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May 15, 2009 in News by Nick Sivridis

Jello Dashboard 5.00.5 beta

I have just finished the fifth update (a really important one) to Jello Dashboard. It is almost a month earlier but regarding its importance it had to be ready as soon as possible.

This release fixes many bugs, but introduces a small number of new features although the users request list is getting bigger!

New Featrures for 5.00.5

User’s last Sort order is now saved in grids
A right click context menu to all views!
Abillity to change theme from the Settings screen/Core combo box (4 themes just for testing for the time being)
Go to folder function. Fires with ctrl+G from any screen and lets user enter an Outlook folder name to navigate to
Abillity to manual edit currently used settings. This is intented for advanced users or developers.

*You really should check out the Go to function. Pressing Ctrl+G gives you the ability to immediately navigate to any outlook folder or Jello tag by typing some characters of its name.

Changes for 5.00.5

Updated: Extjs libraries to version 2.2.1
Fixed: Issue on tree trag and drop between tags creating orphans and loosing all tags
Fixed: Advanced collect errors while creating contacts (other contact data)
Fixed: Cancelling tag creation from inbox combo
Fixed: Tasks created from Outlook view emails now get body text from them
Fixed: Inbox error when setting due date on task by popup calendar menu
Fixed: Outlook view widget Selection/Tag/Archive errors (line 27 etc)
Added: Extra toolbar buttons on Outlook view widget (reply,delete)
Fixed: Narrower tags combo on Outlook view widget to save space
Fixed: Outlook view widget:Truncate big widget titles
Fixed: Error generated for tags using the ‘&’ character. & added to the restricted characters list for tag naming
Changed: Collect popup shortcut key to Ctrl+W
Fixed: Weekly printout several fixes and it can be now produced from the masterlist view too.
Added: Weekly printout form new field addition to specify how many characters of the body text are displayed for each task
Added: if the to line of an email has more than one recipient it will be displayed in the preview pane of an email folder view. if there are any cc’s, the cc line will be displayed.
Added: Inbox view is now groupped by type.
Removed: New tag and up level toolbar buttons from review screen since they created errors or being unusable
Fixed: Inbox task duplication on due date set and archive
Fixed: several fixes to auto-update for the inbox
Fixed: Inbox move to folder function now uses the go to folder form to quickly search for an outlook folder by typing
Added: Deleting a task with a linked message results now a confirmation to Delete, Move the linked message or Cancel to leave it intact
Fixed: Restoring a backup of a settings set retains the original backup and creates another backup of the last used set
Updated: Search box is now a full panel right above the tree
Updated: Sidebar toolbar includes Go to function (Ctrl+G) which lets user quickly navigate to an oulook folder or jello tag by typing
Fixed: Hierarchy sort order of tags is now case insensitive
Fixed: Bogus tag/folder addition into active list if a new tag was created from the hierarchy (anywhere). It shows now if the current view is the new tag’s parent.
Added: New setting to mark/not mark outlook messages as read when viewed from jello
Added: Post it popup now displays and updates the contents of the first post-it widget the user has in the homepage.

Thanks everyone for your reports, observations, supporting Jello by donating, translating and spreading by joining its Friend Connect user list and the facebook group!

Subscribe to feed if you want to be notified on Jello Dashboard’s updates!

March 4, 2009 in News by Nick Sivridis

Jello 5 and Microsoft Outlook connector

There were several strange and unresolved reports from Jello Dashboard users about a mysterious line 14 error which couldn’t be reproduced. They were not so much, but enough to drive me crazy.

Until one user reported using a Microsoft utility to manage hotmail accounts inside Outlook: The Microsoft Outlook Connector.

I immediately downloaded the product and installed it. Started Outlook and tried to run Jello.

As you can imagine I found an incompatibility with Jello Dashboard. For reasons unknown Jello Dashboard cannot run in Outlook if the Microsoft Outlook connector is installed.

Fortunately, you can run it without problems though standalone using the jello5.hta file.

So if you have been unable to run Jello Dashboard from your Outlook, this might be the reason.

February 27, 2009 in News by Nick Sivridis

Jello 5.00.2 update release

The second update release includes a lot of fixes to annoying and really annoying bugs reported by many users in the Jello.forum over the last days.

There are a couple of new features too.

Continue reading “Jello 5.00.2 update release” »

February 17, 2009 in News by Nick Sivridis

Jello 5 beta is out!

Jello Dashboard logo

Hello everyone!

