Kanban Plugin Weekly Report

[mablin7]

Week 4

June 28. - July 4.

Progress

This week I've been making incremental improvements to the plugin in order to release a test version along with the progress report. So without further ado, here it is, the first test (super-early, super-buggy) release of the kanban plugin :
com.mablin7.test.kanban.jpl (1.6 MB)

(Please read further for notes for testers)

Most significant of the changes I've made this week, is that I finally gave up trying to use the Joplin search to sort notes into columns. I thought it's clever, but it created more problems than it solved, so I ended up writing my own sorting algorithm. It fetches all viable notes, then matches them against the rules defined in the config. This gives way more control over how the rules can work and also solves the 2 roadblocks mentioned in the Week 2 report:

@mablin7

1. The way I implemented the sorting of notes, by using joplin's existing search filters, doesn't allow to distinguish notebooks of the same name, but different path. [...]

2. The completedTag and completedNotebook rules can't work, because right now all rules are very simple functions, which have no knowledge of the notes they're operating on [...]

Both of these are now solvable, though the completedTag and completedNotebook rules are not yet implemented.

I've also improved the UI, bringing it closer to my mockup, but not quite there yet. The board opening should also work more reliably now, and some basic error messages are also shown, if the config is invalid.

Achieved

• Refactored the sorting logic (again), squished multiple bugs
• Improved visuals
• Basic error messages
• Improved board opening

Planned for next week

From now on, I'm hoping to release a new version every week!

• Better error messages
• Automatic reloading
• completedTag and completedNotebook rules
• More forgiving YAML parsing

Notes for testers

First of all, thank you if you're willing to give this plugin a try, user testing truly helps a lot in development.

1. Though the plugin doesn't touch the contents of your notes, it does reorganize them, and if there are unexpected bugs it can certainly mess up your collection. Make sure to have a backup of your notes before trying out the plugin!
2. You're going to need a board config. To start, try out this one, I've been using for testing, but please do not be afraid to experiment with it, since that's the point of user testing:

columns: 
  - 
    backlog: true
    name: Backlog
  - 
    name: "Ready for review"
    tag: ready
  - 
    name: Working
    notebookPath: working
  - 
    completed: true
    tag: done
    name: Done
filters: 
  rootNotebookPath: "test/nested test"
  tag: task

3. The config parsing is currently quite fragile, for example tabs are not allowed for indentation. If you're getting a YAML parse error, try this online validator, it should give you more details than the plugin. I am working on more informative error messages and making the parser more forgiving.
4. The board currently only gets updated if you reopen it. This means that if you changed the config, or added/edited the notes on the board, you need to open an unrelated note to close the board, the open it again to reload. The next release will surely include a better solution.
5. If you find any bugs, or have any suggestions, post on the main thread please.
6. Enjoy!