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Not-Standardized Project Management : IQTELL, Directory Opus, etc.
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Posted by Fredy
Nov 1, 2011 at 10:17 PM
Such “integrating” applics are of the highest interest.
So, before knowing iqtell was a cloud applic, I tried to create an account - big button on their site -, but was put off, on several occasions : Seems my “private invitation” or something was lacking. Anyway, asserting “your data is safe” from an unknown offering, well… it’s not that I fear dishonesty, it’s abrupt going out of biz I fear, and I’m not into the cloud yet.
But then, the concept is worthwile, or is it ? Their explanations, incl. the video, alone didn’t get the info to me, and the “detailed” descriptions are interwoven with many a marketing speak, not giving technicals details I’d need for evaluation. And then, on their site, “Example: Find all the emails, documents, and conversations you had with your real estate broker. All you have to do is perform a quick search and all the related information will be grouped and displayed within seconds!” - This would be aleatoric in a way, not being stable, prefigured virtual collections ?
Of course, and as I’ve developed in the MI, UR, PB forums in length, the best thing we could get would be a program that flows over all our files - sort of a file manager then… but a task launcher at the same time, see below - and in which we’d group files (of any kind, and indeed, enclosure of mails would be highly appreciated, or more precisely, would be necessary), and that’d allow us to launch such groups by one command.
This would create different workspaces, be they for “projects” and / or for various referencing purposes. Example, you’d have some “project” (or whatever you name such a collection) of all your files (e.g. outlines in any outlining program, holding various web clips) of the technique of photography, and you’d then have sub-groups such as “all files regarding photo processing / “development”, etc., etc. - in your everyday work, you’d load such subgroups almost exclusively, and file names would best (but not necessarily so) be encoded by (main) group affiliation - you even could do aliases, or include the “secondary” (and tertiary) group affiliation of a file in its name, e.g. tpd(csp).xyz being a file in the group technics - photography - development, but also in the group computer - software - photography ; individualization of files could be realized by further naming : tpd(csp).onething.xyz. (Or have the classic example of your car insurances, being in the groups “cars” and “assurances”.)
Now, such workspaces would go into the hundreds, so you need a tree for their management. At this time, and not having any better third party prog for that (and necessarily renouncing of including my mails into that system, except for important mails as copies within AO items - a bad solution, but the best one available for the time being), I use an ActionOutline tree just for this “group” management, putting the various groups into the tree, and putting the lists of files into the corresponding items ; a macro then loads all those files belonging to the given workspace (and belonging perhaps to several attached progs) into memory.
Of course, there is quite a lot of “manual” checking involved : Whenever I rename a file, whenever I delete it, whenever I move it from one directory to another, I’ll have to run macros doing the necessary adjustments in order for the “launcher macro” to get all file names right, question of avoiding orphaned “links”.
BTW, all “task launchers” I’ve ever trialled, only launch ONE link at a time, do NOT load file GROUPS into memory, even of the same kind (allowing for the same prog), and ListPro developers, e.g., didn’t even deign to answer when I explained to them the high (financial) interest (for them) to launch SEVERAL files with ONE click in their prog.
Of course, these “task launchers” don’t allow for a “select all” command either, and if a group - provided they allow for groups - contains 12 or 20 files, you’ll have to click on 12 or 20 files, one after another. Better even : After each click, the screen will shift to the prog opening the file, and it’ll be no less than an alt-tab that’ll bring the “task launchers” back to the screen (or revert focus to it, the problem is the same) : So, for PM or whatever, at least those task launchers I’ve trialled, are CRAP.
Now for the file managers. xplorer2’s got drop boxes that are good for temporary grouping of files, but there is no realistic way to have a bunch of say 50, 100 or 500 virtual folders, let alone the combined launching of those files then.
The German file manager SpeedManager also has such boxes for temporary storage, but its functionality is even less and much worse, and the developer does NOT answer questions about better implementation of this feature.
The Swiss product TotalCommander - together with xplorer2 (paid version), it’s the only one of three dozen of relevant products that did find “European chars” in UR files in my trials - seems to have a third party virtual folder add-on but which I never succeeded in installing, let alone trialling, and users (from their forum) that got hold of it, didn’t seem to be happy with it.
Directory Opus has got virtual folders indeed, and it is said to be able - if you run it in the background at any time that is - to detect, and to proceed, name changes, deletions (?) and even the moving of files into other directories, i.e. the links in your virtual folders would NOT be orphaned then, but updated by DO (whilst in xplorer2, they would be orphaned, or not orphaned by renaming, but orphaned by moving the original files - I asked the developer but some time ago).
I never succeeded in bearing DO trial version more than some hours, anytime, since DO has the utmost nagging behaviour of all trials I’ve ever trialled : After installation, I feel the urgent need to do a new Windows installation, and people say DO continues at least parts of this behaviour even after you’ll have paid your license. Hence my lack of experience with DO, going further than just the most primitive basics.
