A popular annual list of top installed Trello Power-ups (Blue Cat Reports) has called out one of my Trello Power-Ups for its quick growth. At less than a year old is already have over 5000+ active installs.
See the article here: https://www.bluecatreports.com/blog/power-up-stats-2022/
Install Card Priority Badge here: https://trello.com/power-ups/622beeb83f53e80ce0e50001
See all my Power-Ups here: https://kryl.com/?page=/trello
I have really enjoyed writing this bit of code because it stretched from Trello API to Office 365 API, two of my favorite programming interfaces. This Power-Up is similar to the default Trello Calendar Power-up, the key difference being is that it connects to your Outlook Calendar. So, you can see all your Trello Tasks and your Outlook appointments/meetings, side by side in one place, you can link your appointments to Trello cards and vice-versa. With a month view and a weekly view, you can manage your calendar easily by dragging and dropping your Trello Cards on the calendar to create linked appointments for specific tasks all in one place.
Check it out here:
In writing my new Outlook Add-in (Send to Trello), I got stuck on attachments. The first version did not include an attachments option because of two unique problems that compounded each other:
So, I found out something interesting while researching a workaround. Most every base64 string of a specific file type starts with the same “prolog” of text. Using this, combined with the fallback of the file extensions, I was able to get attachments to work (for the attachment types supported by Trello). So, v1.02 will now include attachments.
Anway, as for the workaround I found, this might be ugly, but wanted to share it anyway:
| /** | |
| * Returns the data type based on the base64 string | |
| * @param {String} base64String | |
| * @param {String} fileName | |
| * @returns {String} | |
| */ | |
| detectMimeType(base64String, fileName) { | |
| var ext = fileName.substring(fileName.lastIndexOf(".") + 1); | |
| if (ext === undefined || ext === null || ext === "") ext = "bin"; | |
| ext = ext.toLowerCase(); | |
| const signatures = { | |
| JVBERi0: "application/pdf", | |
| R0lGODdh: "image/gif", | |
| R0lGODlh: "image/gif", | |
| iVBORw0KGgo: "image/png", | |
| TU0AK: "image/tiff", | |
| "/9j/": "image/jpg", | |
| UEs: "application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.", | |
| PK: "application/zip", | |
| }; | |
| for (var s in signatures) { | |
| if (base64String.indexOf(s) === 0) { | |
| var x = signatures[s]; | |
| // if an office file format | |
| if (ext.length > 3 && ext.substring(0, 3) === "ppt") { | |
| x += "presentationml.presentation"; | |
| } else if (ext.length > 3 && ext.substring(0, 3) === "xls") { | |
| x += "spreadsheetml.sheet"; | |
| } else if (ext.length > 3 && ext.substring(0, 3) === "doc") { | |
| x += "wordprocessingml.document"; | |
| } | |
| // return | |
| return x; | |
| } | |
| } | |
| // if we are here we can only go off the extensions | |
| const extensions = { | |
| xls: "application/vnd.ms-excel", | |
| ppt: "application/vnd.ms-powerpoint", | |
| doc: "application/msword", | |
| xml: "text/xml", | |
| mpeg: "audio/mpeg", | |
| mpg: "audio/mpeg", | |
| txt: "text/plain", | |
| }; | |
| for (var e in extensions) { | |
| if (ext.indexOf(e) === 0) { | |
| var xx = extensions[e]; | |
| return xx; | |
| } | |
| } | |
| // if we are here – not sure what type this is | |
| return "unknown"; | |
| } |
I have been using Trello for a while now and one of the features I have found most useful is to take an email I received and turn it into a Kanban item on my backlog to address later. This allows me to archive the email but keeps it on my “Trello radar” as I work at my own pace through my personal backlog.
Recently, Trello removed their add-in from the Microsoft Office store. If you have the add-in installed, you will see this error:
Well, since they say necessity is the mother of all invention and I really had to fill the gap as it is part of my routine, I rolled my own. 🤓 To add a degree of difficulty, I wrote this in VS Code in Linux running in Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). See my previous post. It was a fun exercise as I am on vacation and using the time tom learn new things, engage in self-improvement and relax (coding is relaxing to me 🤓🤓🤓). In the end, I learned something and created something for everyone to enjoy.
Say hello to the recently published: Send to Trello Outlook Add-in.
Give it a try and let me know what you think.
I have been working more and more with Linux lately. The job as a Program Manager has put some of my skills to the test. Oddly, I actually taught a semester of Linux back in my “college professor days.” And despite the kicking and screaming, funny enough, I am close to becoming a novice beginner at it.
