General Comments on OpenLoopz from former Palm user with Feature Request and Bug Reports
Phillip South
I've spent the last 9+ years of my life using a Palm Pilot, and the
last 5+ years using LifeBalance by Llamagraphics for Palm.
This month, I've switched over to Android, and the pain of transition
is great. First is Android does not handle information well. Media,
fine, but I have work to do and viewing a video is not on the agenda.
Second, there is no GREAT task/to-do/GTD manager for Android (my
apologies if I step on toes.) That being said, I think OpenLoopz is
the best of what is available, while still having a great deal of room
for improvement.
Things that are better with OpenLoopz on Android than anything else,
period. (In other words, your jewels, for you to protect as you go
forward.)
1} Location Awareness. This is a great integration with the
available resources Android presents. When working properly, this is
an amazing feature.
2) Quick input into in-basket. This may be a feature intrinsic to
GTD, but it is new and refreshing to me. A press on "new action", and
a quick hit on the microphone button, and Whoo-boy, instant thought
capture in usable text. On to the next thing at hand! Wonderful.
Feature Requests
I'll divide the rest of this post into two sections: First: the
things that, if added would contribute to greatness and the things
that hold it back from greatness; and Second: several items that are
buggy/glitchy and/or specific feature requests.
Steps to Greatness:
First: Sync to something outside of the phone. This kills two great
deficits in one proverbial stone (one sync). No one who is serious
about time management is thinking that the Android phone is the
greatest input device in the world. Find a way to get data from a web
site, or a desktop app, or both, to sync to the phone. Second bird is
that sync gives you backup. Anyone who is serious about time
management wants their investment in hours, but more importantly in
thought and organization, to be protected. The insurance is in having
a USABLE copy of this structure NOT ON THE PHONE. Personally, a
security minded person does not want it on a web site, but on their
desktop. However the convenience of a website is hard to argue and
probably has broader appeal but the thoughtful people do not want
their intimate lives exposed to the unknown security conscientiousness
of a website
Second: Repeating functions. Oil needs to be changed in the car.
Lawns need mowing (grass needs cutting in Texas) Preparing for the
scout meeting happens weekly. These things get their times and dates
pushed around, jostled, etc but they need to happen, and they all
happen over and over again. There are certainly rhythms and patterns
in life, and Openloopz needs to reflect and assist with that
reality.. There needs to be accommodation for two types of
repetition. The periodic one (every week on x day and/or at x time)
and the cyclic one (do this again xxx days or hours after I completed
it last) Until recently, I thought that your "Refence actions" where
a crude attempt at repeating functions. Like a template. Save your
action, with sub-actions, to a template-style reference function, then
re-activate it to renew it. Please DON"T do repeating functions like
this.
Third: LifeBalance style GTD oversite. One of the defining features
of LifeBalance is the use of a pie chart for prioritizing, in a
dynamic way, your current emphasis on your life via self-defined
goals (three to eight top level tasks are set up as goals) ;
combined with a corresponding pie chart showing your actual progress.
This is implemented by using a task priority weight set via sliders
for importance. An next step, but un-important sub-task of a next
step medium important task of an important goal might be higher on
the to-do list than a really important sub task of a moderately
important task of an unimportant goal. Sometimes it's easy to let the
urgent overwhelm the important, but Life balance helps keep that
perspective.
This is difficult to imagine until one really reviews their examples
of how this supports their time management philosophy, but in
practice it works very well as it overcomes what is one of the major
deficits of the GTD system. While GTD is very efficient with getting
things done (duh?) it is not so effective at always getting the RIGHT
things done. And in the largest context, the right thing is the thing
that supports your most fundamental and highest priority goals in
life. LifeBalance uniquely and successfully combines the very best
things of GTD with the oversite and big-picture awareness of Steven
Covey's "First things first" or Franklin Dayplanner style oversite.
Since Llamagraphics has no interest in developing their palm/iOS app
for Android, perhaps they would allow you to include some of those
types of feature into your project. Maybe their blessing is not
needed.
Fourth: Calendar integration. Whew, what a can of worms. I really
haven't thought out an ideal solution, but I do know that there are
some tasks that NEED to appear on my calendar. Maybe a calendar
context triggers that action onto the google calendar. I can see me
putting office appointments in a calendar context so I can see my next
appointment in my calendar, but I can still integrate the clients' job
with the appointment as a sub-task or context in OpenLoopz. Make sure
that if the task is deleted, the calendar entry is too.
Feature Requests/Bug Fixes
When creating "Location Contexts" if one types in a name, and then
attempts to create a new place, one gets a blue map screen with a pin
and red circle on it. Then one can choose the Menu (phone) button,
select "go to current location" and see a map. This default behavior
has to change to present a usable screen when you select "new place".
