New outline-based PIM is in the works

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Posted by Phil Seeman
May 2, 2006 at 08:44 PM

Back in the 1990’s, I founded and ran Catalyst Innovations, doing consulting and add-ons for ECCO Pro (and I wrote ECCO’s Correspondence Manager and Mail Merge Wizard components).

After waiting close to ten years for a good successor to ECCO to show up, and being disappointed with each of the subsequent PIMs, I finally gave up waiting and last December decided to create one. Yes, it’s a daunting task, but I bring to the table over 25 years of software development and of studying and working in the field of personal and group information management.

Following is some basic information about the app that you will probably want to know.

- Its basic structure is the “outliner with columns”. The columns are user-definable and can be of a variety of data types. You can maintain multiple lists (my terminology for ECCO’s folders/notepads), and items can exist in more than one list.

- My development approach differs from some other current PIM efforts: rather than attempting to build a comprehensive platform initially (can you say Chandler?), I’m starting with the basics, and will add functionality as time goes on, especially if the basics prove to be successful. (This is due in part to a difference in my development philosophy, and also because I have a bit less resources at my disposal than Mitch Kapor does!)

- It is a Windows-only app, partly because that platform still addresses the majority of today’s marketplace, and partly because that’s the development environment I know and making a cross-platform solution would slow me down considerably.

- In its initial implementation, it uses an MS Access MDB for its data store, but will ultimately be able to use any OLE DB data source. The data is stored in standard database tables and thus is wide open for interfacing purposes.

- As a believer in and practitioner of the Getting Things Done methodology, I can assure you that the program will be very compatible with using a GTD approach.

- I’ve devoted the bulk of my post-ECCO career to developing applications based around Microsoft Outlook. So you can be sure that this app and Outlook will be well-integrated, including Calendar, Contacts, and e-mail.

- I plan to sell it as a shareware or commercial product, so as to provide resources to be able to continue developing and enhancing it.

- It is initially a single-user application, but I hope to expand it to multi-user if the initial version is successful.

- PDA sync capability is another feature that will likely not be present initially, but will be important to add.

- I’m not able to devote full time to the project given other business commitments, but am working on it as much as I can. I hope to have an early beta to post within the next two to three months. So stay tuned!

Posted by Wojciech
May 2, 2006 at 10:38 PM

Hi,

Many thanks for interesting news. Sounds good! Is it possible to subscribe to your beta testers group? Where to address additional questions/suggestions/feature requests?

Wojciech

Posted by dg
May 3, 2006 at 05:40 AM

Looking forward to it!
—
dg

Posted by Gary N
May 4, 2006 at 03:39 AM

Phil Seeman wrote:
>Its basic structure is the
>“outliner with columns”. The columns are user-definable and can be of a variety of
>data types. You can maintain multiple lists (my terminology for ECCO’s
>folders/notepads), and items can exist in more than one list.
> >the program will be very compatible with using a GTD approach.
> >this app and Outlook will be well-integrated, including
>Calendar, Contacts, and e-mail.
> >PDA sync capability is another feature that will ... be important to add.

Phil,

This program, jot for jot, sounds like the holy grail for me. I love the outliner, the user-definable columns, the lists, the GTD compatability, the calendar, contacts, and general Outlook integration, and the PDA synching. It is exactly what I have been looking for, and if it is well-executed according to your description, might bring my PIM buying habit to an end. Please make it intuitive and ergonomic. I hope first of all that the outliner resembles Notemap, so I will want to start all of my writing in it. But I hope it also packs in all of the robust data management capacity of Zoot and Ultra Recall, so I can store every odd bit that I gather in my research. And I hope you have read the old posts from outliners.com that praised Grand View—so that you know the kind of things that appeal to outlining junkies.

If it is all that, well then, let neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stay you from the swift completion of version 1.0. I can’t wait to buy it and get it up and running. Please hurry.

Gary

Posted by Andrew Demack
Jun 22, 2006 at 05:40 AM

Phil Seeman wrote:
>- Its basic structure is the
>“outliner with columns”. The columns are user-definable and can be of a variety of
>data types.

I would like the different data types to be able to interact with each other (where appropriate) through simple spreadsheet style formulas.

As well as being searchable and linkable, of course.

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