6bb3227574
- New default mode 'skeleton': rows = active (in-progress tag, shared with the kanban); columns = due soon (due date within urgent-window days, overdue included, or the urgent tag as manual override) - Quadrants: Do Next / Scheduled / On Deck / Backlog — no 'Eliminate'; a committed vault needs when-and-what's-moving, not triage - in-progress + urgent + dateless -> Do Next (urgent is the override) - Dateless active work -> Scheduled; completed to-dos still excluded - mode: eisenhower preserves the classic (urgent/important tags) - MatrixBoard now positional (topLeft..bottomRight); per-mode labels travel in the payload; rendering fully shared between modes - New options: mode, in-progress-tag, urgent-window (default 3) - Version 0.5.0; 8 new tests (88 total); README + SPEC updated
272 lines
21 KiB
Markdown
272 lines
21 KiB
Markdown
# GTD Calendar — Project Specification (v1 Draft)
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A fork of [WeMakeMachines/joplin-plugin-event-calendar](https://github.com/WeMakeMachines/joplin-plugin-event-calendar) (MIT) that inverts the plugin's data model: instead of events living as YAML inside the calendar note, the calendar is **populated by real Joplin notes and todos** in the surrounding folder tree, with clickable drilldown to the source note.
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**Working name:** `joplin-plugin-gtd-calendar`
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**Proposed manifest id:** `com.victorwiebe.joplin.plugin.gtd-calendar` (must differ from upstream's id so both plugins can coexist during development)
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---
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## 1. Concept
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A note anywhere in a folder contains a ` ```gtd-calendar ` fenced block. That block renders as a Day/Week/Month calendar populated by notes and todos in scope. Items opt in (by default) via a ` ```gtd ` fenced block in their body. Clicking a calendar event opens the underlying note.
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Dateless items are not lost — they collect in an **Unscheduled** section below the calendar grid, functioning as a GTD next-actions / someday-maybe bucket.
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---
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## 2. Schema Reference
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### 2.1 The `gtd-calendar` block (lives in the calendar note)
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```
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```gtd-calendar
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view: month # day | week | month | month-grid (default: day)
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title: Editorial Schedule
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scope: this-folder # this-folder | children | <integer depth> (default: this-folder)
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notes: gtd-only # gtd-only | all | none (default: gtd-only)
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todos: gtd-only # gtd-only | all | none (default: gtd-only)
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sort: asc # asc | desc (default: asc)
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sort-type: title # title | modified_date (default: title)
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```
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| Key | Values | Default | Notes |
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|---|---|---|---|
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| `view` | `day`, `week`, `month` (also `d`/`w`/`m`), `month-grid` (also `grid`) | `day` | Grouping granularity. `day`/`week`/`month` render the compact tile strip spanning all events; `month-grid` renders a classic 7-column grid of the entire *current* calendar month with weekday headers, dimmed adjacent-month days, today highlighted, and clickable event chips in each day cell. Events outside the displayed month are counted in a footnote. |
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| `title` | string | none | Rendered as a heading above the calendar. |
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| `scope` | `this-folder`, `children`, or an integer | `this-folder` | `children` = unlimited recursion into subfolders. An integer *n* = this folder plus *n* levels of descendants (`0` ≡ `this-folder`). Documentation will caution that broad scopes scan every note body in the tree. |
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| `notes` | `gtd-only`, `all`, `none` | `gtd-only` | Which plain notes participate. `all` includes notes without a `gtd` block (they receive default styling and are Unscheduled unless... see §3.2). |
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| `todos` | `gtd-only`, `all`, `none` | `gtd-only` | Same semantics for todos. |
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| `sort` | `asc`, `desc` | `asc` | Order of events **within** each day/week/month grouping and within Unscheduled. Groupings themselves always run chronologically. |
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| `sort-type` | `title`, `modified_date` | `title` | Field used by `sort`. `modified_date` maps to Joplin's `updated_time`. |
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Unknown keys are ignored with a console warning. A malformed block renders an inline error box rather than failing silently (improvement over upstream, which swallows parse errors into the console).
