Task Setup

Quick Setup

Build the task program according to the directions in the INSTALL file. This transcript illustrates a typical installation:

% ls
task-1.6.0.tar.gz
% gunzip task-1.6.0.tar.gz
% tar xf task-1.6.0.tar
% cd task-1.6.0
% ./configure
...
% make
...
% make install     # (may require sudo, depending on --prefix)

(For those of you using Cygwin, you need to make sure you have the "gcc" and "make" packages available, which are found in the "devel" category. For more task features, also make sure you have "libncurses-devel" and "lincurse8".)

You need to make sure that the installed task program is in your PATH environment variable.

Task reads a configuration file - called .taskrc in your home directory - and stores pending and completed tasks in in a directory specified in the configuration file.

The simplest way to get a configuration file and task directory is to run task. On startup, task will check to see if it can find the configuration file and task directory, and if not found, will ask you whether it may create both.

% task version

A configuration file could not be found in /Users/paul/.taskrc

Would you like a sample .taskrc created, so task can proceed? (y/n) y
Done.

[then task will show version information]