Greetings Jello Dashboard users!

It’s been a long time since my last post or code update. The truth is, I’ve been forced to take a long break from coding, due to family reasons (you know, small kids whining, tossing around toys and demand lots and lots of time).

After many questions from users about the compatibility of Jello Dashboard with the new version of Outlook currently in beta, I’ve decided to get a copy and test it. My first impressions were really positive, since everything seemed to work and the whole application was a lot faster than before.

Of course I forgot to add an Outlook view widget, or test my Outlook folder shortcuts with their default view set to Outlook mode!

The views are loading just fine at the beginning and the Outlook view control renders faster too. But when I tried to change view and go to my settings page…

Disaster!

Jello Dashboard came up with a blank screen. Removing an Outlook view widget from the homepage has the same effect.
Strangely enough this bug does not happen in the standalone version of Jello Dashboard, so I am a bit worried now.

Fortunately, the Microsoft Office 2010 version will be out probably this summer, so I think I got time to find out what’s going on.

If any of you, kind JD users, have tested Jello with Outlook 2010 and find that something else is wrong, please drop a comment here and let me know.

I hope this bug (or any others found) will be fixable and you will be able to hear from me soon!

Thank you for your support.

The 6th release fixes lots of bugs and even has to show off some small scale new features!

Thanks everyone for downloading and supporting Jello Dashboard. It may be the best way to GTD with MS Outlook.

Have a great summertime!

Changes (loong) list:

- Fixed: Tag sort order on tree and combo boxes
- Fixed: Go to folder combo box now match international characters
- Added: Tickler popup: Cached list of ticklers for faster rendering. Refresh the list using the date selector button.
- Added: Ability to edit the body text of a tickler or task from the body popup display.
- Added: right context menu to set / change due date for mail and task items.
- Added: Right click context menu for ticklers widget
- Added: “View this Contact” context menu item into inbox and mail folder views: This will open the contact item of the sender.  If ambiguous, a box will popup to allow you to select the correct contact.
- Fixed: Right click context menu behavior didn’t match Outlook.  Now, if you click on an item that isn’t selected, that single item will be used for the item to be processed.  If you right click on any of a set of selected items, all items will be processed.
- Added: When viewing the body of an email, you can toggle the viewing mode between html and plain text using the Toggle view button.
- Fixed: Made the goto box a bit wider and resizable
- Added: Preview panel at the bottom of the action lists. It will use the height and font size of the mail preview panel. Notes, if they exist, are shown at the top of the preview window and display the body of items.
- Added: Using OL2007 and you having notes updated to the body via the setting, notes will be added as text to the body.  They will be delimited with “<– Jello Notes –>” before and after the notes. Any text between the delimiters is treated as notes.  You may edit this text in Outlook.
- Fixed: Smart date bug where format was being reversed is fixed and advanced collect handling of dates was adjusted.
- Fixed: The date field in the form for editing/creating an action can now hadle a 4 digit year
- Added: Experimental setting for using OL2007 “due date” field of email items for storing due dates on emails.
- Fixed: Unknown tags will not be converted in review screen due to tag lost issue
- Fixed: Inbox and Outlook widget’s archive only button not under a menu anymore for better use
- Added: Notification alert when trying to leave collect screen containing uncollected text
- Added: Setting for Outlook view and Outlook widget for OL2007 to display a bit lower so the screentips can be seen
- Fixed: Outlook view and Outlook widget can now process an email with empty subject
- Fixed: Action File attachment and link to action
- Fixed: Advanced settings editor cancel value was dispaying a dev alert
- Added: Date picker customization by the language file
- Fixed: First weekday on date pickers is now Monday as requested
- Added: Setting for sending task requests to assigned action contact (when one)
- Fixed: Inbox counters now showing correct number even if show only tasks in inbox setting is checked
- Added: New setting to select using Goto folder window for selecting folder when moving emails (checked by default)
- Added: Sidebar menu icon to toggle Outlook preview pane easily
- Fixed: Encrypted emails do not cause errors anymore. They show with a lock icon and the user cannot manage them
- Added: Clicking the attachment icon of a message in Inbox view will open up the message
- Added: Shortcut key for refresh (ctrl+S) in action lists
- Added: Closing the Ticklers popup window hides it without unloading data for re-opening speed.
- Added: Alert if no contacts are selected for delegation via the select contact popup form
- Added: Envelope icon and status for delegated tasks sent by email
- Fixed: Inbox and Action editor tag list combo are reloaded after new tags are inserted by typing
- Fixed: Bug caused pop up error msg and tag disapperance When renaming tags
- Fixed: System tags (those contained in the System folder) can be moved like any other tag
- Fixed: Outlook view widget tag combo refreshes when a new tag is added by typing
- Fixed: Hiding Outlook view controls when displayng the Latest form and the Delete task of linked item dialog box
- Added: Archived checkbox for tags. Check to hide a tag from all lists
- Fixed: Error message instead of js error when archiving an item into the same folder it already is
- Fixed: Outlook widget disabling when deleting entries
- Fixed: Improved importing of existing categories as tags from the Settings menu
- Added: Setting to startup to other screens besides home
- Fixed: Creating action from Outlook widget’s email format message body correctly
- Updated: Documentation link no longer appears into the important widget. Moved to sidebar menu.
- Fixed: Setting the jello priority field to high (1) for an action sets the Outlook item to high priority as well
- Fixed: Due date setting on inbox item
- Fixed: Latest window with action editor screen unusable bug
- Fixed: Non-archiving multiple items with custom archive folders
- Fixed: Level up toolbar button for subtags
- Added: Settings function to import existing categories as jello tags from any Outlook folder
- Added: “Make multiline entry” command in Advanced collect toolbar. It takes the selected lines in the collect area and place the line continuation character

