Archive for the ‘Windows’ Category
Quickly add a task to Nozbe on Windows
Marcus Platt recently reminded me that the Mac version of Nozbe has a hot key feature allowing you to quickly add a task to Nozbe from any app. That seemed handy and I wondered why it was missing from the Windows version. Not seeing a reason, I decided to make a Windows equivalent.
On Windows, if you want a hot key to do something, the place to start is AutoHotkey. If a computer can do it, you can trigger it with AutoHotkey.
I settled on Win-N as the keystroke to trigger a new task (N for New and N for Nozbe). Now all I needed was the AutoHotkey script to tell Nozbe to create a new task:
;
; Quick add task to Nozbe desktop app
;
#n::
if WinExist("ahk_exe Nozbe.exe")
{
WinActivate, ahk_exe Nozbe.exe
Sleep, 250
Send, {Esc}{Space}
}
else
{
Run, "c:\Program Files (x86)\Nozbe\Nozbe.exe"
Sleep, 2000
Send, {Space}
}
return
If you want to use this but are not familiar with AutoHotkey, its not too hard.
1. Install AutoHotkey
2. In the system tray find the AutoHotkey app (a green square with a white H on it), and right click. Select Edit This Script.
3. The current Autohotkey script will open in Notepad. Just copy and paste my script at the bottom of the file. Save and close the file.
4. Back in the System Tray right click the AutoHotkey icon again and select Reload This Script.
That’s it. Win-N should activate Nozbe (starting it if it is not running) and press the space key to tell Nozbe to prompt for a new task. Very handy.
RevuDo 0.5.0.2 – Tasks at last!
We all want to see prompt results. For things to go fast in the direction we want to go.
But life has other plans, and the key to getting what we want is to match our dreams to the world we find ourselves in.
Back in April I posted an update to RevuDo that allowed edits to everything but tasks. It took me two months, but with version 0.5.0.2 that limitation has finally been removed.
With this update, Tasks can be added, updated or completed (with handy check marks on the task list to make completion fast and fun).
Some bug fixes and performance improvements round out the update.
The next step will be to smooth out the rough edges, and enable offline mode. What else would you like to see?
We’re in Sync! ReVuDo 0.4
Finally! ReVuDo will now sync with Nozbe without restarting. Get version 0.4!
My goal is to provide a full Windows client for Nozbe, so being able to synchronize with Nozbe is a major step. Back in April I mentioned that I was putting my Nozbe.Net library on hold in order to develop ReVuDo because I felt that I needed to develop ReVuDo in order to decide how best to synchronize with Nozbe, the last part of Nozbe.Net to develop. Wow, was that an understatement.
The last two months have been marked by my learning a lot, and ReVuDo’s code changing a lot. I looked at my initial design notes (in a Nozbe task comment) the other day and was compelled to update the comment to note that the actual design looked nothing like what I initially imagined. The good news is that ReVuDo became a lot smaller in the process. When developing software, it is always a good sign when the code gets smaller and more clear. ReVuDo has done both, which is a good place to be for the next step.
The next step is to allow updating Nozbe. I will be focusing on this after Christmas. I mentioned in my last post that I though I might be done by Christmas. I have just made it!
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone! May 2012 bless you and your family!
Some progress
I have been absent from this blog for awhile, as I have been spending every moment available on getting ReVuDo to sync with Nozbe. The actual syncing part took a few weeks before I was satisfied. The real issue was getting the new information to appear on the screen short of restarting ReVuDo.
ReVuDo is written using Microsoft’s WPF technology. Part of my motivation for writing ReVuDo was to learn WPF, so the project occasionally hits a speed bump when I run into something I do not yet know how to do. The trick of getting the windows to update with the new information turned out to be a major, and surprising, road block. After a lot of reading and researching I was lucky to come across Michael L Perry’s Update Controls. More reading and testing ensued as I learned how to apply this new tool. Finally, this weekend it all came together. I started ReVuDo, went to nozbe.com, added a new project to Nozbe, and then clicked Sync in ReVuDo. The new project seamlessly appeared in ReVuDo.
Now I still have some work and testing to do, but version 0.4 with one-way sync to Nozbe should be finished soon. By one-way I mean that initially ReVuDo will accept updates from Nozbe, but not allow you to change anything from ReVuDo. So many changes have been made inside ReVuDo, that I do not want to risk anyone’s data. After we have all had a chance to test the new version, I will open it up to allow changes as the next step.
