Undocumented Backpack API Section

All this time I’ve been complaining about the poor list support in the Backpack API and it’s just been undocumented. I’ve got the API calls and ruby wrapper for listing the lists on a page and modifying them individually now. This opens up the possibility for full project management on a page. For example, you could take a project.gtd file and have it turn each @project section into a list, and each item in the list into a checkboxed item on the backpack page within the project list. You could download the list the same way and convert it in reverse. Items that exist outside of projects would be collected into a general to-do list. Items could be sorted by their context before adding to the page… it could be sweet. My goal is to build an interface that offers great possibilities with 5 pages or less so that people can make the most of free accounts.

I’m experimenting right now with the list functions. I’ll be posting a new version of the Backpack bundle via subversion shortly. In the meantime, here’s the subversion information…

Thanks to Ale Muñoz of Bomber Studios, I have a Subversion account set up for my TextMate bundles. So those of you who are interested in using the bundles that I’m working on that don’t work their way into the main TextMate release can keep up with the latest tweaks and bugfixes without all of my messy overwriting of files. I’ve just committed the second pre-release of the Backpack bundle and it can be checked out by doing the following:

cd ~/Library/Application Support/TextMate/Bundles/
svn co http://svn.sofanaranja.com/projects/brettbundles/trunk/Bundles/Backpack.tmbundle

From that point on, when there’s been a release or change, you can update by going to that directory and typing ’svn up’.

Look for a new release soon that can handle lists in a limited fashion, and possibly some GTD integration.