Windows Port?

[achmafooma]

I am relatively "platform agnostic" and use Windows, Macs, and Linux machines. For to-dos I've been using Apple Reminders on Mac and Planify on Linux, but I haven't found anything I like on Windows.

Planify can build and run on Windows (using the MSYS2 UCRT64 build environment); see screenshot below. It seems to work correctly and I haven't come across any major issues. It syncs with my NextCloud instance as expected. After I got all the necessary prerequisites installed, I just had to use these meson flags to configure the build: -Dwebkit=false -Dportal=false -Devolution=false

Right now I have to run it inside the MSYS2 environment, but it's proof that the app can be built and packaged for Windows. I'm not making any promises [yet ;-)], but I would consider writing and contributing both code and documentation for building and packaging for Windows (and using NSIS or similar to create a Windows installer).

@alainm23, is this something you are interested in? I'm not sure if your intended scope is Gnome/Linux only or if you want to expand across platforms. If I move forward with this I would prefer to make it an 'official' contribution, but if you aren't interested I could make my own unofficial soft-fork.

For everybody else, is this something you'd be interested in or would be useful to you? Vote below ;-)

[alainm23]

Support for this is something that has been worked on in recent months. I’m very interested, and although the first step was adding macOS support, I’m also open to any contributions to make it work on Windows. I think Tuba has an action to generate a Windows installer — we could follow that approach

[ibadullahsyed]

when will Android be supported?? plss before windows

[achmafooma]

when will Android be supported?? plss before windows

I suspect that porting to Android will be more difficult than porting to Windows or Mac.

On Android I have found that Tasks.org works well for my purposes, including sync with NextCloud. It can connect directly using CalDAV or it can work with the DAVx5 synchronizer, which is more powerful and will also sync your calendars with the Android calendar apps.

I like Planify better from a UI/usability perspective ;-) but at least for now that's my suggested Android solution.

[achmafooma]

I'm not ready to submit a PR yet, but I have made some progress on this. You can take a look at my work-in-progress here:

https://github.com/achmafooma/planify/tree/feat/windows-support

I still need to validate and write-up the Windows build instructions, and set up an installer package. I'll take a look at how Tuba is doing it. I am also pretty familiar with the NSIS (Nullsoft Installer System), which many projects use.

So far I've just been working on getting the build process working well and getting all the required dependencies in the right places to make a package that will run correctly [hopefully] on any Windows system. If anybody wants to try an UNOFFICIAL, UNSUPPORTED binary build, you can grab this ZIP file:

https://update.intersanity.com/share/planify-4.16.1-WINDOWS-TEST-UNOFFICIAL.zip

Just unzip it somewhere, go into the 'bin' directory, and double-click on 'io.github.alainm23.planify.exe'.

If you test it and something isn't working right, let me know. So far I've been mostly testing with my NextCloud instance and it seems to be working perfectly. I was pleasantly surprised to find it even stores the DB in the user's AppData directory like a good Windows app should.

[achmafooma]

I've got the app working very well on Windows now. Solved a number of crashes and things that didn't work quite right. And I've been keeping it synced with the upstream changes and making sure it still builds and works.

I also made some tweaks so it looks a bit more "native," including using the standard Windows titlebar and window controls and adjusting some of the colors. Of course I have all that set up as conditional so it doesn't affect Linux builds, and I've been building and testing my code in a Linux environment to make sure I don't unintentionally mess it up ;-).

You can see a screenshot below (I redacted my tasks and categories; but you can see that I'm really using it as a 'daily driver' now!). Latest code still at the same place I linked above: https://github.com/achmafooma/planify/tree/feat/windows-support

I still have a few 'to-dos' to complete before I make my pull request (list below). But please feel free to take a look at what I've done and let me know if you have comments or suggestions. I have only a little previous experience with Adwaita and GTK4, and virtually none with Meson or Vala, so I'm learning as I go, and I'm happy to take correction from people with more knowledge and experience.

Remaining to-dos:

• Document how to configure the MSYS2 UCRT64 build environment and make sure the instructions work correctly from-scratch on a 'clean' PC.
• Set up the installer for distribution; I will use NSIS, which I have some experience with and is the same system Tuba is using (mentioned earlier). So far I've been running the app as an uninstalled 'portable' app.
• Set up Github build automation for the Windows port -- this will be very new to me so let me know if you have any hints/advice.
• Fix the dark styles; my Windows style tweaks look great in light mode, but are overriding/messing up parts of the the dark and dark blue styles. I'm very comfortable with CSS (much more than Vala!) so this is easy, I just haven't done it yet ;-)

Like I said, feedback welcome!

[Aeon-Flux]

Hi, just a quick catch today,

I am changing a project description (attached below), but when I click Update Project, it doesn't change automatically, I have to close the app, and reopen it again to see it changed. I don't know whether this happens in linux version or not.

The next one is when I am trying to connect with my Todoist account, then I click Sign in with Browser button, but nothing happen. The menu just grayed out, but nothing opened in my browser.

[achmafooma]

1 - I confirmed that if you change the description in the "Edit Project" dialog, it doesn't immediately update in the project view. This behaves the same way in both Windows and Linux so it's not related to my work.

2 - I'll look into the "Sign in with Browser" button not working. Can you check if other web links work? For example, click the "Privacy Policy" button down near the bottom of the "Preferences" dialog.

Initially none of the browser links worked in Windows, so I had to hook into a Windows native API. I'm hoping I just missed something with the Todoist button; if no links work that would mean I have a bigger problem to investigate and solve!

[alainm23]

Hi, I’ll review point number 1 — it’s probably a general bug. Regarding point 2, this is a new feature to avoid relying on WebKit and use the browser instead, but I’m not sure if it works in this Windows setup. Ideally, you should use the personal token provided as an alternative.

[achmafooma]

I was able to reproduce the issue for number 2, and it is specific to this link.

GTK's AppInfo.launch_default_for_uri() does not work correctly on Windows, so I abstracted it out into a new Util.open_url() method that will use a Windows native API (ShellExecuteA in shell32.dll) on Windows and the GTK method on other platforms. I changed everywhere that AppInfo.launch_default_for_uri() was called.

But this button changed upstream after I did that ;-), So it was still calling the GTK method directly, which just fails silently on Windows.

Easy fix; I just committed it to my branch and it'll be included in my next test build (after I fix some other things!).

[Aeon-Flux]

1 - I confirmed that if you change the description in the "Edit Project" dialog, it doesn't immediately update in the project view. This behaves the same way in both Windows and Linux so it's not related to my work.

2 - I'll look into the "Sign in with Browser" button not working. Can you check if other web links work? For example, click the "Privacy Policy" button down near the bottom of the "Preferences" dialog.

Initially none of the browser links worked in Windows, so I had to hook into a Windows native API. I'm hoping I just missed something with the Todoist button; if no links work that would mean I have a bigger problem to investigate and solve!

When I clicked the Privacy Policy, it works fine, showing the planify website https://useplanify.com/privacy-policy/. I can connect to my todoist account with API Token, so it's not a problem for now.