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### 2.2 The `gtd` block (lives in participating notes/todos)
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```
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```gtd
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date: 2026-07-04 # required for notes to be scheduled; optional override for todos
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bg-colour: teal # any CSS color value
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fg-colour: white
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icon: 🦴
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title: Override title # optional; defaults to the note's own title
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text: Hover text # optional; tooltip detail, as upstream
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```
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| Key | Applies to | Behavior |
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|---|---|---|
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| `date` | notes | Required for the item to appear **in the grid**; without it the note goes to Unscheduled. Accepts `yyyy-mm-dd` (and `mm-dd-yyyy` for upstream parity). |
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| `date` | todos | Optional. If present, **overrides** `todo_due` (explicit beats implicit). |
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| `bg-colour` / `bgColor` | both | Event tile background. Both spellings accepted; `bg-colour` is canonical for this fork. |
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| `fg-colour` | both | Event tile text color (new vs. upstream). |
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| `icon` | both | Emoji/short string, as upstream. Defaults: type indicator (see §4). |
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| `title` | both | Overrides the note title on the tile. |
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| `text` | both | Tooltip body. |
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An **empty** ` ```gtd ` block is valid and meaningful: it is the opt-in signal with all defaults.
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---
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## 3. Data Model Rules
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### 3.1 Date resolution
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1. **Todos:** `todo_due` from the Joplin API. A `date:` in the `gtd` block overrides it.
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2. **Notes:** `date:` from the `gtd` block only. No fallback to created/updated time — those are not event dates and would produce misleading calendars.
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3. **No resolvable date** → item is rendered in the **Unscheduled** section below the grid.
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### 3.2 Inclusion matrix
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An item appears on the calendar iff its type's mode admits it:
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| Mode | Has `gtd` block | No `gtd` block |
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|---|---|---|
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| `gtd-only` (default) | ✅ included | ❌ excluded |
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| `all` | ✅ included | ✅ included (default styling) |
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| `none` | ❌ excluded | ❌ excluded |
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The calendar note itself is always excluded from results, as is any note whose only `gtd-calendar` block makes it a calendar (a note may, however, be both an event and contain a calendar if it has both block types — edge case, supported, documented).
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### 3.3 Completed todos
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**v1 decision:** completed todos (`todo_completed > 0`) render with strikethrough + checked indicator, and a future `completed: show | hide` calendar option is reserved. (Logged as decision D3 below; cheap to change.)
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---
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## 4. Rendering
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- Reuses upstream's grouping/renderer architecture (`DayGrouping`/`WeekGrouping`/`MonthGrouping` + DOM renderers + CSS asset), including the empty-grouping placeholders and current-date highlight.
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- **Fixes upstream bug:** `Calendar/index.ts` imports `WeekGrouping` from `Month/MonthGrouping`, so the week view silently groups by month. Corrected in the fork.
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- **Type distinction:** todos render with a checkbox glyph (☐ / ☑ when completed); notes render with a document glyph. Glyphs are suppressed if the item supplies its own `icon`. A subtle border-style difference (solid vs. dashed, TBD in CSS) keeps the distinction visible under custom colours.
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- **Unscheduled section:** pinned below the grid, with its own header, honoring `sort` / `sort-type`.
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- **Drilldown:** each tile is clickable and opens the source note.
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---
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## 5. Architecture
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Upstream is a single synchronous markdown-it content script with no data API access. The fork becomes a three-part plugin:
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```
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┌─────────────────────────────┐
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│ 1. Markdown-it content │ Intercepts ```gtd-calendar fences.
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│ script (renderer) │ Parses YAML config, emits a placeholder
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│ │ <div> carrying the config as data-attrs.
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└──────────────┬──────────────┘
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│ (rendered HTML)
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┌──────────────▼──────────────┐
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│ 2. Webview asset script │ Finds placeholders, calls
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│ (runs in rendered note) │ webviewApi.postMessage(config).
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│ │ Receives event data, builds the
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│ │ calendar DOM via the (reused)
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│ │ grouping/renderer classes.
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│ │ Click → postMessage({open: noteId}).
