Thank you for the great response to Monday’s 0.9 release. This quality feedback has made possible another release that addresses the reported issues with iCal syncing.

Download Actiontastic 0.9.1
(Mac OS X Tiger Required)

Also included in this release is a menu item for cleaning out all completed actions in one shot. See “Delete Completed Actions” under the File menu. One other minor change is to the wording in the preference pane regarding iCal sync unregistering.

If you noticed any quirkiness with syncing running 0.9 and notice any continued issues after this update, a reset may be in order. To reset, simply click the button labeled “Unregister iCal Sync Client” under the “Update” pane of the Preferences window. Then, be sure to delete all of the calendars in iCal that correspond to your Actiontastic contexts. After that, you can sync again and iCal will repopulate with everything in Actiontastic.

Download Actiontastic 0.9
(Mac OS X 10.4 Required)

This release kicks off the 0.9 series of updates, and with it comes a new set of wings. Now you can sync Actiontastic with iCal. And, if your PDA or smartphone plays nice with iCal, then your system can now officially leave your chair. Your inbox is everywhere. Your contexts and actions are everywhere. Heck, I even ditched my RAZR and returned to the old BlackBerry 7250 just to enjoy this new found mobility.

Let’s walk through the details…

First of all, the details mentioned here are based on my experience with the aforementioned 7250, syncing via (the newly free) PocketMac for BlackBerry. I updated the OS to 4.1, downloaded the latest version of PocketMac, enabled iCal syncing, and everything else clicked right along.

Previously, we discussed a mismatch between iCal ToDos and hot GTD action on a stick. Actiontastic attempts to get around this mismatch by beating iCal with said stick. The pieces break down like this:

Contexts

Contexts in Actiontastic become calendars in iCal. If you’re using a BlackBerry, these are mapped to categories on your device. Actiontastic recognizes the calendars that it creates in iCal on future syncs, so you don’t have to worry about your existing calendars polluting your clean system. They will be ignored. Calendars (contexts) can be renamed in iCal, but new ones must be created in Actiontastic in order for them to be recognized. This small trade off was made because designing new contexts should be rare whereas auto-recognizing your context/calendars is handy during every sync.

(Note: if you want to keep everything grouped together like the screenshot above, create a “group” in iCal. Then, drag your Actiontastic contexts inside.)

Actions

Actions added to your existing contexts in iCal or on your PDA will show up in Actiontastic on your next sync. Changes that you make on the go, like checking off items, changing their contexts (just in case) will also sync both ways.

Inbox

This is probably my favorite feature of this release. I tend to collect a large amount of ideas each day and those pocket Moleskines fill up fast. A version of Patrick Rhone’s dash/plus system was used for inbox items on paper for a while, transferring them to Actiontastic each day when I got home. Now this is all automated. Actiontastic creates a calendar called “@inbox” that it treats differently than the other calendars. When you add an item to the inbox on your PDA or in iCal, it is copied to your Actiontastic inbox on the next sync, followed by a clearing of the iCal and PDA inbox during the following sync. This keeps the inbox flowing one way and free of clutter on your device.

(A special note for BlackBerry users: I had to create this context with a matching “@inbox” name on the BlackBerry before it would work with PocketMac and iCal.)

Projects

Projects don’t play into the sync at all. They are a step in planning and review within Actiontastic, but when you’re on the go with a PDA, actions in context are king. It came down to a choice between slapping the project name inside the action name or just leaving it out and keeping it light.

Notes

Because iCal doesn’t support rich text in its notes, note syncing is one way — to iCal. Actiontastic will attempt to gracefully downgrade any rich formatting that you may have into a plain text version for iCal. Any changes in iCal notes are not moved back to Actiontastic as there isn’t a nice way to upgrade the formatting again on the way back in. Future versions of Actiontastic may no longer support rich text notes, replacing them with a different form of reference filing in addition to smart text that knows how to handle links to other things (URLs, files, etc.). This would then allow two-way note syncing which I think is a good compromise given some of the other items that are ahead for this area.

That should cover it for now. Thanks again for all of the stellar input that made this software what it is. I hope you enjoy using the new bits and bytes as much as I enjoyed creating them. This was a purely user-driven release, as many of you requested this even though I sort of pulled in the other direction originally. And please do write or comment with issues or ideas for making the system smoother. If you are using a different PDA or smartphone and find that there are things that could be better, I would love to hear from you in the comments or via email.

Oh, and here is the old school bullet list again:

New In This Release:

• iCal integration via Sync Services
• Pausing a project or context no longer limits your choices during Inbox processing
• Minor bug fixes

Things That Could Be Better:

• Filtering on “current” or “all” still only applies to projects and contexts and does not filter down to the action level. This will change before 1.0.
• iCal syncing could be improved with a preference setting to automatically sync on start up, shut down, or at other times. Right now, syncing is manually triggered with the button at the bottom of the window.