Hello forum,

it would be nice, if you could give me some advice to find a planner for me, that fullfills these criteria:

1. Tree-oriented to-do-listing and categorizing like in MLO (www.mylifeorganized.net) or To-Do-List (http://www.abstractspoon.com/
2. Possibility to view the leaves (subtasks) of a project in a flat list with some filtering
AND here comes the challenge:
3. possibility to arrange and schedule the subtasks in a calenderview in a visual manner.

I've been searching for that kind of tool for a long time. But all the products I've found so far are failing in one of the categories above.

Any advice highly appreciated. Thank you.

Have you tried a look at Microsoft Project 2010. It has evolved substantially.

Outlining features have improved, you can now paste structured outlines from other applications and for example different levels of indentation are automatically parsed to a correct hierarchy and formatting is preserved.

It is also endlessly customizable.

In Germany students get a license for free.

I'm thinking of evaluating it as a PIM tool since PIM tools to me seem to evolve toward full-fledged project-management. The learning curve however for me is quite high, reading O'Reilly's Missing Manual now.

1. Tree-oriented to-do-listing and categorizing like in MLO (http://www.mylifeorganized.net or To-Do-List (http://www.abstractspoon.com/
Check

2. Possibility to view the leaves (subtasks) of a project in a flat list with some filtering
Check

AND here comes the challenge:
3. possibility to arrange and schedule the subtasks in a calenderview in a visual manner.
Probably. I can drag the tasks around in a calendar view and if they are subtasks that will affect the higher-order tasks in a logical fashion.

Have you looked at EccoPro? Development stopped many years ago, but there is a large, dedicated group of users who keep adding improvements. Anyway, I think it does everything you're looking for and it is free now.

Learn more here:

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ecco_pro/

Steve

You might take a look at TaskMerlin. Version has a highly customizable tree, as well as a calendar that will show tree items with dates/times.

Hi There,

I'm a MyLifeOrganized addict, but it's still lacking the calendar view.
Maybe you could try do-Organizer : http://www.gemx.com/solutions_do_organizer.phtml
I tried it a long time ago but so far, I've resisted my CRIMP tendancy.

Cheers /jerome

Jerome G wrote:

Hi There,

I'm a MyLifeOrganized addict, but it's still lacking the calendar view.

From memory, I thought a two-way sync with MS Outlook could accomplish that. But probably the Original Poster would like the functionality all wrapped up in one application.

H

Thank you all so far. TaskMerlin looks nice, but i want to drag an item from a tasklist to a calendar. I've tried Eccopro a long time ago. I'm afraid, there is a steep learning curve for an abondoned product.... As I understand it, eccopro is still not open source now. I'll give it a second shot.

Chris Drontheim wrote:

i want to drag an item from a tasklist to
a calendar

I believe Agenda at Once can do that, http://www.agendaatonce.com/ not so sure whether it fulfills your other criteria.

Another PIM is Time and Chaos. Does handle tasks by group, category or now projects. Easy to use, quick, light on resources and can be used via USB thumb drive. Seems to answer most of the requirements.

http://www.timeandchaos.com

User Forum
http://www.chaosfanatics.com

one more not entirely close but interesting
http://www.watership-planner.com/

I highly recommend this one. I've use it now for two years and have found the user group to be very active and supportive.

Intellect, the email handling version of the PIM, is particularly stable. I just don't have lockups, crashes, etc.
Steve

Arnold wrote:

Another PIM is Time and Chaos. Does handle tasks by group, category or now projects.
Easy to use, quick, light on resources and can be used via USB thumb drive. Seems to
answer most of the requirements.

http://www.timeandchaos.com

User
Forum
http://www.chaosfanatics.com

Hi Chris,

that's something I've been looking for a real long time as well. Yet I havn't found something which suits my needs.
What I also would like to have is to calculate my time budget (scheduling and used time).

But there is some software which comes close:
- Daisho has visual planning (I've talked in another topic about it), but for me it is not well enough in task organizing.

- Achive Planner - has some planning capabilities in a calender view. As far as I remember the tasks you move around in calender view are not synced with your general task plan, it's just an addition. Good planning features for the tasks, yet I don't like the interface at all.

