Download Actiontastic 0.9.2
(Mac OS X 10.4 Required)

The new Actiontastic release is out, and with it comes a serious set of upgrades. Over the last few days, I have blogged about the new Quicksilver and Inbox bling, plus the new Mail and Anti-Drawer upgrades. On top of this, there is another feature that is just for the productivity black belts out there.

What’s the Next Action?

If you’re seriously into GTD or even just focused on moving your projects forward using your own personal system, you probably ask yourself “What’s the next action?” several times a day. This near-magic question keeps projects from growing stale and ambiguous. With this new release, I am happy to say that Actiontastic is way smarter about answering this question.

A short while ago, new filters were introduced that hid projects and contexts with start dates beyond the current day as well as those that were “paused.” Several of you remarked that it would be great if those filters went all the way down to the action level. My response has always been that it was just a matter of time and code. The time has come and these filters go all the way down. And, they also interact intuitively with the other filters above the action lists. Give them a shot and let me know what you think.

Speaking of the Next Action, What About 1.0?

I recently promised in The Hub to give the rest of the plan for 1.0 here on the blog, so here it is. The next major Actiontastic release will be 1.0. It will include web syncing with Actionatr. Today’s release is nearly feature complete, but 1.0 will also include printing support, automatic updates, integrated Apple Help and a few other items.

As always, our interactions make these releases what they are. A sincere thank you goes out to each of you who shared your thoughts on Twitter, in The Hub, over email or on this blog.

Here is one last preview post before tomorrow’s release, which will likely occur during the evening hours on Tuesday.

First, a warning to anyone using rich text (colors, graphics, etc.) in the Notes field for any items — tomorrow’s update will transform this text into plain text automatically (in the same way that syncing notes to iCal does right now). This was mentioned as a possibility in the iCal sync release announcement and it is now a sure thing. There weren’t any real controls to allow rich text in those fields, but a right-click allowed it as did copy/paste operations. This technique was even highlighted by my MailTags post a while back as an easy way to link to mail messages. If you are concerned about losing anything of value by changing the format, please let me know and I will post an extended version of the previous release for you to use while you convert your notes.

Having said that, let’s get on to the good stuff.

The Anti-Drawer

Just yesterday, the idea mashup was discussed and this is yet another case. There are very few applications with drawers that don’t make me cringe. TextMate is one of them. Feeder is another. I know many of you feel the same way. Without getting into any drawer holy wars, I can say that I wasn’t happy with the design of the current drawer but had some reservation about using panels or a standard three-paned window.

As a result of a few different feature requests and an odd bit of inspiration from an animation app, I started wondering about a drawer that slid in instead of out. That would solve the window resizing issues of the standard drawer while still allowing the information in the so-called anti-drawer to stay optional and out of the way during a mad box-checking-in-the-context-view binge.

So here it is in the Inbox view:

Cmd-I slides open this new third pane and closes it just as easily. The URL field shown above brings us to the next topic.

Mail Integration

The new integration with Mail works in two ways. If you use MailTags, you can pop open the new ToDo box and assign your message to the @inbox calendar in iCal (created by Actiontastic).

This latest version of MailTags cleverly sends a URL to iCal that will open the individual message from anywhere on your Mac. Actiontastic picks up this URL during its sync so that the link can now stick with your new action or project.

With or without MailTags, you can use AppleScript (inspired by a post in The Hub) to take messages with a prefix like “todo:”, place them in a folder and send them to the @inbox calendar in iCal. Upon syncing, Actiontastic will see this prefix and strip it for you so that your mail subject shows up as the inbox item name and the message content is stored in the notes. Using this method, you will be able to email actions to yourself from just about anywhere.

This use of notes syncing from iCal to Actiontastic (instead of being one way as it is now) was the prompt for the Notes/text change mentioned at the beginning of this post. This will allow two-way note syncing from iCal, which has been requested by quite a few people, plus all of these other goodies. It will also integrate much more smoothly with Actionatr when it is ready.

That’s it for today. I’m going duck into a St. Louis-style Bat Cave and finish tidying up your new release.

