Here's a project idea for the long weekend. Have you heard of scanner art? The basic idea is this: you scan things and you try to make something something artistic with it. Is it art? Is it really photography? Some say yes, some say no. I say, 'Who cares?'

I have found that I can get some extraordinary results with my trusty scanner (the Epson Perfection 4490). I particularly like how the scanner captures intricate detail in natural objects. Here are a few samples of items I've created (click for a larger view).

Edge.org, where the stunning work of Katinka Matson is often featured. Intrigued, I started experimenting with my scanner. I don't have any sage advice about creating scanned artwork, but I do have a few tips:

• Ensure you clean the scanner bed really well before you scan
• Be prepared to spend several hours cleaning up dust and artifacts from each image you scan with your image editor of choice (even if you DO clean the bed well, you will spend a good deal of time on this task).
• I prefer to scan in the dark with the lid of the scanner open. It produces nice clean lines and a black background, which makes it easier to extract the image.
• This is a great way to experiment with your image editing program (I use Photoshop), particularly for creating interesting backgrounds, arrangements and frames.
• Try scanning anything and everything. For items that might damage your scanner bed glass, some say to try using a transparent film (e.g. a rigid piece of clear plastic of the type used to protect business reports in days past). Haven't tried this myself — I just use the 'be really, really careful when scanning' method.
• Try playing around with arrangement and layering of your scanned items.
• Scan the same item from different angles, then try piecing it together the various images into one montage.
• Scan the same item at different resolutions, then try assembling something interesting from these scans.

If scanning objects appeals to you, check out Scanner Magic and Photo Vinc for more tips and ideas.

NOTE: (Dec. 2009) This series is back. Check it out.

Last week, Reinvented Software released Together 2.1, a very substantial upgrade from version 2.0 (which I was planning to review).

This release highlighted the problem with reviewing a series of Mac applications right before the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in June: there's a strong possibility that some of the other apps I plan to review may also be upgraded at or around this event. The moral of this story is that it's best not to start a review series right before WWDC. Bad planning on my part. So, I've decided to postpone the PIM review series until mid-June to ensure I focus my attentions on the latest and greatest.

One final note: I received some feedback on my Yojimbo review from a developer at Bare Bones Software. I've posted it as a comment to the review if you're interested.

This is part two of a seven part series comparing Mac Personal Information Managers. Today, I’m going to look at Yojimbo version 1.5.1.

As I sat down to begin this review, I pondered discussing the Yojimbo/samurai metaphor, when it struck me that the name of the company is perhaps more relevant. I had never considered why this company is called ‘Bare Bones Software,’ but maybe it has something to do with a focus on creating applications that hone in on the bare essentials. It’s just a theory, but Yojimbo certainly qualifies as bare boned: it’s a lightweight, simple and elegant information manager.

But designing a simple and elegant application is a tricky business. You need to strike a delicate balance between functionality and user configuration options. You need to seek out and destroy bells and whistles. Unnecessary bloat and clutter must be avoided at all cost. If an application gets it right, it ‘flows like water’ (to borrow a Taoist metaphor). It feels good to use. Of course, it also works very well. Few applications meet this high standard.

I think Yojimbo is on the right path, but it’s not quite there yet.

Mastering the Onslaught

Yojimbo is an information manager and note-taking application made by the people behind the acclaimed industrial text/code editor BBEdit. The tag line for Yojimbo is 'Master the Onslaught.' I suppose the metaphor goes something like this: Yojimbo is a samurai at your disposal to slice through your information overload. And, as a samurai, it's going to slice with style and maximum economy. While the name and the tag are cool, does Yojimbo live up to the imagery it evokes? For the most part, yes.

Looking at it from the viewpoint of the user interface, Yojimbo stands out from the competition. A person who knows nothing about this app can, as advertised, jump right in and start collecting data. The user controls are standardized Apple fare, so you know what to expect. In fact, there’s not much to say about the user interface because there’s not much to it. It has a distinct minimalist feel to it. You have a left-hand column for organization (à la iTunes); you have a main window that displays your library; and you have a sliding split pane in the main pane to preview a selected item in your library (just like in Apple Mail). Aside from this, there is a standard popup inspector window that may be toggled off or on to display relevant info about a particular folder or library item. You may also customize the Yojimbo toolbar by adding/deleting your favorite items.

If there is any criticism to levy against the interface, it’s that some users may pine for a few alternative layout options. Personally, I like the interface. It’s one of the things that drew me to the program.

However, the samurai metaphor doesn’t hold up as well for me when it comes to organization, filtering and searching. It’s quite good, but it’s not great. I’ll get to this in more depth soon, but first let’s look at getting data in and out of the program.

Capturing Data

The type of data you can enter in Yojimbo compares favorably with other apps in this class: you can stuff it full of text, MS Word documents, RTFs, PDFs, image files (except for RAW images, a reasonable exception), bookmarks, and web archives. You can't, however, import any other proprietary document formats other than Word files. While the range of document types Yojimbo accepts is about the same as other applications in this field, I think Pages documents should be supported. This is a Mac app, after all.

I should add that you can also add emails, but they are only imported as bookmarks — if you drag and drop them into the app you create a link back to the originating app (i.e. Mail). To get the actual email message text into Yojimbo, you can use this free AppleScript created by a Yojimbo developer (I use it in concert with MailActOn).

AppleScript support is a strong feature of Yojimbo, by the way. A quick web search turns up many user-generated scripts free for you to try. The only problem here is that they are a bit hard to find. I wish that Bare Bones would compile user-created scripts on their site. In addition to dragging and dropping files into the app, you can directly type in new notes in rich or plain text. Unique among the PIM crowd, Yojimbo also provides two built-in templates to handle password and serial number data as well, which is a nice touch. One welcome addition would be a user-defined open template (or user-created templates). For example, I would like to create a car maintenance record template with field names that I define.

There are several other ways to add data besides direct input and the ‘drag and drop.’ Yojimbo also offers a ‘drop dock’ that integrates into any corner of your Mac screen. I put mine in the lower left-hand side of my screen and made it as transparent as possible so it doesn’t stick out. The drop dock allows you to directly drag and drop to the main library or directly to a specific folder. I prefer this type of ‘drop box’ to those that in other apps that sit directly on the desktop because I can get at it without leaving the program I’m working in.

The only minor complaint I have about the drop dock is that you have to click precisely on the word ‘Yojimbo’ to minimize it. If you miss the target, it stays extended. If you are an Apple Dock user, you can also drag items to the Yojimbo dock icon. This will import the item to your library, but will not allow you to add an item to a specific folder.

Another way to add data is via a hotkey (F8 by default). This is my favorite feature. With Yojimbo running in the background, F8 will bring forth a quick-entry menu to import your clipboard. While this is handy, you need to know that it only handles text (a note, bookmark, password, serial number, or web archive). If you copy a file (a RTF, Doc, image file or PDF, for example), you can’t import it with this function. If you try, what you’ll get is an unlinked icon file representing the file type for the document. That’s annoying. It is nice that you can directly convert a copied URL from your browser to create a web archive, though. According to the developer, Yojimbo will ‘examine the clipboard, and guess what kind of item you wish to create, and will default to that editing panel.’ If Yojimbo guesses incorrectly, you can select a different item type by using keyboard shortcuts. This feature works well for me. One thing I don’t get, though, is why the drop-down menu includes ‘image’ as an item choice since this quick-entry method doesn’t properly import images copied to the clipboard.

You can also enter data into Yojimbo with AppleScripts (like the previously-mentioned Mail script). And there are user-created scripts out there that let you add special bookmarks to your web browser for one-click bookmarking or web archiving to Yojimbo. Finally, you can use the Apple Services menu to import copied text or URL direct to Yojimbo. This is handy if Yojimbo is not currently running and you want to quickly add an item or link from a given open application.

With so many different options to get info into your database, Yojimbo truly makes data entry an effortless process.

