taskwarrior/html/faq.html
Paul Beckingham da8c3c1a16 Documentation Update
- Corrected discussion of the edit command.
2009-05-13 12:14:41 -04:00

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<h2 class="title">Frequently Asked Questions</h2>
<div class="content">
<p>
(Actually, that's a misnomer. These are really Repeatedly Asked
Questions.)
</p>
<p>
<b>
Q: When I redirect the output of task to a file, I lose all
the colors. How do I fix this?
</b>
<br />
A: Task knows (or thinks it knows) when the output is not going
directly to a terminal, and strips out all the color control
characters. Prevent this with the following entry in your
.taskrc file:
<pre><code>_forcecolor=on</code></pre>
</p>
<hr>
<p>
<b>
Q: How do I backup my task data files? Where are they?
</b>
<br />
A: Task writes all pending tasks to the file ~/.task/pending.data
and all completed and deleted tasks to ~/.task/completed.data.
They are text files, so they can just be copied to another
location for safekeeping. Don't forget there is also the
~/.taskrc file that contains your task configuration data.
To be sure, and to future-proof your backup, consider backing
up all the files in the ~/.task directory.
</p>
<hr>
<p>
<b>
Q: How can I separate my work tasks from my home tasks?
Specifically, can I keep them completely separate?
</b>
<br />
A: You can do this by creating an alternate .taskrc file,
then using shell aliases. Here is are example Bash
commands to achieve this:
<pre><code>% cp ~/.taskrc ~/.taskrc_home
% (now edit .taskrc_home to change the value of data.location)
% alias wtask="task"
% alias htask="task rc:~/.taskrc_home"</code></pre>
This gives you two commands, 'wtask' and 'htask' that
operate using two different sets of task data files.
</p>
<hr>
<p>
<b>
Q: Can I revert to a previous version of task? How?
</b>
<br />
A: Yes, you can revert to a previous version of task,
simply by downloading an
<a href="versions.html">older version</a> and
installing it. If you find a bug in task, then this
may be the only way to work around the bug, until a
new release is made.
</p>
<p>
Note that it is possible that the task file format will
change. For example, the format changed between versions
1.5.0 and 1.6.0. Task will automatically upgrade the file
but if you need to revert to a previous version of task,
there is the file format to consider. This is yet another
good reason to back up your task data files!
</p>
<hr>
<p>
<b>
Q: I'm using Ubuntu 9.04, and I want task to word-wrap
descriptions. How do I do this?
</b>
<br />
A: You need to install ncurses, by doing this:
<code><pre>% sudo apt-get install libncurses5-dev</pre></code>
Then you need to rebuild task from scratch, starting with
<code><pre>% cd task-X.X.X
% ./configure
...</pre></code>
The result should be a task program that knows the width
of the terminal window, and wraps accordingly.
</p>
<hr>
<p>
<b>
Q: How do I build task under Cygwin?
</b>
<br />
A: Task is built the same way everywhere. But under Cygwin, you'll
need to make sure you have the following packages available
first:
<ul>
<li>gcc
<li>make
<li>libncurses-devel
<li>libncurses8
</ul>
The gcc and make packages allow you to compile the code, and
are therefore required, but the ncurses packages are optional.
Ncurses will allow task to determine the width of the window, and
therefore use the whole width and wrap text accordingly, for a
more aesthetically pleasing display.
</p>
<hr>
<p>
<b>
Q: Do colors work under Cygwin?
</b>
<br />
A: They do, but only in a limited way. You can use regular
foreground colors (black, red, green ...) and you can
regular background colors (on_black, on_red, on_green ...),
but underline and bold are not supported.
<br />
<br />
If you run the command:
<code><pre>% task colors</pre></code>
Task will display all the colors it can use, and you will
see which ones you can use.
<br />
<br />
See the <a href="color.html">color</a> documentation for
more details on which colors can be used.
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Copyright 2006-2009, P. Beckingham. All rights reserved.
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