Not everyone knows of Google Tasks, it exists in your Gmail account, but you can use it almost anywhere since it is just a web page. This article will show you how to integrate the incredibly useful and easy-to-use to-do app with your Ubuntu desktop using Prism.
Managing Your Life With a Task List
I used to use Remember the Milk for managing my tasks, but recently I changed to Google Tasks because I started to find RTM to be a little to clumsy for my taste. I wanted something more basic and quick. Googlel Tasks is quick to add new tasks, you can have several task lists, and even make sub-tasks.
Google Tasks exists in your Gmail account, but you can use it almost anywhere since it is just a web page. This is how you integrate with the Ubuntu desktop:
But first things first, we need to enable Google Tasks in the Labs section of your Gmail account. Follow these instructions from Google to do just that. This will only take a few seconds!
No Need To Use Your Browser!
To view and edit your Tasks on your desktop, you need to install "Prism" (click here to install prism). You can also install other applications such as Gmail and Google Calendar by installing prism-google-calendar and prism-google-mail.
Add Google Tasks by starting Prism from Applications >> Internet >> Pris.
Enter the URL in to the URL field:
http://mail.google.com/tasks/ig
Enter what you like for the name, I just called it "Tasks". Make sure that "Desktop" under "Create Shortcuts" is checked. This will create an icon on your desktop for Tasks.
Desktop Integration
To integrate Google Tasks with Ubuntu, we need to install a program called alltray (click here to install alltray). This will allow an icon to be placed in your tray/panel.
Alltray can be started from terminal by using the following command:
alltray
This is the command I use to start Google Tasks with alltray:
alltray -st -na -g 320x724+980 xulrunner-1.9 /usr/share/prism/application.ini -webapp gmail.tasks@prism.app
If that looks confusing, here is an explaination:
- -st instructs alltray to display the window at startup.
- -na deletes “Alltray” from the title.
- -g controls the window size and position on the form. I set it to a width of 320 and a height of 724 (height of my desktop minus the height of the Gnome Panels) and an X position of 960 (desktop resolution minus the witdh of the window). The last argument is how Google Tasks is started normally with Prism.
Right-click on the desktop icon for Google Tasks and change the Command field to include the alltray command with its arguments before the normal Prism command. Now when you double-click the Google Tasks desktop icon, it will start in the panel instead of in a window.If you right-click on the Applications menu and select Edit Menus you can drag-and-drop the Google Tasks desktop icon to a menu. You can then delete it from your desktop, or leave it there if you wish.
Start Automatically
To make Google Tasks start automatically, add it to Sessions in System >> Preferences >> Sessions. Open Sessions and drag-and-drop the Google Tasks icon from your desktop, or menu, to the Sessions window. GoogleTasks will now start when you login.
Conclusion
This is quite an easy method to add Google Tasks to your Ubuntu desktop. You could repeat this process with any other web application like Twitter, Google Docs and Facebook.