Author Topic: A unified solution for note taking and task management (Read 43962 times)

Paul Keith · « **Reply #25 on:** September 16, 2011, 02:19 AM »

Every startup tends to have an invite process nowadays but when Dropbox was released, there was no migrating period. Not only was it one of the true cloud apps that simply fit in with a user's work flow due to integration with some file managers but it was an example that both addressed your original question:

is it better to try to have flexible software that adapts to the user (assuming they know what they want), or to have software that implements a really good way of doing things and have the user adapt to that?

...and yet depending on your needs and the features you used, the overall concept is solid enough to either fall as part of your first or second statement. Something that can't be quite done for concepts like gmail unless you bring up such things as certain features. But if you're bringing up certain features, it makes using the sum of the whole a pretty flawed example because then you are bringing into place a scenario where an application slowly and incrementally updated itself in order to become the "as well received" concept that it is.

That is tantamount to talking about the recurring reminders of a task manager rather than the actual concept of a task manager that would either be a flexible software that adapts to the user or a software that implements a really good way of doing things that have the users adopting. You don't really have to sell yourself short on your point. I thought your original questions were pretty clear and I'm known for being poor at communicating. All around the place is not my style though unless that's where the points was going.

You can't expect a reply that doesn't go all over the place when you expect me to both provide some better example and yet at the same time hint that I am trying to break down your example. It's also flawed to self-rate what you feel is a topic that is hijacking a thread and a topic that isn't. At the very least, only the OP can decide that or a mod interjecting. (though this does not mean the mod has the right to decide, only that they have the power.) We're all biased towards continuing the trail of posts that interests us so of course given the chances of a conversation being stopped, we would rarely personally admit to hijacking a thread especially if it's our posts that are being brought up.

Just my last 2 cents: I think asking for realistic is very impractical and somewhat arrogant. Not from a developers' point of view (since the realistic idea will get tested eventually) but from a conceptual point of view, you can't assume there's a theoretically better way of working already and that this theoretically better way will not match up to people's desired ways of working. It's begging for a chicken or egg scenario and it would be much more problematic than answering your first two questions.

vitalyb · « **Reply #26 on:** September 21, 2011, 06:16 AM »

Woah. For some reason I stopped getting notification to this thread and was

to see all the responses.
I'll avoid the philosophical debate and just respond to the suggested options:

Ultimate To-Do List: As pointed out, lacks rich-text options, which makes it a not very good note app.
Task Merlin: I didn't look too deeply because it seems to be lacking phone integration.
Swift To-Do List: Looks most fitting, especially with upcoming phone integration. However, I'll wait to see what kind of integration they will be coming up with.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions!

P.S In the while, I am sticking with RTM and OneNote

JavaJones · « **Reply #27 on:** September 21, 2011, 03:12 PM »

I'm liking Springpad fairly well so far. Its not super capable in any single area, but it has a great combination of features and is available on web and as a mobile app. It's got web clipping, basic rich text, tagging and sharing, notes as well as tasks, reminders and due dates, etc. And sometimes sheer ubiquity (available anywhere, anytime) can sometimes stand in for some amount of features in my case...

- Oshyan

cianoc · « **Reply #28 on:** September 25, 2011, 06:34 AM »

There's really only one application that does this really well, and that is org-mode for emacs. It is incredibly powerful (the usual answer to "can you do...?" is yes. I'm not joking - I use it for everything from a writing and publishing app, simple spreadsheets, capturing notes as well as organising my life) and flexible, and you can basically customise it to your own needs. It even integrates with both Android and the iPhone through a couple of apps.

The downside is that its in Emacs, so the investment of time and energy is considerable.

bratliff · « **Reply #29 on:** September 25, 2011, 02:05 PM »

I use Ultra Recall. Commercial but the best I could find. It is a database with reminders.

bob

vitalyb · « **Reply #30 on:** September 26, 2011, 04:47 AM »

I've settled for now to use Remember The Milk with OneNote. I am using the notes and links feature of RTM to link it to paragraphs in OneNote. I guess it will have to do for now. One major gripe I am having is that OneNote has no Android client. The closest thing is MobileNoter and so far it isn't quite good. But I guess I'll wait.

bratliff · « **Reply #31 on:** September 26, 2011, 09:03 AM »

I am old school. I have a desktop computer only;.

