Two Due can open one file of To Do Items at a time. Each To Do file will be saved as a tab-delimited text file. This means that it can be opened, viewed, edited and imported with a variety of other programs.

Once opened, a To Do file is stored in memory, and not saved to disk until you explicitly issue a Save command (see below) or until it is AutoSaved (see the Prefs tab).

To Do Folder

Beginning with version 1.4, it is recommended that you save your To Do lists as a folder, rather than a specific file. By specifying a folder rather than a file, Two Due will be able to create and recognize multiple files within each folder and use them for different purposes.

The following files may be found in a To Do Folder.

archive.bak — This is the prior version of your archive.txt file, which is preserved in case you discover any problems with your latest archive.txt file.
archive.tmp — This is the name given to an archive file when it is first written to disk. If the entire save operation is successful, then the old archive.bak will be deleted, the old archive.txt will be renamed to archive.bak, and this file, archive.tmp, will be renamed to archive.txt.
archive.txt — This is an optional file that can store your closed items after they have been purged from your primary file (twodue.txt).
archive_template.html — This is the name for a Web template that can be used to publish your archive file.
files.txt — This file will only appear in your primary folder. This is where Two Due stores the list of all To Do files and folders known to the user.
template.html — This is the default name for a Web template that can be used to publish your To Do list as a Web page.
twodue.bak — This is the prior version of your twodue.txt file, which is preserved in case you discover any problems with your latest twodue.txt file.
twodue.tmp — This is the name given to a To Do file when it is first written to disk. If the entire save operation is successful, then the old twodue.bak will be deleted, the old twodue.txt will be renamed to twodue.bak, and this file, twodue.tmp, will be renamed to twodue.txt.
twodue.tdu — This is the file that stores your To Do list data, in tab-delimited format. The file extension is unique to the Two Due application. On a Mac, double-clicking on this file should cause it to be opened in Two Due.
twodue.txt — This is the file name and extension used to store your To Do items in previous versions of Two Due. The contents of this file will be transferred to "twodue.tdu" the first time that the file is opened and saved with Two Due.
twodue_sysprefs.xml — This is a backup of your system-wide preferences. It should only appear in your primary folder.
twodue_userprefs.xml — This is a backup of your user preferences. It should only appear in your primary folder.

One of your Two Due folders should be designated as your primary To Do list. This folder will be used to store the list of all the Two Due files known to you, and will be used for other purposes in future releases. A folder can be designated as your primary data store on the View Tab. Your primary file will be opened automatically each time that Two Due is launched.

Open Known

Two Due will remember the location of all To Do files and folders you have accessed. All of the previously accessed data stores are available via the File / Open Known menu. A separate set of View options will be stored for each file, and restored when the file is opened. You may instruct Two Due to drop a file from its Open Known list by telling the program to forget about it. This can be done on a dialog when trying to open a file or folder that cannot be found, or on the View Tab after opening a file that can be found.

Name of Currently Opened File

The name of the currently open file or folder is shown at the bottom left corner of the Two Due screen. Hovering over this name with your mouse will show the fully qualified path to the file.

Several sample To Do folders are included with the Two Due distribution, in the "samples" folder.

To Do Fields

A To Do file consists of the following fields. When importing (via the Open command), the columns may be in any order. Where multiple column headings are recognized, the primary heading is given first, followed by acceptable alternates (delimited by slashes, as in "Assigned To / Who"). Column headings will be recognized irrespective of capitalization, spacing, or punctuation. In other words, "assignedTo" will work just as well as "ASSIGNED TO".

Category

You may leave this blank, or assign a single category, or a primary category and one or more sub-categories. Sub-categories may be separated from other category levels with a forward slash ("/") or a period (".") when being entered by the user, although they will subsequently be converted to a standard format that uses periods as separators.

Category 1 through Category 5

The first five category levels may be input and will be output as separate fields. Note that outputting these category levels as separate fields allows them to be used as group variables within Web templates, so that you can recreate the Tree view in a Web template.

Priority

The importance of this item, on a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 being the most important. New items default to a priority of 3.

Due Date

The date on which this item should be completed, or closed. New items default to a standard date far in the future, so that they will sort after all other due dates. Note that a graphical indicator generally follows the due date to indicate its relationship to the current date. A red diamond (

) indicates that the item is past due. A blue equals sign (

) indicates that the item is due today. A green "plus" sign (

) indicates that the item is due tomorrow. A white square (

) indicates that the date is still in the future.

Due Date YMD

This is an alternate representation of Due Date, in year / month/ day format. This is included so that Web Page generation scripts can accurately sort items by date.