On the other hand, and as explained, DO seems to be that prog out there that’s got nearest a real task launcher, but I don’t think it will allow for a “select all” in those virtual folders, and then an “Enter” would launch all those files : That would be universally known, since that would make that prog be world-class and totally unrivalled.
I could live with its unfriendly licence policy, but not with its constant nagging, or only if it provided group launching. That’s to say, group launching (as realized within my AO file, if graphically very unsatisfying, etc.) is much more important than checking and processing renames, etc., since that group launching is a daily task, or more precisely, you’ll group launch, within a workday, perhaps 5 or 15 such “groups” one after another, working on different “projects”, etc., whilst deleting, renaming and moving of physical files could be restrained to the bare minimum if you plan your directories and your naming systems well, from start on.
A quick word on PB since by some, it’s used as a task launcher. Of course, the free version doesn’t do it, and of course, 249 dollar for a task launcher would be somewhat hefty a price, but anyway : I’d pay that price for a file groups launching prog as elegant as PB (they renamed it, again : it’ll be TB now, as it had been in the past). But then, even the 249 dollar version, being able to group several files with each item, does NOT allow for launching them as a group (as of my experience ; as always, I appreciate my possible errors being rectified).
Thus, if anybody knows of a better task launcher than all those I trialled in vain, even if it does NOT check for deletions, renames and movings, he’s warmly invited to share his exclusive knowledge with us. For the time being, I do NOT see that iqtell does group launching, so it might be better than many other integration softwares, but for real PM, it’s as unsatisfying as those existing programs that promise integration of our various tasks.
( This being said having no access to a trial version, so any rectification will be welcome even if I personally, considering it’s a cloud applic, shall not come onboard even if it really is that unrivalled applic that’ll make our workspaces a jump ahead in ease and quality. )
P.S. Would software developers cease to implicate the term “IQ” in their information management softwares, please ? Information management even at its very best will NOT enhance your IQ, so luring prospects with that lie is just dishonest ; what it can do indeed is enhancing your work speed, and your work results, in spite of your (partially) lacking IQ, but that’s quite the contrary of what they promise. Another obvious example being InfoQube, currently abbreviated IQ. Let’s be honest and overcome our limitations, by creating the best tools imaginable, but don’t tell us by choosing IQ-progs, whatever named in their specific ways, we join a select group, that’s marketing speak in spite of excellence in software architecture, that excellence being judged upon arrival, i.e. by its workspace value, not by elegant programming NOT enhancing our capabilities. (If you want real, impenetrable chaos in your head as on the screen, buy PB/TB.)
Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Nov 1, 2011 at 10:33 PM
Re virtual folders: I have found Tabbles http://tabbles.net/ to work quite well. I don’t have it installed in my current PC but as I recall it should not have trouble with ‘European characters’, it’s a European program itself.
Re task launcher; I am personally a keyboard guy, so I launch everything via SlickRun.
Posted by Fredy
Nov 1, 2011 at 10:56 PM
I didn’t mention tabbles because I simply had forgotten it. It regularly reappears at bitsdujour, I think its kindergarten graphical approach is heart-rending, it does NOT allow for any group launching which would have made me accept anything else.
As for the task launcher you mention - I forget the name, and posting here is not seeing any other post -, it’s been in my trial lot, and it doesn’t allow for any group launching, as dozens of other task launchers I’ve trialled with it.
Let’s specify : Group launching of a group of files belonging to - opened by - ONE prog’s rather easy, instead of a “link” to a file, you do an inbuilt macro opening a list of files, then transfer ONE command to the prog in question. Group launching of files to be opened by different progs’d mean the task launcher does batch work, opening that disparate group of files in opening several sub-groups (put together by the task launcher, in order to spare the user to enter / order the files of the group by prog affiliation), one after another.
Of course, minor programming would result in chaotic opening, for e.g. 20 files to be launched, belonging to perhaps 4 progs, the task launcher passing 20 “links” in any given (non-) order in an unspecific row - but everything would be better than to have to launch 20 files one after another, by clicking on them / clicking on 20 different “links”.
Generally speaking, links were invented for url’s, and today, any file on your system can be treated as a “link”, but seemingly nobody seems to have realized that “links” should be able to contain more than just one single target.
Re my P.S. Much of the (relative) success of progs like UR and PB/TB is due indeed to the “select crowd” feeling of those progs, to which their real usefulness is decidedly inferior.
Posted by Fredy
Nov 1, 2011 at 11:48 PM
I forgot : The possibility of file group launching - which, again, is NOWHERE realized at this time to my knowledge - would be the foundation of people’s willingness to split up things into self-contained (but rather tiny) chunks… that then would be much more able to be re-grouped in many various ways. So, the current necessity to open files one by one HINDERS people to make their stuff re-arrangeable, the most obvious excesses being monster files in UR that won’t make it into a corporate environment, asking - if you stay within that concept - even more monstruous files even UR cannot deliver.