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└──────────────┬──────────────┘
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│ postMessage / onMessage
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┌──────────────▼──────────────┐
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│ 3. Main plugin process │ joplin.contentScripts.onMessage:
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│ (index.ts) │ • resolve current note's folder
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│ │ (joplin.workspace.selectedNote)
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│ │ • build folder tree, apply scope
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│ │ • fetch notes/todos (id, title,
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│ │ is_todo, todo_due, todo_completed,
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│ │ updated_time, body)
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│ │ • parse ```gtd blocks from bodies
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│ │ • apply inclusion matrix, return
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│ │ structured event list
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│ │ • handle open: joplin.commands
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│ │ .execute('openNote', noteId)
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└─────────────────────────────┘
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```
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### Performance notes
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- Folder tree and note list fetched per render request; paginated API calls (`page`/`has_more`).
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- Body scanning is limited to items in scope. For large scopes, pre-filter with Joplin's search API (`body:"```gtd"`-style query) before fetching full bodies. Cache by `updated_time` if needed; not a v1 requirement.
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- Refresh model: re-render occurs on note switch (Joplin behavior). `joplin.workspace.onNoteChange` live refresh is a stretch goal, not v1.
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### Platform caveats
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- Desktop is the target. Mobile plugin support is partial; `openNote` behavior there is unverified. The "embed search" pairing remains a documented fallback for mobile users.
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---
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## 6. Implementation Phases
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1. **Phase 0 — Scaffolding.** Fork, rename (manifest id, plugin name, file names), build pipeline verified (`npm install && npm run dist`), upstream week-view bug fixed, upstream tests green.
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2. **Phase 1 — Plumbing.** Placeholder rendering for `gtd-calendar` fences; webview ⇄ plugin message round-trip proven with a hardcoded payload.
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3. **Phase 2 — Data layer.** Folder tree + scope resolution; note/todo fetching; `gtd` block parsing; inclusion matrix; date resolution; unit tests for all of it (the upstream Jest setup carries over).
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4. **Phase 3 — Rendering.** Wire real data into the reused renderers; Unscheduled section; type glyphs; fg-colour support; sort options.
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5. **Phase 4 — Drilldown & polish.** Click-to-open; error boxes for malformed YAML; docs/README; scope-performance warnings.
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---
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## 7. Decision Log / Open Items
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| # | Decision | Status |
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| D1 | Defaults: `notes: gtd-only`, `todos: gtd-only` | ⚠️ **Confirm** — earlier discussion said todos are *always* included (i.e. `todos: all` default); the final message specified `gtd-only` as default for both. Spec follows the final message. |
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| D2 | `gtd` `date:` overrides `todo_due` (vs. emitting a warning) | Adopted; revisit if confusing in practice. |
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| D3 | Completed todos: shown struck-through in v1; `completed:` option reserved | Proposed, unconfirmed. |
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| D4 | `sort`/`sort-type` act within groupings only; grid is always chronological | Confirmed. |
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| D5 | Colour key spelling: `bg-colour`/`fg-colour` canonical, `bgColor` accepted for upstream parity | Proposed. |
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| D6 | Future options parked: `completed:`, tag-based filtering, week-start day, live refresh | Backlog. |
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---
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## 8. Licensing & Attribution
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Upstream is MIT (© Franco Speziali / WeMakeMachines). The fork retains the MIT license, preserves the original copyright notice, and credits upstream in the README per standard practice.
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---
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## 9. Roadmap (post-1.0 / post-launch)
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Recorded direction, not commitments. Each gets a focused design pass before work begins; real-world use of the shipped plugin may reorder this.
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### v0.2.0 — Repeating to-dos (visualisation) + configurable strip horizon
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Recurrence itself is delegated to an existing community plugin (open-environment approach; we don't reimplement it). Candidates evaluated: BeatLink's original *Repeating To-Dos* (unmaintained), the *[Revived]* fork (maintained, GitHub issues only), and *Repeating To-dos v2* by TheScriptingGuy (`com.github.TheScriptingGuy.joplin-plugin-repeating-todos`, best-documented). All share the same mechanic: on completion the to-do's alarm date is reset to the next occurrence and the to-do is unmarked — so at any moment a recurring to-do is a **single** to-do at its next due date, with the recurrence rule stored in the note body.
