MLO review

[David C. Menges]

[keywords: mylifeorganized, my life organized, project management,
review, evaluation, feedback]

I downloaded the MLO eval and entered a detailed project. I choose not
to buy it. The reasons include:

1. Outline display of tasks shows no columns of attributes - task
effort, etc..

2. In only one place is choosing date, not date and time, possible.

3. Not apparent how to choose just one top-level branch for printing.

4. Selecting a task in outline display puts it in "edit this task's
name" mode; one must click elsewhere, then select the task by right
clicking.

5. The format of a printed report is quite ugly. Reasons?

a) #1-#3, for starters.

b) This is especially true of #2 - even in landscape mode, printing
completion information includes the time (who cares?), cramping
horizontal room for everything else. All dates can be hyphenated
(between month and day!), causing output to be ~double spaced.

Notes also take too much horizontal space, and each note is preceded by
the word "Notes" on a line by itself - more unnecessarily wasted space.
There is no way to adjust the width of columns.

c) Completed tasks are striked-out with a line slightly above the
middle of letters, and between that and strike-outs being black (not a
light gray, say), makes these tasks difficult to read.

d) Headers are not replicated on page 2 and beyond. If (deep in) a
complex branch is split by a page boundary, understanding the level of
the branch starting on the next page is difficult. Anything - shading,
vertical lines, colors - could help here.

6. Start dates cannot be changed (without special effort). Don't
expect to type in your tasks in an outline, and then fill in start
dates - they're all "today", and frozen.

7. There are few, if any, graphical representations of a task's or
project's state of completion. Bosses need that.

---

Granted, some of the above could be pilot error, insufficient testing,
or perhaps the eval version is not the Pro version. However, these
observations are only a sampling, and I take them as a decent indicator
that further exploring of MLO is not worth my time. I write this note
only to possibly save the next guy from wasting a day, as I did.

MLO may have potential and grow into a useful product; I hope so,
because similar tools I've used or tried have their own problems
(often, too complicated).

[Steve Wynn]

How can anybody gauge the usefulness of a product after testing it for 1 day? From the sounds of this the testing was done with a view to accentuate the negative feedback rather than see any benefit in the product.   I would take this seriously if David bought a copy of MLO to aid the development process, then he could request the changes he thinks are so lacking in MLO.    This looks to me like some sort of spoiler message, perhaps David has some affiliation with another product?  Then again I may be cynical.    David put your money where your mouth is, purchase a copy of MLO. Get involved in this active community to constantly improve MLO. Because I can tell you this, all of your negative comments are far outweighed by the benefits of MLO. Benefits you probably haven't taken the time to see, or for some reason don't want to comment on !!!   I would delete this message unless we get a reply from David, it sounds and looks fishy to me.   Steve     -------Original Message-------

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[Ron Stockfleth]

Add me to the cynical list as I had the same reaction as Steve. I have never seen a so-called review that misses the mark of providing any meaningful information about the essence of what an application can or cannot do. Perhaps Mr. Menges could share with us what application he is currently using and explain which features it has that MLO lacks? Then the reader of his “review” would be in a better position to judge if Mr. Menges’ comments are relevant or not.

 

If I were reviewing a task management application I might comment on its strengths/weaknesses in the following areas:

 

·     Ease of use in entering tasks

·     Outline structure

·     Capability to produce “next actions” in a To Do view with customizable filters

·     Full-featured recurring tasks/subtasks

·     Synchronization with Pocket PC

·     Etc., etc.

 

In other words, give me some feedback on features that I really care about, and not the fluff stuff.

 

Ron

 

---

[Andrey Tkachuk (MLO)]

Thanks David for your feedback. Sorry, I do not have time for the
detailed response now. I know that there are always people who like and
who do not like a product.

I only can say that I will keep doing my best to improve MLO according
to my own vision and feedback from the customers. My personal task
management system is based on MLO so I know all the strengths and
weaknesses of it. The weaknesses are being fixed in order of priority.
The strengths help me to achieve my life goals! I receive many e-mails
from people who changed their lives with MLO and I really like it.

Thanks,
Andrey

BTW
The fact that more and more people choose MLO gives me the energy to
continue working on it. One recent example:
http://software.gurock.com/postings/mylife-organized-todo-and-gtd-software/189/

[Andrey Tkachuk (MLO)]

Some comments from my side (no much time needed as I thought
initially):

>1. Outline display of tasks shows no columns
>of attributes - task effort, etc..

