Are any of you using Agenda? There were a few threads on it earlier. I admit to be polygamous when it comes to PIMs. I'm currently running Gingko, Agenda, and Pagico sort of simultaneously. I'm leaning a bit toward Agenda as it seems to be better for jotting stuff down and, when appropriate, attaching a date to it. Uncomplicated interface that is pleasing.

I've been using Agenda the past week or so, and wrote up a little review at my blog:

https://welcometosherwood.wordpress.com/2018/02/15/agenda-date-centric-notes/

I'd be interested to learn if you agree with what I have to say about it.

Steve Z.

I agree with Steve's review with Agenda. My experience has been the same. I like it. I like the design. I think the developers are super responsive. And it has the quality that Papers had -- no surprise, since it's the same developer I think. An iOS version is promised, which I think is essential for this sort of application.

My own hurdle with Agenda is that if an application like this is going to be a successful work diary or note taker then it needs to work closely with the rest of the environment. I need a shortcut to quick-capture notes, I need a service to capture URLs to webpages and documents, and I need access to all the Share extensions on the machine. So far, there's no quick capture. There are no services. And Share from Agenda is limited to Mail, AirDrop and social media. (The limits on Share are befuddling, since macOS takes care of everything for the developer, so this should have been easy to do.)

I have NO doubt the developer will address these features. There have been four dot releases in v1.x since I bought the application (actually more, because there were several dot releases in beta, before then). So there's plenty of energy, a healthy user community on Discourse, and lots of upside.

Jeffery Smith wrote:

Are any of you using Agenda? There were a few threads on it earlier. I
admit to be polygamous when it comes to PIMs. I'm currently running
Gingko, Agenda, and Pagico sort of simultaneously. I'm leaning a bit
toward Agenda as it seems to be better for jotting stuff down and, when
appropriate, attaching a date to it. Uncomplicated interface that is
pleasing.

Is there a link for this program/app? Too many appear when I search.

--Ken

I agree with the points you’ve made on your blog. I don’t see Agenda bumping ant serious notetaking app. More of an organized reminder or todo that makes cutting and pasting a sentence or two from an email to a note/reminder. The font size is a compromise. I wish it were larger, but appreciate fitting more text on one screen. At age 67, I can read it, at least until about 3:00 PM. Thanks for the review. You may some day make me a diehard Tinderbox user (I still struggle with the learning curve, after nearly a decade).

Jeffery

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

I've been using Agenda the past week or so, and wrote up a little review
at my blog:

https://welcometosherwood.wordpress.com/2018/02/15/agenda-date-centric-notes/

I'd be interested to learn if you agree with what I have to say about
it.

Steve Z.

https://agenda.com/

Ken wrote:

Is there a link for this program/app? Too many appear when I search.

--Ken

It's worth mentioning that Eduard Metzger's NotePlan, which preceded Agenda in this category of calendar-linked note taking (whatever the category is called) has all the features of Agenda plus far more. And it has a good iOS companion app. And no subscription. For anyone kicking the tires of Agenda, it's worth looking for a trial of NotePlan also.

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

https://agenda.com/

Ken wrote:
Is there a link for this program/app? Too many appear when I search.
>
>--Ken

Thank you, Alexander. It did not seem to float to the top of my search when I went looking for it.

--Ken

it was the demise of NoteMap that sent me completely from Windows to Mac. From NoteMap, I went to Circus Ponies Notebook, another abandoned project. I'm still waiting for the new version of Aquaminds Notetaker.

NotePlan and NoteMap are different things. NotePlan is similar to Agenda.

This is an entirely subjective comment about Agenda, but I find myself continually drawn to using it. That is, it has such an appealing interface, I frequently open it and start making notes and plans. I don't know if this will last when I have hundreds of notes in Agenda, but for now I'm having a lot of fun being productive.

Steve Z.

Oops, yes you are right! Getting my "note" apps confused. I had actually given NotePlan a try, but didn't care much for the interface. Seemed a bit like Bear or Ulysses.

Paul Korm wrote:

NotePlan and NoteMap are different things. NotePlan is similar to
Agenda.

The same here. One of my tasks at work is maintaining the database for part-time contracts. Human Resources is always making some tweaks to it (to accommodate Obamacare), and I needed a place to keep a record of the requested changes. Little scraps of paper weren't working out well (I tended to launder them with my shirts). Agenda is becoming my favorite way to follow these little tweaks.

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

This is an entirely subjective comment about Agenda, but I find myself
continually drawn to using it. That is, it has such an appealing
interface, I frequently open it and start making notes and plans. I
don't know if this will last when I have hundreds of notes in Agenda,
but for now I'm having a lot of fun being productive.

Steve Z.

Jeffery Smith wrote:

Little scraps of paper weren't working out well (I
tended to launder them with my shirts).

Instant inbox zero! Happened to me as well, not always desirable.

Back to the subject of Agenda, I dabbled with it as well but found the interface pleasing to look at if a little limited in functionality. Perhaps I'll give it another spin.

Yes, Agenda is one of those CRIMPers' nightmares - something that looks so attractive, you feel you SHOULD be using it, somehow. So you mess about with it sometimes, just to play; I have several dozen lightweight writing apps on my machine(s) which I can't bring myself to delete for precisely this reason.