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- **Option A (shipped in 0.2.0):** detect recurrence and mark those events with a ↻ glyph. *Implementation note:* v2 of the plugin stores recurrence in Joplin's `userData` (not the note body) and maintains a `recurring` **tag** as its query index — so detection is by tag presence on to-dos (constant `RECURRING_TAG`), not body-scanning. Cleaner than the originally-planned body parse, and reuses the tag-fetching the kanban work will need. No series projection — the to-do shows at its next due date.
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- **Option B (in pocket):** parse the recurrence rule and project all future occurrences across the visible window. Deferred because the body format has proven to be a moving target across forks; promote to a 0.2.x only if Option A's single-occurrence view proves insufficient, and target a specific fork's format at that time.
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- **README:** recommend the maintained fork (v2 first, Revived as fallback); warn about the known "recurrence block injected into all notes" failure mode; note coexistence (their plugin moves the anchor, ours draws the marker).
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**Configurable strip horizon.** `day`/`week`/`month` strip views currently span first-event to last-event (plus today). Add a horizon option to `gtd-calendar` (working name `weeks:` or `horizon:`, default ~8 weeks forward) controlling how far ahead the strip extends — relevant both generally and for how many future occurrences Option B would draw. **`month-grid` is explicitly excluded**: it always shows the entire current calendar month, by design, and that is not configurable.
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*Note: multiple `gtd-calendar` blocks in one note already work as of 0.1.0 (each fence renders independently) — e.g. a "week ahead" strip plus a "month grid" in a single dashboard note. No work required; document as a recommended pattern.*
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### v0.3.0 — Kanban board (read-only) — SHIPPED
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Decision: a **second block type within this plugin**, not a separate plugin. Rationale: a kanban needs the entire existing data layer (`folderScope`, `collectEvents` inclusion matrix, `getNoteTagTitles`, config parsing, recurrence detection, webview messaging); a separate plugin would duplicate all of it or require a shared-library split whose overhead isn't justified for "three tag-driven columns." One plugin also serves the intended use — a calendar and a kanban in one dashboard note — with a single install and a unified config/tag vocabulary.
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**The `gtd-kanban` block.** Parallel to `gtd-calendar`; lives in its own note or stacked beneath a calendar (multiple blocks already render independently).
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```
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```gtd-kanban
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title: Editorial Board
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scope: this-folder # this-folder | children | N — same semantics as gtd-calendar
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todos: gtd-only # gtd-only (default) | all | none
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sort-type: due-date # due-date (default) | title | modified-date
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sort: asc # asc | desc
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in-progress-tag: in-progress # configurable; default "in-progress"
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card-detail: hover # hover (default) | always | none
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done-window: 7 # days; integer or "all"; default 7
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```
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**Columns (always three, always shown even when empty):** Backlog · In Progress · Done.
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**Bucketing rules:**
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- **Done wins.** Any to-do with `todo_completed > 0` → *Done*, regardless of tags.
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- Else, carrying the in-progress tag → *In Progress*.
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- Else → *Backlog*.
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- **Backlog shows everything** uncompleted and untagged — dated or not, near or far. (Acknowledged: can grow long; compact cards mitigate.)
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**Sorting (within each column):**
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- `sort-type: due-date | title | modified-date`, with `sort: asc | desc`.
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- Under `due-date`, to-dos **without** a due date sort *after* all dated ones.
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**Done column window:** shows only to-dos completed within `done-window` days (default 7); `all` shows the full history. Prevents unbounded growth.
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**Cards:** compact by default — title, due date, ↻ if recurring, click-to-open. `card-detail` controls the hover panel: `hover` (default), `always` (details inline), `none` (no panel). Notes are excluded entirely (to-dos only).
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**Read-only in 0.3.0:** reflects state, never mutates it. Proves columns/bucketing cheaply before write-back.
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**Architecture:** reuses the calendar's pipeline. New `gtd-kanban` markdown-it fence → placeholder → webview requests data → plugin runs scope + inclusion + tag fetch (already built) + bucketing → returns three columns → webview renders. `IN_PROGRESS_TAG` constant mirrors `RECURRING_TAG`, exposed via `in-progress-tag:` config from the start.
