Note
The feature described on this page requires Pagico v4.0 or later. The third party application mentioned here is only available for Microsoft Windows.

Starting with Pagico v4.0, a Command Line Interface (CLI) component is developed to provide users alternative access to their Pagico data through the command line. This article shows you how to display your ToDo lists (tasks) on your desktop, with the help of a free 3rd party application called Serious Samurize. The final result will look like this…

About Serious Samurize

Serious Samurize is a free, 3rd party application that allows you to place console (CLI) output (and a lot more) onto your desktop with customizable styles.

Step 1: Make sure you have the latest version of Pagico v4 installed.

Only Pagico v4.0 r868 or later has the Tasks CLI plugin.

Step 2: Get and install Serious Samurize

Serious Samurize can be downloaded from its official website. Once installed, it may ask you to reboot your computer. And when you first launch the Serious Samurize, you may notice there’s nothing showing up on your desktop except for the SS icon in your task bar. This is normal, as you haven’t gotten any configuration files yet.

Step 3: Install the pre-made configuration file

In order to help you get started as soon as possible, we’ve made a configuration file for you. All you need to do, is to download the configuration file (Pagico.ini, 1.6k, right-click and download as a file) and install it by placing it at: C:\Program Files\Samurize\Config folder.

Step 4: Load the configuration file in Serious Samurize

You need to ask the Serious Samurize application to load the configuration file by right clicking on the Serious Samurize icon (located in far right side of your task bar), and selecting the menu item: Select Config File -> Pagico.ini.

If you don’t see the Pagico.ini item showing up in the Select Config File sub-menu, you may have placed the configuration file in the wrong place in Step 3.

The pre-made configuration file does the following things:

• Display tasks due on today, tomorrow, and this week in three separate lists
• Content is auto-updated every minute
• Font: Courier New in black

All done!

Once you get the configuration file loaded, you should be able to see your tasks (today, tomorrow and this week) showing up on your desktop. Hooray! Oh, and don’t forget that you can move it around by dragging it (dragging might not be too easy, as you’ll need to really click on the word to be able to move it).

Next step?
Make it look good with your wallpaper by setting up font style, color, shadow, … etc!
To customize the look and feel of the displayed tasks, simply right click on the SS icon in your task bar, and choose the “Edit Config File…” menu command. Then, you’ll be able to see the config editor, which is really powerful.
To start customizing, first you need to select the “Tasks” item under the Pagico group. Then in the right column, switch to the “Display” tab, where you’ll have plenty of stuff to play with.

For advanced users…

If you’re savvy enough, you might want to tweak the content that’s being displayed. For example, you can create a text group showing only tasks due in today, and a text group showing only tasks due in tomorrow, etc, and set up the text groups with different styles.

To do so, you’ll need to switch to the “Source” tab in the Config File Editor. Then, in the command line textbox, use the following syntax to get different results:

“C:\Program Files\Pagico\CodeX\plugins\tasks.windows.cmd” {options}

Possible options:

• today=1
  Tasks that are due on today
• tomorrow=1
  Tasks that are due on tomorrow
• thisweek=1
  Tasks that are due within the current week
• overdue=1
  Tasks that are overdue
• inbox=1
  Tasks that are stored in Inbox

You may use multiple options (separated by space) at one time.

For example, in the pre-made configuration file, the command is:

“C:\Program Files\Pagico\CodeX\plugins\tasks.windows.cmd” today=1 tomorrow=1 thisweek=1

Related posts:

1. Display To-do lists on your desktop (Mac)
2. Command Line Interface
3. Synchronize your database on multiple computers via Dropbox