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October 6, 2007 in News by Nick SivridisWhat do you want on your Jello Start page?
The Jello start page is the most vital place for all.
Till now, we got a standard page (which can be really slow with counters enabled) and a more lighter version of it, but I think something need to change for the start page to be a one stop GTD home.
So I need your suggestions.
What exactly can we put on the homepage to have an uncluttered and useful environment for are daily actions?
Please keep in mind of the restrictions of the Outlook object model. It would be great to have google widgets on the homepage, but we are forbidden to have frames inside a web page.
…and please fill up the new poll displayed at the sidebar on the right about your Outlook version. Can we use all the new Outlook functions (mainly search folders) by default for the new version of Jello?
25 Comments to “What do you want on your Jello Start page?”
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October 8, 2007 at 2:21 am
For me, the most important information that should be on the start page are the following.
For the upper part of the page:
1.) Next action list
2.) List of the appointments for today
3.) List of tasks (with due date) for today.
For the lower part of the page is the content of the outlook folder where the incoming e-mail comes in. In our case this is our inbox where we normally get the data that we process with jello dashboard. It is where we start our GTD process of collecting the stuff.
rgds,
October 9, 2007 at 3:26 pm
I like Anjo’s list and description. Since adding the “private” marking I can now manage which Projects/Contexts appear on the start page which greatly helps me focus on priority tasks.
cheers
October 10, 2007 at 5:37 pm
@Anjo
This is a good idea. Those was the kind of stuff I thoughtabout too!
@KMcFar
Yes, that helps a lot!
October 10, 2007 at 9:59 pm
I’ll love to have a timer widget to time how much is left of the current action.
A small list of the next 3-x next actions
A way, like nozbe, of input many tasks in a text area and get jello to create the individual tasks entries.
October 11, 2007 at 12:50 pm
BTW,
This is a setup for synching I’m testing.
At home:
Microsoft Outlook with the Jello Dashboard For GTDing
Plaxo plugin for Outlook
ActiveSync
On me:
HP Jornada/Windows PocketPC 2002/
Notebook
At Office:
Microsoft Outlook
Plaxo plugin for Outlook
@Backup:
Google Calendar
Plaxo
I use Jello at home to handle GTD flows,
A Jello daily report gets printed and attached to my notebook last page
I sync my tasks/appointments to the Jornada
Plaxo syncs tasks/appointments to Plaxo and Google Calendar
At work I synch my Outlook to Plaxo’s to get the day tasks/appointments
Personal stuff gets in Google Calendar
And the end of the day I synch from the office machine back to Plaxo’s
Back home I sync from Plaxo’s,Jornada and the notebook to my Outlook
Repeat
Things I don’t like:
You can’t tell Plaxo to do one way synchs, it’s both ways or nothing.
I’d to develop a script that launches automatically in the office Outlook and get rids of all stuff labeled with
contexts != office
Thinks I like:
Jello of course
October 18, 2007 at 6:13 pm
I find the Jello home page is valuable and some of the previous suggestions fine, however a tool bar for jello commands would be helpful. it would be great to have the commands on hand as i browse mail folders.
October 19, 2007 at 6:04 pm
I also find the Jello homepage valuable as it stands. The bigger addition for me would be the ability to assign items to a project (or context) from other views inside Outlook.
October 23, 2007 at 3:49 pm
I agree with Anjo. The Next Actions list is usually the first thing I open, so it would be nice to have it displayed by default on the home page. Then the list of tasks and appointments for the day. And finally the Inbox, where most of the new stuff and tasks come in…
I usually have the message pane displayed on the right, I don’t know if it could be displayed as well on the right of the home page (maybe this could be a setting).
October 24, 2007 at 4:47 pm
Yup I agree. I quite like the basis of the original Outlook:Today homepage:
TOP OF PAGE
LEFT COLUMN:
1. Next Actions… (with a drop down for other contexts?)
With Tasks due today at the top!!
MIDDLE COLUMN
2. Calendar Agenda (Appointments for next “x” days – where “x” is settable)
RIGHT COLUMN
3. Inbox(again able to set “x” number of items showing)
BOTTOM OF PAGE
6. The nice existing create a new item list.
7. The Command Bar
I access all the links currently shown at the top of the homepage from the left hand navigation pane anyway… this culd all be rationalised into here – maybe with user defined order content etc. a bit like it is with the outlook left hand nav bar. It would be great if we could do away with the left hand Outlook nav bar all together and just use the Jello version.