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**`sort-type` vocabulary reconciliation:** the calendar block's `sort-type` (currently `title | modified_date`) is unified toward `due-date | title | modified-date` across both blocks so they read consistently. For the calendar, `due-date` is accepted but falls back to chronological where less meaningful. (Note the spelling shift `modified_date` → `modified-date` for cross-block consistency; the old spelling stays accepted as an alias to avoid breaking existing calendars.)
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### v0.4.0 — Eisenhower Matrix (`gtd-matrix` block) — SHIPPED
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### v0.5.0 — Skeleton Matrix (`mode:` on gtd-matrix) — SHIPPED
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Real-world feedback: Eisenhower's opinion axes (and "Eliminate" in particular) fit triage, not a vault of already-committed work. The **Skeleton Matrix** replaces them with two derived axes the system already maintains: rows = active (`in-progress-tag`, shared with the kanban); columns = due soon (`urgent-window` days, default 3, overdue included; `urgent` tag as manual override — in-progress + urgent + dateless is Do Next by design). Quadrants: Do Next / Scheduled / On Deck / Backlog; dateless active work → Scheduled; nothing is ever "Eliminate". Implemented as `mode: skeleton | eisenhower` on the same block — positional MatrixBoard (topLeft…bottomRight), labels supplied per mode via payload, shared rendering. Skeleton is the default (it matches the plugin's own tag/date vocabulary); classic Eisenhower preserved via `mode: eisenhower`.
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A fourth display block: a 2×2 prioritisation matrix, tag-driven like the kanban. Chosen ahead of drag-and-drop deliberately: it is on the **views axis** (another rendering of tagged to-dos, reusing the whole data layer, read-only) rather than the **authoring axis** (vault mutation), so it deepens what the plugin already is without committing to write-back.
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- **Quadrants** from two configurable tags (`urgent-tag:` default `urgent`; `important-tag:` default `important`):
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- urgent + important → **Do First**
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- important only → **Schedule**
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- urgent only → **Delegate**
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- neither → **Eliminate** (the default bucket for untagged to-dos — a deliberately pointed default)
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- **Completed to-dos are excluded entirely** — the matrix is a prioritisation view, not a tracking view; kanban's Done column is where completions live.
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- To-dos only; same `scope` / `todos` / `sort-type` / `sort` / `card-detail` options as the kanban; same compact clickable cards with ↻.
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- Own block (`gtd-matrix`), not a kanban mode — different layout, different tag semantics.
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### v0.5.0+ — The authoring axis (drag-and-drop + create-from-view) — one deliberate epic
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Clustered because they share write-back machinery, and adopting any of them commits the plugin to mutating the vault:
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**Drag-and-drop kanban (write-back).** The first feature making the plugin a **controller** of data rather than a viewer — warrants its own design pass.
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- Dragging a card writes back to Joplin via the existing webview→plugin channel:
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- → *In Progress*: add the `in-progress` tag (create the tag if absent; resolve its id; associate).
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- → *Done*: set `todo_completed`.
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- → *Backlog*: remove the tag / clear completion.
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- **Open design questions for that pass:** optimistic UI vs. wait-for-confirmation; behaviour on write failure; whether drops need undo; re-query/refresh of kanban and any affected calendars after a successful write; the trust implications of a rendered view mutating other notes.
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- Feasibility: confirmed possible (we already execute `openNote` from the webview; data writes use the same channel with more responsibility). Complexity lives in tag management and the write/refresh cycle, not the dragging.
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- **Multi-board refresh:** with Persistent Layout keeping several dashboards rendered, a write from one board leaves others stale until re-render — the refresh question is sharper in the fractal-dashboard architecture than for single-board use.
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**Create-to-do from kanban.** A "+" affordance per column creates a to-do with that column's state (In Progress column → in-progress tag; Backlog → no tag). Easier than create-from-calendar: the column *is* the metadata, no date geometry. Open: target notebook (leaf dashboards obvious, cockpit murky), trigger reliability in the rendered viewer.
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**Create-to-do from calendar.** Click/affordance on a day cell creates a to-do due that day. Open questions: trigger mechanism in the read-only viewer (double-click/right-click may be claimed by Joplin; per-cell "+" affordance likelier), target notebook rule, whether created to-dos get an empty gtd block so they appear under `todos: gtd-only`. Prototype the trigger before designing the rest.
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