Area lost on update

[holman]

area = Things::Area.find('Existing Area')
todo = Things::Todo.new('New Todo')
todo.area = area
todo.save

This correctly sets up "New Todo" inside of "Existing Area". But then:

todo = Things::Todo.find('New Todo')
todo.area = area # area is now properly assigned in-memory
todo.save

I can see Things flicker as it adds "New Todo" inside of "Existing Area", but immediately it reassigns it to a nil area (ie, re-finding the todo and calling #area on it returns nil).

Looks like the library's properly setting the area in creation, and possibly doing it correctly in update (the AppleScript references get passed correctly in Things::Reference::Record L72)- have you run into this at all before? Maybe just an irritating Things bug?

[holman]

As another note: if I explicitly try to set it after save, all good:

todo.save # oh noes :(
todo.reference.area.set(area.reference) # oh word! :)

[applicake]

just noticed this issue, I'll take a look after work

[marcinbunsch]

First of all, massive thanks for playing with this code and finding the bug.

The bug was caused by a specific behavior of Things - when a Todo was saved without a project, Things moved it to the Next list and removed the area. I've corrected it by doing 2 things:

1. When you save an object with an empty property (like project) the reference does not receive a delete call on that property if the property on the reference is also empty (so no real change was done - Things interpreted this as a false removal)
2. I've moved the area property to the end of the update list, so even if you remove a todo from a project the area is maintained.

Hope that fixes the issue on your end too :)

[holman]

Awesome; looks pretty good. I'll give it a try shortly, make sure it works in my setup, and update this if I run into any more troubles. Cheers, by the way; really well-designed library you've got here.