MLO on Mac (Linux, et al)

[Mark Levison]

There are frequently requests to create MLO for Mac. Let me help you understand how complex this would be and why I hope Andrey never does it.

MLO Windows is written in Delphi (aka Object Pascal - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_Pascal) - the Borland Version (presumably Embarcadero now). While it turns out that you can compile Delphi for the Mac that doesn't mean it would easy (or sensible to port).

Fundamentally a program like MLO is made from 4-5 parts
- GUI - which involves working with the windowing system
- Rules Engine - handles the tasks themselves and all of the rules MLO this the real power of the application
- Synchronization Engine - the bit that speaks to the internet, wifi etc
- File System - the bit that saves MLO files, archives etc.
- Extraneous bits - talk to Outlook etc

When trying to port to a Mac (or Linux) we have to ask what would come over for free (or with little pain): Rules Engine and Synchronization Engine are the only parts that are likely compatible out of the box.

The Mac file system is a bit different than Windows (.DStore, storage of preferences, etc.) that would take a fair amount of work to port. However that's not the hard part. The kicker is the GUI - the Mac windowing system is very very different - it would be a complete rewrite from scratch. Finally I just can't imagine the pain in trying to figure out how to port Outlook sync etc.

So its simple MLO **might** recompile on a Mac but we're talking several years for team to build a GUI that is anywhere near close to Windows - is that where we want Andrey and his merry band to spend their time? If it is are you personally prepared to fund 2-3 person years of work - I'm not.

Or would you rather that Andrey created a better Windows product, IPad (Objective C)/IPhone (Objective C)/Android(Java)

Yes there are other strategies but they all have the same basic problems.

FYI This assumes a simple MLO architecture clear separation of concerns etc. In addition Andrey has never told me anything about the architecture or anything else - I'm just working off of comments made on list over the years.

If you really think that a Mac product matters then help create a Kickstarter project to fund its development.

Off to help some people understand Scrum (http://agilepainrelief.com/notesfromatooluser/2012/11/learning-scrum-through-games-golidocks-iteration-ii.html)

Cheers
Mark Levison
Agile Pain Relief Consulting | Writing
Proud Sponsor of Agile Tour Gatineau Ottawa Nov 28, Toronto 26 and Montreal 24

[Richard Collings]

Thanks for this explanation, Mark.   As a matter of interest, how do you think Andrey created the mobile versions?   I can’t imagine that he rewrote the whole application from scratch.

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[Mark Levison]

You're welcome. FWIW I think I Andrey created the Android/IPad etc apps from scratch each time. The only alternative is to use a framework like MonoTouch or PhoneGap (among many), to cross compile or bridge the gaps between each phone. Effectively every tool vendor faces the same problem. In addition Google, Apple, Microsoft have little incentive to make it easy to build your app for all platforms.

So every new mobile platform we ask for is a new tax on Andrey's time.

Cheers
Mark

Richard Collings

4 December, 2012 3:00 PM

Mark Levison

4 December, 2012 1:23 PM

[kitus]

Mark,

I partially disagree with you. While I think that porting MLO to Linux could be quite a nightmare for there are just too many distros out there, I really think that porting MLO to Mac OSx would be quite a smart move businesswise. I have not make a market survey, but if I said that probably only Omnifocus can be compared to MLO. Neither of both is cross platform Mac Windows, and the Omnigroup specifically said they wouldn't develop a windows version of its product... has MLO formally stated anything? not that I know.

Frankly, I think that not developing a Mac version of MLO is a terrible mistake.

Regards,

[Nick Clark]

I disagree that not developing a Mac version is a terrible mistake. Mac has less than 10% of the user base of Windows so doesn't even get near the 80:20 rule for focusing development effort. It wouldn't be worthwhile. Linux is in a similar position.

Nick

[Mark Levison]

I accidentally replied to Marc privately: Fair enough but appreciate what you're asking for 2-3 person years of work. Are you prepared to front the money? Maybe you run a kickstarter project?

Cheers
Mark

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[m...@grantsmiths.org]

Nick, I'm not a fan of Apple products and I'm not advocating for any
development work around supporting them. But I don't think you can make this
decision based on market share of currently deployed devices. I think you
have to look at market share of projected purchases over the next few years.
I don't know it you would get the same result.
-Dwight

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[Mark Levison]

Its funny I started this thread to make it clear to people just how expensive this request is. I've no say over whether it will ever happen I just wanted people to understand that this is a $200-300K request + maintenance work + a tax on Andrey's time.

Point is this is much much bigger than just complaining that Andrey will score a big miss.

