Mimi,
>> So the workflow might be like:
>> 1. Cmd or Ctrl-F to put keyboard focus into the Toolbar text field in
>> "Search Mode"
>> 2. Type string
>> 3. Go to Collection menu>>New Search Collection (or Save Search or something
>> like that)
>> 4. New collection appears in Sidebar and updates itself
>> Is this roughly the kind of thing you were thinking of?
It's close enough to make Chandler much more usable for me. I have't played
with the search feature yet but I assume there is a way to search for "X" or
"Y" or "Z".
Is this a feature that has been worked on at some point in the past or is there
some related plug-in to start from? It sounds simple enough but I'd like to
look at a plu-in to see what "simple" translates to in Chandler's world.
Carl
----- Original Message ----
From: Mimi Yin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Carl Lemp <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: Chandler Dev <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 2:53:01 PM
Subject: Re: [chandler-users] Re: Automatic Assignments
On Mar 24, 2008, at 9:08 PM, Carl Lemp wrote:
Hi Mimi,
Isn't OSAF a little small to have a bureaucracy already: "No, no, you need to
be talking to the other department over there." :)
Hi Carl, yea it's a bit confusing at first for users who are also interested in
design :) We're hoping to keep "working" discussions mostly on the Dev List so
that the users list can feel more like a help center.
Anyway, until my subscription to the Chandler-dev list (that is the correct
list, right?) is approved, I'll just respond here. I understand what you are
describing and it would be a more powerful, but more complex approach. The
good news is it sounds like most of what I would want is already there. To
provide the same functionality as what I was describing, the saved query-based
collection would need to remain updated as items are added after the collection
was created. Since you brought it up in this context, I assume it would.
When I have used a PIM in the past, I found that I only used features that were
easy to remember and required no pre-defined structure. It would be great if
there was a query language to fulfill the occasional complex need but, most of
the time, I would want to use a pre-built form where I didn't have to remember
any syntax or vocabulary or structure. A form like Google's Advanced Search
would work fine for me 95% of the time. The most important part of the rules
is that I shouldn't have to think about them when I'm typing items. So, if I
built a rule based collection with "Title = Call" or "Title contains Call" then
I'd have to remember to put "Call" in the title for the item to show up in the
collection. On the other hand, if my rule is that "Item contains call or
telephone or telcon or cell phone" then almost any item to do with a telephone
would show up in the collection and I don't have to think about it again. From
my perspective, it's better
to end up with a few extra items in a collection than to miss a few. If I
still find I'm missing items, I can go back and refine the rule to add more
synonyms or related phrases.
That's how search works today. It just searches for anything that matches the
string you type in. It would definitely be the easiest way to get started on
this feature!
When you say you have thought of using the detail view to define rules, do you
mean the detail view of the item? If so, would some version of that form be
associated with the collection as well?
Sure, it's just a simple matter of implementing it ;)
Would I have to distinguish between Calls in the title and Calls in the body of
the item?
Yea, so you wouldn't even need to invent a structured syntax. You could just
use the text field to do a full text search and then save it as a collection.
If you catch extra items in the query, you can always exclude them from the
collection.
If you miss some items, you can always include them in the collection.
So the workflow might be like:
1. Cmd or Ctrl-F to put keyboard focus into the Toolbar text field in "Search
Mode"
2. Type string
3. Go to Collection menu>>New Search Collection (or Save Search or something
like that)
4. New collection appears in Sidebar and updates itself
Is this roughly the kind of thing you were thinking of?
Mimi
What I would prefer to do if I wanted to see a list of calls is to create a
collection named Calls then flag the collection to search for items that match
the collection name. If that didn't catch everything I wanted, I'd go back to
the properties of the collection and add some other words or phrases to match
on.
Carl
----- Original Message ----
From: Mimi Yin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Chandler Dev <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: Carl Lemp <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 7:28:53 PM
Subject: Re: [chandler-users] Re: Automatic Assignments
Hi Carl,
Not to keep re-routing you just for the fun of it! but I think you'll
grab more developer attention if we have this discussion over on the
Chandler Development List. If you haven't subscribed already, you can
sign up here: http://lists.osafoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/
chandler-dev
We've talked about simply allowing you to define queries using in the
Toolbar Text Field as a part of Search. So instead of searching for a
text string, you might able to search on a particular attribute:
Title=Call:
It'd be harder to do things like: Anything in January of 2008 or All
LATER items without calendar and alarm dates. You'd start having to
invent your own query syntax ;)
And then you could simply save this query as a dynamically generated
collection. (Note, under the hood, all Chandler collections are "rule-
based" *and* will allow inclusions and exclusions, aka items that
don't match the rule.)
What we don't have today is a way for users to define rules.
We've also talked about using the detail view itself as a way to
define rules. (Gmail does this nicely with its filter-builder.) as
well as GUI rule builders that would allow you to define complex
rules. But I think a simple way to define rules through the Search
bar would be a great start.
I'm going to post a response on the users list asking people for some
specific examples of queries they'd like to define.
Best,
Mimi
On Mar 19, 2008, at 9:13 PM, Carl Lemp wrote:
> What I picture as a first step is a Properties item on the right-
> click menu for the collections in the side-bar. On a properties
> dialog, I could add names/phrases to match (synonyms) for that
> collection and enable auto-assignment for the collection name and/
> or the synonyms. Something like the syntax and capabilities of
> Google's advanced search page would be convenient and easily
> understood by everybody; only using Triage status and item type
> instead of Language and File Type. Any items that matched would be
> assigned to the collection. In addition to ensuring that an item
> showed up everywhere it was relevant, this would allow me to treat
> collections as views into the database of items. To work well as a
> view, the rules would have to be applied to every item in the
> database so that I could define a new collection for an existing
> database and Chandler would search the entire database to assign
> all matching items to the new collection.
>
> Could all that be done with a plug-in? If so, could you point me
> toward the tutorial on creating plug-ins.
>
> Regards,
>
> Carl
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Grant Baillie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Cc: Carl Lemp <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2008 10:08:44 PM
> Subject: Re: [chandler-users] Re: Automatic Assignments
>
>
> On 18 Mar, 2008, at 17:24, Carl Lemp wrote:
>
> > Mimi, in your response to me and Alan, you mentioned that OSAF
> > support volunteers working on features you don't have time to get
> > to. That sounds interesting! Do you have any guess as to how many
> > person days/weeks/months it might take for a novice Python
> > programmer to get up to speed on Chandler internals and then
> > implement a simple auto-assignment of items based on collection name
> > and synonyms for collection names?
>
> Hi, Carl
>
> There is a bit of a learning curve (for novice programmers,
> especially) to getting to the point where you can be writing code for
> a Chandler plugin. If you're interested in trying, I'll happily point
> you at the relevant docs (e.g. there's a tutorial that does discuss
> setting up a plugin).
>
> So far as person-week estimates go, I guess it depends on which items
> you want to make auto-assignments on (e.g. the quick entry field?
> incoming mail? any newly created item?). Can you elaborate on what you
> had in mind, especially w.r.t. where you would expect to find
> collection names, and how the synonyms would be set up?
>
> --Grant
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> chandler-users mailing list
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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