Plugin: Projects

Hello everyone,
to mark the start of the new year, I have decided to release a plugin focused on project management through tasks and planning.
I recently found myself struggling to find the ideal productivity tool for my specific use case, so I decided to create it myself.
The plugin provides a dashboard integrated directly into Joplin that allows you to view and organize tasks for various projects in a centralized and fast way.
I hope this will be useful to others as well:
https://joplinapp.org/plugins/plugin/com.scrayil.joplin-plugin-projects/

Wishing everyone a happy new year! :partying_face:

3 Likes

I just tried it a bit and after I disabled the plugin which results that all my notes get lost. Now I am importing my notes from the backup :frowning:

Seems very powerful and would love to try it, but it's a bit scary if it can potentially delete notes. Can it indeed happen @Scrayil or is that an unrelated issue?

Hello, I'm very sorry to hear about your problem.
Can you provide me with the steps you followed so that I can try to reproduce it?
Are you saying that your notes disappeared because the plugin was disabled?

Thanks for the feedback.
I tested it for 2 weeks and it never happened to me.
The plugin saves the ID of the main “Projects” folder and only works within it.
Also, the only API call to delete a note is protected by a confirmation dialog box, the plugin never deletes anything automatically, so it's very strange.

The plugin has been updated to version v1.1.0

Added initial support for multi-device setups. The projects' “root” folder is now synced along with the notes. This is achieved by using an anchor note:

How does it work

When a project is created for the first time, the plugin generates a JSON file in its own data folder to track the root folder ID. An anchor note is also created and synced. This note allows other devices to identify the correct folder to use for tasks.

Scenarios

  • First start: As soon as the first project is created, the root folder and anchor note are generated, and the corresponding ID is saved in the plugin's data folder.

  • Upgrading from the previous version: The anchor note is created silently without disrupting the existing folder structure, and the existing root ID is preserved.

  • Installing the plugin on computer B (where notes are synced): As soon as the plugin is enabled, it scans for the anchor note.

    • If found: The dashboard is populated with data and the parent ID of the anchor is saved in the plugin's data folder, to ensure proper synchronization
    • If not found: A new project structure is generated upon the first project initialization.
  • User deleted the root project's folder: Since the plugin cannot find the saved ID or the anchor note, a new folder structure is created.

Hotfix v1.1.1

  • Fixed a bug where updating tasks via the dashboard would overwrite the corresponding todo content deleting eventual manually user-added descriptions.

  • Fixed an issue where checking off a task could incorrectly toggle other tasks with similar names (e.g., "Buy Water" vs "Buy Water and Bread")

yesterday i installed projects plugin 1.1.1. I also have the yesyoukan plugin installed. I clicked on tools>create a new kanban board. ( I had not clicked on tools>create a new project.) this produced a kanban editor to right of the normal note editor. It said ‘kanban’ on it. also, it was trailing off right side of joplin window. I couldn’t find a way to view the whole “kanban” board.

I also couldn’t find a way to close the “kanban” editor pane. disabling plugin yesyoukan didn’t help. Today I disabled the projects plugin and the “kanban” viewer went away. (Yesyoukan is still enabled). However, the right side, non functional, not closable editor pane is there even is Yesyoukan is disabled, if Projects is enabled. (yes, restarting joplin after every enable/disable)

There are no projects, or projects folder, in the sidebar.

Seems like ‘create a kanbanboard’ creating, a ‘projects’ board, that can’t be fully seen or closed without disabling plugin ‘projects’ is not ideal behavior. nor is labeling the editor ‘kanban’ when it is ‘project’ .

Hi @astro46, I think there is some confusion regarding how the Projects plugin works.
YesYouKan and Projects are two different plugins and their inner mechanisms are different.
The appearance of the side panel on the right is unrelated to the YesYouKan note creation.
When you enable "Projects" for the first time, the side panel appears.

Of course the panel view can be both toggled and resized.
Take a look at this screenshot:

However, in the next release I will try to simplify and improve the user experience further.
Maybe I will add toggle options in the toolbar and change the corresponding icon as well.
Thanks for trying the plugin, inputs help a lot.

Oh as a side note, the plugin offers 3 different views, of course the kanban one is labelled as such, to distinguish it from the others.

thanks. i had no idea about the taskbar icons and Projects. Since starting with Joplin, once I managed to get the screen and behavior set the way I wanted, I have avoided touching taskbar icons for fear of making behavior worse.

Definitely worth watching. Would be probably tempted when the plugin is available on mobile.

@astro46 You're welcome! I'm currently implementing a keyboard shortcut and a toolbar menu option to toggle the side panel. This will be available in the next update.

@nchris I would like to add mobile support as well. Unfortunately, at the moment, the plugin relies on a few Node.js modules that are only available for desktop applications.
Implementing this feature would require significant refactoring and changes to the business logic.

Hey hey so sorry the late reply. I realised later on: after turning off the plug-in my notes disseppeared than I needed to reset the layout to get back the notes (unfortunately it was too late for me as I already exported my last backup) If it's important I use mint and flatoack version of Joplin if i remember correctly

This is a really cool project. I’m experimenting here on my setup.

Thanks for your work