FAQtastic New Page
Exchanging emails and blog comments with Actiontastic users is always a treat. These interactions have led to new features, ideas for upcoming releases, and have changed the way I think about the app and the experience it provides. Another benefit to these discussions is that common questions are highlighted by the number of times they appear. This has now given birth to a real FAQ.
My hope is that the new FAQ will be a time saver for those who have a quick question but don’t necessarily want to fire off an email or blog comment. If you notice something that should have been included but was not, please comment here or send an email. This FAQ will be a live document, updated as new common questions arise.
Feature requests, shout outs (for the youngsters), humor, and productivity discussion are, of course, still welcome anytime.
Josh wrote:
Forgive me if you’ve already thought of this, but here’s a feature I’d love for 1.0: the ability to check and decode messages sent to a Mail.app mailbox.
Those of us who have Macs at home and a PC at work aren’t going to be able to update actions from 9-5.
But maybe I could just send an email to actiontastic@whatever.com — Subject: Pick up dry cleaning; Body: @errands, Prepare for wedding.
Back at home (or whenever I turn on my Mac nexxt), Actiontastic could check the mailbox, pull in the messages, and add them accordingly to my contexts and projects.
Anyway, an idea. The app looks great, although printing and the ability to interact with multiple actions at once.
Oh, one other thing: It sure would be great to be able to create a project from the Process Inbox sheet. I don’t mean making an item into a project, which is already there; I mean if I’ve got an item called “Pack cooler with beer,” I’d like to be able to add it to a *new* project called “Weekend camping trip” in the sheet.
As it is, I’d have to either make it a Single Action and then create the project or make “Pack cooler with beer” a project and then change it manually. Does that make sense?
Posted on 29-Dec-06 at 9:35 pm | Permalink
Sarah wrote:
I second the need for the ability to create a project from the Process Inbox sheet - anything that simplifies the workflow has to be good.
Are you planning to support recurring items? Things like a reminder to sort the paper filing once a week or oil the window hinges every six months.
It could also be useful to have a record of the date that something was completed.
I’m only just getting into the whole GTD thing, previously being a maker of many lists, and Actiontastic seems like it will be a great help.
Posted on 31-Dec-06 at 1:47 pm | Permalink
ratz wrote:
Instead of putting incidental recurring things into actiontastic. Consider, something like Scrial Consistency. They ported i to the mac finally and it’s the best at a the whole recurring habit type actions.
Posted on 31-Dec-06 at 8:18 pm | Permalink
Phill wrote:
This app just keeps getting better and better. Just a thought; would it be possible to implement syncing with a mobile phone in a future version? I have just got a Nokia N80 phone which is fantastic and being able to take my GTD’s around with me would be fantastic.
Keep up the excellent work by the way!
Posted on 01-Jan-07 at 1:55 pm | Permalink
Jake wrote:
Actiontastic is awesometastic! But how to you file “Someday/Maybe” items in Actiontastic?
Posted on 02-Jan-07 at 11:56 am | Permalink
Jon wrote:
@Josh:
An upcoming web sync app should take care of remote updates. More details will be posted as soon as they are available.
@Josh and Sarah:
Creating a new project from the inbox processing sheet with its own title sounds like a good idea. I’ll give this some more thought for the upcoming releases.
@Sarah and ratz:
Right now, I use iCal for recurring items but have this kind of feature on the list of items possible for a future release. This is the second recommendation I have seen for Sciral Consistency, so I will check that out in more detail too.
@Phill:
Mobile phone syncing will be available for any mobile phone that can sync with iCal. I have a Treo and Blackberry as test devices but have no experience with the Nokia N80. When the syncing release is announced, I would be interested to hear of your experiences in that area if you have the time.
@Jake:
If something is a true someday/maybe item (i.e. it is not simply paused or doesn’t have some future start date), then I keep it outside of Actiontastic so as not to hinder the flow of working through actions. A weekly review is a good time to review this list, which could reside in a plain old text file or in one of the info manager apps like Yojimbo, EagleFiler, or DEVONthink.
Posted on 02-Jan-07 at 10:45 pm | Permalink
BB wrote:
@Jake,
I keep Someday/Maybe as a context. That way it doesn’t show up in any contexts, and I just go to the list.
I don’t know about you all, but I really want to just use *one* piece of software to organize all this stuff. Otherwise I have to remember (or give myself an action!) to check another piece of software. ugh. I’m not counting iCal and Mail since I use those anyway. I find that sending myself email or text message reminders in iCal works pretty well.