Organizing and Finding Data

Now let's next look at how data is organized. Here's where I have a bit of trouble 'mastering my onslaught.' Yojimbo offers several ways to organize your stuff. First, you may create folders and drag items to these folders. Yojimbo calls these 'Collections' for obvious reasons. The most important thing to point out about the Collection folder is that you may not nest other folders. For example, I can't create a Collection for 'food' and place individual folders for various food categories under this top-level folder. Many users have asked for this, but Bare Bones developers have ruled this out from the start. Why? Presumably because they have decided that the built-in search and tagging functions are the best way to organize.

The app includes ten options for ‘smart’ collections (you’ll probably be familiar with this concept from the Finder or iTunes). Smart folders are basically saved searches. With Yojimbo, you can view flagged items, recent, unsorted, untagged, archives, bookmarks, images, notes, passwords, and serial numbers. The frustrating part is that these smart folders cannot be modified in any way, nor can you create your own smart folders based on criteria of your choosing. Why not?

In addition to the ‘dumb’ and smart collections, Yojimbo also serves up ‘Tag Collections.’ This is a smart folder that collects items based on tags you’ve assigned to items in your library. While it’s nice that you can choose to collect more than one tag into a tag collection (for example, you can gather all of your items tagged ‘food’ and ‘recipe’), there are several major shortcomings. First, you can only create a collection based on tags. You can’t create a more complex collection (say, all items with ‘food’ tags AND all flagged AND all recent items). Next, you can only collect tags that meet ALL conditions. There is no option to choose ‘ANY’ as a selection condition. This means that I can collect all items tagged ‘food’ and ‘recipes,’ but I can’t collect together items that have the single tags of ‘food’ or ‘recipes.’ What I would like to have is robust smart folder support, similar to what I get in the Finder or in iTunes. Yojimbo is really tying our hands by not giving us more control. The last problem is that the tag collection folders you create provide no clues about what tags are being collected. The only way to tell is to open up the tag collection for editing, or to choose an item in the collection and taking a look at the tags.

One final note: you can’t drag and drop into a Smart or Tag Collection. This makes sense in that these ‘folders’ really aren’t folders at all, but are collections of items that meet certain search parameters. But wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could drag an item into a Tag Collection, with Yojimbo automatically appending the tag or tags for that collection to that item? Yojimbo also offers two other ways to organize data: flagging and labeling. Flagging is a way to keep track of hot items that require follow-up, although you could assign any meaning to a flagged item. A flag can either be on or off. Chances are, you’re already familiar with the flag from other Mac apps. Me? I don’t use them very often. Color labeling is a common type of organizational method as well (most notably in Finder). Unlike Yojimbo’s built-in Smart Collections, you get full control over labels. You may change the name of a label and you may choose the colors of your labels. While you can select multiple items and label them in batch, you cannot create a rule to label items based on tags. You also cannot add a color label to a folder. You can, however, search for items based on label names, which is nice (I can search for all ‘work’ labels, for instance). I’m not a big label fan (in Yojimbo or any other app), but I might use this feature more if I had the ability to create more complex custom Smart Collections (a very handy app called Hazel is a great example of how useful this can be — and it’s using built-in Mac OS features!).

Now back to tagging. Yojimbo emphasizes tagging as a primary organization method. Indeed, tagged collections can be handy. But it’s not good enough. And here is my biggest problem with Yojimbo: I need better tag management options. What I would like to see added is an on-the-fly tag filtering similar to what I’ve seen in Things and OmniFocus. If Bare Bones won’t give users the nested folder, then they might consider providing a more interactive method to filter through tags.

And speaking of tags, an inspector just for tags would be handy: a place to view them, batch change them, delete them. It would also be nice if Yojimbo would label orphaned tags in this list that are no longer being used. Note that it’s currently not possible to change or delete a tag. The ultimate test of how well your data is organized is put to the test when you try and find something. One easy way to do this is use Yojimbo’s very speedy search engine. I have no complaints in this department. You can search by any word in an item, by tag and by label. Since Yojimbo is Spotlight-enabled, you can also search straight from Spotlight even when Yojimbo’s not opened. I love having the ability to search for certain tagged items from my Yojimbo database using Spotlight. Very handy.

As for the search function within Yojimbo, it could be made better if we had that inspector pane with a list of all of our tags (what if I can’t remember the tags I assigned?). The other way to find what you’re looking for, of course, is via your Collections. I’ve already talked about why this doesn’t meet my needs. If I had full control over my smart collections, Yojimbo would be a much better tool for organizing and finding things. I would personally also like the added ability to nest folders. I know, I know…hierarchical folders are so 20th century…but many people like to manage their data this way. Yojimbo went half-way by providing folders, so why are they against providing a nested folder option for those who want it? I don’t get it. If the idea is that you shouldn’t really need hierarchical folders, then the developers should get rid of them entirely. I’m all for that — provided I get much better tagging, filtering and smart folder creat ion capabilities.

A Few Nuts and Bolts

Now I need to add a few additional points about how Yojimbo physically handles your data. Consider how to get your data back out. It's very easy to do with Yojimbo: simply select what you want from your library and choose 'export'. However, it's important to note that the only metadata that will be preserved once you export your stuff are item creation dates. Your tags, labels, and flags will be lost. That's a shame. I'm quite unhappy with this. Say, for instance, I someday decide to move some of my Yojimbo data back to the Finder so I can manage these items with Leap (a tag-centric program for managing all the files on your system). I would lose all my carefully crafted tags! Thanks to reader Brab for suggesting I check out metadata 'persistence,' by the way. I wouldn't have thought of this myself.

I also need to comment briefly on how Yojimbo data is physically stored. While some PIMs store your stuff in what’s called a flat file structure (in other words, directly in the Finder), Yojimbo stores everything in a SQLite database tucked away in your user library. While I’ve never had any trouble with the database, I came across many comments on the web from people worried about corruption. If the database gets corrupted, all of your data is potentially hosed. That’s a bit worrisome.

But there’s nothing much to worry about if you regularly back up your system. You can back up your Yojimbo database with Time Machine, in case your wondering. I came across some posts on the web suggesting it doesn’t work, but it did for me. I tested this by deleting my entire database from my user>Library>Application Support>Yojimbo folder, then I replaced these files with a backed-up copy from Time Machine. It restored just fine.

One more thing to consider with Yojimbo is that it duplicates a file upon import. So if I drag a PDF into the application from my Documents folder, it will still be in my Documents folder. I’ll just have an extra copy of it now stored in the Yojimbo database. I’m not crazy about this. I could delete the origninal files, but then I’m relying on one database to store all of my precious files. I could keep two copies (one in my Document folder, one in my Yojimbo database) but things would get confusing if you later changed something in one of those versions; they wouldn’t be in sync. My solution: I choose to not import most of my documents into Yojimbo. I primarily use it as a digital junk drawer.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that Yojimbo supports encryption for individual items. It works great, but I wonder why Yojimbo doesn’t have a built-in Smart Collection to view all encrypted items. A work around for this is to create a tag called ‘encrypt’ for all your encrypted items, then create Tag Collection or search on that tag.

The Verdict

Yojimbo is a PIM that occupies a specific place on the info management spectrum. That place for me is as a lightweight tool to quickly and easily capture snippets of info. Yojimbo provides a good home to all of those little bits and pieces that don't fit anywhere else on my Mac. It may not be the best solution for a complete desktop information management solution (by 'complete,' I mean an application that you are comfortable using as an archive and repository for ALL your critical data — including long and complex documents that you frequently edit). If you need this type of functionality, you may want to consider another solution.

I think Yojimbo excels at grabbing data of all varieties, but I’m less enthusiastic when it comes to finding what I’m looking for and filtering through my data collection. As my database grows, I find it increasingly hard to keep it organized and find what I want.

Still, there are many things that I really like. What I appreciate most about Yojimbo is how easy and quick it is to add new data. I’m also quite fond of the minimalist user interface.

1. Could I figure out how to use the application with minimal fuss (without documentation)? The developer states that there is ‘no learning curve.’ I found this to be largely true, but there are a few features you may not discover if you don’t read the instructions. When you first launch Yojimbo, by the way, Bare Bones includes a helpful note that summarizes all the big ideas about how to use the app.