Agree. Long waiting feature. Working on it now.

>2. In only one place is choosing date, not date and time, possible.

Sorry did not follow your. You can choose date from the calendar and
type time. More than that you can type: "Next Friday at 4pm" or "in 3h"
and it will be parsed.

>3. Not apparent how to choose just one top-level branch for printing.

Just Zoom-in (Ctr+R) to this branch and Print (File->Print...) Also
there is an option to print only what is expanded in the outline, so
you can print what you want.
Once advanced filtering is implemented (being developed now) you can
construct any outline and print it using current print system.

>4. Selecting a task in outline display puts it in "edit this task's
>name" mode; one must click elsewhere, then select the task by right
>clicking.

This is actually a feature not to spend additional click to edit a task
However if you do not like this feature you can turn it off:
"Tools->Options->Behaviour->One click edit mode"

>5. The format of a printed report is quite ugly. Reasons?

Print templates could be fully customized so that they fit your needs.

>6. Start dates cannot be changed (without special effort). Don't
>expect to type in your tasks in an outline, and then fill in start
>dates - they're all "today", and frozen.

The start date is frozen only if the task is recurrent. In this case
you should change start date in recurrence dialog.

>7. There are few, if any, graphical representations of a task's or
>project's state of completion. Bosses need that.

Agree. Long waiting feature. Working on it now.

>However, these
>observations are only a sampling, and I take them as a decent indicator
>that further exploring of MLO is not worth my time. I write this note
>only to possibly save the next guy from wasting a day, as I did.

Thanks for your time and for this report.

Andrey.

[Andrey Tkachuk (MLO)]

>I would delete this message unless we get a reply from David, it sounds and
>looks fishy to me.

Thanks Steve but I would not do it.

I have plenty of real positive feedback:
http://www.mylifeorganized.net/products/my-life-organized/what-people-say.html

or detailed reviews like this:

MyLifeOrganized - a journey in search of the perfect GTD software
http://www.donationcoder.com/Forums/bb/index.php?topic=3287.0

If I do not have negative feedback at all, people might think that what
said above is faked :) There should be different opinions.

Andrey.

[tomd]

Though some points are well made, it's all about different products for
different people.

Eg. I'm yet again testing 3 email clients, and I could go to lenghts
about their flaws. But they are all about different approaches, and
it's about me choosing which fits my model of working best.

Tom

[RP]

Like the original poster, I am also a new MLO user. I had been
using the limited, light version on and off for about 1 month. In the
meantime I started reading the Getting Things Done (GTD) book. I just
started using the full version yesterday. With that background I can
only give glowing reviews to the product.
Perhaps my positive review of MLO stems from the fact that I am
reading GTD. Because of that I have to make an extra effort to be
objective. I feel very comfortable in saying the todo-list/next
action implementation is very good and could potentially be expanded to
higher levels of abstraction, perhaps to the project level. So far I
have some indications that I can make the projects part work. With
time, I will probably be able to make a better evaluation (whether it
is positive, negative, or neutral) as to how MLO ranks in comparison to
other traditional project management tools. At the end of the day,
independently of how things are organized, I think that this software
is going to save me a very significant amount of time because I am able
to process next actions/todo lists/ and project elements very
efficiently. That is saving me time already and saving time is the
result I am looking for.
The original email describes some of the features/options that have
been requested or-in progress and they have been documented as so. One
thing that I really like about this program is that we the users are
able to give feedback to Andrey on how to improve the program more.
During all the years (about 8-9 years) I've tried time/project
management software, I haven't seen such an accessible way to improve a
product. Also, I'm surprised the reviewer put so much emphasis on
potential negatives and did not make a single positive comment... Like
a previous person said, in the worst case, the way the email was
written looks fishy, but perhaps the best case is that the reviewer
just overlooked some of the good points about the software (like the
places/contexts implementation) that might be immediately apparent,
even to a new user.

Richard

[J-Mac]

Thank you for the nice response, Andrey. Very well done!

Your response and the fact that you responded so evenly is a sign of a
good developer. People can learn much from your reply! :) It gives
hope that you will consider all posts as possible seeds for future
enhancements.