BB
Posted on 02-Jan-07 at 11:49 pm | Permalink
BB wrote:
Oops. And I third the ability to create a new project from the Process Inbox pane. I always end up having to make it a single action, then create a new project manually and drag it over. It would be great to lose that workaround.
Keep up the good work! ;-)
BB
Posted on 02-Jan-07 at 11:50 pm | Permalink
Andreas Busch wrote:
Hello,
first of all, my compliments for Actiontastic. After playing around with it for an afternoon, I switched from kGTD about two weeks ago. While Actiontastic is still missing a few things that kGTD provides (such as rescheduling, and proper management of due dates), it is all in one streamlined application which I like.
Can I suggest two things for its improvement:
1. Let me also second the call for creating a new project from the Process Inbox pane.
2. What I most miss is the ability to order things in the Context pane. What I would like to do is go through the list of a context and put tasks in an order that seems sensible to me, and then work down that list. Now I always have to reconsider the best next action in the context after having completed one. Such ordering is possible in the Project pane, and it would be great to have the same in the Context pane.
Thanks for a great application — I look forward to its next iterations!
Andreas
Posted on 03-Jan-07 at 9:43 am | Permalink
Jake wrote:
Searching would be a great feature.
Posted on 03-Jan-07 at 5:01 pm | Permalink
Jack B. wrote:
I would also like a search feature, the ability to re-order tasks, and the ability to set recurring tasks.
It would even be nice to have a calendar view that showed when tasks and projects were due.
Posted on 03-Jan-07 at 7:47 pm | Permalink
BB wrote:
Might I suggest you take a look at Tracks for ideas on dealing with dates and such? They definitely seem to have the best system for dealing with due dates without turning the software into calendar software. I actually love everything about tracks - except the fact that it’s web-based and a tiny bit slow. The color coding is especially helpful (dated tasks move from green to orange to red as the due date draws closer, and tasks that have been sitting on your list for a long time become ’stale’, ie yellow… it’s really quite brilliant actually.)
Posted on 04-Jan-07 at 12:06 am | Permalink
rob wrote:
I’d like to echo Josh’s comments about integration with Mail.app. Although the solution that I was thinking about was making Mail.app responsible for feeding data to Actiontastic, not the other way round. Let me tell you a bit about what I’ve been thinking.
I’m in the same unfortunate position of having to use a windoze box at work so I don’t have direct access to it during the day. So I have a habit of when I get to work in the morning I start an email to my home email address with the subject line of GTD then during the day I capture all my actions in this email under context headings e.g.
@Home
Fix roof.
@Mac
Install glassfish.
Before I go home I send the email.
When I get home I then move all the actions comments out of Mail.app via cut and paste into Actiontastic. Which is a bit of a chore to say the least.
What I’d really like is to have a Mail.app rule that looks at any email with a GTD subject line ( or some other identifier ) then parse the content of the email and add it to Actiontastic based on the context headings.
I’m sure this must be possible using AppleScript and I might give it a go myself, but 1, I’m not sure how to parse the email content with AppleScript and 2, I’m not sure how to add the actions to the appropriate context in Actiontastic.
Does anyone else have any ideas how to accomplish this kind of solution?
Posted on 04-Jan-07 at 4:08 am | Permalink
Jon wrote:
@rob:
In order for your AppleScript-from-Mail idea to work, Actiontastic would need to be AppleScriptable which at the moment, it is not. I have made some progress in that area but have not released anything along those lines. I’ll keep you posted via this blog. I do plan on Mail integration for 1.0.
Posted on 04-Jan-07 at 10:24 pm | Permalink
BB wrote:
Bug: this is the first time this has happened, in a week of using Actiontastic.
I had sent some actions to the Inbox via Quicksilver. When I tried to process the items by pressing the ‘play’ arrow at the bottom, the action field was blank. Eventually, I just added the blank field as no context, single action, to see if the action was added — but no, it was blank. (I just remembered/added it manually). This only happened with the first action on the list - the actions after that were normal.
I’m running Actiontastic on a G4 aluminum powerbook, OS X.4.7… hope this helps.
BB
Posted on 05-Jan-07 at 8:00 am | Permalink
Jake wrote:
Having some kind of link into EagleFiler would be great. That way I can keep all my project materials linked to the ActionTastic project. EasgleFiler is great because it can store any type of file, unlike YoJimbo.
Posted on 05-Jan-07 at 8:38 am | Permalink
Jon wrote:
@BB:
Thank you for the report. I will try to reproduce this and include a fix in the next release.
@Jake:
I will look into EagleFiler linking. It does look like a fine app.
