[chandler-users] Wishlist and questions after a few weeks of intensive use

[Delphine Ménard]

Hey Mimi! Thank you for your answers.

On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 00:41, Mimi Yin <mimi at osafoundation.org> wrote:
> Hi Delphine,
> Thanks for writing in with your feedback!  Frequency of request is as
> important to us as the requests themselves.
> May I ask which version of Chandler you are running? The latest is 1.0-rc1
> - http://chandlerproject.org/

My intense use was with 0.7.7, I upgraded to 1.0-rc1 yesterday, so
haven't had time to use it yet.

> More detailed responses in-line...
> On Jul 25, 2008, at 5:21 AM, Delphine Ménard wrote:


> ==Usability (my personal wishlist) ==
> 1)Columns sorting
[snip]
> Yes indeed others have requested this as well. Would the Who column be more
> useful to you if you could use it as a way to keep track of task ownership?
> e.g. I am waiting for so-and-so to get back to me about x-y-z versus, this
> is a task I need to follow-up on.

Well, at this stage, I use Chandler all by myself. That might change
as I convince my partner to use it too, but the Who column is of no
use to me. I use the titles of the notes/emails to remind myself of
things I am waiting for from other people. (hence asking for better
readibility ;-) ).
So I'm not the right person to ask...

> 2) Date and time display
> The display of time in the Date column is a bit confusing, as it
> displays the date, the time and ... the timezone? Not sure, it's
> confusing. Maybe change the color of the different display (grey the
> timezone display for example to differentiate it from the time of
> event display?)
>
> Hm, you are actually the first to mention this. Do you have a lot of events
> that display time zone? I'm wondering if you have run into the same problem
> as
> Giancarlo: http://lists.osafoundation.org/pipermail/chandler-users/2008-July/002238.html

Well, see the following screenshot to see what I am referring to.
http://test.notafish.org/temp/chandler_time_zones.png

>
> 3 a)Length of title in sidebar
[snip]

> Unfortunately, Chandler doesn't support either solution today. But again you
> are in good company when asking for this capability.

Good. Where do we line up to protest? ;-)

> 4)Keyboard shortcuts for later/done/now?  Maybe I missed those, but it
> would be great to be able to mark an item as DONE from the NOW
> directly, without having to click twice to pass the LATER stage.
>
> Double-clicking is a slightly less tedious way to move 2 triage statuses
> quickly.

You're right. Except "done" is a state of mind. I find having a
shortcut dedicated to it (alt+D or something), gives me a sense of
achievement. But I guess that's me.

>
> 5)Sub-collections
[snip]
> Yes! I'll ask you the same question I asked Liz in her email. Do you think
> you would have a need to file a collection in multiple collection groupings?

Hmm. Gut feeling would say no, because basically, the sub-collections
would be sub-tasks of a same project, so would not apply to anything
else.

But thinking about it, I guess it is interesting. Let's pretend.
I stole your idea of a packing list (for real!).
Imagine I am organizing the conference, and for that I need to pack
specific stuff. I guess my packing list note would be in a general
"useful lists" or "travel" collection,  (with the core info for
packing stuff) AND in a sub-collection of the conference main
collection under "preparation info for conference" (since I'm adding
specific stuff for the conference in my suitcase)

But that applies to a task/note, not to a collection... So that does
not really answer the question. I am not sure if I'd need a collection
to be a sub-collection of many different collections ever. In the end,
as long as I can tag my tasks/notes with as many collections and
sub-collections I want, I can just also add as many temporary sub
collections I need to group notes in one particular place.

So short and totally cloudy answer to your question is "no", I don't
need to file a collection in more than one collection.


> 6) Default collection or display: "items not in a collection"
> Often when I write down notes, I don't think about putting them in a
> collection right away, so having either a display button or a
> collection that gathers "notes not in a collection" would be extremely
> helpful to sort out items later on.
>
> Or perhaps some kind of status mark for "unprocessed" notes? A separate
> collection would be more easily done once Chandler has sub-collections as it
> could live as a sub-collection of the Dashboard.

I like the sound of "once Chandler has sub-collections" :-)

> One way users have hacked together a solution for the problem you describe
> is to by default, keep the Dashboard collection empty. Meaning, for every
> collection, go to the Collection menu and  select Keep out of Dashboard.
> Then, you can use the Dashboard as a collection bin for new, unprocessed
> Notes. After you file them into the appropriate collections, you will need
> to remove them from the Dashboard with the DELETE key in order to keep the
> Dashboard clean.

Thing is, I work with the dashboard exclusively. Or rather, the
dashboard is my primary window. I only switch to collection view to
sort my thoughts and tasks in one area, and then I go back to the
dashboard view to address them so i know what other things there are
still to be done. So collection is important for sorting what I am
going to do next, but the dashboard is essential for an overview of
what I still need to do in all areas. I hardly keep any collections
out of the dashboard.

So yes, unprocessed, or not in a collection, whatever could allow for
lost notes to be found again.

> 7) Allow the calendar not to be displayed.
[snip]
> Not as elegant as a close button, but you can almost completely close the
> mini-calendar pane by dragging the divider bar down.

Ahh yes. I see. It used to come back again and again. That works for me now.
>
> ==Questions==
> 8) How does the custom alarm work?
[snip]
> Hm, sounds like something that should be a user preference. I believe, we
> assume an "End of Day" alarm (5PM Today) if the time RIGHT NOW is before
> 5PM. Otherwise, we assume a "Next Morning" alarm (8AM Tomorrow).

Yes, user preference is definitely the way to go. Could go like:
settings for custom alarm:
*default: X hours later
*default: tomorrow morning 8:00 am
*default: tonight

Etc.

>
> 9) What is the rationale behind the sorting?
> OK, this is where I am completely lost... :-)
> I have done well with the NOW/LATER sorting, as my NOW or LATER lists
> are still under control. But what exactly is the rationale behind the
> sorting in those categories? There's some sort of date comes first,
> but then I am lost as to what is taken into account first. The alarm?
> The time of writing the note? Some other cabalistic timestamp?
> If anyone could point me to an explanation, I would be extremely grateful.
>
> This is where version might matter.
> So by default, the Triage List view is sorted by Triage Status. So items in
> each triage section are sorted by "when they were triaged to that section".
> If you are on 1.0rc-1, however, the LATER section is a bit more
> sophisticated. It sorts chronologically. Meaning, reminders and events sort
> to the top and should be ordered from near-to-far into the future. Notes
> without alarms come after and are simply sorted by when they were triaged to
> LATER.
> The DONE section is meant to provide a catalog of what you've done recently.
> So

So?

OK, I guess 1.0 rc did address most of my questions. Now it makes more sense.
Thank you!

>
> ==Echos==
> These are things that I know have been asked/talked about before, and
> which I wish to echo :-)
> 11) Google calendar support (read/write) -- Thunderbird got it with
> Lightning... ;-)
>
> I believe this was begun as a plug-in, but is currently missing recurrence!


Yes, that's where I'd like to be a developper :).


Thanks again for your feedback,


Delphine



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