Rewrite in C

[mrvladus]

I've decided to rewrite Errands in C. Why? Performance. While writing python code I found myself optimizing things that shouldn't be optimized due to python's pretty slow nature. It's a good language for small or not complicated GTK apps, but for Errands it became a bottleneck. Especially when implementing search functionality. Memory usage and micro-freezes with large amounts of tasks played a big role too. C is much simpler language that has unmatched performance. All of the libraries is written in it. So it's going to be much better choice for this project.

All progress will be on rewrite-in-c branch.

Feel free to ask questions.

With my initial version in C it's showing very promising results:

• Loading time is cut in half
• Memory usage is cut by 60%
• Overall performance improvements and snappiness
• No micro-freezes

Main tasks:

• Creating task lists
• Renaming task lists
• Deleting task lists
• Task list colors
• Task list export
• Task list import
• Task list drag and drop Option to reorder list of tasklists #177
• Task list printing (on paper printer) [Feature Request] Printing Support #318
• Creating tasks
• Creating sub-tasks
• Editing tasks
• Deleting tasks
• Task tags
• Exporting tasks
• Hiding completed tasks
• Cancelled tasks feature request: mark task as cancelled #196
• Recurrent tasks Recurrent / Daily Tasks #90
• Task notes window
• Task priority window
• Task tags window
• Task attachments window
• Task progress bar
• Task date and time window
• Task accent colors
• Tasks drag and drop
• Tasks filtering and sorting
• Sorting tasks by completion
• Sorting tasks by date Tasks sorting #158
• Sorting tasks by priority Tasks sorting #158
• Searching tasks by title, notes, tags Add searching for task #310
• Trash page
• Tags page Tag Search #312
• All tasks page List of all pending tasks ordered by priority #282
• Today page [Feature request] Sub-tasks in Today view #290
• Run in background
• Sync using Evolution Data Server Support CalDAV auto-discovery #309
• Gnome Online Accounts Automatically expose tasks lists from WebDAV accounts from GNOME Online Accounts #304
• Notifications
• Backups
• Use new libadwaita 1.6 widgets and dialogs
• Use GNOME 47 runtime for flatpak
• Bundling resources to binary itself
• More shortcuts [Feature request] More keyboard shortcuts #289

Optional tasks:

• Improved task creation process (tags, time etc.) [Feature request] Adding date / time / tags and so while creating a task #288
• Translations using Damned Lies Use Damned Lies for translations #234
• Simpler building and testing process
• Package as Snap (for Ubuntu users)
• Welcome screen

Progress reports and benchmarks will be here too.

[mrvladus]

New add list dialog using AdwAlertDialog:

And new priority selection dialog that will replace popover:

[mrvladus]

Added search by text, notes and tags

2024-10-01.10-03-34.webm

[Sesivany]

Looking forward to the rewrite, hope it's gonna help with the memory consumption.

[mrvladus]

New tags window that replaces menu button. Tags can be created right there instead of separate tags page.

[mrvladus]

Added attachments window

[mrvladus]

Task list colors is working now

[mrvladus]

Added task accent color selector

[mrvladus]

Added task tags and progress bar

[mrvladus]

Implemented date and time window. Now it's finally possible to make recurrent tasks #90.

2024-11-03.17-49-17.webm

[mrvladus]

Implemented task list drag and drop reorder #177

2024-11-04.13-07-14.webm

[antrmn]

Awesome! If the Android backend for GTK is ever going to land, it'll be awesome to have Errands use it for having a consistent task management across mobile and desktop!

[mrvladus]

@antrmn I'm looking forward for this too :)