Re: [ANN] Exporter for taskjuggler

[Carsten Dominik <carsten.dominik@gmail.com>]

Hi Christian, this look interesting.  Should we put this
into the contrib directory for now, or are you aiming
for the Org-mode core?

- Carsten

On Mar 30, 2010, at 10:59 AM, Christian Egli wrote:

>
> Hi all
>
> In theory we're developing according to agile methods here, but in
> practice people still want to see the classic waterfall project plan.
>
> So in order to create a professional looking gant and resource usage
> charts I implemented an exporter from org-mode to TaskJuggler
> (http://www.taskjuggler.org/). The code is attached and I'm looking  
> for
> feedback and would love to get this integrated in the org-mode
> distribution.
>
> TaskJuggler uses a text format to define projects, tasks and  
> resources,
> so it is a natural fit for org-mode. It can produce all sorts of  
> reports
> for tasks or resources in either HTML, CSV or PDF. The current version
> of TaskJuggler requires KDE but the next version is implemented in  
> Ruby
> and should therefore run on any platform.
>
> The exporter is a bit different from other exporters, such as the HTML
> and LaTeX exporters for example, in that it does not export all the
> nodes of a document or strictly follow the order of the nodes in the
> document.
>
> Instead the TaskJuggler exporter looks for a tree that defines the
> tasks and a optionally tree that defines the resources for this
> project. It then creates a TaskJuggler file based on these trees
> and the attributes defined in all the nodes.
>
> * Installation
>
> Put the attached file into your load-path and the following line into
> your ~/.emacs:
>
>  (require 'org-taskjuggler)
>
> The interactive functions are similar to those of the HTML and LaTeX
> exporters:
>
> M-x `org-export-as-taskjuggler'
> M-x `org-export-as-taskjuggler-and-open'
>
> * Tasks
>
> Let's illustrate the usage with a small example. Create your tasks as
> you usually do with org-mode. Assign efforts to each task using
> properties (it's easiest to do this in the column view). You should  
> end
> up with something similar to the example by Peter Jones in
> http://www.contextualdevelopment.com/static/artifacts/articles/2008/project-planning/project-planning.org 
> .
> Now mark the top node of your tasks with a tag named
> "taskjuggler_project" (or whatever you customized
> `org-export-taskjuggler-project-tag' to). You are now ready to export
> the project plan with `org-export-as-taskjuggler-and-open' which will
> export the project plan and open a gant chart in TaskJugglerUI.
>
> * Resources
>
> Next you can define resources and assign those to work on specific
> tasks. You can group your resources hierarchically. Tag the top node  
> of
> the resources with "taskjuggler_resource" (or whatever you customized
> `org-export-taskjuggler-resource-tag' to). You can optionally assign  
> an
> ID to the resources (using the standard org properties commands) or  
> you
> can let the exporter generate IDs automatically (the exporter picks  
> the
> first word of the headline as the ID as long as it is unique). Using
> that ID you can then allocate resources to tasks. This is again done
> with the "allocate" property on the tasks. Do this in column view or
> when on the task type
>
> C-c C-x p allocate RET <ID> RET
>
> Once the allocations are done you can again export to TaskJuggler and
> check in the Resource Allocation Graph which person is working on what
> task at what time.
>
> * Export of properties
>
> The exporter also takes TODO state information into consideration,  
> i.e.
> if a task is marked as done it will have the corresponding attribute  
> in
> TaskJuggler ("complete 100"). Also it will export any property on a  
> task
> resource or resource node which is known to TaskJuggler, such as  
> limits,
> vacation, shift, booking, efficiency, journalentry, rate for resources
> or account, start, note, duration, end, journalentry, milestone,
> reference, responsible, scheduling, etc for tasks.
>
> * Dependencies
>
> The exporter will handle dependencies that are defined in the tasks
> either with the ORDERED attribute (see TODO dependencies in the Org  
> mode
> manual) or with the BLOCKER attribute (see org-depend.el) or
> alternatively with a depends attribute. Both the BLOCKER and the  
> depends
> attribute can be either "previous-sibling" or a reference to an ID  
> which
> is defined for another task in the project.
>
> Thanks
> Christian
>
> <org-taskjuggler.el>
> -- 
> Christian Egli
> Swiss Library for the Blind, Visually Impaired and Print Disabled
> Grubenstrasse 12, CH-8045 Zürich, Switzerland
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- Carsten