2. Was I still enthusiastic about using the application after a week of use? Yes, but I’m growing less enthusiastic as my database grows larger. I’m particularly frustrated that I can’t create more complex smart folders. I also would like to see more robust tagging support.

3. How well does the app integrate into the Mac OS? Very well. In addition to the variety of data entry methods I detailed in this review, Yojimbo supports .Mac syncing for other Yojimbo installations on your network (and you can use your one license to install Yojimbo on multiple Macs in your household!). Yojimbo data is also spotlight indexed. This means you can search from spotlight on a tag name, and all of your Yojimbo items that match that tag will pop up (Yojimbo does not need to be running to use this). Super. By the way, if you want to access your Yojimbo database remotely (from a web browser or on your iPhone), a company called Flying Mac sells a slick Web 2.0 app called Webjimbo to meet this need. The downside? It will cost you an additional $30.

4. How did the program ‘feel?’ How ‘Mac-like’ is it? This application has a great feel to it. The controls are intuitive. It’s sleek. And if you want to know how Mac-like it is, consider this Apple article.

Yojimbo is not perfect, but it’s a reliable, speedy and handy tool in my toolbox. I think Bare Bones have hit on a solution with broad appeal, but there are a few areas that need refinement before I will say Yojimbo ‘flows like water.’

That’s it for the Yojimbo review. Next up on the Mac PIM review series is an examination of DevonThink Personal. Stay tuned.

NOTE: (March, 2009) I'm still planning to complete the rest of the reviews in this series. Really. I've been busy with multiple work projects and haven't had the time to dedicate to these reviews, but I will get to it.

This is the first post in a seven-part series comparing Mac personal information managers.

NOTE: (March 1st, 2009) I'm still going to get the PIM series. Really. I've been busy with multiple work projects and haven't had the time to dedicate to these reviews, but I will get to it.

Here's the problem: chaos. Your cavernous drive is slowly filling up with text, documents, PDFs, images, bookmarks, emails, multimedia files, and notes. You're struggling to make sense of it all. You like the idea of having a central repository to manage all of this stuff, so you search around for a good Personal Information Manager (PIM) for your Mac.

Now you have a new problem: choice. The good news is that there are a hefty number of productivity and organization applications for the Mac to help reduce your clutter. The better news is that they all offer ample free trial periods. The bad news is that they all claim to be the perfect solution for organizing your mess of information, and you just don’t have the time to test them all out.

I’m not going to try to sort through all of the Mac-based PIMs in this series. Instead, I’ve chosen five applications to review. While this is a bit more than I intended to tackle at first, I think five is the magic number. I settled on these five because they represent the best of the best of what’s available for the Mac. All of these applications share a similar feature-set: the ability to store, organize, and retrieve personal information from text notes, to images, to PDFs, to web pages all from one place. The difference, of course, is in the details.

Let’s start with a summary of each application (listed in reviewing order):

1. Yojimbo — Version I'll review: 1.5.1

Initial release: Jan. 2006 | Current price: $39

From the developer (Bare Bones Software): Yojimbo makes keeping all the small (or even large) bits of information that pour in every day organized and accessible. It’s so simple, there is no learning curve. Yojimbo’s mechanism for collecting, storing and finding information is so natural and effortless, it will change your life—without changing the way you work. There are as many uses for Yojimbo as there are users of it. It accepts almost anything—text, bookmarks, PDF files, web archives, serial numbers or passwords—by dragging, copying, importing or even printing!

Snapshot of usage/interest in the Mac community:

iusethis: 911 users versiontracker: 2,178 downloads of current version (all versions: over 22k) macupdate: 1,900 downloads of current version (all versions: over 29.9k)

Other versions available: No

 

2. DEVONthink Personal — Version I'll review: 1.9.13

Initial release: Feb. 2002 | Current price: $39.95

From the developer (DEVONtechnologies): DEVONthink stores your documents, scanned papers, email messages, notes, bookmarks, etc. in one place. Access live web pages seamlessly from within DEVONthink to review, extract further information. Create RTF documents, edit them in full screen, and cross-reference. Clip data from other applications using drag-and-drop, Services, or the Dock menu. Search, classify and show relationships between your documents automatically with the help of Artificial Intelligence.

Snapshot of usage/interest in the Mac community:

iusethis: 362 users versiontracker: 748 downloads of current version (over 33k downloads of all versions) macupdate: 575 downloads of current version (over 26.8k downloads of all versions)

Other versions available: Yes

DEVONnote: Only handles plain text, RTF, text clippings, MS Word; URLs; HTML only as plain text ($19.95)

DEVONthink Pro: You get everything in DT Personal, plus the following: a three-pane view option; no upper limit to images/PDF items; full CSV/TSV file support; import ability from Address Book and iData 2; export to OmniOutliner ($79.95)

DEVONthink Pro Office: You get everything in DT Pro, plus the following: email archive support, scanner support, OCR capability, and web access/sharing for your databases ($149.95)

3. VodooPad — Version I'll review: 3.5.1

Initial release: March 2003 | Current price: $29.95

From the developer (Flying Meat): VoodooPad is a garden for your thoughts. Plant ideas, images, lists and anything else you need to keep track of. VoodooPad grows with you, without getting in the way — no fences to box you in! Type in notes, highlight important words or phrases and create new pages. Drag and drop folders, images, applications, or URLs into VoodooPad — they're linked up just like on the web. With powerful search, nothing will be lost or out of reach. The more you put into it, the better it gets.

Snapshot of usage/interest in the Mac community:

iusethis: 443 users versiontracker: 1,134 downloads of current version (all versions: over 34.7k) macupdate: 765 downloads of current version (all versions: over 27.9k)

Other versions available: Yes

VoodooPad Lite: Offers inline editing and realtime linking of pages; only supports Unicode, Rich Text support, and image embedding (free)

VoodooPad Pro: You get everything in VDP standard, plus the following: a built-in web server, meta values for pages, event triggers, and the ability to encrypt whole documents ($49.95)

4. Together — Version I'll review: 2.0.10

Initial release: Aug. 2 004 | Current price: $39

From the developer (Reinvented Software): Keep your stuff together, find it again instantly. Together lets you keep everything in one place. Text, documents, images, movies, sounds, web pages and bookmarks can all be dragged to Together for safe keeping, tagged, previewed, collected together in different ways and found again instantly.

Snapshot of usage/interest in the Mac community:

iusethis: 255 users versiontracker: 595 downloads of current version (all versions: over 15.8k) macupdate: 330 downloads of current version (all versions: over 16.3k)

Other versions available: No

 

5. EagleFiler — Version I'll review: 1.3.2

Initial release: Oct. 2006 | Current price: $40

From the developer (C-Command Software): EagleFiler makes managing your information easy. It lets you archive and search mail, Web pages, PDF files, word processing documents, images, and more. Use it to collect information from a variety of sources. Organize them into folders and annotate them with tags and notes, or leave everything in one folder and pin-point the information you need using the live search.

Snapshot of usage/interest in the Mac community:

iusethis: 83 users versiontracker: 391 downloads of current version (all versions: over 11.2k) macupdate: 226 downloads of current version (all versions: over 9.2k)

Other versions available: No

 

I want to say a few words about why I've presented a 'snapshot' of usage/interest for these five programs. I debated wether or not to add this level of detail because, frankly, one could argue that it doesn't really mean much. Still, it was a useful exercise. It allowed me to get a rough idea of the current popularity of these apps. Anecdotally, I suspected that Yojimbo was one of the more popular PIMs at this time, and this unscientific 'sample' at least bore out that many people apparently use it. I also compared users and downloads between these four apps with some of the other popular PIM apps for the Mac and concluded that my selection was a good representation of the field.

Importantly, this exercise also forced me to do a lot of searching and a lot of reading: I didn’t just count download and users, I read all the comments on each of the three sites (iusethis, versiontracker, macupdate). I now have a much better platform from which to dive into my reviews. I also spent several hours reading through reviews from other blogs, as well as reading through material on developer’s sites.

