Agenda At Once v3.0 final - finally :)

[vradmilovic]

As Agenda At Once is mentioned several times in these forums (several members also provided great feedback - thank you for that!), I suppose that there could be people interested to hear that, after long beta period, Agenda At Once v3.0 is finally out.

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http://www.agendaatonce.com/

Oh, and although this post refers to an old version, I want to confirm that 30% discount for donationcoder.com members is still active.

[mouser]

Awesome 

[KenR]

Hi Vladimir.

Agenda at Once looks great. I use a Palm hand held computer which contains a lot of this information. This hand held came with a windows program (Palm Desktop) that works in concert with it. The Palm desktop and hand held computer will transfer information back and forth (sync) so both have the same information. Since I use the Palm, I need to stick with programs that will sync like this. Does Agenda at Once sync with the palm or any other hand held computers? If not, is that in the future for the program?

Thanks, Ken Reeder

[ChalkTrauma]

Vladimir,

Very interesting app, great work.. You definitely got my attention, especially with the line "Use it from portable USB pen drive on any computer you have access to". I'm a huge fan of Abstract Spoons To-Do List, which is open source, and I pretty much live off of it for my project management at work, but this looks like something I'm going to have to download and kick the tires for a while and see how it compares. I like the ability to link tasks with contacts, To-Do list just links tasks to names, it would be nice to have more info than just a name.

Does it also allow tasks to be "assigned by" as well as "assigned to", that is normally how I keep track of who I owe what.. Maybe I'll hold off my questions until I take it for a spin.. 

Again, great work and congrats on getting v3.0 out the door..

[ChalkTrauma]

Just a few things I found while trying it out:

• The program crashed when I added my first contact
• When I set layout to: top-Left = To-do, top-right=Notes then tab for "Schedule" contains quick notes
• Is there a way to add "assigned by" to tasks? I manage tasks by, who requested the task and who is working on it...
• Export to XML as an option would be nice to allow XSLT transformation to HTML or other data formats.
• It would be nice to have a higher level grouping like project instead of just category. I track my to-do lists by project, and inside projects I group by category ( coding, review, research, testing, etc ). I guess I could have separate data bases per project, but I usually have them all open at the same time, and in one interface, saving filters that show a "project" would be great.

The program looks great, and there are some really nice features.. In fact I would consider migrating to it but I couldn't without being able to link to the requester of the task,filter by project, and export XML. If any of those things are possible, and I'm missing it somewhere, let me know so I can try them out, because I really like using it..

[vradmilovic]

Thank you both for kind words and useful comments!

Agenda at Once looks great. I use a Palm hand held computer which contains a lot of this information. This hand held came with a windows program (Palm Desktop) that works in concert with it.

-KenR (January 27, 2008, 08:41 PM)

Yes, synchronization with various product is planned as a next major improvement. Actually, we would like to straighten up any possible problems with this initial release before we start developing this. According to poll among beta testers, support for MS Outlook and Palm are first to be implemented.

• The program crashed when I added my first contact

-ChalkTrauma (January 27, 2008, 10:11 PM)

Argh! I hate this! OK, I'm good now... Can you please PM me an AgendaAtOnce.elf (error log file)? From the main menu choose Tools | Open folder | Error log file to find it.

• When I set layout to: top-Left = To-do, top-right=Notes then tab for "Schedule" contains quick notes

-ChalkTrauma (January 27, 2008, 10:11 PM)

I will check this. Thank you.

• Is there a way to add "assigned by" to tasks? I manage tasks by, who requested the task and who is working on it...

-ChalkTrauma (January 27, 2008, 10:11 PM)

Unfortunately, there is no additional field to enter contacts, but it sounds interesting. I suppose that "mixing" "by" and "to" assignees in same field doesn't make sense for you?

• Export to XML as an option would be nice to allow XSLT transformation to HTML or other data formats.

-ChalkTrauma (January 27, 2008, 10:11 PM)

Noted. Thanks. As I said before, various syncs and exports/imports will be implemented soon.

• It would be nice to have a higher level grouping like project instead of just category. I track my to-do lists by project, and inside projects I group by category ( coding, review, research, testing, etc ).

-ChalkTrauma (January 27, 2008, 10:11 PM)

Makes sense. Still, can you use multiple categories for this purpose? For example, create categories: Project1, Project2, ..., Coding, Review, ... and then assign pairs to each task: [Project1, Coding], [Project2, Coding], [Project1, Review], ... After this you would be able to filter by projects, types or both.

[ChalkTrauma]

Can you please PM me an AgendaAtOnce.elf (error log file)? From the main menu choose Tools | Open folder | Error log file to find i

ok.. I got it.. I'll PM after this post..