Thank you for your patience. Good things are coming.
Still working on ReVuDo, but a new version is still to come
It has been quite a while since I lasted posted a note or released a new version of ReVuDo, my free Windows client application for Nozbe. Why? In short, not enough time.
After my last post I had a wedding to go to. It was a joyful event celebrating the love of two wonderful young people. It was wonderful to celebrate their wedding and I wish them love and happiness together.
The wedding was a destination wedding for me (although not the happy couple who live in this magical place), and the prep and aftermath was typical of stepping away for awhile from the usual daily grind. A lot of closing open loops and passing work to others beforehand, followed by a lot of catch up afterward. In the middle was Hurricane Irene which actually followed me so I could experience it twice. And all of that led into to the most seasonally busy part of my business year.
The beauty of GTD is that it assumes things like this will happen. The whole idea of emptying your mind into organized lists allows you to concentrate on life happening to you. I am very grateful for my lists. They allowed me to be fully present at the most beautiful times as well as when I needed to focus on the most important work. People claim that GTD does not support prioritization. Clearly this is not true. It focuses on true prioritization. This is something I should write more about.
As for ReVuDo, it is moving slowly toward its next version. I have fixed several bugs, established a local database so that ReVuDo does not have to load all your information every time it starts, and found a Nozbe bug. My next action is to decide if I will work around the Nozbe bug or wait for a fix. I will let you know as soon a I can.
Export Nozbe to CSV (and Excel), XML and JSON – ReVuDo 0.3.7!
It is amazing what the focus of a vacation can do.
The day after tomorrow I will disconnect and spend a few days celebrating the wedding of a beautiful young couple. So, of course, the push was on to finish a new version of ReVuDo for Nozbe. I left work late, spent my commute through the NYC subway in design mode for the remaining features, and settled onto a crowded commuter train to bang out the code. All the prior planning, design and coding came together smoothly and I am happy to announce a new version! Get ReVuDo 0.3.7 here.
A Missing Feature
First let me thank Alan Cochran for pointing out, earlier today, that I had not yet provided a way to undo selecting Auto Login on the login window. This is now available in the Options window. Thanks Alan!
Export!
Second, a Tools button is now available on the Projects window tool bar that lets you export all your Nozbe data to CSV, XML, or JSON. For each one, you will be asked what folder to export the files to. After selecting the folder, the data will be exported.
The CSV format creates one .csv file for each Nozbe table; one for projects, one for contexts, one for labels, one for tasks, etc. In addition, a sub-folder will be created for each project that you have uploaded files for. All those files will be stored in the project sub-folders. This is the ideal file for export to Excel. Just double click a CSV file to open it in Excel.
The XML format will create just one Nozbe.xml file, but will also store uploaded files to project sub-folders.
The JSON format is the native format for Nozbe, so the Nozbe.json file it creates is probably the closest thing to a backup of Nozbe. The uploaded files will be saved in the same project sub-folders as the other two formats.
This checks off another feature that I wished Nozbe had. It’s exciting to see my goals getting checked off one by one. I hope you find it as useful as I do!
What’s Next
The other exciting thing about this new version is, it marks the last read only, no way to make any changes, version of ReVuDo for Nozbe. The next version you see will let you change something! Hopefully it will allow a lot of changes, but that will depend on my available time over the next few weeks. My goal is a complete weekly review in Nozbe. Wish me luck!
What Do You Think?
Let me know in the comments. And if it is helping you, let others using Nozbe know.
Thank you for joining me on this journey.
Exporting Nozbe to CSV
I just finished writing and testing exporting Nozbe data to CSV. I know at least one person has commented that he needs to report in Excel, so I hope this will help.
Next step is export to XML, as well as saving in Nozbe’s native JSON format (should make for a good backup).
Once those two are added I will turn my attention to my ultimate goal: adding and editing things and syncing the changes with Nozbe. That is when ReVuDo is really going to shine!
In the meantime, I hope you are taking advantage of what ReVuDo can already help you with in keeping Nozbe up to date. My weekly review already starts with sorting projects on Labels to make sure that all my projects have a label. Then I sort on actions to be sure that all projects have at least one action defined. Then I walk through my projects one by one using ReVuDo’s next project feature. For now I have to jump to either the Nozbe web site or the Nozbe Windows app to make changes, but the day when that is no longer true is coming.
Competition – I Love It!
