TaskPaper > OmniFocus URL > draft

Action

Posted by Jon Mitchell, Last update over 6 years ago

Derived from Rosemary Orchard’s TaskPaper to OmniFocus action, this action encodes TaskPaper as an OmniFocus URL, then creates a new draft containing that URL. You can then copy/paste or send it wherever you want — such as the Notes field in an OmniFocus task — and opening the URL will create the project or tasks in OmniFocus on command.

Rosemary’s action sends the TaskPaper straight through to OmniFocus. This one lets you store it as a link you can trigger later however you want.

OmniFocus has a “Copy as TaskPaper” command built right in, so you don’t even have to write the template in TaskPaper; you can just build it like you normally would inside OmniFocus, then “Copy as TaskPaper,” then paste that into Drafts. If you want to use defer/due dates, though, set them first, then once you convert it to TaskPaper in Drafts, change the absolute date stamps to relative dates, e.g. “Fri 17:00”. That will set the dates on the new tasks and projects to the upcoming Friday, based on when you click the link.

Putting an encoded-TaskPaper URL in the notes field was OmniGroup CEO Ken Case’s suggestion for me as a way to make a project recur conditionally. For example, I have a complex project I need to do every Friday, but only if I’m home that weekend. So I made one weekly task called “Home this week? [launch project in note]”, with the URL-encoded template in the notes field. That way, whether on Mac or iOS, I can create the project with one tap if I’m going to be home.

Install

Steps

script

// See online documentation for examples
// http://getdrafts.com/scripting

var p = Prompt.create();

p.addButton("New Project");
p.addButton("New Project in Folder");
p.addButton("New Tasks in Project");
p.addButton("New Tasks in Inbox");

var didSelect = p.show();

if (didSelect === false) {
		cancel("User cancelled the script");
	}

const baseURL = "omnifocus:///paste";

//set where the taskpaper should be saved
var target = "";
switch (p.buttonPressed) {
	case "New Project":
		target = "projects";
		break;
	case "New Project in Folder":
		var p2 = Prompt.create()
		p2.addTextField("folderName", "Folder Name", "");
		p2.isCancellable = false;
		p2.addButton("OK");
		p2.show();
		target = "/folder/" + encodeURI(p2.fieldValues["folderName"]);
		break;
	case "New Tasks in Project":
		var p2 = Prompt.create()
		p2.addTextField("projectName", "Project Name", "");
		p2.isCancellable = false;
		p2.addButton("OK");
		p2.show();
		target += "/task/" + encodeURI(p2.fieldValues["projectName"]);
		break;
	case "New Tasks in Inbox":
		target = "inbox";
		break; 
}

//replace any placeholder if they exist
var known_placeholders = {};
var placeholders = [];

var draftsContent = editor.getText();
var matches = draftsContent.match(/«(.+?)»/g);

for (match in matches) {
	var placeholder = matches[match];
	known_placeholders[placeholder] = null;
	placeholders.push(placeholder);
}

if (placeholders.length === 0) {
	var alert = Prompt.create();
	alert.title = "No template placeholders were found.";
	alert.body = "If your project text has placeholders (that look like «this»), this script will prompt for values you'd like to substitute for them.";
	var alertCancelled = alert.addButton("Continue Anyway");
	if (alertCancelled === false) {
		cancel("User cancelled the script");
	}
}	else {
	for (var placeholder in known_placeholders) {
		var showPlaceholder = placeholder.replace("«", "");
		showPlaceholder = showPlaceholder.replace("»", "");
		var placeholderQuery = Prompt.create();
		placeholderQuery.title = placeholder;
		placeholderQuery.addTextField("placeholder", "", showPlaceholder);
		placeholderQuery.addButton("OK");
		placeholderQuery.isCancellable = false;
		placeholderQuery.show();

		draftsContent = draftsContent.replace(new RegExp(placeholder, 'g'), placeholderQuery.fieldValues["placeholder"]);
	}
}

//copy final URL to clipboard
var endUrl = baseURL + "?target=" + encodeURI(target) + "&content=" + encodeURI(draftsContent);
var d = Draft.create();
d.content = endUrl;
d.update();

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