I suppose that "mixing" "by" and "to" assignees in same field doesn't make sense for you?

I thought of that also, but they can be the same group of people so that makes it a bit ambiguous..

Still, can you use multiple categories for this purpose?

I did try that, and it does work to a point, but then if you view a project todo list the category column is very hard to read, my job is insanely hectic, especially over the last year I have picked up a lot of other roles, and I've spent a lot of time finding tools to help me manage the deluge of info I have to keep track of, things like EverNote and  ToDo list make my job survivable. I use a lot of colors and symbols to help at-a-glance recognition of state because many times I'm just glancing at the state of a project before I have to give someone an answer on something. That is what makes categories hard to read when it is doubled or tripled up. I know I'm being picky, but I just wanted you to get a feel for in what context I'm using AOA, and how seriously I use that type of tool in my work.


One other question.. Is there a published plugin API or is that closed?

[vradmilovic]

I did try that, and it does work to a point, but then if you view a project todo list the category column is very hard to read,

-ChalkTrauma (January 28, 2008, 09:18 AM)

Yes, I see what you mean. I suppose that adding an option to show only subtasks of specific tasks would do the trick then? We will consider adding this in the future. Thanks!

One other question.. Is there a published plugin API or is that closed?

-ChalkTrauma (January 28, 2008, 09:18 AM)

Currently it's not published and it's not polished. If there were enough interest from users to create own plugins, we will make it available. Otherwise, it will just serve as a way for implementing some features.

[KenR]

Thank you both for kind words and useful comments!

Agenda at Once looks great. I use a Palm hand held computer which contains a lot of this information. This hand held came with a windows program (Palm Desktop) that works in concert with it.

-KenR (January 27, 2008, 08:41 PM)

Yes, synchronization with various product is planned as a next major improvement. Actually, we would like to straighten up any possible problems with this initial release before we start developing this. According to poll among beta testers, support for MS Outlook and Palm are first to be implemented.

-vradmilovic (January 28, 2008, 05:24 AM)

Wow, that's great! I'm tired of using the stagnant, unchanging Palm Desktop software and can't wait until you implement the necessary features. Please let me know if you need any beta testers for Palm devices. I'll be glad to help in any way that I am able.

By the way, there is a chance I will be switching to a BlackBerry phone with built-in schedule software, like the Treo I have now. Will Agenda At Once interface with those devices and other "smart phones" as well?

Thanks, Ken

[vradmilovic]

By the way, there is a chance I will be switching to a BlackBerry phone with built-in schedule software, like the Treo I have now. Will Agenda At Once interface with those devices and other "smart phones" as well?

-KenR (January 28, 2008, 02:25 PM)

Plan is to implement one at the time, in the order of number of requests. After Palm, we will decide between PocketPC and BlackBerry.

[Josh]

Ken, Palm Desktop has recently been updated.

[ChalkTrauma]

Is there a way to display more than initials in Assignees column?

Do you plan vCard import for contacts?

[vradmilovic]

Is there a way to display more than initials in Assignees column?

-ChalkTrauma (January 29, 2008, 02:40 PM)

Sorry for late answer - busy week. :-) Only way to do this is to remove initials completely. In this case, to-do list should display full name instead.

Do you plan vCard import for contacts?

-ChalkTrauma (January 29, 2008, 02:40 PM)

Yes, but it's not priority right now.

[kartal]

I have not tried this software. But one of the obstacles of using everyother software`s contact manager is little troublesome because one may endup using multiple applications with contact managers and trying to import export contacts become a serious hasssle for me and I am sure it is hassle for everyone. And I am not a big fan of csv pipeline, things get lost, compability issues etc. Does your program can import outlook express or thunderbird contacts without going through loops?

[tomos]

import seems to be *.csv or iCalender / vCalender files

[allen]

Ken, Palm Desktop has recently been updated.

-Josh (January 28, 2008, 03:47 PM)

Not really . . . it jumped two version numbers to vista compatibility, but it actually had no improvements other than vista compatibility.  Actually, it went backwards a bit (no longer auto snags birthdays from contacts to display in your calendar, no longer supports colors) -- the only improvement was the conduit--now it can install apps from vista systems.  Palm Desktop hasn't been improved in terms of features and functionality in 5-10 years.  It, remarkably, now offers less features than its handheld counterpart. WTF?!

Count me in for the Palm beta if you need testers! I would love nothing more than to replace Palm Desktop with an actively developed, rich application -- but the only alternative on Windows is Outlook--something I see as an even greater evil than Palm Desktop.

Beyond that, I'm in the same boat as Ken--organizers do me no good if they can't talk to my external (Palm) brain.