Oh dear, I recently received an extraordinarily tantalising e-mailer from a company I'd never heard of before.

They've been busily developing an app that appears to be a kind of notes/journal/diary/task management thingy. For macOS only, I'm afraid (at least, for the moment).

And they teased the app with such an excruciatingly good presentation (visit https://agenda.com to see it) that of course I immediately signed up for the beta. Which is pretty well advanced, by the way. The download link came this evening.

And of course, being me, I'm instantly hooked! It's reminiscent of an alas, now defunct app the name of which I can't currently remember, but which stood out by virtue of automatically interconnecting related notes (they later removed this feature from the iOS version). Anyway, it interconnects, or allows you to interconnect, pretty much everything. It's very elegant (nowadays a vital feature, I feel), and really looks very nicely put together. It "folds" notes, allows you to move them onto or off your agenda (hence the name, Agenda), and if you purchase the full version (cunningly, it doesn't offer too many extra features; Agenda is perfectly usable in its free form), you can also link it to Calendar etc. It supports tags, people, and so on. There's clearly a lot more on the roadmap.

So I've already had a little play...

... and it's such fun! Oh dear.

Great alert, Bill. I've signed up for the beta test too and already have Agenda fired up on my Mac. Initial reaction is like yours. Great concept. Nice UI. There's nothing else exactly like it in my experience. Looking forward to continuing to test it. Thanks for the notice.

Steve Z.

Thanks, Bill. (In passing, I wonder if the developers realise that they've adopted a name that was once well-regarded amongst application purchasers - well at least this application purchaser. Lotus Agenda was the first application I personally bought - Wordperfect, Lotus 1-2-3 and Lotus Notes were bought for me by an employer. In retrospect, although at the time it seemed like magic, it was probably a clever application looking for a purpose.)

Ha, yes, good point - I'd forgotten about Lotus Agenda. Rather a nice piece of software, back in the day!

I remember spending endless hours trying to tame Lotus Notes (in some ways very much ahead of its time), only to give up in total frustration. Probably an early influence on my subsequent CRIMPing behaviour...

Cheers,
Bill

I agree, it is a pretty nifty. It's basically a redo of Eduard Metzger's NotePlan, which Eduard has written about many times on this forum. So far, Agenda adds nothing significant to NotePlan's feature set, and there's no Agenda iOS app yet. Agenda's UI is more "Things-like", which is important.

I was surprised that to use all the features in the beta, I had to pay $17.99 to "unlock" the pro version. I've read that others did not have that experience -- so maybe there is some A/B testing going on: some testers pay, others don't.

The Agenda team wrote me to say "Beta refers to the fact that we're still in an (invite-only) test phase of the app, we do however believe the app is very close to 1.0 and that it's fair to start charging for the premium features. " Fair enough, but sort of stretches the common understanding of "beta" -- I don't regret the purchase, just saying...

I also thought of NotePlan when I started working with the app. There are some big differences, however. For one, NotePlan is designed more as a journal, where you keep multiple notes in one document assigned to a specific date. In Agenda, you have multiple, individual note "documents" assigned to dates AND to projects. NotePlan is calendar-centric while Agenda is more note-centric. I am not saying you can't achieve the same thing with either app, its just a matter of approach.

I was going to pay for the upgrade, but the in-app form didn't give me any reassurance the transaction was secure, so I stopped. Then I got an email reminding me I hadn't completed the transaction (I'd entered my email in the form), and that was from Paddle, so I confidently bought the upgrade... just relating this in case anyone else had the same concern.

Steve Z.

Paul Korm wrote:

I agree, it is a pretty nifty. It's basically a redo of Eduard
Metzger's NotePlan, which Eduard has written about many times on this
forum. So far, Agenda adds nothing significant to NotePlan's feature
set, and there's no Agenda iOS app yet. Agenda's UI is more
"Things-like", which is important.

I was surprised that to use all the features in the beta, I had to pay
$17.99 to "unlock" the pro version. I've read that others did not have
that experience -- so maybe there is some A/B testing going on: some
testers pay, others don't.

This also doesn't explain why some users had to pay for the upgrade and others not...

Paul Korm wrote:

The Agenda team wrote me to say "Beta refers to the fact that we're
still in an (invite-only) test phase of the app, we do however believe
the app is very close to 1.0 and that it's fair to start charging for
the premium features. " Fair enough, but sort of stretches the common
understanding of "beta" -- I don't regret the purchase, just saying...

Maybe the ones who didn't have to pay were earlier "testers." Now that they feel it is near ready, they are asking payment for the premium features. Just a guess.

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

This also doesn't explain why some users had to pay for the upgrade and
others not...

Paul Korm wrote:
The Agenda team wrote me to say "Beta refers to the fact that we're
>still in an (invite-only) test phase of the app, we do however believe
>the app is very close to 1.0 and that it's fair to start charging for
>the premium features. " Fair enough, but sort of stretches the common
>understanding of "beta" -- I don't regret the purchase, just saying...
>
>

I haven't paid for the upgrade yet because I don't (currently) need the handful of features the Pro version adds on. But otherwise I'm using Agenda in anger; it does warn me if I try doing something (like saving a search, for example) that can only be done with the Pro version. If it goes on evolving as it has done so far, I'll undoubtedly acquire the iOS app and register in full.

The forum is worth visiting, incidentally. The development team is very responsive and interested in feedback. I know the other thing it reminds me of: NoteSuite, although it isn't yet able to attach documents (it will be, apparently).

One of the most impressive features is the built-in access to the forum, directly from the app. Click on the little Agenda icon in the top-right corner, just next to the "GET ALL FEATURES" button. A separate window opens up, offering instant access to the (very nicely designed) forum. Not something I've seen executed as well as this before.

Yes, I noticed that right away and it immediately struck me that this access is such an obvious thing, why wouldn't every application do it? Since the Agenda forum is a Discourse forum, then Discourse might be a prerequisite.

(Ahem -- if Chris wants to migrate this forum to Discourse, I, for one, would be pleased. Discourse has its detractors, but on balance I find it difficult to match and it is a lot of features that make forum use better.)

MadaboutDana wrote

One of the most impressive features is the built-in access to the forum, directly from the app.