- watership planner - as someone told before - looks very good, has almost all the feature needed, yet a bit too sophisticated since you can also define your vision, roles etc.
It adjusts your weekly time plan (visually!) dynamicly - which means when you didn't finish one task the one day it will move to the next day. And of course you can move tasks on your own :) It is quite expensive. But I gues I would have bought it - because it is the only solution combining Projectplanning, Timeplanning and Calenderview! - if it wouldn't have so many bugs. After trying it out for just a few minutes some columns of the goal view disappeared forever. When switching to role view it crashes every time. And so on...very sad...

I don't understand why there isn't anythink on the market - when using computers for task planning instead of using paper calenders, piece of paper and a pen the one advantage is in combining a taks view with a calender view (and at best: with some time budget planning).

So the solution I use consists of diefferent elements:
- Planning of Projects in todolist - I have a nice list and overview of all projects. With the help of the plugins I have a calender and a gantt view. Yet without moving taks around, and the views are not really perfect.
- Daily tasks in a GTD-Programm - just a plain task list to know what to do now.
- weekly planning - sometimes in thunderbird lightning, most of the time in a moleskin planner.

I've been researching a long time and I am afraid to tell you that you have to use different tools to achieve your goal. Or reduce the wanted feature set.
But if you find anything let me/us know!

(Sorry for any bad english...)
Greetings
M.Burg

Hello,

thank you for your replies. @M. Burg: I'm sorry for any bad english too. The urge to be organized seems to be a typical german obsession ;-).
"Agena at Once", one of you mentioned, has indeed the features close to my needs. But it seems a bit buggy and has one huge drawback: you can accidentally drag a supertask to the calendar (and it's subtask too). In order to prevent confusion, I wish to view and arrange only the the nodes of a task-tree which are having no other child-nodes. I consider to write that little beast on my own. That will be no fancy achievement with bells and whistles. But it could do the job. I'm only able to script some vba-stuff in excel. There are some code-fragments that looks promising too. Though, is anybody interested in joining this project? We will hide it, if a real programmer come along ;-)


M.Burg wrote:

Hi Chris,

that's something I've been looking for a real long time as well. Yet I
havn't found something which suits my needs.
What I also would like to have is to
calculate my time budget (scheduling and used time).

But there is some software
which comes close:
- Daisho has visual planning (I've talked in another topic about
it), but for me it is not well enough in task organizing.

- Achive Planner - has some
planning capabilities in a calender view. As far as I remember the tasks you move
around in calender view are not synced with your general task plan, it's just an
addition. Good planning features for the tasks, yet I don't like the interface at
all.

- watership planner - as someone told before - looks very good, has almost all
the feature needed, yet a bit too sophisticated since you can also define your vision,
roles etc.
It adjusts your weekly time plan (visually!) dynamicly - which means when
you didn't finish one task the one day it will move to the next day. And of course you can
move tasks on your own :) It is quite expensive. But I gues I would have bought it -
because it is the only solution combining Projectplanning, Timeplanning and
Calenderview! - if it wouldn't have so many bugs. After trying it out for just a few
minutes some columns of the goal view disappeared forever. When switching to role
view it crashes every time. And so on...very sad...

I don't understand why there
isn't anythink on the market - when using computers for task planning instead of using
paper calenders, piece of paper and a pen the one advantage is in combining a taks view
with a calender view (and at best: with some time budget planning).

So the solution I
use consists of diefferent elements:
- Planning of Projects in todolist - I have a
nice list and overview of all projects. With the help of the plugins I have a calender
and a gantt view. Yet without moving taks around, and the views are not really
perfect.
- Daily tasks in a GTD-Programm - just a plain task list to know what to do
now.
- weekly planning - sometimes in thunderbird lightning, most of the time in a
moleskin planner.

I've been researching a long time and I am afraid to tell you that
you have to use different tools to achieve your goal. Or reduce the wanted feature set.

But if you find anything let me/us know!

(Sorry for any bad
english...)
Greetings
M.Burg

I think that Leadertask (http://leadertask.com/ would satisfy your needs.

Incidentally, LT is actively developed, in contrast to various other programs which have been mentioned in reference to this topic.

Another program which might suit your needs is WorkTime Studio (http://worktimestudio.com/ - this program also has excellent time-tracking capabilities. (Sorry I forgot to mention this in my previous post!)

Nice one, but after a few minutes playing with, I've got a Messagebox: "Abnormal Termination" and it disappeared from the screen.... Sad.

Task Coach seems to fit
http://www.taskcoach.org/
(I'm just trying to get a feel for it.)