BOB

dspelley · « **Reply #32 on:** September 29, 2011, 03:50 PM »

Found this the other day - Mind On Track - and it looks pretty interesting. Combination of a to-do/task manager and a mind map.

Program is currently free, but has an expiration date of January 1, 2013 (found under "Edit - Preferences - MindOnTrack - License")

Wonder what happens then?

wolfknight82 · « **Reply #33 on:** July 12, 2012, 08:14 PM »

http://remus-software.org/screenshots/
this remus information manager a new program but looks very versatile and open in idea use
and maybe
chandlerproject.org
this a nifty email client to do manager with note taking basically everything is either a note, event, or todo. Unfortunately this project looks abandoned. The program works rather well has an online hub to store data and an android app.
These might be useful?!

rgdot · « **Reply #34 on:** July 12, 2012, 08:48 PM »

^Interesting, at least at first glance, thanks

40hz · « **Reply #35 on:** July 12, 2012, 10:01 PM »

@wolfknight82 - Welcome to DonationCoder!

Thx for sharing that find. I'm particularly interested in that there's a Linux version and they have a server implementation as well. That would be the icing on the cake since this sort of app begs to be used for collaboration.

Paul Keith · « **Reply #36 on:** July 14, 2012, 08:24 AM »

Considering that Linux is lacking a powerful feed reader and this installed without a hitch, Remus is shaping up to be one of the most powerful replacement out there.

This looks like it has the potential to compete with RedNotebook, Thunderbird and a Linux RSS reader at the same time.

Thanks for sharing.

40hz · « **Reply #37 on:** July 14, 2012, 08:41 AM »

@PaulKeith - I was just wondering...on your travels...have you ever found a feedreader that worked exactly the way you thought one should? Because I certainly haven't.

Paul Keith · « **Reply #38 on:** July 14, 2012, 09:20 AM »

Depends on what it means by "should".

For example a lot of people in the review section missed the point of this but technically if feedreader should work as "scrape your history" rather than "manually add/keep an opml" file then it would work exactly as someone thought it would:

https://chrome.googl...akkpdobmhedohgnmhpbp

Course with Remus everything is topsy turvy. Not just the feedreader if that's what you mean.

40hz · « **Reply #39 on:** July 14, 2012, 02:01 PM »

Depends on what it means by "should".
-Paul Keith (July 14, 2012, 09:20 AM)

In my case it means not cluttering it up with six dozen feature I personally don't want.

My wish list is:

Standalone
A bulletproof "find feed on page" feature
Some sort of local "save complete page" or similar "scrapbook" feature
A save button to either Pocket (ReadItLater) or Instapaper. Ideally both.
One click "send link to email address" feature.
Doesn't noticeably slow down or become unstable with a large (200+ and growing) collection of feeds
Doesn't automate anything unless specifically directed to.
Either has a decent built-in browser, or integrates seamlessly with one of the biggies should I want full HTML.

That's it AFAIC. So far, the Sage extension and FF (with additional extensions) is the closest I've come to it. Far from ideal. But that's life. And the one thing that keeps me from removing the current edition of FF from my machine.

Paul Keith · « **Reply #40 on:** July 14, 2012, 06:14 PM »

Doesn't automate anything unless specifically directed to.

Haha. That reminds me of the reason why I barely use rss readers anymore.

Nope. Haven't really found any app that does that.

SKA · « **Reply #41 on:** July 15, 2012, 09:10 AM »

40hz

check out Rooster RSS Agent
http://www.drivehq.c...eb/brana/rooster.htm

Ska

40hz · « **Reply #42 on:** July 15, 2012, 10:34 AM »

@Ska - thank you for the link. I will definitely check that out.