Installing Jello Dashboard is a straightforward process. Although the whole process is semi-automatic, the installer and the setup utility somehow manage to do the job. I can tell this from the number of installation related questions from users which dropped to zero.
However, installing Jello for running two instances of it at the same time (using different settings) is not something easy to figure out.

The whole idea is that we need to have Jello installed in two separate folders and then setup each one as a homepage of two Outlook folders and define their settings journal entry name.

This is not so hard as it seems. In fact you could skip the setup as homepage into an Outlook folder step (3) if you plan to run Jello standalone.

So here’s how it’s done:

1. Install Jello twice in two different folders of your systems. Folder A and Folder B.

2. After each installation use the Jello Dashboard control center to fine tune your installation. If you wish to do this at a later time just navigate to each folder, find the install.hta file and run it.

3. From the Jello Dashboard control center, first click on the Set in Outlook button to choose the folder where Jello will reside.

4. Still in the Jello Dashboard control center, click the Settings location button to set up the settings journal entry. The only thing that needs to be done is to change the Settings folder location or/and the Settings Entry Name of the second installation. So you can leave the first installation using the default setting values and just change the Settings entry name for the second one (eg.<Jello.5 Settings 2>).

That’s all you need to do! After that, you will be able to maintain two separate Jello setups with their own settings.

You can also use the Settings location screen of the Jello Dashboard control center to fine tune your single installation. Reasons you want to do this: Your default Journal folder is on a server which wipes all journal entries every day or it’s on a really slow exchange server which freezes Jello.

]]> http://jello-dashboard.net/tip-how-to-run-two-instances-of-jello-dashboard-at-the-same-time/feed/ 0 http://jello-dashboard.net/tip-how-to-run-two-instances-of-jello-dashboard-at-the-same-time/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/jello-dashboard2/~3/1Yq-QOB0A80/ http://jello-dashboard.net/web-site-recovered/#comments Sat, 30 May 2009 15:37:20 +0000 Nicolas http://jello-dashboard.net/web-site-recovered/

Some of you might notice that the Jello Dashboard web site and forum were not available for the last 48 hours.

My former hosting provider had a major server accident, resulting in total loss of data.

Fortunately there were some February backups of the web site and I managed to recover my old posts. The Jello forum did not have the same luck. Everything is lost, users, posts and answers. It’s the second time something like that happens.

The new forum is up and running and you can start posting and registering. This time I will not forget to backup things!