It’s worth pointing out, though, that I did this retrospectively. In other words, I chose these five programs for personal reasons: I currently use Yojimbo for short notes, snippets and serial numbers. I use DEVONthink to store all of my writing clips and ideas (fiction, primarily). And I like to use VoodooPad as a learning/flash card tool (right now, I’m using it to store notes as I learn javascript). What initially led me to these three applications is what is often called ‘buzz.’ As someone who follows Mac software rather closely, I heard (and read) repeated positive comments, so I gave them a try. Simple as that. Am I happy with them? Not entirely, but they’re pretty good. How’s that for an answer? I promise to offer a bit more detail for the reviews!

For the other two apps — Together and EagleFiler — I’ve not yet used them. However, they were recommended by readers who know a heck of a lot about Mac software (and organization), so I added them to the list. From what I’ve read so far, they appear to be rising rapidly in popularity among people I consider power users. I will use review these two programs last to take advantage of the full evaluation period (Together offers a 15 day trial; EagleFiler offers 30 days).

I’m going into this series with an open mind. I’m perfectly willing to abandon my current multi-app workflow if I find another app (or apps) that better serve my needs. This last statement ‘serves my needs better’ is an important distinction to make: my needs are not your needs, so I’m not going to claim that my conclusions will apply to all users. What I think will come out of this is a fairly good synopsis of each app which I hope will serve as a launching point for readers who are trying to figure out where to begin.

I’ll be evaluating these applications with an emphasis on the same set of questions I’ve used for other reviews on this site:

1. Could I figure out how to use the application with minimal fuss (without documentation)? 2. Was I still enthusiastic about using the application after a week of use? 3. How well does the app integrate into the Mac OS? 4. How did the program ‘feel?’ How ‘Mac-like’ is it?

Of course, I’ll also be looking at questions specific to info managers: how well could I organize all of my stuff? How easy is it to get data in/out? How is the information stored? What organization tools are available? How scalable is it? How easy is it to find what I’m looking for?

I hope to get these reviews out in fairly rapid succession, but I have to warn you that it’ll take some time. I’m going to evaluate the applications I’m most familiar with first.

Stayed tuned for a review of Yojimbo.

Coming soon: a comparison review of five top Mac information organizers...

But first, I want to say how happy I am that my offline experiment is over. The TV part was easy, since I don’t really watch TV. The Mac part was quite hard. I’m happily back online now, with no great lessons learned (other than I prefer to be connected; no great surprise there).

Now, about my impending series on Mac organizers: I agree with those of you who suggest I tackle Together (formerly known as KIT) rather than Evernote. Together is clearly in the same class as DevonThink, EagleFiler, and Yojimbo. Evernote is clearly not. Together is also quite popular, so it’s a good target for this series. Thank you to those who commented for steering me straight.

Of these apps, I have substantial experience using DevonThink and Yojimbo. This will give me a good baseline. However, I have no experience using EagleFiler and Together, so I’ve downloaded the trials to test them out. I want to use them each intensely for at least a week to give them a fair shake. I also have decided I will add VooDooPad to the mix because I use it, I really like it and it’s substantially different from the others. It deserves to be in the lineup.

Now that I have identified the five apps I wish to review, I must say that I’m still pondering how to tackle this series. I just read through some existing review series suggested by reader brab. These reviews are excellent and I highly recommend you give them a read. In fact, these posts were so informative and thoughtful that I have to take a few days to rethink how I want to approach this. I want to write something that is value-added. I don’t want to rehash what’s already out there. I want to try to take a fresh look. More to come.

2008 Mac a’hiki Tech Fest (sponsored by the Hawaii Macintosh and Apple Users' Society).

The highlight of this gathering was a keynote speech by Matt Mullenweg of WordPress.com fame. Most of his talk focused on the capabilities of WordPress, which I’m already familiar with as a WP user. I did, however learn a few interesting things:

First, WordPress is about to launch an interesting new theme called Monotone that’s geared towards displaying photos in a blog. It is interesting because it’s dynamic: the theme samples your top photo in your most recent post and automatically generates complementary colors for the layout of your page. Each time you post a new photo, your base theme colors change to match that photo. It’s a nice idea, and I expect variations on this dynamic sampling to generate more interesting themes in the future. I look forward to taking a peek at the code behind this.

Next, I learned about Gravatar.com. While I was aware of the Gravatar concept, I was unaware that WordPress hosted the Gravatar service. Apparently Automattic, Mullenweg’s WP.com company, acquired Gravatar last October. If you sign up for a Gravatar, your unique little photo will follow you around the web when you’re posting comments on any site that supports the Gravatar feature. Yet another example of how the web is turning into a more cohesive entity for the individual.

Following that, I learned of bbPress and BuddyPress — two WordPress.com offshoots. The first service is a free package for simple forum hosting. It purportedly makes setting up a forum as easy as setting up a WordPress.com site. I’m curious about how well it will integrate into a current WP installation. The second is a set of WordPress plugins (for WordPress MultiUser) which offers a very simple and easy way to transform any blog into a social network platform à la MySpace. The difference is that you don’t have to sign up for a social service with this — you create your own social center.

BuddyPress is still under construction, and Mullenweg doesn’t recommend you launch into it yet. But he said a stable package will soon be available. I like the idea of segmented user-level social networks. While it’s not a new idea, Mullenweg argued that this package will make it simple enough for anyone to create and maintain — which would be something new.

What this all added up for me was a clearer vision of how WordPress is positioning itself to lead the market with free, simple and easy to use blogging and social forum platforms in a variety of flavors. When I add up the myriad of options presented by WordPress.org, WordPress.com, WordPressMU, bbPress, and BuddyPress (all free services, by the way), I get the sense that this is developing into something very special.

I’m also struck by the aggressive development-and-release schedule of the WordPress team. That I can expect a major upgrade with significant improvements every few months is a tangible benefit that has so far kept me from leaping to another platform. I especially like that I have full access to this platform for free. Since I use the ‘.org’ version of WP, I can do whatever I like with it. I can even try to make a better commercial platform to compete with WordPress. I like the WP business model. As Mullenweg put it, anyone can use and exploit the open source WP package. It’s up to the WP.com team to make their commercial implementation of this package a top consumer choice (they make money, by the way, by offering premium upgrades).

Finally, Mullenweg showcased a site produced by Ford (yes, that Ford) on WordPress. Wow. I took one look at this site and was inspired to see if I could push my WordPress installation a bit further. I’m amazed that this site is based on WordPress. I’ve toyed with moving to a new platform (recently I tried porting this site over to Drupal — you can see the test result here), but I’m more inclined now than ever to stick with WP. Especially when I consider how much time and energy I’ve put into understanding how this package works (and how little time I have to delve into another package!).

If you’re interested in seeing Mullenweg’s talk, HMAUS is planning to post a videocast of the talk soon. As a side note, I put down five bucks on a raffle at the HMAUS event, hoping to win one of two iPod Shuffles or the Belkin USB hub. I walked away with an extra-extra large University of Hawaii football jersey and a can of Chef Boyardee Mac and Cheese. Hmm.

Surf-Bit’s Mac ReviewCast episode, host Tim Verpoorten interviewed Evernote CEO Phil Libin. Evernote is a multi-platform application in Beta (invitation only) that “allows individuals to capture and find anything from their real and digital lives using their PC, Mac, mobile phone, and the web. Regardless of where or when your notes are created, everything is synchronized, recognized, and available from anywhere.” (as described on the Developer’s site).

I should clarify this a bit. A stand-alone desktop version of Evernote is free to download by anyone (right now, there are Mac, PC, and Windows Mobile versions available). The Beta invitation is for the web application (and the seamless synching between all your devices).

The most interesting (amazing) feat that Evernote performs? The uncanny ability to read and index text from photos that you’ve taken (handwritten notes and printed text within graphics). You have to see this to believe it. Check out Evernote’s video overview. I’d like to know how it’s done.