DerekHal · « **Reply #43 on:** July 15, 2012, 03:36 PM »

One major gripe I am having is that OneNote has no Android client.

Well, that's not true. I have an Android mobile phone with this app installed and running:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.microsoft.office.onenote

A little slow on syncing, but works okay.

DerekHal · « **Reply #44 on:** July 15, 2012, 05:24 PM »

Another option:
Todoist
// there are a couple of Android apps to choose from

Recent Lifehacker poll:
Most popular To-do-list manager
// Top5 were Astrid, RTM, Toodledo, Any.do, Wunderlist

Good list for checking further:
http://alternativeto.net/SearchResult.aspx?search=tag%3atask-list&platform=android&sort=likes

superboyac · « **Reply #45 on:** July 16, 2012, 12:10 PM »

40hz

check out Rooster RSS Agent
http://www.drivehq.c...eb/brana/rooster.htm

Ska
-SKA (July 15, 2012, 09:10 AM)

Hmm...Rooster looks VERY interesting. I'm checking it out now. Lots of options, very lightweight, shockingly flexible! I'm going to load some feeds and try it out for a few days and see if it agrees with me.

[update]
ok, first issue. It doesn't look like it has any ability to download full articles, just the stupid rss summaries. That's my main issue with all these tools. What's the point of using these hardcore news software, when in the end, you still have to go to the actual site in the actual browser to read it? If the software can't grab the content to show within it, it loses so much value with me. Because then it just becomes a link collector pretty much. I don't need to make more work for myself by opening up a program, clicking two or three times just to send me to a website in the browser. If I wanted that, all I'd do is get a bookmark manager and start clicking each bookmark one at a time. It's really not much different.

If anyone made a reader that fulfilled 40hz' specs above, it would be hugely popular and possibly profitable. The issue I see with it is that it's stepping all over google's toes and also the website owners. They obviously don't want their articles downloadable, they want you going to their site and looking at 2 inches of article content and 6 inches of ads.

And the software with the built in browser is not much better, like website watcher. because the browser is most likely inferior to your actual browser that you have all your plugins and ad blockers and stuff worked out so the experience is well suited for you. Going back to an internal browser without those features sucks ass.

You can see my Rooster screenshot below, testing with the John August feed:

A unified solution for note taking and task management

What's the point? All that wasted space because most good rss feeds have a couple lines of summary and you have to go to the website to read the full thing. So the software becomes rather useless to me.

superboyac · « **Reply #46 on:** July 16, 2012, 12:11 PM »

I love how all these rss readers have an option for "summary" and "full article". It's funny how there isn't much difference between the two. What...like 2 lines of text more? Whop dee doo.

superboyac · « **Reply #47 on:** July 16, 2012, 12:30 PM »

OK, i just tried FeedDemon's prefetching feature, which is supposed to be the best in the biz. It sucks. It's not their fault, it's just the state of affairs. All of the "success" models for websites today require you to actually visit the site, whether it's a commercial site or a hobby blog. Hardly anyone is going to make content available in a truly offline way. You just can't escape the browser application or google quite yet, and probably not for a while. Here's what prefetching looks like:

A unified solution for note taking and task management
Lame, isn't it.

Again, if I have to actually visit the website in the browser for more than half my feeds, having an rss reader to be is pretty worthless. Why am I going to go through the trouble and configure this sophisticated rss news system for myself only to keep clicking on the actual websites still? There's no point.

superboyac · « **Reply #48 on:** July 16, 2012, 12:33 PM »

Here's a possible, but complex solution:
I've been using ClipMate recently, it's very powerful. What if you created clipmate filters so that if you copied content from a specified group of websites, all those clips would go into a "newsfeed" folder? It's not perfect, but at least you can go to each website, copy everything, and then read it inside clipmate. I don't know, that's pretty klunky...

rgdot · « **Reply #49 on:** July 16, 2012, 12:53 PM »

I guess it comes down to finding some form of automatic link/site grabber instead of looking for a RSS tool