Sorry to all of you who are subscribed to Jello Dashboard’s feed. I hope I did not get you mad sending wordpress default posts and older ones in your feed reader or mail.

Thanks for understanding.

Nicolas Sivridis

This release fixes many bugs, but introduces a small number of new features although the users request list is getting bigger!

New Featrures for 5.00.5

• User’s last Sort order is now saved in grids
• A right click context menu to all views!
• Abillity to change theme from the Settings screen/Core combo box (4 themes just for testing for the time being)
• Go to folder function. Fires with ctrl+G from any screen and lets user enter an Outlook folder name to navigate to
• Abillity to manual edit currently used settings. This is intented for advanced users or developers.

*You really should check out the Go to function. Pressing Ctrl+G gives you the ability to immediately navigate to any outlook folder or Jello tag by typing some characters of its name.

Changes for 5.00.5

• Updated: Extjs libraries to version 2.2.1
• Fixed: Issue on tree trag and drop between tags creating orphans and loosing all tags
• Fixed: Advanced collect errors while creating contacts (other contact data)
• Fixed: Cancelling tag creation from inbox combo
• Fixed: Tasks created from Outlook view emails now get body text from them
• Fixed: Inbox error when setting due date on task by popup calendar menu
• Fixed: Outlook view widget Selection/Tag/Archive errors (line 27 etc)
• Added: Extra toolbar buttons on Outlook view widget  (reply,delete)
• Fixed: Narrower tags combo on Outlook view widget to save space
• Fixed: Outlook view widget:Truncate big widget titles
• Fixed: Error generated for tags using the ‘&’ character. & added to the restricted characters list for tag naming
• Changed: Collect popup shortcut key to Ctrl+W
• Fixed: Weekly printout several fixes and it can be now produced from the masterlist view too.
• Added: Weekly printout form new field addition to specify how many characters of the body text are displayed for each task
• Added: if the to line of an email has more than one recipient it will be displayed in the preview pane of an email folder view.  if there are any cc’s, the cc line will be displayed.
• Added: Inbox view is now groupped by type.
• Removed: New tag and up level toolbar buttons from review screen since they created errors or being unusable
• Fixed: Inbox task duplication on due date set and archive
• Fixed:  several fixes to auto-update for the inbox
• Fixed: Inbox move to folder function now uses the go to folder form to quickly search for an outlook folder by typing
• Added: Deleting a task with a linked message results now a confirmation to Delete, Move the linked message or Cancel to leave it intact
• Fixed: Restoring a backup of a settings set retains the original backup and creates another backup of the last used set
• Updated: Search box is now a full panel right above the tree
• Updated: Sidebar toolbar includes Go to function (Ctrl+G) which lets user quickly navigate to an oulook folder or jello tag by typing
• Fixed: Hierarchy sort order of tags is now case insensitive
• Fixed: Bogus tag/folder addition into active list if a new tag was created from the hierarchy (anywhere). It shows now if the current view is the new tag’s parent.
• Added: New setting to mark/not mark outlook messages as read when viewed from jello
• Added: Post it popup now displays and updates the contents of the first post-it widget the user has in the homepage.

Thanks everyone for your reports, observations, supporting Jello by donating, translating and spreading by joining its Friend Connect user list and the facebook group!

Subscribe to feed if you want to be notified on Jello Dashboard’s updates!

I got some requests back to the version 4.00 of Jello Dashboard for digital clocks and gadgets into the homepage. Later, as I was coding for the new version and created the new homepage I though of running a couple of tests using google gadgets without any real expectations.

Then for a strange reason and despite of Outlook’s web browsing limitations some gadgets worked!