After 7 months of development, drawbacks, bugs, fixes and more bugs the new version of Jello Dashboard (codename:starbot) is ready and available for download.

The product has just left the alpha status and became a beta. That means that there should still be bugs and some errors may occur from time to time. All bugs should be posted to the forum.

There are plenty of changes and new features added, but most importantly the whole project is following a different work flow, more close to GTD in its simple form. Of course not everyone will like those fundamental changes but its all for the good. Continue reading “Jello 5 beta is out!” »

August 11, 2008 in News by Nick Sivridis

Jello Poll results

First of all, I would like to thank everyone who took the Jello survey/poll giving me precious information which I need to use for making the next Jello Dashboard version much better.

The poll was up for almost a month and collected responses from 68 users. The number of responses was relatively small, but it was enough for outlining your opinion:

Speed

Most of the users (38.8%) think that Jello is not so fast but no so slow either and graded it with 3 of a scale from 1 (slow) to 5 (fast). The next group of users (29.8%) graded it with 4 into the same scale. So we have most users having good results on speed.

Workflow integration

Most of the users (56.7%) think that Jello Dashboard integrates good with their workflow and graded it with 4 of a scale from 1 (poor integration) to 5 (full integration). The next group of users (28.3%) graded it with 3.

Bugs

Most of the users (48,5%) don’t face up with bugs very often and graded it with 2 of a scale from 1 (never) to 5 (really often). The next group of users (22.7%) graded it with 1 (facing no bugs). That’s really good news, if you consider the number of bugs reported in previous versions.

Other data

Most of the users (49.2%) think that some GUI elements need to be re-designed and (84.6%) think that Jello Dashboard is an essential tool for Outlook and do not wish to have a similar standalone application.

As for the documentation, most of the users think that it’s incomplete (59.6%) and many wish that there should be more tutorials or screencasts about using Jello Dashboard.

Now, as for Outlook versions half of the users are using Outlook 2007 and the other half Outlook XP/2003. There were only 2 votes for older systems.

The Next Version (5)

From those results and all the bug reports, questions and suggestions I receive from users, I’ve decided to take the next version a little slower than usual and make some big changes.

The application got really complicated, trying to satisfy almost every request and Jello ended up having features that maybe nobody uses anymore (or used by a single user) decreasing speed and cluttering the whole GUI.

This is why I got lots and lots of questions about Jello Dashboard’s use. Novice GTD users are finding themselves overwhelmed by the tons of settings and are looking for a way to use it.

This is not a good thing.

So, besides speed increase and a new GUI design, I’ve decided to inject a real GTD workflow into Jello so, its use will be standardized.

Users will have to Collect, organize, review and do in a specific way, following the documented steps from GTD but there will also be the familiar way of on-the-fly reviewing and navigating. Add a new extJS GUI to this and you got some tips for the next version!

But don’t hold your breath waiting! A significant amount of code will have to be changed or added, and lots of things to be tested before a first developer release. Screenshots and info will be posted (I promise) as soon as a small portion of the application will be ready.

Until then I would love to hear your suggestions (some realistic ones would be great) and please do not request new features for the current version.

August 2, 2008 in News by Nick Sivridis

19 Free GTD Apps for Windows, Mac & Linux at Stepcase Lifehack

Joel Falconer of Stepcase lifehack added Jello Dashboard to his latest article “19 Free GTD Apps for Windows, Mac & Linux“. This list includes some really cool applications like Chandler.

Thanks Joel!

July 12, 2008 in News by Nick Sivridis

Jello Dashboard user poll

There is a new poll for Jello users. Please take a moment to offer your feedback by answering 12 questions. The poll is hosted on Google Docs. 8/10/08 update: The poll is now closed after 69 answers. Thank you.

July 8, 2008 in News by Nick Sivridis

Priacta's 107 GTD Apps list

Priacta.com has the most complete GTD software applications list I have read until now! 107 Applications (and counting), categorized and reviewed, for any operating system there is (Web, Windows, Mac, Linux, Handheld and Python). It’s hard not to find your dream system there! (They’ve already included the Jello.Dashboard’s 4.51 beta!)
Thanks Kevin Crenshaw!

July 6, 2008 in News by Nick Sivridis

Tools for Getting Things Done wiki

There is a new huge list of GTD applications I’ve found linking back to my site.

It’s Jeff Sandquist’s Getting things done wiki. If you like checking out new applications and you still haven’t found your perfect trusted system give it a go.

July 6, 2008 in News by Nick Sivridis