Bonsai

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Posted by Daly de Gagne
Dec 16, 2007 at 08:28 PM

I recently got a U3 on which Bonsai was installed—it looks intriguing. Has anyone tried it on Windows (as opposed to a PDA)? How is it? Pros? Cons?

Thanks.

Daly

Posted by Thomas
Dec 16, 2007 at 11:14 PM

I only have an experience with Bonsai as a tasklist outliner.

Strengths are:
- open format - XML
- easily extensible exporting capabilities if XML is tough for you
- three item types (simple, task, progress)
- powerful custom filters and views
- data display configurable (view only select columns)
- multiple files open in tabs at one time
- text color (eg. by category)
- calculates parent values from children for custom numeric field, dates, completion status
- keywords, categories, ...

Posted by Ike Washington
Dec 16, 2007 at 11:38 PM

I’m a great fan of Bonsai. I use it to run my GTD lists on both my palm pda and my pc.

I followed the advice of this Bonsai guru:
http://www.natara.com/forums/messageview.cfm?catid=32&threadid=4617

And then gradually tweaked Bonsai to suit my needs.

The list of pro points by Thomas is spot on.

I’d stress Bonsai’s flexibility. Even though my main GTD list is very long, my Bonsai views and filters, keywords and categories allow me to flick from one context to another. The many keyboard shortcuts help as well.

The main drawback is that only one custom column is possible.

I recommend Bonsai highly.

Ike

Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Dec 17, 2007 at 04:26 PM

Bonsai looks very similar to ListPro. Can anyone familiar with both tell me if there is a difference? Thanks.

Steve Z.

Posted by Ike Washington
Dec 18, 2007 at 12:54 PM

Stephen Zeoli wrote:
>Bonsai looks very similar to ListPro. Can anyone familiar with both tell me if there is
>a difference? Thanks.
> >Steve Z.

I’ve tried ListPro, have a licence for the current version, but don’t use it. From what I remember, its big advantage over Bonsai is that it allows for custom columns. And it’s easier to set up - comes with pretty good templates. It can also sync collectorz.com software files.

Bonsai is more polished, more ambitious, has thoughtful touches, unexpected and useful functions. Most importantly, as mentioned above, it’s good at creating complex filters. One example: Bonsai allows a next actions filter - I can specify that a list, or a subset of a list, should only show the next item; this is useful for my Getting Things Done routine.

My advice after playing around with both: if you want to do anything complicated with your lists, an all-in-one GTD list, say, go with Bonsai.

And Bonsai wins out for me in that, unlike ListPro, its files can be stored on pda sd cards - I have huge GTD files and not much room left on the main pda.

Ike

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