After working with some more widgets I have found some ways of using almost any gadget from google’s repository. So you can safely add an Web page widget into your Jello Dashboard homepage and paste the following URLs to their web address parameter:

Clock and date:
http://www.gmodules.com/ig/ifr?url=http://www.canbuffi.de/gadgets/clock/clock.xml

Word Clocks
http://www.gmodules.com/ig/ifr?url=http://www.ljmsite.com/google/gadgets/worldclocks.xml&up_messageid=0&up_mode=ana2&up_servertime=1&up_meetingplanner=1&up_digiformat=12&up_digifontsize=14&up_analogformat=12&up_dateformat=date&up_showseconds=1&up_tz1=UTC&up_tz1name=Clock%201&up_tz2=UTC&up_tz2name=Clock%202&up_tz3=&up_tz3name=Clock%203&up_tz4=&up_tz4name=Clock%204&up_tz5=&up_tz5name=Clock%205&up_tz6=&up_tz6name=Clock%206&up_tz7=&up_tz7name=Clock%207&up_tz8=&up_tz8name=Clock%208&up_tz9=&up_tz9name=Clock%209&up_width=10000&synd=open&w=320&h=300&title=__MSG_Title__&lang=en&country=ALL&border=%23ffffff%7C3px%2C1px+solid+%23999999

Dictionary.com search:
http://www.gmodules.com/ig/ifr?url=http://rmicka5478.googlepages.com/dictionary.xml&up_boxcolor=%23c0c0c0&up_textcolor=%23000000&synd=open&w=320&h=100&title=Dictionary.com&border=%23ffffff%7C3px%2C1px+solid+%23999999

You can test any widgets copying the code from the Google gadgets directory keeping in mind the following rules and limitations:

• If gadgets use any pipe characters into their parameters they cannot be used
• Gadgets using cookies cannot be used. Cookies are blocked by Outlook
• In some cases, not all user defined settings can be used (it depends on the resulted url)

So select the desired google gadget, press the Get the code button and go to the HTML code field.

Copy it to the clipboard and paste it into any text editor

Now you got something like this:

<script src=”http://www.gmodules.com/ig/ifr?url=http://www.matt.org/modules/GoogleClock.xml&amp;up_vsize=240px&amp;synd=open&amp;w=320&amp;h=200&amp;title=Google+Clock&amp;border=%23ffffff%7C3px%2C1px+solid+%23999999&amp;output=js”></script>

Then strip the <script src=” characters from the beginning of code and the &amp;output=js”></script> from the end.

http://www.gmodules.com/ig/ifr?url=http://www.matt.org/modules/GoogleClock.xml&amp;up_vsize=240px&amp;synd=open&amp;w=320&amp;h=200&amp;title=Google+Clock&amp;border=%23ffffff%7C3px%2C1px+solid+%23999999

Try pasting the remaining code into a Jello web page widget and see what happens. Some gadgets won’t accept any user settings (the URL part after the first &amp;). In that case you can try removing all of user settings having a lot smaller URL (eg http://www.gmodules.com/ig/ifr?url=http://www.matt.org/modules/GoogleClock.xml)

Now choose your favorite gadgets and experiment. Who knows? Maybe you will be able to use it inside Jello Dashboard!

There were  several strange and unresolved reports from Jello Dashboard users about a mysterious line 14 error which couldn’t be reproduced. They were not so much, but enough to drive me crazy.

Until one user reported using a Microsoft utility to manage hotmail accounts inside Outlook: The Microsoft Outlook Connector.

I immediately downloaded the product and installed it. Started Outlook and tried to run Jello.

As you can imagine I found an incompatibility with Jello Dashboard. For reasons unknown Jello Dashboard cannot run in Outlook if the Microsoft Outlook connector is installed.

Fortunately, you can run it without problems though standalone using the jello5.hta file.

So if you have been unable to run Jello Dashboard from your Outlook, this might be the reason.

The second update release includes a lot of fixes to annoying and really annoying bugs reported by many users  in the Jello.forum over the last days.

There are a couple of new features too.

