REST web service wrapper around the Things API
Things is an OSX/iOS app for managing tasks in a GTD style. I use it primarily for managing recurring tasks around the house. Things does not include much in the way of 3rd-party integration, however, they do have a small AppleScript API. I wanted more ways to interact with Things, so this project exists to put a REST wrapper around some core task functionality, as well as some user interface options.
- Show tasks for a named list:
GET /api/v1/things/lists/today/todos. (any valid Things list will work, such as 'inbox', 'next', etc.) - Get an individual task (which will eventually be expanded to include editing):
GET /api/v1/things/lists/today/todos/:id. - Updated status for a task ('completed' or 'open'):
PUT /api/v1/things/lists/today/todos/:id/status/completed
Well, at a minimum you're gonna need a Mac with Things installed. This will allow execution of the AppleScript code, which extracts task lists. The services themselves are run with Node.js, and Grunt to help out.
- Install Node.js if you don't have it
- Install grunt cli if you don't have it
npm install -g grunt-cli - Install deps
npm install - Run code quality checks
npm test - Start services
npm start
By default it runs on port 3000, but you can change that with the PORT environment variable.
If you're using StatusBoard, you can load the custom panels to see your TODOs. Panic has instructions to do that here, but I'll summarize:
- Start this app.
- Find your Mac's IP address (easy way: System Preferences --> Network, it should be listed there.)
- Open the StatusBoard app, add a new 'DIY' panel, and in the URL field, enter
http://<mac ip address>:3000/todos.html- Options (add as query params to URL)
list: which list to display, defaults to 'today'refresh: how often to update panel, defaults to 600000 (once per hour)
- Options (add as query params to URL)
Obviously this will all only work if your iPad is on the same network as the Mac running this service. If you want it on the web, I guess you'll need to either open your firewall or find a host that will run a Mac. In the future this could be made better by allowing remote create/delete of TODOs, so you could have a machine at home that keeps a web-available service updated.
- /applescript contains any AppleScript files needed to extract data from Things (and write back to it at some point).
- /service contains the RESTful service code. It's a Node app using Express.
- /statusboard contains HTML code for a custom StatusBoard panel to display your tasks.
I'm open to any help I can get to expand the functionality. I don't really have a roadmap yet, but ideas are welcome. There are lots of things the AppleScript API exposes that may be useful/desirable to different people. My main use case is seeing the day's tasks and marking them as complete.
I suck at AppleScript.