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

Squadcast and Pajama professional

• A squadcast video of Dec 2007 which I’ve recently discovered. EMail, Take back your life. Those guys are mentioning Jello too!

• Also, Sara Christensen of pajama professional compares GTD tools in this post!

July 6, 2008 in News by Nick Sivridis

Lifehacker on 5 best GTD Apps

5/jul/08-Lifehacker’s post for the 5 best GTD applications. One of them is Outlook, and guess which is one of the add-ins mentioned!

June 28, 2008 in News by Nick Sivridis

Jello update release 4.51 beta

After the wordpress 2.5 installation and the new theme (with the new logo), I’ve decided to fix some major bugs reported by some users and (why not?) I’ve added a new feature too for testing.

Changes for 4.51:

• Fixed appointments display bug of start date (used to show 00:00)
• Fixed Button left from context/project properties popup after closing
• Updated Go to folder folders list is now sorted
• Added Orphans list at the tools section showing items with no context AND no project
• German language update

You can download the update from the downloads page.

Thanks for your bug reporting everyone!

June 21, 2008 in News by Nick Sivridis

Jello Dashboard beta 4.5

I have finally managed to do some coding work and fix various problems that have been reported. I have also added a few features numbering this beta version as 4.5.

Changes in short:

*Outlook 2007 users will now have the ability to have an updated context/project list into their standard category list.

*Jello can work with priorities now, displaying a red box in front of high priority tasks and a gray one for low-pri ones remember the milk style. You can sort items by priority too and toggle high/normal priority with a new action (y-shortcut key).

*Fixed plenty of calendar bugs although some next day items might be still shown.

*The Review screen now is not showing only items tagged with the review context but includes all items residing into the Review folder too!

*Managed to remove some characters from the restricted list for context and project names: * and + so you need to test those!

*Clicking the current list’s name on sidebar reloads the list fully.

*Added a Go to folder action on the tools section of the sidebar which helps you navigate on-the-fly to a specific outlook folder. This will be a sidebar treeview section in a later version. Thanks justauser for the nice code on this.

*Added homepage inbox widget autorefresh every 3 minutes (default) and a settings for this (again thanks to justauser for code)

*It is now final: The outlook view control cannot handle keyboard shortcuts as it does not expose key trapping events (this is a major drawback I know)

[Full version history]

Thanks everyone for your donations, help, questions and requests. You keep this project alive!
Please download, take some time to test the new version and have fun!

May 23, 2008 in News by Nick Sivridis

Not another code update

Image via WikipediaHello everyone!

It has been over a month since the last update and many of you may expecting a new revision, solving issues or introducing new features.

The truth is that there will be a delay because of serious lack of time since the birth of our second baby a few days ago. (I know that many of you lucky parents out there know exactly what that means!)

Many of you may have notice a delay in my responses to bug reports, blog comments or forum posts. I apologize for that, but I’m forced to use the GTD two-minute rule. I can reply to some of your messages relatively fast if I got an easy answer. Rest of your queries are moved to my gmail’s action folder for later review (usually within a week).

Your bug reports and feature requests are still be filed into the google code project page, so you can be informed anytime for the still open issues (some of them will soon be taken care of).

I’m also considering more interface changes at the near future (version 5) using open source GUI javascript elements and porting the whole thing to Mozilla Thunderbird (really much later, hopefully with no security restrictions!).

Thanks for your patience.

Nicolas