Cheers

Mark

[Nuzenn]

I dont agree with you at all. A few things...

1. Even 10% is a potential 10's of millions of users.

2. For every sale of a new Mac version that would be a potential mobile version sale too.

3. An iPad version already exists.  It wouldn't be a huge effort to create a Mac version based off of this code

4. Windows 8 is a disaster.  Look for more people to start migrating away from Windows to alternate platforms

To be honest, at this point I would be happy with any official response from Andrey about the possibility of a Mac version (even if the answer is 'no').

[kitus]

I agree with you 100%, and I too think that while I can understand that Andrey may decide not to develop a Mac version of MLO his business model may not support it, I really think that it is unfair for all of us not to formally say what MLO's formal opinion on this is. This has been brought up quite frequently and MLO has not formally stated anything. I think that's a shame emotionallywise, and it probably is an opportunity miss when comparing it with one and only product that could compete with MLO: Omnifocus.  

[Frank Vanhoof]

I use Fedora Linux at work, and I run many Windows applications using Wine. I have yet to try running MLO using Wine but I can try. As for dealing with all the Linux distros; its not as hard as you think. I run applications written for Gnome and KDE desktop even though I use Gnome l. There are also cross platform toolkits such as QT or Mono. IMHO I think a good alternative would be to try running MLO in Wine and if there are any changes that could be made to MLO that allow it to run better under Wine without comprimising performance under Windows.

[Mark Levison]

Frank - replying from my phone please excuse brevity.

MLO works on Wine. The problem is that it doesn't look great (Wine doesn't implement all the required graphics) and keyboard shortcuts. These are really both limitations of Wine.

Some Mac users would prefer a native implementation. I wrote about the costs do people would realize what they're asking for. Apparently I was naive  :-)

Mono is a great tool if your application was written in .Net. MLO isn't it's Delphi compiled to native code.

Cheers
Mark

On Dec 9, 2012 6:26 PM, "Frank Vanhoof" <frank.j...@gmail.com> wrote:

I use Fedora Linux at work, and I run many Windows applications using Wine. I have yet to try running MLO using Wine but I can try. As for dealing with all the Linux distros; its not as hard as you think. I run applications written for Gnome and KDE desktop even though I use Gnome l. There are also cross platform toolkits such as QT or Mono. IMHO I think a good alternative would be to try running MLO in Wine and if there are any changes that could be made to MLO that allow it to run better under Wine without comprimising performance under Windows.

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[SRhyse]

Total number of OS installs or purchases, even device installs and purchases, isn't the best metric to measure market viability with in regards to MLO. As stated I believe elsewhere, many Windows installs are on closed networks that end users aren't in a position to have their own personal software on. Then there are the many users that simply don't do anything with their computers that stock apps can't do, which don't really buy any software outside of what came with the computer on any OS. From there, among the users that are in a position to buy and install software, you have to segment further into the ones that are willing to pay for software, and further still into the ones in the market for task management software of any kind, let alone software that can scale to the level of complexity MLO allows...

...but I mainly mention all that to point that, as someone that does alot of marketing and design work with app developers, it's a really complex landscape that you can't be that broad about in any meaningful way when making decisions on pursuing new platforms. There is a very strong market for productivity software on the Mac and iOS platforms, as evidenced by the sales and data that does exist. And it is one that's open to more independent solutions that aren't all knocked out by the Microsoft Office Suite, as Outlook and MS Project do on various levels when compared to MLO.

So atleast to help frame the discussion a little better - there is a viable market for MLO on the Mac platform. But it is one that takes a significant investment of time and money, as does making a product on any platform.

If Andrey really wants to run with Apple, I'd put more effort into the iOS apps at this point. That's where they're pushing for a long term future anyway, as evidenced by their spending and management allocation. If you wanted another platform, I'd push for a web end first, so you can cover many bases at once as a fall back. And I write all this as someone that would love a Mac MLO app for if or when I got a new computer. The iPad app has presently become my primary app in the MLO ecosystem, however.

[m...@grantsmiths.org]

The whole Mac-versus-PC thing has provided us all with a lot of
entertainment over the last three decades, but it's getting tired, and a
bit tiresome. Neither Apple nor Microsoft are even making much of a pretense
anymore that there's anything strategic about their desk-scale platforms.
Not that people will be discarding their laptops. But more people are pretty
satisfied with what they have and it's getting harder to sell new ones,
especially to people whose need for new functionality is satisfied by a new
tablet or superphone.

The problem is that MLO's businesses model seems to me to be based on
desktop sales, with mobile sales serving primarily as a way to draw new
customers to the desktop. Maybe Andrey can feed his wife and child from his
mobile revenues but the vacation in Thailand had to come from desktop sales.
I don't see this sustaining over the next few years.