The upcoming Tuesday release has new features that came together as a result of your suggestions. There is much going on that needs to be blogged (without even getting into Actionatr), so let’s begin today with this so-called smarter text for Quicksilver and the Inbox.

There are many cases where “design by committee” creates truly bland, unfocused software using yesterday’s technology for users who have already moved on. An optimization of this anti-pattern has come together several times, however, and I would like to share this example. It isn’t so much about committees and voting as it is about decentralized thinking and idea sharing.

Superimposition

There’s a joke about late 90’s Photoshop and web design in here somewhere, but I’ll try to keep this on track. Idea superimposition — let’s call it an idea mashup — can happen with anyone privileged enough to read email and feature requests from real people using their software. The trick is letting the ideas soak in and get reinforcement from other requests. Each user has their own great ideas to share. Some great ideas conflict with others. Some need polish, but it doesn’t matter. The fact that these ideas are moving through a single mental filter (even a filter as warped as mine) is where the magic comes in. Smarter text for Quicksilver and the Inbox came around in this fashion. No one idea contained all of this information, nor would I have come up with this in isolation.

Here are the ideas that were mashed together:

• Auto-complete project and context names
• Add new projects and contexts from the inbox “ninja thingie”
• Allow projects (with “>”) and contexts (with “@”) to be entered from Quicksilver
• Allow notes (with “–”) to be included with actions via Quicksilver
• Allow a new project and its first action to be created from the inbox “ninja thingie”
• Ignore case when sorting project and context names
• Don’t require the mouse while processing the inbox

The outcome? Smarter text.

New Quicksilver Textisms

• Just like before, lone items still show up in the inbox.
• Project names are proceeded with the “>” symbol.
• Context names are proceeded with the “@” symbol.
• Notes are proceeded with the “–” symbol and appear at the end.
• New projects and contexts are created on the fly if they are not found. Finding them is case-insensitive.
• Items with projects or contexts (or both) are automatically filed as actions.
• Notes can be added to projects, contexts, inbox items, or actions.
• Notes for projects or contexts that already exist will append to the existing notes.

Examples

Send an item to the Inbox (just like before):

• remember the coffee

Create a Build Flying Car project:

• > Build Flying Car

Create an @email context:

• @email

Add an action with notes for the flying car project and place it in a new context on the fly, called @calls:

• Call Bob > Build Flying Car @calls — number is 555.555.1212

Add a note for the above project:

• > Build Flying Car — new goal is Q4 2010

Better Inbox Filing

The inbox “ninja” has also received a text upgrade. Here are the details:

• No mouse required. All buttons have shortcuts.
• You can tab to the Project and Context fields.
• You can still drop down the menus for these items if you wish.
• Typing project or context names will bring up matches in real time.
• Using a new name in either field creates the project or context on the fly.
• You can skip typing the “@” if you’re in a rush. (I know, I know. Everyone has been on the edge of their seats waiting on this one.)

There is a free 1.0 license waiting for the first person who emails a good replacement (that gets used) for the inbox ninja nickname. “Processor” is stale and corporate-workflow-ish. “Wizard” is scary.

It didn’t exist, so I decided to build it.

Much like Actiontasic, Actionatr is the web app I always wanted for getting things done. No fiddling. No tweaking. Just a sign up, followed by totally hot box checking.

It will work like Actiontastic. It will sync with Actiontastic. It will be included for everyone who purchases Actiontastic 1.0. It is the reason I couldn’t sit still after hearing the iPhone has a web browser. If you’re interested in getting the upcoming release notice, sign up today.

And yes, your next Actiontastic release is in the oven with new features and polish based on your feedback on this blog, over email, in The Hub, and on Twitter. More on that over the next few days, followed by a release before the beta expires.

Part community walkie-talkie. Part filter for those with too much RSS going on…

Check out: The Actiontastic Hub

My hope is that many of the gems that arrive in comments and emails will not become buried by nature of the blog format; they can now live as first-class citizens of a forum, allowing better search and a direction set by the community.

If you really want to drink from the fire hose, you can always add me as a friend on Twitter. My use of Twitter is experimental at the moment, but I can see that it would make a nice microblog (not to mention Twitterific is a cool little app).