OK thanks Joel for your honest answers. :) I must say that #12 does sound deeply worrying. In the big picture, it is becoming increasingly clear that ALL businesses will need to seriously listen and respond to their customers if they are to survive for long in the coming few years of the 21st century.
And the fact the MLO has a history of being not good at this, doesn't just mean that it is "inconvenient" for us users that our entirely sensible suggestions get ignored... it's worse than that because means that MLO will most probably be bust within a 2 or 3 years. (Either that or their competition will have progressed *so* much faster that anyone sensible will want to abandon them even if they are not actually bust.) >From what I can see MLO started in 2004 was it? And it is pretty clear that they have lost momentum. As I see it, with my fresh eyes, the central problem MLO faces is that it has become "bloatware". i.e. They have comprehensively failed to execute Lean Startup methodology. And really and truly they should re-write the whole interface from scratch. The reason for this is that although early adopters are happy to tolerate lots of complexity and difficulties of use, mainstream users absolutely are NOT. But I was thinking about this problem. One answer would be to have a 'Novice mode', with a greatly simplified interface, but also to keep the full existing what you might call 'Expert mode'. And then, over time one could experiment to see how many additional features one could incorporate before the system become too confusing for newbies to use. And they could do this without ruining the interface for advanced users. Mainstream users simply will not tolerate things being pretty obvious as to how to use them. One trivial example is that the use of the Enter key in MLO is odd and is something that new users actually have to *learn*. i.e. in other systems hitting enter creates a carriage return - i.e. a new line. So if I want to break the text of an Action a link into two lines (2 tasks) then... I can't! Another example is that if I want to indent I can't just hit the Tab key to intent the current line. Instead the user is required to remember to hit something I have never seen in any other system "Shift/Alt/Right". Personally I don't mind this hugely, but only because having now tried about 10 GTD tools and pretty much hated them all I am *desperate* to find something I can use. So I don't really mind, but don't be deceived. The mainstream user will not tolerate having to learn such stupid keys. Basically everything should work as closely as possible to all the standards that we know - e.g. in this case for editing text in a text editor. To recap, Enter should create a new line from wherever the cursor is. Tab should indent the current line. Shift Tab should Outdent the current line. Oh well. J P.S. Is there any way to manually configure the Enter and Tab (and Shift/Tab) keys to work differently from how they work by default in MLO? On Tuesday, November 25, 2014 7:03:52 PM UTC, Joel Azaria wrote: > > > With the exception of #'s 1, 6, 11 and 12 MLO should match up. > > Re #1, MLO has this Rapid Task Entry box which works decently well on the > PC app (though could be much improved imo). On Android there's no analog > except for some sort of widget but these also leave something to be > desired. On iOS there's no choice but to fully launch the app and go on. > It's perhaps faster than some other apps but it's far from as fast or > efficient as apps I've used in the past. To much clicking and moving about. > > #6 should be achievable (or some variation thereof) with some > tweaking/customizing of the autoformat rules. It may take some doing to > get right but you should be able to find a happy place. > > #11 MLO has stated to some extent what security or encryption they may use > but nothing solid that I can point to. You'll have to take them at their > word that the transport encryption they use is solid and well implemented. > I don't believe there is any local encryption of the MLO file(s) > > #12 Spend an hour or too reading through this forum/board and see how > many requests are open, long standing, repeats etc. Then note how often > the devs feel compelled to respond. Then note which items the devs DO feel > compelled to respond to. Responsiveness is NOT their middle name. So much > so I've pretty much given up on reporting or asking for anything. It just > feels like a waste of time. There is a User Voice community but that too > is disheveled and an apparent waste of time as decent feature requests get > lost in a barrage of ME TOO's to overarching requests like "iPad app!". > There is no one curating the User Voice so it's just a free for all and > useless imho. There is [apparently] a Jira bug tracker but that is not for > the unwashed masses. You'll have to get selected to be a member of the > beta team (which apparently requires quite a bit of involvement - 4+ hrs a > week at last check) to have access. The rest of get to wait with baited > breath. The devs do NOT share timelines, dev milestones, roadmaps/future > plans nor anything else till it's released. Recently, in the face of MANY > MANY requests they caved and produced a few screenshots of the coming 2.0 > Android app. It looks just like the iOS 2.0 app and it took much much much > too long to get that little bit out. If responsive dev is important to you > this might be a deal breaker. It should've been to me but I rushed into my > purchase and now I'll just live with it. With any luck this dev team will > get with the 21st century at some point. Then again I'm no longer holding > my breath. > > J. > > > On Monday, November 24, 2014 3:49:00 PM UTC-5, John Smith wrote: >> >> >> Hello >> >> I am new to GTD and to MLO. I have been using a web-only app called >> GTDNext. But I am frustrated that there is no mobile app version. I am >> looking for a tool to automate GTD lists (David Allen) >> >> I am looking for a tool with the following features: >> >> 1. Extremely easy/fast data entry (using lots of hotkeys and only minimal >> use of the mouse) >> >> 2. Multi-levels of Projects and Actions (i.e. sub-projects and/or >> sub-action ) >> >> 3. Ease of changing an item between Projects and Actions (and back). >> >> 4. Next Actions - i.e. the ability to generate a queue of future Next >> Actions for a Project, but with the ability to just show one Next Action >> per Project. And as soon as you tick off an action as being complete, then >> the next action in the queue immediately pops up as the official "Next >> Action" for the Project. >> >> 5. The ability to send emails into the "In Basket" for processing >> (ideally with tags embedded in the title). >> >> 6. Ability to put Projects (and Actions) into some sort of *priority *that >> is can be sorted/reported on and which is clearly visible with *colour*. >> i.e. I want to be able to see a screenful of items and without actually >> needing to read anything, to see which are the most urgent (about 4 levels >> of priority/color would be fine). >> >> 7. "Focus" mark-up. >> i.e. Separate from "priority" to have some bright colour mechanism for >> showing "has focus" (i.e. I have decided to do this item today) >> >> 8. The ability do move projects up and down the list of projects FAST >> using hotkeys. i.e. To change the sort order of both Projects and Actions >> within projects very easily >> >> 9. Either a good web or PC application... >> >> 10. ...that syncs well with a mobile app... that works off-line (as well >> as on-line). >> >> 11. Excellent security/encryption of all my project data >> >> 12. A development team that has a history if being responsive to user >> requests. >> >> In your opinion, how well does MLO match up? >> >> Many thanks >> >> J >> >> >> >> >> >> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MyLifeOrganized" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to mylifeorganized+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to mylifeorganized@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/mylifeorganized. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/mylifeorganized/a12dfca1-e56d-466e-9b99-5e1d2b1a58d8%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