At any rate, Libin offered up 1,000 Beta invites for MacReviewCast listeners at the end of the interview. I signed up and just received my invitation from the developer. I’ll share my impressions once I test it out. If it’s too late to get an invite from the Mac ReviewCast, you can sign up to try the Beta at Evernote.com (the developer is issuing new invites as spaces open up).

This looks like a really promising application.

If you haven’t tried out Cultured Code’s Things yet, now is a good time. It’s my favorite task manager, and it’s better than ever. Yesterday, version 0.9 was released. You can download the public Beta preview for free. It’s a Beta, so you are encouraged to let the developers know what you think.

The big news about this Beta release? Recurring to-dos and projects. And there’s lots of other improvements as well. If you like Things, sign up for their newsletter for a 20 percent discount once 1.0 is released this Spring (you’ll be able to pick it up for $39; regular price will be $49).

If you read my review of Things, be sure to read the comments for this post, too. One of the developers of Things addressed many of the concerns I raised in the review.

Back in January, I predicted that 2008 will prove to be the year of the killer task management application for the Mac. Right now, there are dozens of ‘To Do’ list programs for the Mac…and OS X Leopard’s Mail and iCal now include basic ‘To Do’ list management. So what’s so special about this year?

It’s all about GTD. The recent release of OmniFocus and the buzz surrounding the pre-release version of Things mark the evolution of some serious competition — and serious refinement — in the field of Mac-based task managers that use ideas and concepts inspired by David Allen’s popular ‘Getting Things Done’ workflow.

I just completed a series of in-depth reviews of some of the most popular and promising of this breed of Mac ‘To Do’ managers, and it may be no surprise to you that OmniFocus and Things look set to lead the pack.

To get the most out of the View from the Dock reviews, I recommend you start by taking a look at the first post in this series, in which I set out the criteria I would use to evaluate these applications. I originally intended to review five apps, but I ultimately only reviewed four: iGTD, OmniFocus, Midnight Inbox, and Things. I did not review CoalMarch Park (even though I said I would back in Jan.), because it appears that it’s no longer offered. But that’s Ok: I think these four apps are the main contenders in this contest. Which one is the best? Read on.

The Contenders

The four applications below are listed in order of how closely they follow the Getting Things Done process (Inbox is the most 'GTD-like,' Things is the least). In my opinion, this ranking also stacks the applications in order of ease of use and learning curve (harder to easier) and by degree of flexibility (from most rigid to most freeform workflow). Note that I'm only presenting a quick snapshot of each app here — be sure to read the full reviews (linked below) for detailed descriptions, opinions, screenshots, etc.

So here’s the countdown:

4. Midnight Beep's Midnight Inbox | Developer's site | full review

Summary:

Midnight Inbox is the only app of this group that reaches out and grabs data on your Mac. It also stands out as the app that most closely follows the GTD workflow. The user interface of Inbox is just beautiful, but the learning curve is a bit steep.

If you are well-versed in the GTD process and like the idea of an app that clearly walks you through a step-by-step task management process, give it a try. Version 2.0 of Inbox is now in the works.

Pro:

beautiful to look at; nice design; novel auto-collecting of data; system-wide quick entry

Con:

complicated; a little buggy; data entry options are limited and unconventional; workflow can feel restrictive; iTunes metaphor is a little weird

3. bartek:bargiel's iGTD | Developer's site | full review

Summary:

iGTD is powerful, full-featured, and free. This program follows the concepts and ideas of GTD quite closely — second only to Midnight Inbox. It's been around longer than most of the others, so the feature-set is quite mature.

Since the program is well-designed, ties in nicely with other apps (in particular, QuickSilver) and is free, it will likely continue to have a strong following. If you’re one of those power users who like lots of options and choices, you may love this. Others may find the user interface a bit cluttered and overwhelming. One thing you will like: many users note that the developer is very responsive and the app is frequently updated. Version 2.0 (an Alpha release) of iGTD is now available for preview.

Pro:

free; great Mac OS and third-party application integration; nice design; chock full of features; system-wide quick entry

Con:

complicated; some may find the array of options and choices daunting; some terminology is confusing and hard to differentiate (especially if you aren't very familiar with GTD)

2. OmniGroup's OmniFocus | Developer's site | full review

Summary:

OmniFocus is a powerful task management application with advanced sorting and viewing options that exceed what you'll find in the others. It is obvious from the start that some serious brain power went into designing this software. You may be overwhelmed by the sheer variety of ways you can organize your data, but many users really like it. Perhaps more than the others, this app maintains a relatively uncluttered feel even if you're managing tons of tasks.

The user interface is genius: it’s clean and sleek — but there is a lot under the hood here once you get comfortable with the workflow. I’ve found OmniGroup customer support to be top-notch: quick, responsive, and helpful.

Pro:

novel 'perspectives' feature is a handy way to 'memorize' favorite views; very well-thought out design; may have the best 'scalability' of the bunch; easy to zoom in to a project or task, then zoom back out for a global view; developer has great track record for quality, support; system-wide quick entry

Con:

The most expensive of the bunch; you may get bogged down by all the sorting, viewing and tagging options; relatively steep learning curve

1. Cultured Code's Things | Developer's site | full review

Summary:

Things is clean, mean, and lean. It's the least 'GTD-like' of the bunch, so if you want a pure GTD-based workflow you may not like this app. The developers came up with some really interesting ideas with this one; most notably they integrated user-defined tags to organize and view data in a variety of ways.

If you like the idea of creating your own workflow and don’t have a problem with putting in some time to set up a tagging structure that works for you, you may love it. It’s still early in the game (as it hasn’t even bee n released yet) but the Beta is great. I’ve been reading a lot of positive user comments out in the macosphere — and people seem to be genuinely excited about using this app. The trial is available now. Check out the developer’s wiki for tutorials and inspiration.

Pro:

Beautiful user interface; it has a certain Zen quality of simplicity to it; don't need to know any GTD to quickly understand and start using it; system-wide quick entry

Con:

Many features are still missing; the app interface can start to feel cluttered if you have too many tags/tasks; minimal ways to enter new data

Conclusion

As I noted in my initial post in this series, I think the program that will rise to the top of the pack in popularity will be the one that does not require the user to know anything at all about GTD, is easy (dare I say fun) to use, and best captures that elusive 'Mac-like' quality of simplicity and elegance.

With this in mind, I think Cultured Code Things stands out as the best bet.

OmniFocus is a close second and will likely be the app of choice for many business users who have tons of tasks to manage (the higher price of OmniFocus will continue to be a limiting factor). Midnight Inbox and iGTD will surely continue to build upon a stable cadre of dedicated users, but I don’t think they will be the breakaway apps that bring sophisticated GTD-based task management to the masses. They are great, but they may be just a little too geeky for some.

I should note, in closing, that this site and these reviews are not sponsored by anybody. I should also add that I am by no means a GTD expert, and that all the reviews here are just my opinions. I really believe that all four of these applications are excellent, well-designed and full of promise. I urge you to try each one out to decide for yourself, and I hope this series will help you get started. Oh, and by the way, ‘GTD’ and ‘Getting Things Done’ are registered trademarks of David Allen & Co.

Good luck Getting Things Done!

NOTE: (Summer 2010) When I get the time, I may review Things again. This article is quite out of date, but there are still some useful bits in it.

This is the fifth post in a series comparing task management applications based on the ‘Getting Things Done’ process. Today I’ll look at Cultured Code’s Things.

For an application that hasn’t yet been released, Cultured Code’s Things is generating a healthy amount of discussion in the Mac community. Why? It’s arguably the easiest to use of any of the Mac-based GTD task management systems, it’s elegant and the interface is beautiful. It’s also the application that is the most loosely-based on the Getting Things Done framework.

This all adds up to an application that effectively lowers the entry barrier for those who are interested in exploring the ‘Getting Things Done’ process, but have been scared away by complex user interfaces or steep learning curves posed by other applications in this field. Things, in other words, conforms to the basic ideas of GTD, but it’s flexible enough to allow you to come up with your own unique management system. It’s GTD light.

