by Christian Cantrell

 Comments (8)

Created

December 18, 2009

I started using Google Tasks about a month ago in order to make it easier for me to use multiple computers and multiple operating systems. Google Tasks is a nice, simple, straightforward application with one small shortcoming: it’s tied to the browser.

Download TaskWrapper

Running some applications exclusively in the browser is fine, but sometimes you really want to take them out of the browser and run them on the desktop. Google Tasks has the ability to "pop-out" of Gmail and open in its own browser window which is nice, but leads to an entirely new set of problems:

  • If you close your browser or it crashes, your tasks get closed, too.
  • Sometimes other applications open links in my tasks window. Very annoying.
  • Sometimes when I switch to my browser, my task window has focus, so it’s easy to accidentally close it.
  • When I want to access my tasks, it’s more efficient to go directly to a task application than to go to my browser, then to my task window.

The answer is to run Google Tasks on the desktop with TaskWrapper.

Update (1/8/10): Thanks to a tip from robmcm, TaskWrapper is now using an even nicer version of Google Tasks.

Update (12/21/09): Thanks to Rob McM, TaskWrapper is even simpler. It now loads the iGoogle version of Google Tasks rather than making you log into Gmail first, and “pop” the task window out. TaskWrapper is now literally three lines of MXML code!

COMMENTS

  • By Raymond Camden - 8:20 AM on December 18, 2009   Reply

    Does this not work with hosted accounts? It doesn’t seem to.

  • By Raymond Camden - 8:22 AM on December 18, 2009   Reply

    When I restart the app I have to repeat the process to get the tasks popped out. Is that right?

  • By Faisal - 8:40 AM on December 18, 2009   Reply

    Got it working, great. Notifications for a shared task list from others would be a bonus.Is there an FLA for me to start to tackle that?

  • By Christian Cantrell - 11:27 AM on December 18, 2009   Reply

    Hey, Ray. It only works with Gmail accounts because loading Gmail is hard-coded. Maybe I should make a version that is more configurable (or just give the code away).

  • By Bruce Hopkins - 6:11 AM on March 11, 2010   Reply

    Chris,Do you plan to post the src code soon for this? This app is awesome!

  • By H. - 2:05 PM on March 31, 2010   Reply

    This version does not at all look like the Google Tasks we see in the browser. I find it cluttered, and the yellow highlight isn’t even spaced out properly. Maybe it’s just me. Because this is what I see: http://i44.tinypic.com/ta4lud.jpg

  • By martijn aslander - 7:50 PM on November 21, 2010   Reply

    Looks great,

    can I acces all the tasks en lists also when I’m offline?

    cheers,
    martijn

    co-founder of lifehacking.nl

  • By Max - 5:18 PM on January 6, 2012   Reply

    The only feature really missing in this small app, is the ability to see and edit the task properties just by selecting a task. The properties panel could be always visible, for instance at the bottom of the screen, to accomplish this. Anyway, the apps is really useful, Thanks.

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