Maybe "go to current location" automatically, or something.
If one forgets, in the process of creating a new place, to type in an
alphabetic name, one gets the name to be Lat/Lot by default (fine.)
However, there is no press-and-hold option to edit this place from the
Location Context creation area. One has to go back through the menu
to the home page, press the phone-menu button, choose places, then
press-and-hold. WRONG. Make an entry point to edit the place from
the list of places that are selectable when editing the Location
Context
When creating a context automajically by entering a previously unnamed
Context in the Context field of a task, there is no way to come back
and make it a location context. Why? Would it be so tough to make an
internal flag for ALL contexts that is L(ocation)? If the Context is
NOT a location, editing could make it one by the user selecting a
Place to associate it. Viola! Instant functionality! I think the
metaphore of a project is an action with sub-parts should be
extended. A Location Context is a Context with a latitude/longitude
added to it.
Make a TimeDate Context that is a context with a time or day range
added to it. Or a time of year. Any time RANGE. Think of how THAT
could help with filtering!!!! The three months before Christmas all
my Christmas shopping stuff would start to appear. The hour between
8:30pm and 9:30pm all of my "think about xxxx" contexts appear to mull
over for the next day. Got get an oil change shows up when its close
to three months AND I am driving in that part of town. Saturday all
my "honey do" list appears. Time/Date context is a fabulous idea
Putting a microphone button, on the home screen between the "new
action" and "Review Action" button would be great to cut two steps to
one (half) to capture a new task via voice input for dumping quickly
into the inbox. Toggle this option for those who don't like manically
quick brain dumps.
OpenLoopz crashes about twice a day on me. I hit the submit button if
I have the time. Usually its when I'm entering lots of new tasks or
doing lots of editing of tasks very quickly. No real help but I'm
assuming you folks get a crash log or something through google.
The phone "Back" button cycles through all the task to subtask, back
to task, back to subtask, back to other task, back to other subtask,
back to task, back to same subtask (I edited it twice) back to task,
et cetera ad nausium There has GOT to be a better way to get back to
that home screen quickly. Consistently. From anywhere. One or two
clicks/presses at most. Think about it, then implement it.
I thinks "Reference Actions" is cumbersome and non-intuitive. If you
want a non-listed type of FYI sort of task, just use the systems
already in place for a streamlined approach. I'm talking about the
priority system. You have high priority (yellow) Regular (white) and
low (grey) Now add "Ref" or Zero priority, which does not show at
all. Add a button under the review actions section for looking at
reference-priority actions. Done.
I have some other thoughts, but this will have to do to start.
Thanks in advance for your consideration
Phillip
Paul Drummond
Thank you very much for your detailed feedback! Comments below:
On 12 November 2011 13:41, Phillip South <psou...@gmail.com> wrote:
> First: Sync to something outside of the phone.
We have been working on a new version of OpenLoopz for quite some time
now primarily to support sync. Due to a series of internal set-backs,
it has taken a lot longer than expected to get this new version ready,
but we *are* getting there and hope to open up beta access soon.
Regarding security, we hear you, and will have a lot more to say about
this once the first 'sync version' is launched.
> Second: Repeating functions.
This has long been a planned feature for OpenLoopz and we have been
working on it. There is a chance it might not make it into the first
release as we are focusing on sync right now but if not then it will
definitely be introduced in an early update.
> Until recently, I thought that your "Refence actions" where a crude attempt at repeating functions.
Reference actions are nothing to do with repeating actions. The
feature was added to provide a way for the user to add content to
OpenLoopz without them getting in the way of stuff that needs to be
done. They were poorly implemented and if they make a return in the
new version, we will integrate them properly this time (you mention a
possible solution using priorities which sounds good so we'll
definitely consider that).
> Third: LifeBalance style GTD oversite.
It's interesting as we have considered something similar (internally,
we call it the "Balance Wheel") but we weren't aware of LifeBalance -
thanks for the link. Our Balance Wheel concept is still just an idea
so there won't be anything like this for launch, but it's definitely
something we are keen to incorporate into a future version.
> Make a TimeDate Context that is a context with a time or day range added to it. Or a time of year. Any time RANGE.
Time contexts are much improved in the new version and we plan to make
them more and more powerful in future updates.
> Feature Requests/Bug Fixes
Regarding your other bugs/fixes, they have all been logged in our bug tracker.
> I have some other thoughts, but this will have to do to start.
We would love to hear more ideas and feature requests. Thank you
again for taking the time to provide this feedback - we really
appreciate it.
Regards,
Paul Drummond
Managing Director
Iode Software