 

Things' is in the Beta stage now — anyone can go and download a free trial that will remain operable until version 1.0 is released this Spring. The current version is at 0.9.6 at the time of this post. You should be aware that the interface and features of the current version are due to change; ‘due to improve’ would be more accurate. While I didn’t find too many holes in this pre-release version (and it has been perfectly stable on my installation of OS X Leopard), there are a few features that I’d like to see added which I’ll highlight at the end of the article. Fortunately, the developers are still adding features and refining the user interface based on user feedback and their own ideas.

Collect - Focus - Organize

Let's start with an overview. The app breaks down task management into three main action verbs: Collect, Focus, and Organize. Each concept is easy to understand. Unlike other GTD-based programs in this category, Things does not offer a heap of sub-choices, organization and filtering options. Instead, the developers place this burden on the user through the use of tags. This freeform tagging system allows each user to effectively create a (very simple or very complex) filtering system based on individual choice. I'll get to tags in a moment, but let's first walk through each of the three main categories of task organization.

Obviously, ‘Collect’ is where you collect things. Like the other GTD-based apps we’ve looked at, the collection starting point is the ‘Inbox.’ This is GTD straight from the tap: the Inbox is where you collect tasks as they pop into your head — where you dump all those nagging things floating around in your brain into a trusted system. Once these items are captured, you don’t have to worry about forgetting them anymore. Easy enough.

  With the Focus section, Things starts to diverge from the other GTD programs we’ve reviewed. Think of the Focus section as place to view your tasks oriented by time. You can view things you have to do today, you can see all the stuff that’s due ‘other than today’ (which is labeled ‘Next’ in Things), you can see the stuff you’ve postponed to a later date, and you can view things you may want to do someday (with no set time or date).

While iGTD, OmniFocus, and Midnight Inbox all offer ways to organize and view tasks using similar terminology and concepts, they tend to emphasize contexts and projects over time/date based views. It’s a subtle difference, but it’s worth noting.

Within this ‘Focus’ section, you will likely spend most of your time in the ‘Next’ view; this is where you get a snapshot of all the tasks you’ve accumulated — organized by project and area first, then by date/time within these areas. The ‘Next’ view, by the way, reminds me of the ‘Review’ category (or sorting option) of the other GTD-based apps. Things does not directly employ the GTD ‘review’ concept (which emphasizes the value of periodically validating your tasks to ensure you remain on track and on target).

If you want to review your tasks in Things, you won’t find a specific workflow designed to help you do this. If I understand this correctly, the developers at Cultured Code expect you to use the ‘Next’ Focus (where you see all of your tasks in one main window) as your go-to place to track and review your tasks on an ongoing basis. Again, it’s subtle but significantly different than the others. You can review your items if you want to. If you don’t want to, no problem.

Next is the Organize section. Things allows you to organize by Project and by Area. Project will be immediately obvious to most people and is a core part of the GTD process: a project is a container for a list of tasks that must be completed in order to reach a goal (and the goal here is the name of the Project). For instance, I have a project labeled ‘Sell Honda,’ and each of the tasks in this project, once completed, will hopefully result in the selling of the Honda. Once the project is done, it’s closed out. It’s then moved to the ‘Log’ section of the program, which is called the ‘Archive’ in other apps. Easy. This isn’t really any different than the others.

 

But what about Area? This one is less obvious, and it’s not a GTD term as far as I know (but it’s an interesting derivative). Think of an area as a project without an end point. I have created ‘Mac maintenance,’ ‘Home maintenance,’ and ‘Health & Wellness’ entries as my Areas of responsibility. For these categories, there is no real ‘completion’ of a project or end state. I’m going to need to manage and complete tasks that fall into these broad categories perpetually (many will be repeating tasks), but the area of interest will always remain relevant and viable. It’s an idea that is unique to Things — you won’t find a similar function in any of the other GTD-based apps.

The main problem (which I quickly discovered using Area of Responsibility function) is that Things offers no solution to schedule repeating tasks, which is something I need to do. For Mac maintenance, for instance, I want to run maintenance scripts using Titanium Software’s Onyx on a repeating schedule. However … I’m not too worried about this. This feature will soon be added according to a Feb. 4 post on the Cultured Code blog. For now, I’m forced to manually re-enter my repeating tasks. UPDATE: As of Beta 0.9, Things now supports recurring tasks

  I forgot to mention one important item: Things also lets you assign tasks to other people. In the screenshot, I’ve assigned ‘cleaning the garage’ to a fictitious person named Saiki. This could be very handy if you are using Things to manage a larger project with multiple people, or if you manage several people and want to assign and track tasks for them. For now, it appears that this collaboration tool is still limited to local (non-networked) use only. In the future, Cultured Code plans to add a collaboration across the network to manage multi-user tasking with, presumably, other people that are also using Things. I’ll be curious to see how this will be implemented.

Where are the Contexts?

GTD adherents may wonder where the 'Context' section has gone. The answer is that Things did away with contexts (sort of), choosing instead to give the user an entirely unique and freeform way to categorize data. Things uses tags. Tagging, in case you're not familiar with it, is a handy way used in many applications these days to add keywords to your data to help you quickly select a subset.

In the case of Things, tagging can be used to ‘tag’ how much time you think each task will take, to indicate the type of task, to mark the amount of effort you intend to put into a certain task, to add contexts, etc. It’s an open-ended system, and it’s entirely up to you to decide how your tasks will be tagged. So, while it appears that contexts were axed in this app, they are really still there … but only if you choose to add them.

As an example, you can see (in screenshot #5) that I’ve added an ‘@’ tag category with sub-tags for ‘mac,’ and ‘home’ (I’ve also added a tag for ‘errands’ which you can’t see in the screencast - this is an example of how the tags only appear if they are used. In this example, I’ve not yet used the ‘errand’ tag … so it doesn’t appear). This is an example of the GTD idea of ‘contexts.’ My context tags are markers I use to filter through all my tasks when I want to see what I have to do based on my current location (at my mac, out running errands, or at home, for instance). Other GTD-based apps also give the user the ability to add user-defined contexts, but Things is the only app that combines contexts together with all the other ‘markers’ you choose to assign to your tasks.

To see what I mean, take a look at the screenshot here. Note that I’ve added a bunch of other tags (in addition to contexts) to help further refine the filtering of my tasks. This is freeform to the extreme: the system you devise can be as complex or as simple as you like. To see how tags can help you filter your tasks, we’ll next look at how it all fits together.

 

The Things workflow

It's much harder to describe the Things workflow than it is for the other GTD-based apps because the program doesn't really follow a defined process (in this respect, it's closest cousin is OmniFocus). Here's what I do. First, I enter a bunch of tasks in my inbox. Next, I create some projects and areas to contain those tasks. Following this, I comb through each task and assign tags.

Over time, my tag list has stabilized — I found it worked best for me to keep the tag list short and manageable. If I didn’t do this, I think the filtering power of the tags would be greatly watered down. Next I file my tasks by dragging and dropping them to the appropriate Project or Area (which are also user-created). I can also choose to add tasks to ‘Someday’ if I want to come back to the task at some undefined future time; or ‘Postponed’ if I want to keep the task in a ‘hold’ status until a future date of my choosing. I can also move an item from a project or area to the postponed or someday category, and Things provides me a useful little unobtrusive reminder that I have an item in these categories — but the items remain hidden from view unless I want to see them (you can see an example of this in screenshot #3 - look for the line that says ‘1 more someday or postponed…').

Then I start completing my tasks, selecting items by viewing them in the Focus area of the program. Within the Focus section, I may choose ‘Today’ to view what’s due to today, ‘Next’ to see everything else that’s coming up, etc.

