Sep 12
Organize Your ToDo List in Ubuntu with Remember The Milk and Tasque
I am a big fan of the previously mentioned Remember The Milk productivity webapp. It does one thing– manages your Todo list– and it does it very well. Remember The Milk offers a clean web interface, as well as integration inside Gmail, Google Calendar, and even has an iPhone app. The only thing that was missing for me, though, was a simple interface for the Linux desktop. Enter Tasque.
Tasque is dubbed as “a simple task management app (TODO list) for the Linux Desktop.” It is a simple program with the ability to integrate with a variety of other task-management services, including RememberTheMilk. It’s a clean, unobtrusive interface, and it’s exactly what I needed to stay productive.
Tasque is a relatively new program, but has grown substantially since it’s incarnation. It has been integrated into the latest GNOME desktop, and will be available for Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex, due out in October. Luckily, there is also a repository which you can add to receive the latest Tasque program in Ubuntu Hardy:
- From the taskbar, navigate to System > Administration > Software Sources
- Enter your administrator password when prompted, and in the new window, click on the “Third Party Software” tab
- Click on the “Add…” button, and enter the following line:
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/tasque-packagers/ubuntu hardy main
- Click on “Add Source”, and then “Close”. The available software will be updated automatically.
Now that we have the repository set up, we can actually install Tasque. In a terminal, enter the following command:
sudo aptitude install tasque
After it’s installed, you can run it by navigating to Applications > Office > Tasque.
The first time Tasque is launched, you will need to choose the plugin to use. Select “Remember the Milk”, and then press “Click Here to Connect”.
A browser launch, and you will need to log in to Remember the Milk and allow Tasque to access your account data. When you’re finished, return to Tasque and select “Click Here After Authenticating Tasque”.
At this point, your Remember The Milk tasks should be loaded into the Tasque interface, where you can edit existing tasks or add new ones.
You can also assign or change the due date on any of your tasks.
And when you’re finished, you can mark a task as completed.
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September 12th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Tasque is very nice. I’m a big fan of native apps that integrate with web services. Not sure if you’ve seen it, but for the iPhone there is also an app I use called Todo (the one by Appigo). It’s a native task management app and it syncs beautifully with RTM.
September 12th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
Hmm, interesting. I am not yet the proud owner of an iPhone, but it is always nice to hear that the services I use are spreading to new interfaces. If I ever find myself owning an iPhone, I’ll be sure to check it out.
September 13th, 2008 at 8:04 am
Is there a way to integrate this directly into the desktop as a widget the same way Google Desktop does with RTM? One thing I can’t stand to do with a productivity app like Remember the Milk is having to go find it and launch it just so it tells me what I should be doing. At work I have RTM set up as an independent desktop widget AND on my iGoogle, so there are subtle reminders everywhere I go of what I am supposed to be doing.
September 13th, 2008 at 9:50 am
I think the desktop widget idea that you’re referring to is perhaps outside the scope of Tasque. I also think it would be very useful to have, and I know that Windows users can use the Google Desktop widget. Does anybody know if Google Desktop widgets work on Linux yet, or perhaps there is a widget for gDesktlets, or some other alternative?
September 13th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
I believe Google desktop works on Linux natively now, but additional widgets are not supported. At least I think that’s the case. It has been a long time since I’ve heard anything about it.
Either way, I just installed Tasque and realized that it minimizes nicely into my taskbar and I’m sure it is an easy extra step to make it launch on startup. I’m a fan, good writeup.
September 14th, 2008 at 6:55 am
[...] matin, dans mon agrégateur, j’ai trouvé un billet parlant de “Remember the Milk“, un site web qui garde toutes les tâches qui vous [...]
September 15th, 2008 at 11:49 am
I use the iGoogle widget with Screenlets on my GNOME desktop and it works very well.
September 19th, 2008 at 7:58 am
James any place you can point me to for help on getting google widgets to work with screenlets?
Tasque looks promising. Thanks for the article. maybe an improvement over gToDo which I have been trying out over the past couple days
September 19th, 2008 at 8:53 am
Hi AaronE,
Screenlets can use Google widgets as of version 0.1. Make sure you have the “hardy-backports” repository enabled, as the version in the “hardy” repository is too old.
There is a good video of using Google widgets inside screenlets here: http://www.screenlets.org/index.php/Google_gadgets_now_run_on_Screenlets_engine_...
January 7th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
Google gadgets are also supported on Linux now, http://code.google.com/p/google-gadgets-for-linux/
I just wish that Tasque could set up the date correctly, like the quickadd tasks thing in remember the milk, it will grab the date out of the text