October 24, 2007 at 5:35 pm
Thanks for all the ideas!
I’m already in the process of developing the new homepage.
Andrew, I’m most closely to your approach and all of you guys gave me great ideas.
The sidebar was reformed too.
I hope I will be able soon to post some screenshots!
October 30, 2007 at 2:16 am
I’m dying to see what the new homepage will look like…
November 1, 2007 at 12:04 am
A think a menu; ALL-IN-ONE add button to bring a window up to be able to add anything with a sub-menu or boxes to click for adding this to any of the following: contacts, notes, tasks, projects, future, ideas, etc… (adding whatever while on the phone or too busy to at the moment). Then when having more time, we can upgrade, change or delete what is on the “stand by” category.
Hope this helps!
Jo’
November 6, 2007 at 6:28 pm
@Anjo
Just posted!
@Jo’
hmmm… that’s cool really! Maybe a bit hard for me though
November 9, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Has the priority field been addressed in the current or future version? I tend to use the High/Normal priority’s to discriminate between ‘must get done today’ (High), and ‘want to get done today’ (Normal). Currently, I have created a new context called ‘!Today’ to address that, because not all !Next items are for my attention today.
Any thoughts/comments/suggestions?
November 9, 2007 at 6:22 pm
@MarkM
Will color coding (high-pri tasks in red, low-pri in gray) work for you?
November 12, 2007 at 12:21 pm
I agree with MarkM, that would be a very useful feature. I think the color coding would work, but it would be very useful to have the next actions ordered by priority as well (high-pri tasks first, followed by low-pri).
Also, it would be nice to be able to mark the “next actions” as done directly on the home page, with a single click (does the new home page allow that?)
November 13, 2007 at 8:02 am
@Xav
the priority ordering will be able to be developed if I can make it to custom ordering in general. Its a little hard but I’m working on it.
In the new page you can check entries from all the widgets and apply any action using a combo or a shortcut key.
November 14, 2007 at 12:27 am
Hello GTD enthusiasts…
My idea would be something like this:
- showing my most current project(s) with the next steps
- showing my inbox
- showing the next upcoming events/todos (filtered today/week/custom set of days)
- and also missed tasks (=overdue)
This would be a very helpful homepage for my outlook.
BR
Marc
November 14, 2007 at 1:08 am
Another one and I REALLY HOPE you like it:
Had you use Nozbe?! A tedious part of dumping your mind inbox is the mechanical steps of new task,filling the subject, selecting context,etc, and in the process I tend to forget steps.
Nozbe allows you to input in a text area a list of tasks, since is plain text I can write very fast every line and if in the middle I realize is a project I can just add more lines accordingly (not going, creating new project, new task,etc). When you finish filling the text area, you select a default project or time for each task or context and when you submit it the program creates the individual entries and later you can go tweaking each one (but at least all the entries are there). Should be an easy thing to do, going trough each line and creating a new task using the line as subject, default context, time,etc to fill in the blanks.
What do you think?!
November 14, 2007 at 4:16 pm
@Marc
Some of them are in there already, and you gave me some good ideas. Thanks!
@Ken
This is cool and easy to do. Added in jello todo!
November 16, 2007 at 8:02 am
In addition to all the previous great suggestions, i would like larger icons for the main areas (i.e. next actions, projects, contexts). For some reason, i get motivated for work by a beautiful interface and smooth graphics. Some gradients in place of the “whitesmoke” would be nice as well.
November 16, 2007 at 1:56 pm
@Javabean
I agree with that! I’d love that too. I have to complete some serious coding first. Any icon themes suggestions?
November 19, 2007 at 9:43 pm
I’d love to try the beta. I’m having some problems with 3 and want to see if they are worked out with 4. Cheers.
November 29, 2007 at 2:53 am
I’m not sure about an icon theme…the new oxygen icon theme coming out for KDE on linux looks nice, but not sure if it is open for use….
…Another idea for the JelloDashBoard…subprojects! I would really enjoy subprojects! You have created a really usefuly and essential product that for me beats many paid GTD implementations! Thanks!
November 30, 2007 at 10:39 pm
@kvumanzi
I hope you received it!
@JavaBean
Subprojects is a good idea. I got it on my list (but not at the top yet!)