Start Time

The time of day at which an item is scheduled to start. This is optional. The default is 12:00 AM (midnight) which is generally assumed to indicate the field is not being used.

Duration

The length of time an item is scheduled to take, in hours and minutes (h:mm:). A value of -1 is used to indicate that this field has a null value.

Alert Prior

The number of minutes prior to the start time at which the user wishes to be alerted of the impending item. A value of -1 is used to indicate that this field has a null value.

Status Code

An indicator of the status of this item, with the following recognized values.

0 - Open/uncompleted. This is the default value for a new item.
1 - In Work, meaning that work on this item has been started, but has not yet been completed.
2 - Pending, waiting on some other action to complete before progress on this one can resume.
5 - Canceled, without being completed.
9 - Completed/Closed.

Done

This is an alternate representation of status, with only two conditions, done or not done. Status may be shown on the List tab in this form, if the Status field contains only values of Open and Closed (0 and 9). Status may also be imported in this form, with Yes or True values being converted to a status of 9 (Completed/Closed), and with other values (such as No or False) being converted to a status of 0 (Open/Uncompleted).

Assigned To / Who

The person expected to complete this item.

Sequence / Seq / Version Implemented

A brief field that can be used to sort items, such as a version number.

Title / Action

A brief (one-line) description of this item.

Description / Details / Problem

This is a multi-line text field that allows a more complete description of an item than will fit in the Title field. Note that tabs in this field will be converted to spaces; carriage returns and line feeds will be converted to HTML br (break) tags; double quotation marks will be converted to HTML entities. All of these conversions will happen so that the contents of these fields may be safely stored and accurately recovered from the tab-delimited file format used by Two Due. If you use Two Due's Web publishing features, then the br tags and double quotation mark entities will cause appropriate line breaks and quotation marks in your HTML output. Note that the br tags and double quotation marks are converted back as appropriate each time an item is displayed in Two Due.

Outcome / Resolution

This is a multi-line text field describing the resolution or outcome of a To Do item. Note that carriage returns, line feeds, tabs and quotation marks will be handled here as they are for the Description field described above.

Web Page / URL / Home Page

This is a URL pointing to a Web page with information about this To Do item.

Recurs Unit / Interval / Recurs Period

For recurring items, this indicates the unit of time used to calculate the recurrence. The following values are allowed. Note that either numeric or their alphabetic equivalents may be used on an input file, and that, for alphabetic values, any string starting with the indicated letter will have the same meaning, irrespective of case.

0 / NA - Not applicable (the default value).
1 / D - Days
2 / W - Weeks
3 / M - Months
4 / Y - Years

Recurs Every / Every

A number (an integer, in fact) indicating the number of Recurs Units between recurrences of this item. A 2 in this field, for example, combined with a Recurs Unit of "Week", indicates that the item should recur every 2 weeks.

Recurs Day Of Week

This indicates the day of the week on which you always wish this event to recur, if any. This is relevant if you specify a Recurs Unit of Months or Years, and in combination with the following field. A value of -1 means "N/A", 0 indicates Sunday, 1 Monday, and so forth.

Recurs Within Month

In combination with the prior field, this field indicates in which week of the month you want your item to occur. A value of -1 here means "N/A", 1 means the first week of the month, 2 the second, 3 the third, 4 the fourth and 5 the last week of the month (which could be the same as the fourth, or the fifth). So if you specified Wednesday in the prior field, and 3 in this field, then your event would always be scheduled to occur on the third Wednesday of the month.

Sample To Do Folders

The installation package for Two Due contains a folder named samples, which contains several sample folders of To Do data, along with some sample Web Publishing templates.

bookmarks: A list of Web sites, organized by category. This file should be sorted by category and title. The Web Template illustrates the ability to reproduce the Tree view in a Web page.
changes: A list of software changes. This file should be sorted in ascending order by Status, then in Descending order by Seq, then in ascending order by Due Date and Priority.
giftlist: A wish list for birthdays and holidays. This file should be sorted by Assigned To (the intended recipient of the gift), and then by Seq (used for approximate price).
meeting: A file of meeting agendas. This file should be sorted by Status, Due Date, Category and Seq. A Default Start Time for the meeting should be specified on the View Tab.
primary: A file of actual to do items! This should be sorted by status, due date and priority.

Parms.txt

This file may be stored in the Two Due Folder that contains the application program. In versions of Two Due prior to 1.6, it was used to store your registration name and code, the location of your Primary folder, etc. When you upgrade your Two Due software, you may wish to save this file first, then copy it back to your Two Due folder after installation, in order to preserve this information without having to re-enter it. This should no longer be necessary for installation of versions after 1.6.

http://www.powersurgepub.com/ | file.html | Revised: 7/23/08