OutlinerSoftware Forum

Any Thoughts on GeneralKB? - Alexander Deliyannis

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:38:49 GMT

This is not new software, though it has changed its name; it was previously called General Knowledge Base and, as such, it has been discussed here in the past. See for example http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/634

I have personally not tried it out (surprisingly) probably because from what I had read, its organisation seemed to me rather limited hierarchy-wise at the time. Others' opinion may vary of course.

Evernotee: Whats Up? - Alexander Deliyannis

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:31:18 GMT

For whomever is interested in checking out an alternative, eNoteFile is an uncannily similar product, but with some interesting differentiations, e.g. one can use the freeware version and do local backups without subscribing to the service: http://enotefile.com

Personal task manager with graphic feedback - Stephen Zeoli

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:59:23 GMT

Stephen Zeoli wrote:
>I don't use
>it, and haven't really looked at it in a while, but after reading your request, Achieve
>Planner, so maybe it's worth a look.
>
>Steve Z.

That should read: "While I don't use it, and it has been a while since I tried it out, Achieve Planner popped into my head as I read your message, so it may be worth a look."

Steve Z.

Personal task manager with graphic feedback - Stephen Zeoli

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:01:33 GMT

I'm not sure if it satisfies all your requirements, Graham, but maybe take a look at Achieve Planner:

http://www.effexis.com/achieve/planner.htm

I don't use it, and haven't really looked at it in a while, but after reading your request, Achieve Planner, so maybe it's worth a look.

Steve Z.

Personal task manager with graphic feedback - Graham Rhind

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:02:37 GMT

Thanks Pierre Paul en Alexander.

I'm in the very luxurious position of defining my own project and tasks, my own workload and my own target dates. When I do have to complete a task with a defined due date, such as a conference presentation, I can simply postpone everything else until it's ready, and then go back to my own tasks.

What I do find, though, is that I don't have much idea about workload; or I plan something for a day I think is quiet but then find I've actually over-planned. Hence my wish for some sort of graphic solution.

I've tried Agenda at Once and at that time it had a bug in its recurring tasks, which has probably bee resolved in the meantime. But what that does require is that tasks are dragged to the calendar to be planned in - again, not my way of working.

What I like about Watership Planner is that it silently (and unobtrusively) fills the day with tasks as they are added, and silently shifts those in the time line as time progresses. I ignore any suggestions about the order that the tasks should be done (I define that, not any software I use), but what it does show at a glance is that I will finish work around 1 pm, for example, and so have lots of time for new ideas. If I have new ideas, a glance at the week overview tells me that Sunday has more planned than Monday, so I'll add it for Monday. Similar to some Outlook add ins, to be sure, but much less obtrusive. So I can see total time planned and time available (also as figures and graphically outside the calendar window), and retain control over what is done when.

BUT ... Watership Planner creates all recurring tasks at once instead of when the previous task is completed. This allows for effective future planning but it doesn't allow the inheritance of properties such as the notes or the context tags from one occurrence to the next, which is a real problem. The developer is working on a new version, but I've heard so many of these promises before from various suppliers that I prefer to work on the basis of what is available now than rely on what may be delivered one day ...

InfoQube continues to be an option, but it's rather complex for what I require - it would need to be used as a replacement for several programs. I'm sure it's absolutely capable of it, but I'm waiting for a completed manual so that I can get to a better understanding of what it can and can't do (forgive me PPL if that is already available and I've missed it ...).

Personal task manager with graphic feedback - Pierre Paul Landry

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:41:46 GMT

- Another option is to use a timeline type linear calendar with a loading chart, as shown here:

http://www.sqlnotes.net/Portals/0/GanttWorkload1.gif

You could see all tasks and move them around to be roughly around 100% loading

HTH

Announcing new web-based collaborative outliner - Ken

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:16:58 GMT

I guess I was unable to find the Undo Button. I did not think to try the universal Undo command (CTRL-Z).

Regarding Get Satisfaction, I will give them a second look.

All the best,

--Ken

Announcing new web-based collaborative outliner - Vishu Ramanathan

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 23:58:17 GMT

Ken,

Undo button or undo functionality? We do support undo & redo with the normal keyboard shortcuts (we think that's pretty cool). I'm kind of a keyboard shortcut kind of person, so it's possible I overlooked the benefit of an actual clickable button.

Get satisfaction is pretty reputable and I would be very surprised if they violated their privacy policy and my trust by exposing my customers to spam and any other garbage. Not that you have to sign up for them, but I did and I have no evidence they did anything untoward.

