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Task managers
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Posted by Hugh Pile
Apr 20, 2007 at 10:08 AM
Graham Rhind wrote:
>What is must have is:
>
>-
>EASY access and data entry (otherwise, like Stephen, I’d end up not using it)
>-
>Outlook integration
>- Recurrence of tasks
>- Task nesting and sorting
>- a clear
>“today” view
>
>Graham
Posted by Hugh Pile
Apr 20, 2007 at 10:12 AM
Graham,
What I intended to post above was:
There is of course also wonderful old Zoot, which I’m sure could be made to fit your criteria, subject to:
- your owning and understanding it already
- your not requiring to work under Vista.
H
Posted by Stephen R. Diamond
Apr 20, 2007 at 10:44 AM
Hugh Pile wrote:
>I’m also a fan of Achieve Planner.
>
>However, when I used it, I didn’t find it was
>particularly good at quick and simple data entry; it didn’t have a system-tray
>“side-note-type” entry system, as MLO has with its text-parsing function. It was
>also resource-heavy and had quite a steep learning curve. Those drawbacks may have
>been reduced now.
AP has rapid entry now. I’ve heard it’s convenient, but I haven’t used it yet.
Posted by Graham Rhind
Apr 20, 2007 at 01:56 PM
Hugh Pile wrote:
>There is of course also wonderful old
>Zoot, which I’m sure could be made to fit your criteria
:-) I’m one of the ones who just don’t get Zoot, I’m afraid. I do keep an eye on its discussion group, though, and may look again if a new version comes out
Graham
Posted by Jan Rifkinson
Apr 20, 2007 at 02:09 PM
Graham Rhind wrote:
>I want a task manager to allow me to add
>a task with a single click/keystroke, show me at a glance what has to be done, and remove
>the task with a single click.
Don’t think it can be done but:
click #1 = Favorite or desktop shortcut to Task branch
click #2 = insert (make sure option | miscellaneous | hoist item is selected
> to see what has to be done
>at a glance, I have to open favourites and choose a pre-saved search (which can be done
>with a keystroke), but then I have to correct the date in the search to be for today, run
>the search and then check the results. When a task is done, I have to change a property in
>the task (e.g. completed -> 100%) and then re-run the search to remove the completed
>task from the overview.
Advanced Search as Favorite is right approach IMO but to your criteria, add date = today & then check make date relative so it will keep updating to day. To complete a task, just add completed check mark i@ item n explorer
C & make sure you have ‘Flag not equal to completed’ in Advanced Search. That will eliminate done items
>Perhaps I’m not doing it right, but UR’s flexibility just
>makes it too cumbersome for something that should be simple.
I think this is a valid observation but I also think Kinook is working on a more sophisticated calendering system which may simplify these tasks. In the meantime, setting up a good advanced search works very quickly. I’m using GTD & it reminds me & lists every day all the things that I need to do basically with one click. Then I get weekly reminders to clean up & monthly reviews.
>[Kinook’s] lack of feedback is bloody annoying, frankly. I was
>surprised as people mentioned how good their support was before I bought the
>software. For me support is not just solving technical problems but also
>communicating with their customers, and they don’t do that well in my
>view.
I couldn’t agree more especially after having been burned so badly by ADM’s Eric Sommer. When I was testing beta, replies from Kinook were patient & daily (if not almost immediate) from the support email address. However, once V3 was released their participation on the forum where they asked me to address all comments after beta is sporadic at best.
>[snip] recurring
>tasks is one of those very simple things which about half of all PIMs and task managers
>miss the point of. There are limited numbers of options and it’s easy to program, so I
>don’t know why this is. [snip] recurring option in the task template allows
>daily, weekday, weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly. So if I want a task to repeat
>every Monday and Wednesday? Or every 3rd Tuesday of the month?
Good point. Depends on what you want. For example snoozing can be any value, i.e. if 3 hours is not included in the list, write it in & you will get a snooze in 3 hours. Reminders are based on begin date.
Recurring just comes up every recurring date which seems to be laid out for longer periods and are limited but they work with end date, i.e. recurring will not go past end date.
Different time/day recurrences can be added manually in the system attributes.
From Help:
You can either select one of the predefined Recurrence values, or enter a manual value (a non-zero number + a predefined denomination):
· Daily
· Weekday
· Weekly
· Monthly
· Quarterly
· Yearly
Some manually entered Recurring value samples:
· 2 days
· 3 weekdays
· 8 weeks
· 2 quarters
· 3 years
The only problem is I don’t know what the ‘rules’ are, i.e. Agenda understood almost any combo, i..e ‘every other weekday’, etc. so I think Kinook has to supply rules to know how to build a date filter. I’ve asked for this on the forum. Let’s see what happens. I will ask support directly if I don’t get an answer on the forum.
I’m not the ultimate URp user nor am I hawking for Kinook but if I can be of help with URp let me know on list, forum or privately to janrif@yahoo.com
I think it’s an interesting program because it is so ‘programmable’ but that’s also its difficulty & I hope not its downfall. But once it’s set up, it’s pretty straight forward IMO.
HTH
—
Jan Rifkinson
Ridgefield, CT USA