Today, Nozbe released their first beta of the official Windows Nozbe app. So, I minimized the compiler where I was learning how to format a printed version of my projects list for the next version of ReVuDo and installed it.
As Michael says in his blog post, their current version is a beta, and I applaud them for releasing it at this point so we can all experience it, and comment. That’s exactly what I wanted to see, and one of the reasons ReVuDo is being developed in public. Despite being a beta, their app looks very good. I like what I see and will try to spend a lot of time using it instead of the web application.
Ever since Michael announced that Nozbe was changing direction to native applications that sync with the cloud, I wondered if there would be any reason to continue work on ReVuDo. With their first Windows beta in hand, I have no doubt. ReVuDo is about seeing your Nozbe lists in a new way. My focus right now is on printing, followed by exporting, followed by edit and sync. Only that last item overlaps with what Nozbe has achieved, and it was the feature gaps that were always my main focus.
Congratulations to the whole team at Nozbe for their first Windows client! I cannot wait to see the 1.0 release and hope that the web site is modified to look like the new desktop apps. I’m sure that must be your plan. In the meantime, I will do my best to support your effort with comments, and add to the Nozbe community with features in ReVuDo that you haven’t had the time to write yet.
Competition? Not really, but certainly lots more options for everyone. I really love that!
ReVuDo 0.3.4
I’m going slow on the version numbers, because I have so much I want to do before I hit 1.0, so I’ll call this release 0.3.4.
The first change in this version is a set of changes to stop ReVuDo crashing for some people. Thanks go to phusick and RobM for reporting the problem, and especially to RobM for letting me know that I had guessed correctly on the fix.
Bug fixing is fine, but we need some new stuff too. For those who saw a previous version, this is the first version that has context icons! Personally, I’m thankful for the addition of color, but this is really about functionality. A context icon helps grasp what context is assigned better than the words alone. And ReVuDo includes the words as well.
In addition to the context icons, the Next Action stars also make their appearance. Overall I think it looks much better.
The columns that contain text will now wrap the text if the column is too narrow, so you can size the window as you please and all the words will still be visible.
The Contexts window is now only as wide as it needs to be. Having it larger bothered me.
My next two goals are to add printing, and (or?) to add exporting to XML, JSON or CSV format (I’d really like to offer export to Excel, but the first go is really slow).
So help me out. I have started to think about what I would want in a printed version of Nozbe. So far my thoughts are leaning to a dialog that allows you to select printing your project list, your contexts, your next actions, and/or your due dates. Select what you want printed, click print and go get something done. Does this sound right to you? What do you want to see?
For exporting, or if you like, creating a backup, my idea is similar. Pick one of the formats I mentioned above and provide a file name. Done. Do you want something else?
Let me know in the comments below, or go over to the ReVuDo page, download the new version, and leave your comments there. This is your chance to add features to Nozbe.
ReVuDo 0.3
It’s been just shy of two weeks since I posted version 0.2, and since then it has felt like a conspiracy has been trying to prevent the release of the next update. I finally reached a point where I decided it was time to declare version 0.3 and let everyone see the changes. I think two weeks is my limit.
Changes in 0.3:
The installation program has been completely re-done. It will now give you options for where to install, whether to create a desktop icon and other handy features. It will even check if the required Microsoft .Net 4 is installed, and install it for you if it is not (a reboot is required in this case, but not otherwise).
I added an About button to the main projects window, which will display information about ReVuDo like the version and web site. With a long stream of updates to come I wanted to give you a clear way to determine what version you are running.
I knew that options would be a big part of ReVuDo, so I added an Options button to the main projects window next to the About button. There is only one option right now: to always open ReVuDo’s windows maximized. I find this very useful when I am reviewing my projects as it gives me a clear view with no distractions.
Closing the main projects window will now close all the other windows you may have opened and close the program. I have found that I can wind up with a lot of windows open and this provides a way to close everything.
In the contexts windows, if you double click a context, a window will open showing all the tasks for that context.
The change I like the most is visible when you are viewing a project’s tasks: a Prev (previous) and Next button at the top. Clicking them allows you to move to the previous or next project on your project list. This is great for weekly reviews.
If you are viewing tasks that are not all for the same project (Next Actions, Context, or tasks with Due Dates) the project name has been added so you know what project the task is for, and if you press Ctrl-Enter, or right click on one of those tasks and select Jump to Project, the view will switch to showing all the tasks for that project.
Get the latest version on my ReVuDo page, and let me know what you think in the comments!
Michael Koehler 