Hunting The Muse

My Todo List Application

This is the sample output for the web-based todo list application I wrote. (Click for full size). This is the graph view - there is also a list view where you can mark off completed items from the top layer. For the graph view, it made it a lot easier on me when I found the GraphViz library for php. GraphViz is something AT&T Research invented that automatically makes extremely complex bubble graphs just by being told what nodes link to what. So my application allows people to specify the relationships, and then the application automatically draws the bubble graphs like you see on the left.

I was also able to make the image a client-side image map so that clicking on a bubble will take you to the todo item in question. That's not what you see here, though - right now the application only exists here on my iBook. I'll end up pushing it live on my business website... whenever it is that I actually end up launching my business website.

As with any application, once you get the first batch of goals done, you come up with all sorts of other ideas for stuff you could add to it. For a todo list application, you can just throw the entire kitchen sink in there if you want. But, I think I want to keep my completely conceptual, to emphasize relationships rather than scheduling. Once I start adding in due dates and stuff, it turns into a Gantt Chart, and there are already applications for that.

Posted by Curt at August 21, 2003 12:05 AM