Deprecated Features

Taskwarrior, Tasksh, and Timewarrior have many features. With each release new features are added, and sometimes features are removed. A feature may be removed if it has been superseded by something better, is no longer relevant, or is very troublesome.

With the Taskwarrior command line syntax becoming more formal and regular with every release, there will be a corresponding set of changes that remove ambiguous command line syntax, and add consistent syntax.

Before a feature is removed, it is deprecated, where possible. This means that it will appear on this list, in one release, and be removed in an unspecified later release. Deprecation acts as an early warning for disappearing functionality, giving users time to adapt or complain.

When a feature is removed, any related configuration settings are also removed. You can see if your .taskrc contains any obsolete settings by using the show command:

$ task show
...

The show command highlights various problems.

Taskwarrior

Push/Pull/Merge [deprecated since 2.3.0] [removed in 2.4.0]

Starting with Taskwarrior 2.3.0, the push, pull and merge commands are deprecated, and gone from 2.4.0. The sync command in 2.3.0 replaces this functionality.

Shadow Files [deprecated since 2.4.0] [removed in 2.4.0]

Starting in 2.4.0, shadow files are replaced by an equivalent hook mechanism.

Bare Word Search Terms [deprecated since 2.4.0]

Simple words being interpreted as search terms is deprecated in 2.4.0 and will be removed in a future release. The preferred syntax is task /pattern/ ....

The ’limit’ Pseudo Attribute [deprecated since 2.4.0]

The limit:20 pseudo attribute looks like a task attribute, but is just syntactic sugar. It is deprecated and will be replaced by rc.limit in a future release.

The ‘urgency.inherit.coefficient’ Setting [deprecated since 2.4.5]

Urgency inheritance changes with 2.4.5, and this settings will no longer be used.

ISO Date and Time non-extended formats. [deprecated since 2.4.5]

The non-extended formats are just strings of numbers without separators. Here is an extended date 2015-06-25 and here is the non-extended date 20150625, which looks like a number or even an abbreviated UUID. Here is an extended time 12:34:56, and an non-extended time 123456, with the same issue. The non-extended forms will be removed.

Helper commands for unique lists [deprecated since 2.4.5]

The _ids, _projects, _tags, and _uuids helper commands are deprecated in favor of the new _unique command.

Virtual tag DUETODAY [deprecated since 2.6.0]

The DUETODAY virtual tag is a synonym for the more consistently named TODAY virtual tag.

DOM references: context.* [deprecated since 2.6.0]

The dom references context.program, context.args, context.width, and context.height are replaced by tw.program, tw.args, tw.width, and tw.height.

Tasksh

None yet.

Timewarrior

None yet.