I would like to see a higher-end higher-priced mobile product with the
ability to create the kinds of complex recurrence that require windows
today, plus the ability to save views, set flags, print, and a few other
things. Enough functionality that I would not need the desktop version
unless I actually wanted to work on the desktop.

I would probably still want the ability to check or complete a task from a
desktop, or maybe create a very simple task. This should probably be
provided by a web interface to the cloud file. I would probably pay a small
monthly amount for this, and it should be accessible from Macs, PCs, Linux,
and stuff that hasn't been invented yet.

[nshram]

why this fuss?
run mlo on xp under virtualbox.. far better than wine..
virtualbox available for linux and mac too..

[Mark Levison]

Perhaps. For me three reasons:
- $$ I really don't want to pay for an OS license that I really don't want to use
- RAM my little MBA only has 8GB and most days I see it swapping already
- disk space

In any case I'm in the camp saying don't start work on MLO Mac.

Cheers
Mark

nshram

15 December, 2012 11:00 AM

why this fuss?
run mlo on xp under virtualbox.. far better than wine..
virtualbox available for linux and mac too..

m...@grantsmiths.org

10 December, 2012 4:22 PM

SRhyse

10 December, 2012 3:28 PM

Nick Clark

5 December, 2012 5:48 PM

I disagree that not developing a Mac version is a terrible mistake. Mac has less than 10% of the user base of Windows so doesn't even get near the 80:20 rule for focusing development effort. It wouldn't be worthwhile. Linux is in a similar position.

Nick

kitus

5 December, 2012 1:00 PM

Mark,

I partially disagree with you. While I think that porting MLO to Linux could be quite a nightmare for there are just too many distros out there, I really think that porting MLO to Mac OSx would be quite a smart move businesswise. I have not make a market survey, but if I said that probably only Omnifocus can be compared to MLO. Neither of both is cross platform Mac Windows, and the Omnigroup specifically said they wouldn't develop a windows version of its product... has MLO formally stated anything? not that I know.

Frankly, I think that not developing a Mac version of MLO is a terrible mistake.

Regards,

On Tuesday, December 4, 2012 10:23:39 PM UTC+1, Mark Levison wrote:

--

[Adam Wiseman]

Dammit, Mark, your rational and mostly valid arguments have foiled my intentions to write a skeptical rebuttal.  But here's my proposal for a way Andrey can reach a much broader, cross-platform audience:  Why not develop a MLO webapp and move to a subscription-based model for access to said webapp?  It would not be all that difficult to take his existing client-side code and create a backend server application that would run the rules engine, sync engine, and file system parts, while the webapp could use much of the mobile app codebase (e.g. the Java code from the Android App).  Granted, this would make client-side third party app integration difficult, if not impossible (e.g. Outlook integration), but that would actually enable him to continue to sell the "Premium" desktop version.  

Look, I get what you and others are saying about the difficulties and expense of porting to other platforms, especially given the extant dominance of Windows PC's, but this is 2013, and to continue to succeed in this highly interconnected and rapidly diversifying market, an enterprise must seriously consider the near-necessity of maximizing reach and accessibility, and one of the easiest ways to do this is with cross-platform capable webapps.

Just my $0.02 (USD).

--Adam

On Tuesday, December 4, 2012 4:23:39 PM UTC-5, Mark Levison wrote:

[James D]

Strategy and architecture-wise...

As a developer, you would want to write each piece of (core) code that does something useful *once*, and in a way where it would be able to run either as part of a desktop execution model or a cloud service model.

So the core services that are part of MLO would need to run under Windows, Mac, Linux, (and also on a web server of a preferred platform) and be called from a UI layer on those platforms, and also be called from a UI layer on mobile, cloud-connected devices.  Granted, this is an oversimplification, but humor me for the sake of discussion.

So there would be a "Core MLO" development team, and then separate UI development teams for each platform, e.g., Windows, Mac/OSX, Android, iOS, WinMetro/WinPhone 8, Linux, and the biggest platform of all... *Web*.

Interestingly, one of the current products that would make much of this possible is... (drum roll...)

Delphi!  Delphi XE5, that is.  Read about it here: http://www.embarcadero.com/products/delphi

However, possibly a better bet, toolset-wise, would be the Mono/.NET stack, and the related tools for MonoDroid (Android), MonoMac (OSX), MonoTouch (iOS), all of which primarily use an open source implementation of the C#/.NET development stack.  Oh yes, and the chief architect of C# is also a chief architect of...  Delphi! (Anders Hejlsberg is the guy's name)

And all this is not to dismiss Java toolset, of course, especially since Android is essentially based on Java.

