A better version of the Google Tasks Canvas interface, built with your GTD system in mind
Just a quick note to say that beta testing started recently, and I’ve been getting lots of good feedback. I’ve already made some updates based on the feedback so far, and can’t wait to launch later this week.
At this point, it’s looking like Thursday, 2019-02-28 will likely be the public launch date. I can’t wait to share it with everyone!
I’m close. After working all this past weekend, plus taking Monday and Tuesday off from my real job so to focus on GTaskD, I almost have a version ready to send out to the beta testers.
Google threw a wrench in things in the past few days by suddenly changing the way they return tasks from the API. One of the Google Tasks developers let me know they’re moving to a new backend, and as part of that they now return tasks in the order they were updated instead of the hierarchical order it always has before. I rewrote some code to deal with the change, so everything is working again, but it definitely took up some development time.
March 1st is the date Canvas disappears, and the version I have now can certainly replace it, so there’s no need to worry that you won’t be able to access your Google Tasks in a full screen UI. I just want to get the last remaining bugs taken care of before I let it touch your data, as keeping your data safe is my highest priority. I’m also adding some UI elements to make it more user-friendly for people who prefer clicking to keyboard shortcuts.
Thanks so much to all the beta testers for being willing to give it a test drive before we launch! I can’t wait to let you all see it. I’ll post here again when I send out the first link to the beta testers—probably Thursday night or Friday morning.
Thanks so much to everyone who volunteered to beta test. At this point we should have a good cross-section of users, so I’m going to close new signups. I’m really excited to get the first version out for you all to test, and can’t wait to hear your feedback.
I’ll be in touch with all the beta testers via email, hopefully sometime this week, but possibly as late as this weekend. The beta won’t last long—possibly as short as a few days. I want to get this out ASAP so everyone has an alternative to Google Tasks Canvas with some margin time before it disappears on March 1.
As for progress on the development front: at this point the vast majority of the functionality is there, and I’m mostly working on bug fixes and cleaning up the full screen UI. Everything is coming together really nicely, but there’s still work to be done.
One of the developers of the official Google Tasks was kind enough to let me know the date when canvas will disappear: March 1, 2019. That gave me a little more time to get the first version of GTaskD out, so it’s going to be much more polished than if I had had to push it to production last week.
I’ve been staying up late and getting up early to push ahead on getting that first version out the door and ready for you to use. At this point almost all the functionality of the canvas interface is there, plus some very helpful upgrades, so it’s coming along nicely. I’ve been refining the UI to make it as user-friendly as possible, fixing the remaining bugs, and finalizing keyboard shortcuts for everything so your hands never have to leave your keyboard.
I’ll likely give a handful of people access to the first version early to beta test. If you’d like to be a beta tester, shoot me an email at support (at) gtaskd (dot) com.
Good news: February 1, 2019, the day that Google said the Google Tasks full screen interfaces (“canvas” and “ig”) would disappear, has come and gone, and they’re still here. They did just this morning, February 4, add a warning at the top of canvas (but not ig) that reads: “Warning: This version of Google Tasks will go away soon. Learn how you can continue to use Google Tasks.” Thanks, Google, for at least giving your users a warning, and for giving me a little more time.
Better news: On the GTaskD front, I took last week off from my “real” job (that I love because I get to build web applications like this) so I could focus on this “fake” job of improving Google Tasks. After a pretty intense code sprint, I’m really close to releasing a first version of GTaskD to the public. Right now I’m using it as my daily driver for my GTD system that organizes my work and personal life. That means I’m doing lots of real-world testing to make sure your tasks are safe, even in weird edge-cases. To follow Google’s lead on avoiding exact dates, GTaskD will be officially launching “soon.”