Last year, I took the deep dive, spending nearly 100% of my personal time in Linux – command line and UI wise. I had an Ubuntu VM in the cloud that I worked with and repurposed on one of my old laptops with a distro of Elementary OS (essentially a MacOS like shell on top of Ubuntu).
Well, recently, I have been playing about with the Windows Subsystem for Linux. In the early days this was what I called a novelty. You could open a command prompt and start bashing out Linux commands and feeling totally geeky 🤓. However, recently, I found that you can now run Linux Applications in a window from Windows 11. This was a bit of a game changer, as now I can run Linux and Windows (side-by-side).
So, I just got through developing and testing an Office JS add-in (which I just published to the store) from Linux using VS Code and Microsoft Edge. It will hopefully be released soon, and I will blog it here (Send to Trello for Outlook Add-in).
Here is how I did it:
The coup-de-grace, it places these applications right on your START menu:
So, a friend asked me…”Uh, so.. like.. why?” I answered, “Uh… Because, I can!” 🤓
It has been a fun journey, learning something new and as it turns out, it has come in handy quite a few times in the new role as different aspects of the system we are developing cross paths with Linux. I also have a sneaky suspicion that this Windows/Linux integration lines are going to get a bit more “blurred” in the coming years (100% personal opinion).
To date I have created four Trello Power-Ups that I use every day to fill a gap that I need in order to scrum my life’s “backlog.” I was first turned towards Trello when I read Deep Work by Cal Newport. Since then I created:
Each time I created a Power-Up, I found myself going back to the documentation over and over again for the most trivial items. So, I finally sat down and hacked out a type definitions file based on the existing Trello Power-Up Documentation.
You can find all the information about the type library I created here:
Continuing to use Trello I found a need to take cards that had been sitting around a while and put them in a place other than Archive (and forget them). What I had been doing was copy/pasting them in checklists in another card and as needed taking the check list items and promoting them back to a card. However, after performing the manual process (which could take a lot of time) enough times, I decided it was time for another Power-Up. So, I created the Demote a Card Power-Up:
https://trello.com/power-ups/630d74e4e1bab6013d6c1160/demote-a-card
Also — while building this Power-Up, I also got a tad frustrated that there was not any IntelliSense code assistance from the Trello Library. So, I build one in JSDOC and will likely be publishing that on GitHub soon. Not sure how many other developers there are out there that write Power-Ups, but my hope is it might be useful.
I have been in full-bore developer mode of late, trying new things and writing a lot of code. One area I thought I would give a try is browser extensions. I find myself wanting to tag pages so that I can reference them later in something I am writing or working on. And because I like to store information in Trello, I wanted something that combined both. So, here is an extension I created that will do just that. It takes the page you are on and then creates an MLA or APA reference and then adds it to a card in Trello for you.
I published this to both the Microsoft Edge and the Google Chrome store:
The following screen shots show you what it looks like when you are using it:
This browser extension is useful if you are a student writing a paper (supports MLA and APA formats), an author writing a book, or a blogger or someone doing research and keeping track of references using notecards. Because Trello is a digital version of notecards and it is available everywhere and stored in the cloud, you don’t have to worry about the dog eating your homework. 😱
Add it to your browser and let me know what you think.
I just completed another Power-Up for Trello, called Board Wiki.
I have really taken to using Trello to help organize many aspects of my life and one area that kept annoying me was that I always had to have a card setup on various lists for “meta” information or things like my weekly, quarterly and yearly plans (see Cal Newport). After thinking about it a bit, I realized since it makes sense to keep all this in one place, why not have a wiki to capture this, so this new Power-Up was created.
I have now created several Power-Ups a couple Office Web Add-ins and just published (still in review) an Edge Extension. To see everything I have published, check out my website.
I have done it! I have published my very first Office Web Add-in to the Microsoft Store. After years and years of blogging about it, I wrote an add-in for something I needed. It is true that necessity is the mother of all invention. 
The add-in is called the Trello Taskpane for Word. It is a simple add-in that connects Word to your Trello boards, so that you can insert information you have collected in Trello into your documents. I do research on the web for various topics and send snippets and pages to Trello cards where I organize and refine them. Then I found myself copy/pasting the information from Trello into Word getting lost on the task switching. Now, I can remain in Word, select the cards I want, and insert them without ever leaving Word. How’s that!
It was also a fun exercise for me to combine the two types of extensions I have found to enjoy writing (Office and Trello). More importantly, it is a useful tool that I think might benefit other writers that use Trello, or writers looking for a new way to keep their notecards and thoughts in a more digital, accessible from anywhere type of format.
Have fun and let me know what you think!