Agenda for iOS was just announced. It is available as a pre-order, but the price is free, so this just means it will download automatically:

https://itunes.apple.com/tw/app/agenda-a-new-take-on-notes/id1370289240

Curious if anyone is using Agenda regularly as part of their workflow? Because there was no iOS app I never tried it seriously, but now I might give it a shot...

I like Agenda for its design but also was waiting for the iOS version. Which I have now via the beta. It’s nice. But it doesn’t seem to have extensions to accept input from other iOS apps. That’s my problem with Agenda on the desktop. The apps are islands. The need to accept input from other apps and services.

I don't use Agenda regularly, but I have used it for planning certain projects. It has proven very handy for planning our upcoming vacation. I made a note for each date of the trip, then entered itinerary information, todos (i.e. make reservation at hotel X), driving times, confirmation numbers, etc. And then I have a couple of non-dated notes for todos and other info that I pin to the top of the list. I think any project that can be parsed to specific dates could be well planned in Agenda, as long as there weren't a lot of dependencies.

Steve Z.

I have pretty much relied on Agenda to the exclusion of other time-management apps, and just got an iPad Pro 10.5 (and Brydge keyboard), so I was very happy to hear that Agenda on iOS. The iPad Pro is pretty much a replacement for a laptop (for taking note and taking minutes of meetings), and having my calendar and tasks available on it is a plus.

Having multiple calendar apps as well as Outlook has been a headache, because I cannot seem to get one calendar in sync without all sorts of duplicated entries. Having only Agenda and Outlook should reduce those headaches.

I’m wondering if anybody has any updated experiences with regard to Agenda? I’ve been happily using NotePlan, but I still feel the CRIMPers pull to give Agenda a real try.

I just paid for DEVONthink Pro 3 today, so what’s a few more bucks, right?

I would be interested to know if there’s anybody out there that have done a good compare and contrast between NotePlan and Agenda. My Googling and power-user forum searches mainly just found people mentioning the two, rather than providing much insight into why one might be better than the other.

Pat talked about it some over on the Tinderbox forum: http://forum.eastgate.com/t/sheetplanner-topic-split/1617/16

I'm not sure what a "good compare is". From my own experience, I've worked back and forth between the two and settled on Agenda as it became pointless to work with two apps that are essentially the same. Neither NotePlan or Agenda has a Share extension, which is a problem for my particular situation. Agenda has steadily added features such as pencil/annotation support on iPadOS/iOS, which is a new feature in recent days. Agenda claims to be working on a Share extension, but they've been saying that since forever. I like Agenda's integration with Calendar and Reminders -- for the way I work, it works smoothly. I would like to have a web version because when at the job site I have too use a Windows computer -- so for now I'm using Dynalist more because it fills that gap.

I guess it just matters what you're comfortable with and what you enjoy using. Functionally, NotePlan and Agenda seem to be very close, from the perspective of my own use cases.

Drewster wrote:

I would be interested to know if there's anybody out there that
have done a good compare and contrast between NotePlan and Agenda. My
Googling and power-user forum searches mainly just found people
mentioning the two, rather than providing much insight into why one
might be better than the other.

Thanks Beck and Paul.

I’ve trialled Agenda over the last day and have found ways that it gels better with my workflow than NotePlan. So I shelled out the bucks and bought the Mac&iOS combo.

I’m going to try to keep monitoring my impressions of the app, and will hopefully find some time to write a blog post comparing the two apps: scratching my own itch!

I have tried both and have chosen NotePlan over Agenda. The main reason was that NotePlan is more suited to my task management style. I would like to see Agenda add some more task centric workflows, but that may not be their focus.

I like NotePlan and keep all of my tasks in projects notes, and then add them to the calendar from the notes. This has worked pretty well, but as I rely on it more, it has been difficult to update the dates on tasks. You have to go into the notes and find the tasks that need updating. That proves difficult with dozens of tasks. I have requested some features to help with this including the ability to sort tasks within a note by scheduled date.

There is an alternative method of keeping tasks in the calendar, and with the improvements in tags and the upcoming sub tags this may be a better way to go.

I do think Agenda has a much slicker interface and I really enjoy the environment. If I could find a way to use it for my task management style I may give it another go especially since I upgraded way back.

Another thing to keep in mind is that NotePlan uses only text files, and if you use DevonThink they can be indexed. Agenda uses a database and is more of a closed system.

In the end they are both excellent programs. It really just depends on your style and preferences. Both are regularly updated. Hopefully both are successful and can stay in business for many years to come.

I also use NotePlan rather than Agenda. For a number of reasons; first, it uses simple text files that can be indexed by Spotlight, FoxTrot or other indexing engines (and, of course, directly accessed by any number of Markdown editors). Second, it combines a calendar (with a number of different, well-conceived views) with notes, and it’s easy to link them all together. Third, you can open calendar entries or notes in separate windows - something Agenda unfortunately doesn’t do and is still working on, although it’s at the top of the list of user requests. There’s something about NotePlan’s tidy but flexible minimalism that just really appeals to me.