[chandler-users] General Chandler thoughts...

[Sheila Mooney]

Dan,

Welcome to the Chandler users list and thanks for taking the time to  
write-up this detailed feedback. It would be helpful to know what  
version of Chandler you are running.

I you will get some responses from others but I have addressed some  
of your comments below....see inline.

Cheers,
Sheila

On Mar 23, 2007, at 2:47 PM, Dan Dawson wrote:

> First of all, I just wanted to say I love the concept of Chandler  
> and the system is off to a great start!
>
> Generally, I'm kind of addicted to my calendar, started using a  
> Palm back in 97 or so, use Pimlico Software's DateBk6 on the Palm  
> that has some awesome features I still haven't seen on other  
> calendars (Floating Events) and then as soon as I switched back to  
> Mac, used iCal and had them all playing nicely.
>
> I work with several small groups of people, for some we share  
> camera equipment and record when each person has it checked out, we  
> invite each other to work on certain projects, and even at the  
> office we schedule group meetings and wanted to have a general  
> corporate calendar of events.
>
> Of course our IT guy is planning on a full deployment of Exchange  
> but... well, I like alternatives ;-)  So a few thoughts, starting  
> with specifics and then going to general philosophy, all with the  
> overarching view that your team has done a great job and the future  
> is bright!
>
> * I created several osaf.us accounts for a few of our users.   
> Created calendars for each (either blank or importing iCal data)   
> The complaints from my general users are slow load times (Two on XP  
> and one Intel Mac) and lack of a month view.  I keep reminding them  
> that future releases will certainly address the issues, and that at  
> this point we're just testing the software and methods out.
>
> * I use http://icalx.com/ for sharing my read-only iCal data with  
> other people in my group, they can easily import them in to their  
> own iCal, etc.  Of course, I can retain this functionality with  
> Chandler and have even more options which is great.  For syncing my  
> two Macs I was using MySync which was free and did an excellent job  
> of syncing my calendars and contacts bi-directionally between my  
> machines.  Mark/Space bought them, and that was the end of free, so  
> I'm currently trying out .Mac for free until I decide to purchase  
> that (uugh...) or pay $50 for SyncTogether.
>
> The problem I immediately noticed was that my Cosmo URL's in iCal  
> break as soon as I do the second .Mac sync!  In the calendar URL  
> that I'm subscribed to, everything past the question mark goes  
> missing after the second sync.  I know this is an Apple problem,  
> but if they don't fix it... you might have to address a work around  
> on your side.

I spoke with a couple of our developers about this. We would like to  
try and reproduce so could you provide the precise set of steps you  
did to get this problem?

>
> * Another thought for the future, a side project that wouldn't  
> actually be a part of this project at all.  Originally to let  
> people read and write one shared calendar, we used Google Calendars  
> with a shared login, well, have you guys seen Spanning Sync?  It  
> brings bi-directional calendar editing for Google right in to  
> iCal!  It looks like an excellent piece of software from my  
> limimted testing.  It would be great if someone would build one to  
> support Cosmo in iCal for people who don't want to (yet) switch  
> from iCal to Chandler.
>
> * And this is where I really don't want to step on any toes, I'm  
> not directly involved in this project in any way, and haven't even  
> been monitoring the list for more than a month or so... but here's  
> my random thoughts... iCal is an awesome application, it does what  
> it does very very well, and it's simple to use, and it's relatively  
> fast.  It has a large user base due partially to those reasons.
>
> Chandler is extremely promising, it brings us the ability to do  
> things that iCal can't, and probably won't do.  I look forward to  
> becoming a full-time Chandler user as it continues to grow and  
> develop.  But it does seem that the project has been underway for  
> quite a long time, and though there are TONS of great ideas for the  
> future... the primary goal should be to make a good, functional  
> calendar, and add other features only once that first step is  
> completed.  Some items I'd set as some priorities:
>
> * Speed Enhancements in almost all areas

You mentioned performance issues above as well. We also feel this is  
extremely important and know that we have quite a bit of work to do  
in this area. We expect to finish all the big features and  
architectural work we have scheduled for Preview later this week,  
then we will embark on a focus effort to address performance for  
several weeks.

>
> * Clean and Simple UI - There are still icons that I don't really  
> know what they do or how they work. My fault for not reading  
> documentation but... I never read the docs on Google Cal or iCal  
> either ;-)
>
> * Month view of the calendar - Every paper wall calendar in every  
> home or office is a month view...

You are not the first person to mention the month view. Some features  
simply didn't make it into Preview but it's on our roadmap and once  
we ship this release we can figure out the appropriate place to put  
this in the schedule.

>
> * Drop or hide some of the "features" if people happen to not want  
> them, and probably reduce their priorities on development until  
> primary features are more operational.  It is *very* doubtful most  
> of my users will consider switching their Mail applications to  
> Chandler any time soon, I love Mac Mail, I loved Thunderbird before  
> that... it's going to have to be a major advantage for me to  
> consider leaving one of those for a new application.  Perhaps a  
> "lite" version of Chandler that was Calendar and Tasks only would  
> be faster to develop and deploy to a group of "real world" users.   
> An easy to use cross-platform calendar could really take off it  
> would seem, especially if it played well with iCal and Exchange,  
> and helped people realize on their own that it was *better* than  
> both of those through use and functionality.
>
> I understand the powerful nature of having one monster application  
> that "does it all" but Calendars, Mail, RSS, Tasks, Flickr  
> searching and Amazon Wish Lists... all could be powerful but I'd  
> aim for proving the product in the market before going to that  
> level of detail.  Doing one thing "right" is much more powerful  
> than doing a lot of things in a mediocre fashion when it comes to  
> winning new users.
>
> Of course I do have my own wish lists in addition to some of the  
> above:
>
> * Custom calendar colors
> * Floating events (they move forward day by day if not completed on  
> the previous day)
> * Better searching of events
> * More sharing preferences (Share title only, title and notes, busy  
> only, etc)
>
> I hope this kind of feedback might in some small way be helpful,  
> again, I wanted to encourage the whole team, and if ever I learned  
> some Python I'd love to be a more direct part in helping out.  If  
> ever I could be of assistance in providing feedback or thoughts  
> don't hesitate to let me know.  I will continue trying to spread  
> Chandler through our building user by user and hopefully get enough  
> users on it that we might avoid the Exchange server all together :-)
>
> --Dan Dawson
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