Create a new task from a received email

[Francis]

An idea for GTG.

I receive most of my requests of things to do by email. I'm using Thunderbird as an email client. I would like to be able to add a new task from a received email. I could drag and drop my email into the quick add task zone and then a window with prefiled data from my email could appear. I could edit it and then close the window.

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More possible solution would be to create a button which exports the current opened e-mail into running GTG in a form of an extension for Firefox/Thunderbird.

[Izidor Matušov (izidor)]

Hallo Francis,

I've got the same idea but it is hard to implement. If you do drag and drop from Thunderbird, you get only an address for e-mail, something like: imap://<your username>@<imap server>/<id of e-mail> You are able to get the text of the message but GTG would have to log into imap server and fetch the message -- you need the password for that. That is a problem (I want to do DnD and not put any password)

TaskCoach has implemented this, that you are able to fetch e-mail after you enter the password (and it is remembered until restart).

To be honest, I don't like it and I am trying to do something different. (But it takes some time)

1) Button which exports the current opened e-mail into running GTG in a form of an extension for Firefox/Thunderbird. I am a beginner -- it takes me ages to put together that extension (I've done about 50%)

2) Backend which imports your e-mail into GTG (or a special folder) and you can process your task right from your ToDO manager. (Actually, every e-mail is a simple task :-)

Do you have any idea what could I do something better, easier? Suggestions are welcomed!

Izidor

[Francis (francisd)]

Hello Izidor,

Solution 1 is a good idea I think. Unfortunately, I don't have any other easier solution for the moment.

[Izidor Matušov (izidor)]

I finished the extension today, you can check it out at https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/gtg-task-button/ (Careful, it is still very hot)

You can use it in Thunderbird as this bug suggests or also in Firefox, e.g for quick bookmarking of page to read it/do something later. I would be glad to hear your feedback and bug reports!

[Francis (francisd)]

I installed the addon (for thunderbird) but failed to make it to work. I select a message and I click the "GTG Task" button but nothing is added to my GTG list. The message seem to be moved somewhere but I don't know where. If I do Ctrl+z my message return in my mailbox.

[Francis (francisd)]

Ah.. the message is moved in the archive... great when you find it ;)

But still no task in GTG.

[Izidor Matušov (izidor)]

Hi Francis,

I am sorry for not stating clearly, that it archives your message after pressing the button. It seems logical to me to archive the message when you decided to create a new task and the content of e-mail is there. I should probably add an option for it.

Could you try to run this command? (substitute <your-folder>)

~/.thunderbird/<your-folder>/<email address hidden>/chrome/newtask.py --force-editor title message

It should create a new task with title "title" and body "message" and open the editor for that task. Does it work? Could you look in Extra->Error console if there are any errors connected with the addon?

[Francis (francisd)]

Yeah no problem with the move to archive. I was just wondering where was moving my message before I find the message was archived :).

$ ~/.<email address hidden>/chrome/newtask.py --force-editor test test
Adding a GTG task: ['/<email address hidden>/chrome/newtask.py', 'test', 'test']
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/<email address hidden>/chrome/newtask.py", line 49, in <module>
    gtg_obj = bus.get_object('org.gnome.GTG', '/org/gnome/GTG')
  File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/dbus/bus.py", line 244, in get_object
    follow_name_owner_changes=follow_name_owner_changes)
  File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/dbus/proxies.py", line 241, in __init__
    self._named_service = conn.activate_name_owner(bus_name)
  File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/dbus/bus.py", line 183, in activate_name_owner
    self.start_service_by_name(bus_name)
  File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/dbus/bus.py", line 281, in start_service_by_name
    'su', (bus_name, flags)))
  File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/dbus/connection.py", line 620, in call_blocking
    message, timeout)
dbus.exceptions.DBusException: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name org.gnome.GTG was not provided by any .service files

I'm using version 0.2.4-1 from Ubuntu repository (lucid). Do I need a more recent version?

[Izidor Matušov (izidor)]

I've forgot about GTG 0.2.4 (I haven't used it for a year)

The updated version of the addon was uploaded. It prefers to use GTG 0.2.9 or newer, if it is not found, older version is used. Thanks for reporting this bug!

[Francis (francisd)]

The task is added to GTG now with the new version.

Problem is I cannot edit it (when I double click on it, nothing happens). Also, the task disappear when I restart GTG app.

[Izidor Matušov (izidor)]

That is strange, for my testing with GTG 0.2.4 it worked. Maybe it is a bug of the old version. Could you run GTG in terminal and then use the addon? Any traceback? If you run the script, is there any error message?