With the right toolset and architecture, MLO could be available on all major platforms.  I would hope that support for Blackberry and Windows Mobile versions would be discontinued and those resources dedicated to a mobile web version, if that hasn't already happened.

To my way of thinking, there really are no current products out there that do what MLO does.  However, MLO (Windows) almost does "too much" to the point of being complex and nearly unapproachable to a large chunk of the "basic GTD user" market, people who just want to plug in and go.  There are many competing (especially GTD-oriented) products that enable the "plug in and go" capability for novice users, but then break down when you try to do more complex things with them.  Right off the bat, many of them do not support an outlining approach for breaking down projects and tasks. I concluded I couldn't live with a tool that doesn't support outlining.

Though I personally don't use Macs, I think a Mac version could be a huge market opportunity for MLO, but would require a refactoring/rewrite of a large chunk of MLO code, along the lines I mentioned above, plus a way of testing across platforms.

I have observed that the Mac community includes a disproportionately high number of very enthusiastic people who would find a tool like MLO very useful.

If Andrey could find a way to pull off the rearchitecting along these lines, while simplifying the UI for novice users, and making it available on the major UI platforms, while preserving the powerful functionality enjoyed by MLO power users, there are almost no limits to the markets MLO could break into and be successful in.

In my mind, the most sensible way to get to a Mac version would be to first rearchitect to get to a Web+Cloud version, and then adapt the UI for the PC version (and future Mac version) to be a UI on top of running the core MLO services locally.  Possibly that's already what Andrey has in progress.  Trying to support a bunch of different platforms with a bunch of custom code on each platform, and in different languages, becomes sheer insanity for a small dev team to support and evolve.

But, absolutely, a Mac rich client version should be in discussion and on the drawing board at the same time as a Web/Cloud version, and I would see them as complementary efforts, to the extent they force the architectural issue of separating out non-UI core services.  A Web/cloud version is, however, (my opinion) by far the bigger market opportunity.

James

[Brad Stewart]

On Tuesday, December 4, 2012 4:23:39 PM UTC-5, Mark Levison wrote:

There are frequently requests to create MLO for Mac. Let me help you understand how complex this would be and why I hope Andrey never does it.

MLO Windows is written in Delphi (aka Object Pascal - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_Pascal) - the Borland Version (presumably Embarcadero now). While it turns out that you can compile Delphi for the Mac that doesn't mean it would easy (or sensible to port).

Fundamentally a program like MLO is made from 4-5 parts
- GUI - which involves working with the windowing system
- Rules Engine - handles the tasks themselves and all of the rules MLO this the real power of the application
- Synchronization Engine - the bit that speaks to the internet, wifi etc
- File System - the bit that saves MLO files, archives etc.
- Extraneous bits - talk to Outlook etc

When trying to port to a Mac (or Linux) we have to ask what would come over for free (or with little pain): Rules Engine and Synchronization Engine are the only parts that are likely compatible out of the box.

The Mac file system is a bit different than Windows (.DStore, storage of preferences, etc.) that would take a fair amount of work to port. However that's not the hard part. The kicker is the GUI - the Mac windowing system is very very different - it would be a complete rewrite from scratch. Finally I just can't imagine the pain in trying to figure out how to port Outlook sync etc.

So its simple MLO **might** recompile on a Mac but we're talking several years for team to build a GUI that is anywhere near close to Windows - is that where we want Andrey and his merry band to spend their time? If it is are you personally prepared to fund 2-3 person years of work - I'm not.

Or would you rather that Andrey created a better Windows product, IPad (Objective C)/IPhone (Objective C)/Android(Java)

Mark,

I would have agreed with most of the above before the iPad version was developed, but it seems that a lot of the underlying issues in synchronization and the rules engine have been resolved. There would be GUI and filesystem differences for the Mac version, but they would be working in the same IDE, same language, very similar if not identical frameworks, and basically the same underlying OS.  If you think of it as a port from iPad instead of a port from Windows, do you think it is still something not worth pursuing?

Regards,

Brad

 

[Dwight]

Hi, Brad. You make an interesting point.  But the functionality of the iPad version still quite limited as compared to Windows. I understand this to be intentional, part of a strategy to protect the higher cost of the Windows version. I believe that most people who are requesting a Mac version are looking for a full-featured version.  If they got a Mac port of the iPad version, many users would find that they still need to buy the Windows version and run it in a windows emulator on Mac.
-Dwight
MLO Betazoid & Moderator
Via k@mail on sgn2