Posted on 06-Jan-07 at 1:30 am | Permalink
Walter wrote:
Hi Jon,
one the greatest features is the ability to display only the current context based on where you are (i travel a lot) and to display the next action only, and to “pause”projects.
That way, I see only what I can do at a given time and it has finally made gtd efficient for me.
That being said, when I check at the context display and I choose “current” contexts and “next action”, I still get the NA for project that have been paused. Is that the way you wanted it to work?
Regards,
Walter
Posted on 08-Jan-07 at 10:45 am | Permalink
JKreft wrote:
Jon,
I really enjoy the program. Its both easy to use and powerful. I am getting more things done by using it. Do you have an idea of when it will leave beta? And how much it will cost? I’ll be ready with my credit card when its available.
Regards,
JKreft
Posted on 09-Jan-07 at 8:24 am | Permalink
justin wrote:
Jon,
I’m almost through David Allen’s book and I have to compliment you on an amazing software! Its very intuitive and fits very well with what I’m learning about GTD as a whole.
I have to second Andreas in wishing to reorder my Contexts tasks and also reorder the actual list of Contexts in any order I choose.
I was also wondering if it might be possible to streamline the way we add to the Inbox. I’m finding the Command N clunky when i’m rolling through a stack of notes I’ve hand written and was thinking that it’d be really cool if one could just click in the inbox window to get a cursor for typing and be able to hit return to get a new item. (i’m finding thats what I naturally do, then I remind myself the Command N shortcut is needed).
Posted on 09-Jan-07 at 9:58 am | Permalink
Sharif wrote:
Hey Jon,
I’m blown away by your app… I’ve been using kGTD for a few months and just started playing with Inbox, but I got your app up and running and loaded with projects in a 1/2 hour and am loving it! Keep up the great work!
To chime in on the conversation, I’d love to see the pause feature temporarily hide projects from Projects during Current view, and to hide all of its subsequent actions while in Contexts (except maybe during the All view).
Let’s say for example, you’ve started a project and listed all the possible future actions you can think of, numbering in the dozens. You perform the first few tasks, and send your work to a client for their review. You then pause the project. When you go to Contexts to decide what to do next, you shouldn’t have the option of the next action of that paused project.
Similarly, I think that future Start dates should work to temporarily hide a project’s actions so that, as with a paused project, you aren’t distracted by actions you can’t start work on yet.
And, for the reasons that everyone has already mentioned, reordering contexts, recurring/repeating tasks and some sort of Someday/Maybe option would also be much appreciated!
Posted on 09-Jan-07 at 6:35 pm | Permalink
Jack B. wrote:
I wanted to say again how fantastic this app is and how much I’m enjoying it. It really makes processing my tasks SO much easier—I appreciate all your hard work, Jon.
I’d like to echo some previous comments in saying that the ability to reorder tasks, or sort them alphabetically by clicking on the “Action” title bar (in iTunes style) would be wonderful.
Posted on 10-Jan-07 at 8:02 pm | Permalink
Obyor wrote:
The keyboard shortcuts F2 and F3 are extremly unfavorable and unusual. I don’t know any mac-like programm that uses this keys for menu shortcuts. It would be great, if you use normal shortcuts like command-N.
Posted on 11-Jan-07 at 4:16 am | Permalink
Jack B. wrote:
I keep thinking of more and more suggestions! I’m more than happy to keep posting them on here, but is that the most helpful method of feedback?
Posted on 14-Jan-07 at 10:33 pm | Permalink
jeremy l wrote:
I’ve had an issue with your start-by dating in actiontastic; If i put a start by date on an action (in the actions details tab), then in the next actions view in the context tab, it is still visible… My question is, if its not ready to start yet, then why is it in the next actions window?
Posted on 15-Jan-07 at 1:22 am | Permalink
Dominik wrote:
I really LOVE your app. After quite some experience (with other apps) I think I’ll stick to yours as it solves this one seemingly nontrivial organization problem.
Going with recent iCal sync I’d like to request priority support. Some actions simply are more important than others.
And search. search. search. I’m not sure if your datastructure allows for easy spotlight (very file based nature) integration but that would be a killer.
I think it would be a bad idea to do everything in Actiontastic — so I would love to stick to some kind of Links/Ressources (Journler 2.1 beta does that very well). It would be great to link individual actions/projects to Mails, files, folders, whatever by dragging into a dropzone (below notes…). This approach would be non-invasive and still extremely powerful.
Combined with spotlight tagging (think @errands and Quicksilver file attributes plugin) for referenced files you can find absolutely EVERYTHING…
Posted on 15-Jan-07 at 11:28 am | Permalink