-Vishu

Announcing new web-based collaborative outliner - Ken

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 23:42:09 GMT

Vishu,

Thank you for taking the time to further explain your program and launch. I truly had no ill will towards you or your product and I am glad that you have no hard feelings. Actually, I was quite excited about the possibility of columns, and I think the let down of them not being in this release left me a bit disappointed.

Regarding Get Satisfaction, I am not totally opposed to their service, I just want to know if my e-mail address is going to be made available to the public. I try to limit my profile to spam bots, so I avoid sites that publish addresses if possible. but, I understand the convenience of having such a site for customers to share thier feedback.

I do wish you well, because while I agree with Dan that there are alternatives out there, I have not found one that best suits my work style.

If possible, please keep us posted as your program progresses.

--Ken

P.S. My one feedback item was a request for an Undo button.

Announcing new web-based collaborative outliner - Vishu Ramanathan

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 23:01:45 GMT

Hi everyone and thanks for your feedback. I appreciate your voicing your opinions. Don't worry Ken, I didn't take your thoughts negatively. You're right that in our beta some things might be 'less than ideal', but we don't believe in making the perfect the enemy of the good and we're really proud of the in-browser outlining experience we've been able to create.

Columns: The thing I'm hearing most loud-and-clear is that you want columns. We decided to go live without columns under the theory that you should release as soon as you have a minimally viable product. This does not mean that we are not going to do columns, just that we felt there was a lot of value in an outliner even before columns were included. We got rid of the placeholder buttons but we did not re-record the screencast and, as someone else pointed out elsewhere, we also forgot to take out the shortcuts from the help. Columns are really important to hard core outliners and hard core outliners are the most important advocates we have, so we really appreciate the feedback.

Get Satisfaction: This was supposed to be an upgrade from a simple form that just sent us your feedback. The idea is that get satisfaction provides a forum where all thinklinkr users can interact and grow a community. I'm starting to thing that idea was completely wrong because people are reluctant to post their opinion on some new site. To the extent that's true in this group, feel free to just email me at vishu@thinklinkr.com

Moving Nodes: To move nodes up and down, I use cut and paste. You may not have even realized that was an option because it's a web app, but it works. It operates on the entire tree. If you still want a keyboard shortcut for just moving up or down, let me know. It's certainly not out of the question.

Multi Select: The fact that only one item can be selected is a limitation of the single-state selection model as opposed to omni's different levels of selection. It simplifies the outline that you either select a node or you don't, but it makes it harder to select multiple siblings. That's not to say we will never do it, just that we may need a little time to think of something clever.

Internet Explorer: We really care about making the application be as natural as possible even though it's running in the browser. We want you to forget you're on the web and just think about outlining. There is some pretty serious javascript that makes that go and we also use some advanced HTML. Our normal process is to make it work in all other browsers and then go back and spend a lot of time making it work in IE. We didn't do that this time for a couple of reasons: 1) there are already free browsers for windows that are able to run advanced web applications with no additional work by us 2) Google's strategy for wave seems to be to get IE users to install Chrome Frame. If they can get enough adoption with that, thinklinkr will work fine in IE too. But for now Chrome Frame is in developer preview and it's not ready for our IE users. So we're stalling. If IE is the only browser you have, we're sorry.

Finally, Wave... As a geek, I'm really excited about wave. I'm also excited about it as a consultant who is sick of email. But real time collaboration on an outline is way more awesome than real time collaboration on a document, spreadsheet or new-fangled email. I shouldn't have to tell this group how great outliners are for organizing thoughts & when you add real-time collaboration so that you can get your colleagues speaking your language it's really amazing.

Thanks for all your comments,
-Vishu Ramanathan (@uhsiv)
co-founder Regards,
Vishu Ramanathan (@uhsiv)
cofounder thinklink llc | http://thinklinkllc.com
makers of http://thinklinkr.com

Personal task manager with graphic feedback - Pierre Paul Landry

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:31:06 GMT

I'm currently working on the IQ Calendar which will support something very close to what you want:

- You'll be able to assign a date and a duration to an event / task. No need to set a time
- It will show in the calendar (in the top section)
- The calendar header would show the total time scheduled per day
- Drag-drop can be used to rearrange items and/or schedule it (give it a time)
- Visually, the calendar is an Outlook lookalike
- Recurring events are supported

Personal task manager with graphic feedback - Alexander Deliyannis

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:08:06 GMT

Graham, what you are looking for is indeed something that I would like as well However, I am not sure how such a concept would operate, as you note that you want to know how much time tasks take "without trying to assign these tasks to times of the day".