But what about the tags? This is the best part of the program in my opinion. Tags appear horizontally across the top of the main program window (again, see screenshot #5). Only tags that are relevant for the given tasks that you’re viewing are displayed. To filter tasks using tags, simply click on a tag. To filter tasks by more than one tag, Shift-click to select more than one tag. By way of example, say I want to see personal tasks that are high priority, and can only be done on my Mac. Since I’ve already tagged my tasks with certain keywords, I simply select the tags that apply (in this case, ‘personal,’ ‘Mac,’ and ‘high’). It’s a simple and powerful solution. I think tagging offers an easier way to filter tasks than the other GTD-based apps. But there is a catch: with so much flexibility comes responsibility. You have to be willing to put in time and effort to create a system that works for you. Things provides a starting point for you (suggested tags), but it’s up to you to make your tags meaningful.

After using the app for a while, I started to develop a tagging system that really worked for me. In my case, I discovered that ‘more was less:’ I found a sweet spot between too many tags (which can be confusing) and too few (which won’t help you sort through your tasks very well). I really like the idea of establishing my own filtering system. If you use tagging in other programs (I rely on it with Yojimbo), the Things methodology should not be very foreign to you.

  The last function I should note is the system-wide shortcut that allows you to quickly enter new tasks regardless of what application you are currently using (note that Things must be open for this to work). It’s a user-defined shortcut — in my case I use Shift-Control-Space, but you can assign any shortcut combo you like. This is by far the easiest way to enter new data — mainly because you can invoke the shortcut anywhere, and the pop-up window allows you to choose where you want your task to go (which Focus or Organization category). This feature (the ability to easily choose where your task should be filed) is curiously missing when you enter a new task from within the program (there are other options from within the program, but they are not as easy as the quick entry).

The Verdict

1. Could I figure out how to use the application with minimal fuss (preferably without referring to documentation)?

Yes, I was able to start using Things without reading any documentation. The developers of this program have clearly focused on simplicity and lack of clutter as a first priority. Using Things is pretty easy right from the start. Using it well, on the other hand, is another matter. As with any program that you intend to regularly use, it's worth the effort to read up on features and suggested usage. I'm sometimes lazy about reading documentation, but I invariably get a lot more out of a program if I take the time. Things is no exception. Check out Cultured Code's Wiki for basic instructions and user-generated solutions. I think you'll find their documentation (though still a little sparse) to be well-written and fairly devoid of tech jargon. The first step you should take, though, is to watch the great screencast put together by Ian Beck from Tagamac.com. It covers the basic usage of the program very well.

There were three items that required me to do a little more reading to fully grasp: first, I was not sure what to make of the term ‘Areas of Responsibility’ until I read the developer’s explanation. Second, while tagging was familiar to me, I felt that I needed some guidance to get some ideas about how to best set up my own tagging structure (the developer provides ‘starter’ tags, by the way, to help get you going). Third, I couldn’t figure out where I was supposed to enter ‘Contexts’ for my tasks. After I read up on tagging, I figured that out.

2. Was I still enthusiastic about using the application after a week of use?

Yes. Of the applications I've tested, Things is my clear favorite. It's easy to use, it doesn't lock you into a set workflow, and it's not overburdened with choices and options. However, as I've said all along, this is more a matter of personal choice. I don't necessarily think Things is the best of the breed. I think Things is the best pick for a certain type of user. Those who adhere to and really understand GTD may find this application a little too light on GTD. I'll go into this in more detail in my final wrap-up post.

3. How well does the app integrate into the Mac OS?

Not very well. There is, as of yet, very limited integration. However, the developer's are working on Mail, iCal, and other types of integration. Since the data you enter in Things is XML based, it really opens it up for sharing with other applications with relative ease. I'm eager to see how Cultured Code carries this forward. Other integration impressions: Things does have a services menu option. I like Apple Services — this underused menu offers a way to add items to Things even if you haven't launched the program. Many programs integrate their apps with the Services menu — not many Mac users use these services, though. Finally, as I mentioned before, you'll find no right-click menus anywhere. You will also not find a customized menu if you right-click on the program icon the Apple Dock. Many Mac users may not miss this at all. I do, but I admit this may be a latent hangover from my PC days (daze).

4. How well could I manage all of my tasks (work, home, play, etc.)

Very well. It's a very flexible program. While it appears to be very scalable (that is, the program can handle a few or many hundreds of tasks with relative ease), I think OmniFocus may have the edge when it comes to managing lots and lots of tasks. Why? Tags are nice, but aggregating all the sorting and filtering options within a tagging system has limitations in terms of 'viewability.' I made that word up, but hopefully you know what I mean. I can see how my list of tasks might begin to be hard to filter/sort or hard to understand at a glance if I had hundreds of tasks with many tags. It could easily get unwieldy. Even with the few tags I'm using, some of my tasks have four or five tags. Imagine viewing a few dozen tasks within the Things 'Next' view, each assigned four or five tags. I guess the developers are counting on users knowing what they're looking for. OmniFocus, on the other hands, includes pre-set filtering options all tucked away in a tidy little menu bar. As you add tasks with OmniFocus, you may find that it's easier to decipher because of the programs set (established) filtering options. This conclusion surprised me — I went into my Things review thinking that OmniFocus offered too many viewing options. Now I see that Things can get very complicated if you use too many tags. I suppose the lesson here is to seriously think about your tagging structure!

5. How did the program 'feel?' How 'Mac-like' is it?

I think Things is the most Mac-like of all the apps I've looked at. It has a certain zen-like simplicity about it that really appeals to me. The user interface is clean and uncluttered, and the workflow is only as complex as I choose to make it. However, I wonder how well this will hold up as my task list continues to grow. I'm optimistic, but the vote is still out. In short, I think it it perfect for individual users who have a relatively finite number of tasks to manage. But I'm not so sure which application is the best of breed once applied to larger business workflows with multiple users and hundreds of tasks. I'll give this some more thought and post the results in the wrap-up.

In conclusion:

Things will probably be a close competitor with OmniFocus. Both products offer a high degree of flexibility and scalability. Both have clean, well-thought out user interfaces. Midnight Inbox and iGTD, on the other hand, may appeal more to those who prefer a tighter GTD workflow with more visible options and a clearer workflow. I think that Things, however, offers the most flexibility of the bunch. And it offers this flexibility through an inspired user interface. I'll expand on these differences and summarize my final impressions of iGTD, OmniFocus, Midnight Inbox, and Things in the final post.

Before I go, I would like to point out a few annoyances I found with this program (with the hopes that most will be addressed before Things is released). Here’s a rundown:

• You can’t delete projects once you create them (as far as I can tell) You can - see comments below.
• Perhaps it’s a remnant of my PC days, but I’m missing right-click options. There are none; nor is there a right-click menu from the Dock. Minor stuff, but it might broaden the appeal of the application
• I would like to have the ability to batch add tags to tasks (select ten tasks, assign one new tag or change a tag for all ten at once)
• In th e ‘Next’ view, I would like to see a clearer division between areas, projects, etc. (perhaps with the use of color-coding)
• I would like to have the ‘Where do you want to file this’ option that is present in the quick task entry available when I enter a task from within the program. The ‘File’ button located on the bottom of the main window is clumsy. Dragging and dropping each item is inefficient
• I would like an automated ‘clean up’ feature - like what is available in OmniFocus - to sort out my tasks with one click once I’ve assigned all the variables
• the ‘due today’ and ‘overdue’ colors are the same shade of light red. I’d like them to be just slightly different so I can differentiate between them at a glance

Things is available now as a preview release. This preview will remain fully functional until version 1.0 ships in the Spring. Once the program ships, a single user license will cost $49. If you find that you like this program, consider signing up for the Things newsletter. Cultured Code is offering a 20 percent discount if you subscribe prior to the initial release.

This will be my final GTD-based task manager review. I was going to review CoalMarch Park, but it appears that it’s no longer be offered by the company. Besides that, I think I’ve hit the four main contenders already with my reviews of OmniFocus, Things, Midnight Inbox, and iGTD. My final post in this series comes next - the wrap up.

‘GTD’ and ‘Getting Things Done’ are registered trademarks of David Allen & Co.

