Eclipse: Difference between the "Tasks" view and the "Task List" View

Question

What is the difference between the "Tasks" view and the "Task List" view in eclipse.

I understand that one is managed by Mylyn, but I would like a comprehensive answer if anyone's got the time. It will help many people in the future when they a are searching for information on eclipse.

• What are the differences between the two views?
• Does one totally supersede/replace the other?
• Is there some way that they work together?

Thanks

Answer 1

The Task List is part of Eclipse Mylyn and contains tasks that are downloaded from popular bug trackers like Bugzilla, Trac, Mantis, etc. Many developers like having their tasks directly in Eclipse, as it saves them from having to switch from Eclipse to a web browser to see what task to do next. Additionaly, the deep integration of your tasks with Eclipse allows features like focusing your views on the task at hand (2 minute video) and toaster notifications as tasks are updated.

The Tasks View is a bit of a misnomer, it might be more appropriately called the Tags View. It contains a list of tags that exist in your source code. For instance, if you have the tag //FIXME or //TODO in a source code file then an entry will appear in the Tasks View.

Answer 2

Tasks' content generated automatically if you marked some code with TODO or FIXME.

Task List is the actual task list. You have to define it manually or you can also connect to some servers (Bugzilla, JIRA, Trac) to get the tasks. Task List is part of Mylyn and if you use a task, it will activate a special context for that task. This is nice presentation of Mylyn: http://live.eclipse.org/node/573

You can use both together as they are working on different levels as I explained before.