And : People need to BREATHE for better thinking : Why do you think so many people / corporations (!) pay so much money for that leading mind mapping prog, MindWhatever : it’s real, big business now, they state 7-digit (paying) customers figures. That program allows to simplify, yes, but it also, and in the very first place, it allows for breathing while thinking on adding branches here and items there.
And that’s exactly why all this hoisting, etc. in monster databases do not work for many a user : While working in your hoisted part of your tree, you KNOW that there’s 50k of items behind, and that knowing comes into your way - whilst real segregation of your stuff into different subjects means, all the other stuff, not needed, is NOT there : you’re temporarily FREED from it. But again, such a fractionizing wouldn’t really be possible but by group launching progs.
And then, why do you think seemingly 99 p.c. of people do NOT use outliners, but MS Word files, etc. ? Because of that same phenomenon, the need for “breathing space”, which they instinctively know will get lost when they’d build up (relatively) monstruous outliner files -
of course, they do NOT have all the relevant information at hand, since their fractionizing (without the necessary re-grouping) makes room to breathe, but doesn’t supply all that information that could help treating the particular core subject.
The solution I’ve found (but not yet thoroughly realized), is multiple outlines of often only 50 items, but in groups that make available any needed info for my respective work… and not more.
But as we see, I couldn’t do that without my macro system doing the group launchings for me.
BTW, I also tried “all” - a dozen of - those mind mapping progs (and not only PB/TN) as front-ends to my file collections, and, “of course”, they all allow for links, and none allows for links launching grouped files… (and not speaking of ubiquitous impossibility to manage deletes / renames / moves of such files resp. their links within those mind mapping progs.)
No, one of the most needed softwares that’d revolutionize computer usage of many people, is simply and thoroughly absent from the market. But then, of unnecessary progs, you can buy or download for free in hundreds of variants.
A last precision : The above-mentioned encoded naming of files is in emulation of a corporate filing system, except for doing each “digit” as a char (= up to 26 possibilities at each position, with mnemonic possibilities - do the mnemonics for all positions, before the first point, then give an additional (but short) “real name”, before the suffix (as stated above). Of course, it would be possible to do longer filenames, but perhaps also at fourth position only, since too individualistic file naming necessitates too heavy sub-foldering to put all those chaotically-names files in, which evidently increases the file management difficulties when renaming / moving files.
And there is screen space : If you’ve got 20 tabs, with 20 file names… In AO, this isn’t possible but with very short names ; in other progs, you’d need several rows of tabs then - but much more important :
Your launching prog MUST be on the screen, at every moment, since if it’s not, you’ll think twice before doing the inevitable alt-tab (or a direct launch, which is possible alternatively), thus renouncing on information for not leaving your comfort zone but for “really important” additional information. If, on the other hand, your file list is always prominent, it’ll be just a click to get even “minor” information contained in those listed files, and so you’ll take much more advantage of your file groups in your work, and that’s an important aspect of the system.
And, finally, such a system should allow for those little additional information bubbles, in case you heavily use encoded / short file names, in order to give the written-out partial names of your file when hovering with the mouse over any given name ; this also could be automatted, i.e. allowed abbreviations for those file names (= before the first point after which individualization would be allowed) would be entered into the system upon request, by a (human) file manager, the system would propose such abbreviations (1-“digit” chars) for subjects, and since only “allowed” chars would constitute the first part of any given file name, those bubbles would automatically give the “written-out” denominations of those file encodings, e.g. file name “ce.whatever.xyz”, bubble “Computer - Editors - whatever”.
And any corporate search system would search within such file groups, or within groups of files having common denominators : eg. “search within all files ce?.xyz” or “search within all files c*.*.xyz” or even within all files c[dhmo]?.*.* (regex within name and all file types, or another regex within the suffix) - please note that such a system allows for / imposes a COMMON denomination system for ALL type of files and integrates MS Excel tables and .pdf files like a charm.
So there’ll be a lot of room for improvements for making such a system a perfect corporate environment, even for 100k staff corps, but for the time being, there isn’t any applic on the market, to my knowledge at least, that provides us with the barest minimum of all this.
And for the IQ lies : Mozart in the cowshed’s a lie, too.
Posted by Dr Andus
Nov 2, 2011 at 12:28 AM
Fredy wrote:
>why do you think seemingly 99 p.c. of people do NOT use outliners, but MS Word files,
>etc. ? Because of that same phenomenon, the need for “breathing space”, which they
>instinctively know will get lost when they’d build up (relatively) monstruous
>outliner files -
I see it differently. 99pc of people don’t use outliners because 1) they’ve never been taught to develop and use and outline for writing; 2) they don’t know outliners exist; or 3) their minds do not work hierarchically (artist-types who think visually).