The way I see it, some kind of assignment can be done, even temporarily; I may have dozens of tasks lying around that together may require 40 hours or more to complete; however, knowing this isn't very helpful. I would need to select a few priority tasks and somehow get an indication of how much time they require and see if they fit in the time available.

This is equivalent to dragging those tasks to a specific day, the way Agenda At Once ( http://www.agendaatonce.com/ ) does, even if I do not intend to keep them in that day. Could this be a possible solution?

Personal task manager with graphic feedback - Graham Rhind

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:54:12 GMT

Thanks Dan. I should have mentioned that I wanted to avoid Outlook plug ins, simply because I find Outlook such a badly designed task manager (and I've stopped using it as a calendar too - I'm back to my Filofax and haven't regretted it).

I have tried Taskline, though, and dislike it (if I remember correctly) because I found it too controlling. It tries to dictate when a task will be done by scheduling it into the calendar. I personally dislike this way of working - I want an overview of my tasks (very few of which have defined start or end times) but also want to be in total control over when I do something.

I know my way of working, and the work that I do, is not standard, which is why finding a suitable task manager has proved such an epic struggle ... :-)

Personal task manager with graphic feedback - dan7000

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:25:05 GMT

I use Taskline (taskline.com)

It's an Outlook plugin, so you have to use outlook. Other than that, it competes with TimeTo and Above and Beyond, but without the bugs or quirkyness. Here is my work flow:

1. create outlook tasks.
2. each task has a new "taskline" tab that allows me to set anticipated duration, "finish by date" or "start on date" constraints, project name, and even prerequisite tasks.
3. click Taskline Scheduler.
Result: my tasks are copied into a new Outline calendar, scheduled appropriately based on the constraints and durations I have set. I can easily tell if I can finish everything I have promised to finish in the next week, or if I need to call someone and tell them I'll be late on something.

Another nice thing about working in Outlook is that Taskline schedules around my Outlook calendar appointments. I can also set different work schedules and break times for each day.

Recurring tasks are supported and are scheduled along with the others. I have a recurring tasks called "emerging task placeholder" that reserves extra time during the week for tasks I didn't anticipate.

Announcing new web-based collaborative outliner - dan7000

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:17:10 GMT

ndodge wrote:
>You are aware, I assume, of the lack of offerings of
>this kind, right ? This is a pretty smooth web-based single-pane outliner.

I would not say there is a "lack of offerings of this kind." In fact, this space is getting pretty crowded right now, with most of the offerings looking a lot like this one and offering basically the same features (single pane outline with collaboration).

http://www.thinkfold.com/
checkvist.com
http://listas.labs.live.com/
loosestich.com

etc.

Don't get me wrong. I want to encourage this developer - maybe this can be the best of these offerings, and maybe it can become something with unique strengths.

Personal task manager with graphic feedback - Graham Rhind

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:09:01 GMT

Thanks to those who responded on this topic - I wasn't hopeful.

Toodledo is online, so falls at the first hurdle; and TimeTo I've tried before - it's really buggy, as was said, and it doesn’t allow automatic re-creation of tasks upon completion.

So, looks like the wait continues. If only I could persuade the creators of Scial Consistency to add features to their existing offering or get the developer of Watership Planner to iron out its problems ...

Graham

what pims will autosave web pages as you browse? - Cassius

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:37:38 GMT

Personally, I use the MyBase+WebCollect combination (www.wjjsoft.com).

If you just want to save the pages in the order you see them, you first open (1st time create) your WEBPAGE file. Then, on each new page press CTRL+SHIFT+S. A dialog window will open. Just press enter to save the page. It's pretty quick after the first time.

You can also make a save to a particular spot in a`MyBase file and can move pages around as well as copy/cut and paste them.

-c

what pims will autosave web pages as you browse? - Mark

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:58:57 GMT

The Shelve Firefox extension will do this: http://shelve.sourceforge.net/index.php

what pims will autosave web pages as you browse? - shatteredmindofbob

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 05:44:26 GMT

Zoot does this. Creeps me out when I forget I have it running

Any Thoughts on GeneralKB? - basilides

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 03:18:41 GMT

Recently I stumbled upon this previously unknown (to me, anyway) "free-form database / knowledge-base" software, so I downloaded a trial version, and much to my surprise found the program to be intriguing and loaded with potential.

It seems to be a competitor to the likes of AskSam 7 (which appears to be slowly dying on the vine), but much smoother and less buggy. Has anyone is this forum used this software, and can give me some feedback? It would be nice if they had some online videos, but apparently they don't, and the screenshots can't be zoomed, for some reason, which is weird.

http://generalkb.com/