Is there an ideal personal task scheduler? Modular Scheduler Development

Some time ago, as an active user of personal task planners, I discovered one significant drawback - despite their countless numbers, it is impossible to find the “one” that would satisfy you on all counts.

No, in itself this is absolutely normal, since the program was developed by one or several developers who eventually came to their understanding of “how the user will feel better.” And besides, it is impossible to fit in one program everything that theoretically a spherical user might want in a vacuum. Or maybe?

Why 2 functions in 1 application is better than 1 function in 1 application

Let's put aside all restrictions for a second and imagine that an ideal scheduler exists: it fully meets your expectations in terms of interface, provides all the functions you need and works on all your devices. What does this give us? A key feature of such an application will be the ability to use the same data to ensure the operation of all the functions of the application.

We will simulate the situation - there are two users who cannot live without compiling a list of tasks and using Pomdoro equipment . Both have the same needs - the only difference is which applications they use to satisfy them:

• User # 1 uses 2 popular apps: Todoist (to-do list) and Productivity Challenge Timer (Pomodoro)
• User # 2 uses our hypothetical “perfect” application

A few words about how the user interacts with the program in both cases:

• User # 1: populates the task list in Todoist, populates the list of projects in the Productivity Challenge Timer
• User # 2: fills the list of tasks inside his program

Based on the above illustration, you can identify some unpleasant moments that user # 1 will have to face, unlike user # 2:

• The need to manually synchronize the list of projects in both applications
• Inability to start Pomodoro loops for subtasks included in the project
• Lack of consolidated statistics on task performance - it is stored in different applications

If this does not bother you, and you think that several applications can be dispensed with, then imagine what will happen if you need to provide the user with not two, but ten functions?

Solution

Well, one application in which there are all the necessary functions is better than several applications. But you cannot develop a separate program for all combinations of functions! This is how it turns out, if you don’t use it ... and why am I breaking the comedy, in the title it was written ... a modular approach!

The main secret of the “ideal” application is that you don’t have to try to “predict” what the user wants there, but let him build his own “personal” application, which will fully meet his desires and needs. The process of assembling such an application will consist in selecting the desired application functions and user interface aspects that will be represented by the corresponding modules.

In addition, it is obvious that if you correctly organize the development process of such an application, the overall complexity will be significantly reduced, since the implemented functions do not disappear anywhere - they are only "packed" into modules convenient for use by other developers.

This is not only a theory.

So that this article does not look like the nonsense of a developer who is crazy on his theory, I would like to show how this all works on the example of my project. I will not describe it in the framework of this article for now - now I will only describe the idea itself. In general, there is a certain application X - at the moment, it is possible to connect new modules to the system, where each module can significantly change the interface and expand the available functions of the application.

Here is the situation as in the example above, when the to-do list module is expanded by the Pomodoro module:

At the moment, the application is under development, and is not ready to provide access to users. There is still much to be realized, but something already exists - here, for example, is a list of the application's working functions:

1. Task list - tasks have the following properties: name, date, completed by Pomodoro, sketch
2. Pomodoro Technique - Run Pomodoro loops for tasks from the task list
3. Custom Sketches - create sketches for saving in a separate gallery or binding to tasks from the task list

Each of the described functions is represented by a group of modules, each of which can be removed without affecting the operability of the entire system - deleting a module will only exclude the corresponding function from the system for which it was responsible.

Prospects

At the end of the article, I would like to share with you my concepts on the further development and use of this project.

In this article, I did not consider the features of the implementation, so as not to overload the text with details. I will definitely cover the development process itself, but in the next article. If anyone is interested, then you can familiarize yourself with already implemented modules:

The source code can be found here .

Thanks for attention.