[chandler-users] Re: Why is Chandler Going Nowhere?
carl.lemp at snet.net
carl.lemp at snet.net
Sun Dec 30 09:42:49 PST 2007
I agree almost completely with Steve's comments. I have been doing the same thing he has with Chandler. Downloading versions of it, trying them out, and then waiting for a future release that might support some of what made Lotus Agenda a useful (but difficult to learn) product. My job fits the target user for Chandler very closely; a lot of separate but overlapping projects and tasks with information coming in from many directions. Chandler provides a place for that information to be consolidated but, unfortunately, it does not help in the consolidation. What made Agenda so useful (in Chandler terms) is that it automatically made added items to collections based on user defined rules. Without that, there is no compelling reason for the consolidating all those items into a single application. I can just as easily continue to use email, note files, spreadsheets, etc. and use search tools to find what I need. Reading each item and dragging it to
multiple collections manually is too time consuming to be worth while. That approach works fine when the collections are few in number and isolated from each other (Work, Home, etc) but what about when there are 20 collections and a new item applies to 6 of them? I can't be the only one who is waiting for Chandler to let me type "Fix bug in messaging sub-system for CustomerX by next Tuesday so we can upgrade their system to version 1.4." and then have that item tagged with Bugs, Messaging, CustomerX, Due Date: 1/7/08, Upgrade Project, and Version 1.4 so that I can look at the bug list, component list, customer task list, calendar, project list, or version planning notes and that item shows up in all of them. That's what Agenda allowed so many years ago. With Chandler's expanded scope for collecting items, if automatic assignment rules could be set up, it would be awesome.
Regards,
Carl
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Subject: chandler-users Digest, Vol 12, Issue 20
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Today's Topics:
1. Why chandler is going nowhere! (Steve Blain)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2007 15:37:01 -0500
From: Steve Blain <friggincomputers at hotmail.com>
Subject: [chandler-users] Why chandler is going nowhere!
To: <chandler-users at osafoundation.org>
Message-ID: <BAY108-W1140B6AAC839FEF3216B3AC1540 at phx.gbl>
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Sorry for the corny subject, but I didn't know how else to put my
thoughts concisely.
I have been following Chandler for a long time, mostly because it was
initially announced that it would incorporate aspects of the old Lotus
Agenda that I loved so much. Unfortunately I don't have time to
contribute extensively so I did not join the ranks of developpers for the
projects. From time to time I have downloaded and tried chandler though,
and every time without exception, I find it completely unusable.
I know there is a lot of "invisible" work done for the collaboration
aspects, and the multi-platform development slows things down. But I
believe in making a product usable and useful before making it perfect,
and that is where Chandler fails. At no point so far in my trials have I
found it usable enough to test it for any more than several minutes.
As much as I would love to give it a chance, I am put off in the first
few minutes. Just now I tried it again and found myself starting a bug
list immediately. I hit bugs that I find showstoppers for me to use
Chandler, and I found them in less than 5 minutes of trying it.
I had to find "workarounds" for some quirky UI interface aspects I
found. They are not really workarounds because it was probably designed
that way (maybe), but there should be more obvious ways to accomplish
these tasks. This, to me, points to a steep learning curve that is not
necessary.
So once again I am at the same place; I tried it, but I can't even USE
it for simple tasks, so I will leave it. And once again I will hope
that my next try will show me a better, more usable Chandler, but I am
starting to waiver in my belief that it will get better.
Windows XP SP2
Steve.
PS: Here are the bug/problem notes I took when I started Chandler. I
stopped logging them after about 5 minutes and removed some that I
realized were not bugs but designed behavior. I have not edited them much,
if they are of use, all the better. Good Luck.
- right clicking in the edit box does not work properly
- there is no pop-up monthly view calendar to enter dates!!! Designed
to be dragged to the calendar? Very annoying because when two dates
are required (start-end) both are set when dragged to a date.
- it doesn't seem to take fractionnal days (hours or minutes for that
matter)
- No way to set recurring events to happen multiple times in a week
(every monday and wed for example). It would force someone to create two
or more identical events but for different days. That could be
acceptable if there was a way to link events together (dependence, sibbling,
same, ...), but there would still be no way to make a recurring event on
the second Monday of every month!
- Why does the 'status' only appear for an all-day event?
- In the 'dashboard', there is no way to know if something has been
'collected'. In the detailed view on the right, it is a tiny word at the
bottom that can't be changed, updated or edited in-place. From this
lack of editing possibility, it seems I can't remove an item from a
collection easilly: I have to go to the collection, re-find the item to
remove it, then maybe return to this item to continue editing it in any
way.
- Click & drag an item (with or without a drop somewhere else) is not
handled properly: the detailed view is not updated so that the highlited
item in the dashboard may not be the item in the detailed view on the
right.
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