)]

By default, it should be stored in ~/.local/share/gtg/ (XDG default)

On Tue, Jul 14, 2009 at 2:55 PM, mikesol<email address hidden> wrote:
> I have my personal computer and my work computer and if i want to do
> something in home its very frustranting don't know what task are done.
>
> I wish this feature
>
> Meanwhile, where is the task xml file located? I think that I can sync
> this manually?
>
> Thanks in advance
>
> --
> add import/export
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/357091
> You received this bug notification because you are a member of Gtg
> developers, which is the registrant for Getting Things GNOME!.
>
> Status in Getting Things GNOME!: Confirmed
>
> Bug description:
> It would be nice to be able to easily import and export the tasks list.
>

--
Bertrand Rousseau
Place communale 1, 1450 Chastre, Belgium
e-mail : <email address hidden>
tel : [phone]

[mikesol (mikesol)]

In ~/.local/share/gtg/ there are 3 files

67814fbb-f82f-438c-af77-a3138436b8f6.xml
projects.xml
tags.xml

Would be nice if the export/import tool merge all these files in just one. I think should be easy to handle the sync task.

Thanks

[Luca Invernizzi (invernizzi)]

I assume that nobody is currently working on this. I've started doing some preliminary work, and will propose an ui shortly

[Luca Invernizzi (invernizzi)]

Actually my work probably fits better bug #318714

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Here's my thoughts on how this ought to work:

There should be a menu item 'Tasks > Import' which pops up a dialog.

The dialog should be modeled after the one in OpenOffice.org Spreadsheet that pops up if you select multi-line text and then do 'Edit > Paste Special'.

The dialog would show some widgets for identifying the formatting of the input file at the top (or on the left). At the bottom (or the right) it would show a scrollable preview of the tasks that would be imported.

Widgets would include things like identifying whether spaces/tabs are used to identify:
 * subtasks vs. continuation of a tasks description
 * bullets used to identify each task
   + different bullets used for sub-tasks
 * how completed tasks are marked (DONE)
 * [bryce] how assigned tasks are marked

[Marko Kevac (mkevac)]

Importing part would be very useful, I agree. But why do we need export?

There are no world recognized format for keeping tasks that we can export to.
DB is already in XML: format, that is pretty simple, parsable with various libraries and readable by human.

[Luca Invernizzi (invernizzi)]

Export is for easily backup and move tasks to new installations

On Aug 5, 2010 2:41 PM, "Marko Kevac" <email address hidden> wrote:

Importing part would be very useful, I agree. But why do we need export?

There are no world recognized format for keeping tasks that we can export
to.
DB is already in XML: format, that is pretty simple, parsable with various
libraries and readable by human.

--
add import/export
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/357091
You received this bug notification bec...

[Marko Kevac (mkevac)]

On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 5:23 PM, Luca Invernizzi <email address hidden> wrote:
> Export is for easily backup and move tasks to new installations

IMHO this problem is created by you, original GTG developers :-)
DB file (tasks file) is hidden somewhere in dot directories. There are
a lot of files there, so it is not clear to ordinary user what to
backup/move.

And now we are thinking about fix for problem that is introduced by ourself.

If we add export, it will involve adding:
- New file format (it can be XML, but not the XML that is used in tags file)
- New GUI window
- New code that connects these and new bugs connected with this code
and more time will be needed to support these things.

Too much complexity.

Instead we can ask user where to keep database. User will know where
his database is and what to backup.
Or we can copy existing database file unchanged when user click
"Export..." and ask him where to save it.

We could export database to some other format. But, again, AFAIK there
is no widespread recognized task file format.

--
A. Because it breaks the logical sequence of discussion
Q. Why is top posting bad?

[Luca Invernizzi (invernizzi)]

Well, my "multiple-backends" work does exactly that :) . I should have marked this bug as "in progress".

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

On Thu, Aug 05, 2010 at 01:23:47PM -0000, Luca Invernizzi wrote:
> Export is for easily backup and move tasks to new installations

Seems like could be easily achieved by just tarballing
~/.share/local/gtg and pop up file dialog for where to store it.

Personally, what I do to backup is just

  cd ~/.share/local/gtg;
  cp -r gtg gtg-$date

Perhaps could even be as simple as this?

As far as the suggestion of allowing the task database to be stored in
any arbitrary location, I don't have a firm opinion, however it seems
the main reason why one would need to know where that is would be to
deal with a problem, and from a support point of view having the xml
file in a predictable location would probably simplify troubleshooting a
good bit...

Anyway, I don't think we should turn away a patch if someone wanted to
contribute this as a fix, but neither do I think it should really be a
priority for the core development team to work on.

And maybe Luca's right that the backends work will make this all a moot
point and give the functionality for free anyway. :-)

[Luca Invernizzi (invernizzi)]

merge requested for this. Feel free to reopen if this feature is not easily discoverable.

[wimpunk (wimpunk)]

I think it would be nice to use import/export while testing new versions. Currently my tasks can't be used when testing newer versions because of a bug in the xml. So if I could export the current tasks, and import them again, I would have a perfectly working new configuration.