Changelog:

• Fixed: Settings application title blank title displays default version text
• Fixed: Not showing action completed when canceling an item deletion
• Fixed: Titles on multiple tickler widgets
• Fixed: Archive untagged item in outlook widget inbox does NOT create task
• Fixed: Linked emails with no subject are now showing in action form
• Fixed: Inbox removing entry the position remains in last used item index
• Fixed: Inbox Archive tagged tasks removes tasks from list too
• Added: * character is now in restricted list for tag naming
• Fixed: Home Customize columns popup hides outlook view widgets to be visible in OL2007
• Fixed: Problem of action form to not be able to remove a tag containing space with [x] button
• Fixed: Removed annoying thin border lines inside some widgets
• Added: New function at Settings/utilities to restore orphan tags back on the hierarchy
• Added: New setting to keep the outlook reading pane open through Jello screens
• Fixed: Moved or deleted previously defined folder bug in settings page
• Fixed: Masterlist is sorted by due date by default
• Added: Setting action priority 13 saves it in outlook item as high priority
• Added: Move an item from the inbox to a nonemail folder and a new item in that folder, of its default type is created.  Original item left intact.  Example: move an inbox item to a Tasks folder and a new task is created.  Copies, subject, body, categories and the newly created item is opened.  Mail items are just moved
• Changed: previously, in advanced entry mode for collect, to specify tags, you havd to have:
• tags= tag tag2 tag3 Many users were entering:    tags=tag so this form now work and works for all of the variants for telling collect to add tags ( and notes) that are specified in the documentation.
• Added: Setting on/off for Inbox view autoupdate every minute, getting only new messages and adding them to the view.
• Fixed: Disappearing bottom toolbar in Outlook 2007
• Fixed: Meeting requests icon in inbox shows with a calendar icon
• Added: Reply to all button in inbox
• Added: Star icon in inbox for quickly marking next actions

I hope this release will enable you to get the best out of Jello Dashboard with less bugs.

Thanks everyone for your bug reports.

Hello everyone!

After 7 months of development, drawbacks, bugs, fixes and more bugs the new version of Jello Dashboard (codename:starbot) is ready and available for download.

The product has just left the alpha status and became a beta. That means that there should still be bugs and some errors may occur from time to time. All bugs should be posted to the forum.

There are plenty of changes and new features added, but most importantly the whole project is following a different work flow, more close to GTD in its simple form. Of course not everyone will like those fundamental changes but its all for the good.

Some of the big changes are:

• Hierarchy of folders and tags
• Use of Outlook tasks only (actions) for action lists
• Linking actions to related items (any Outlook item)
• Processing Inbox mail to empty. Archiving items after processing
• Delegate items to contacts
• Insert attachments and custom free text notes to actions
• Bulk collect information from free text, structured text and outlook folders
• One screen review
• Ticklers screen handling appointments and actions with due dates
• Less settings and more stable settings engine
• A beautiful GUI provided by the super extjs engine

A big thank you goes to all Jello Dashboard supporters for the encouragement and to my 38 alpha testers, who tested every release finding bugs and problems I would never find!

Please consult the documentation included with the packages carefully.

Proceed to downloads page to get a copy.

You can have your full task list into a Nokia phone as a long list, something really useless when you’re dealing with a 50+ item list. Of course contexts or tags are not supported and I had to think of a way to have my GTD system always with me bypassing Symbian’s difficulties and without using third party software which cannot synchronize tasks with Outlook.

And I came up with a small test project based on a really simple idea: Create a note in Outlook for each category with its own action list. Notes can easily be synched using the standard Nokia software (PC suite) and I ended up having a really small tag list making weekly reviews on-the-fly without problems.

The utility is written in VBscript and I’ve decided to embed it into an excel sheet application (standard .bas scripts need special handling) for easier execution. You need to enable macros for this to run, and of course the code is unlocked so you can view or change it.

• Select the task folder from which you want to get the tasks
• Select Tasks to a note to create a master-list note
• Select Categories to Notes to create/update a note for each category
• All notes will be created into your default Notes folder
• Note that categories are referring to Outlook standard categories and not in jello dashboard contexts. You can use j-note without having jello installed.

Download j-notes (alpha). Its in experimental stage so test it and share your feedback.

I hope It will help you with your Nokia and (why not?) other phone models as well.

update:

If you get a library error opening the application do the following:

1. Press Alt+F11 (Tools>Macro>Visual Basic Editor)
2. Into the VB editor go to Tools>References
3. Into the references window find your Outlook library (Microsoft Outlook xx Object Library) select it and click OK
4. Close the VB editor and save the j-note editor
5. Restart the application