I've had plenty of my own difficulties with the To-Do list, but I would
not declare MLO unusable, as the original poster in this thread did.
I'll just continue to use the parts that I can, and hopefully wait for
changes in the rest.

[Andrey Tkachuk (MLO)]

>Your response and the fact that you responded so evenly is a sign of a
>good developer.

Thanks!

>I'll just continue to use the parts that I can, and hopefully wait for
>changes in the rest.

The changes (improvement) are comming :)

Andrey.

[Joseph]

Well, I'm going to cautiously chime in. Seems to be pretty religious in
here when a guy can't give a review. I have installed and uninstalled
about 5-6 competitors on my PC, all within about 20 minutes, as soon as
I saw they didn't do what I needed (even one that costs over $1500!). I
am certainly not going to buy them.

ok, to the subject: I have stopped my install/unsinstall cycle on MLO
because it does nearly everything I want it to, and it's interface is
well thought out. The little things that make it easier to use are all
there. The fact that the developers are so open about the product
(publishing a future features list? nice!) and they seem to participate
here is a very big plus and gives me confidence.

I will buy it after 2 hours of playing.

Perfect world?

- the graphical representation of progress mentioned above
- a way to input an individual task's progress when it is not completed
(either using %, or time spent). I find the total progress of a project
displayed now is not accurate when a big task is taken as
all-or-nothing in the big picture of the project. But if I could say
that the big task is 40% complete, and have that reflected in the total
project status, it would reflect reality more. Oddly, I haven't seen
that in the requested features list.

BTW, how do I officially request this feature?

that's it. Great product. thanks.

[Steve Wynn]

I don't mind constructive reviews we all know every product has its good and
bad points. What really gets me is when somebody just lists all of the bad
points with not a word about any the redeeming features. That to me isn't a
review that should be taken seriously. That's just total negativity,
possibly a spoiler, and personally I get very suspicious if something is
overly negative and likewise if it is overly positive. Any review that is
written should be written from a balanced perspective or, in my opinion, not
written at all.

As far as requesting features are concerned, best thing is to just post a
new message with the title 'Feature Request - ....'. That should get the
developers attention and also give the rest of the group the opportunity to
support/argue your request :o)

All the best

Steve

-----Original Message-----
From: myLifeO...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:myLifeO...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Joseph
Sent: Thursday, November 02, 2006 07:19
To: MyLifeOrganized
Subject: [MLO] Re: MLO review

[Kenneth S. Rhee]

I just noticed an issue with trying to combine recurring tasks and doing
subtasks in order.

I have a bunch of recurring tasks I need to do each day but I would also
like to do the tasks in order (thus not showing up in the to-do list until
the first one is completed).

The problem is when I check off the first one, the program generates a new
one that's due tomorrow, and thus nothing after the first one will ever show
up in the to do list.

Anyway to get around it, or can the program become "smarter" by recognizing
this and executing it as it is intended?

Thanks.

[Steve Wynn]

Hi,

You possibly need to set your recurrence at the Top Level, so for example:-

Morning Routine
|____ Check Emails
|____ Backup MLO
|____ etc

If I wanted to do these on a daily basis, but I also wanted to do them in
order I would set the recurrence on the top level, Morning Routine. But you
also need to select the Advanced option within recurrence and set 'Reset all
subtasks to uncompleted' for when task recurs and also 'Automatically Recur
when all subtasks are complete' for Automatic Behavior.

In this way you can still set Complete Subtasks in Order on Morning Routine.
But the items will not recur until all of the items are done. Then it will
recreate Morning Routine for the next day.

Regards

Steve

Thanks.

--

No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.

Version: 7.1.409 / Virus Database: 268.14.5/534 - Release Date: 14/11/2006

[Kenneth S. Rhee]

Steve,

Thanks for the tip.

I'll try it out and report back.

Ken

-----Original Message-----
From: myLifeO...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:myLifeO...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Steve Wynn
Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2006 6:51 AM
To: myLifeO...@googlegroups.com

[Kenneth S. Rhee]

> On 16-Nov-2006 06:51:16, myLifeO...@googlegroups.com wrote:
> In this way you can still set Complete Subtasks in Order on Morning
Routine.
> But the items will not recur until all of the items are done. Then it will
recreate Morning Routine for the next day.
>

Steve,

It worked perfectly.

Thanks.

Ken