This is the fourth post in a series comparing task management applications based on the ‘Getting Things Done’ process. Today I’ll look at Midnight Beep Softworks' Midnight Inbox 1.2.8.

Perhaps more than any other task management application I’ve explored to date, Midnight Inbox from Midnight Beep strives to be the single point of entry — the GTD command post — through which you organize your life. Unique to the applications we’ve looked at so far, this app is designed to reach out and grab data as it accumulates on your Mac through a clever use of Apple’s Spotlight and smart folder technology (it doesn’t actually move your data — it just creates an alias).

 

Out of the box, the app is configured to suck in emails from Apple Mail, files from your desktop, events and ‘to dos’ from iCal, texts & files from anywhere on your Mac, and shortcuts from Safari. As the program continually gathers all of this stuff together in one place, you periodically must process each item through a pre-defined Midnight Inbox workflow — a workflow which is tightly based on the ideas and concepts of GTD.

I had trouble getting used to this. Why would I want to automatically gather data from various locations on my Mac? That sounds like a lot of extra work.

Eventually, I started to get it. Here’s one way to look at it: Midnight Inbox is a Mac-based tool that implements the GTD workflow. It follows, then, that the ‘Collection’ part of the program is designed to be the dumping grounds for everything in your brain. If your Mac is the epicenter of your busy life (your surrogate brain, in a sense), then Inbox intends to be the meta-filter, the super sorting and processing center, for your surrogate brain. In order to be that center, it needs to collect stuff from your surrogate brain. That makes sense, right?

I think this metaphor holds up fairly well if your daily workflow centers around Mail, iCal, text files, documents, and bookmarks. If you don’t store your essential daily work within these programs or files in your work-a-day life, or if you prefer to manually add projects and items as you dream them up, you may find auto-collection a bit too time-intensive and restricting.

I say ‘time intensive’ because it can take considerable time and effort to process every item that Midnight Inbox sucks in (to be fair, you can adjust how much or little stuff the program draws in). I use ‘restricting’ here in the sense that Inbox seems designed to function as an implementation of ‘Getting Things Done’ first, and a general task manager second. That is, it’s a program that focuses on implementing the GTD process. I think it does an admirable job at this, but it’s important to keep in mind that this software implements a very specific workflow.

Those of you who really groove on the GTD process and want a system that tightly follows this model may find this program particularly appealing. Other task management applications I’ve looked at employ core GTD ideas in various ways, but they tend to offer higher levels of user-defined flexibility. That is, they focus more on providing a flexible framework, and it’s up to you to manually enter actions and items — and you can generally move stuff around in a more freeform fashion. Midnight Inbox, on the other hand is, at it’s core, more about following a pre-defined task management process.

Which way is better? Surely it will depend on the organizational style of the user. If you just finished reading David Allen’s book, you may really take to this model. I personally prefer the applications that follow more freeform solutions.

The Big Picture

So, how does this command post work?

 

The workflow is cleanly broken down into iconic sections, which are stacked in a left-hand column of the application’s main window. The first item on this list is the ‘Collect’ section, which I’ve already talked a lot about in previous paragraphs. This is where your collected items gather.

Next is the ‘Process’ function. At a point of time of your choosing, you process through your collection of items. When you choose to ‘Process Collections,’ a new dropdown menu pops up that presents you with options for filing each item that you collect.

 

From this menu, you may make a new project, complete an action immediately (if it’s a task you can do in less than two minutes — a GTD concept that is well integrated in this application), or file it away for the future. Curiously, you can’t assign a context at this stage (keep reading if you’re not sure what a context is). I like how Midnight Inbox handles processing: the dropdown menu is well-ordered, clear, and concise.

Next, you move on to the ‘Organize’ phase. As you might suspect, this is the stage at which you organize your stuff. Here, you may assign a context to an action, add new actions, add new projects, assign how often you’d like to review a given project, etc. Midnight Beep describes the ‘Organize’ phase as the ‘heart of the Inbox experience.’ It’s the place where, at a glance, you may view and reorganize all of the projects and associated actions you’ve gathered. The organization phase focuses on refinement of your projects, categories, and contexts.

 

I should note that you can also choose to add new projects, actions, etc. on the fly here as the need arises (which is essential — auto-collection is not likely to capture everything you need to act upon in your daily life. Clearly, though, the intent is that the auto-collection process will capture most of the important stuff).

Next is ‘Review,’ which will be familiar to those of you who know GTD. The basic idea is this: according to the GTD model, you should periodically review your open actions and projects to see if they are still correctly filed, within the correct context and project, etc. This is how you stay on track and keep all your actions in tidy order. This phase is fairly intuitive and similar to other GTD-based apps Ive looked at. Helpfully, the developer builds in pre-defined ‘Reviews’ that you can select from a dropdown list while in the ‘Organize’ phase. To initiate a review, you can either use an assigned shortcut key or choose a review option from the Menu Bar.

Next on the list is the ‘Work’ category. This is the phase where you may view your actions organized by context. ‘Context’ is GTD parlance for ‘location.’ The ‘@mac’ context, for example, lists items that must be done while you’re at your Mac. GTD really emphasizes the context idea, and Midnight Inbox gets this. When you get down to doing stuff, the idea is that you’ll base what you do on your location. At the Mac? Select the @Mac section, and get working. Note that Midnight Inbox (like OmniFocus and iGTD) also synchronizes your To Do list in iCal based on contexts with no option (that I could find) to do so by project.

After this phase, there is a ‘Reference’ section to hold all the cats and dogs: actions that do not have a defined timeline, actions requiring an incubation period before you plan to begin working on them, ideas you wish to file for a later date, etc. I like how this section is organized — it clearly stands apart from the rest of the workflow and is easy to view at a glance. I like how this is handled in Inbox more than the methods employed by OmniFocus or iGTD.

 

And finally, there is an ‘Archive’ category where all your completed projects are stored for posterity. (Actually, there’s also a Trash bucket after the Archive section to hold stuff you delete - handy if you accidently delete an item and later decide to recover it). These items worked as advertised, so I have nothing really to add.

Oh, I forgot to mention the Yak Timer. Yes, the Yak Timer. This is a littler tickler the designer added to help you stay on track. It’s a little reminder window that pops up at regular intervals (similar to an iCal reminder message) to help keep you focused and on track. I found it annoying. Fortunately, the Yak can be disabled from the Preferences menu. If you’re easily distracted, you may find it handy.

The Verdict

1. Could I figure out how to use the application with minimal fuss (preferably without referring to documentation)?

I tried to use Midnight Inbox without referring to documentation, but I gave up after about thirty minutes of frustration. I usually start learning how to use a program by clicking around. This didn’t get me far with Midnight Inbox. The biggest obstacle was a lack of intuitive control. The two prime examples of this: there are no right-click menus anywhere; and you can’t toggle between items (such as choosing different contexts) by clicking on them — you must go up to the Menu Bar to do so.

In short, I headed for the app’s Help files. While I found basic concepts and suggestions here, it wasn’t really enough for me to get what I was supposed to do or how I was supposed to do it. I then shifted over to the developer’s site and discovered a screencast tutorial. This helped a lot. I recommend you start there.

I have to say that I was not expecting the program to actively go out and gather stuff on my Mac. Once I got over that, and once I learned how to add my own projects and actions independently of this ‘auto collecting’ feature, it started to click. Still, some aspects of the program remain mysterious to me even now. I think a few more screencasts from the developer would be a big help.

2. Was I still enthusiastic about using the application after a week of use?

Not really, but as I said before, I think this program will appeal to many people. Namely, I think it will appeal to those who really love the GTD process and want a program that really sticks to the GTD workflow. Still, I have to say that the more I used it, the more I appreciated it. And just when I started to really adjust to Midnight Inbox, my trial period ended.

If you intend to use this program, I think you need to be prepared to commit to it in order to realize it’s full potential. Certainly that’s true of all of all of the GTD-based task management apps, but I felt like Midnight Inbox required an extra degree of commitment. I was unable to start adding projects and actions as easily as I did in, say, iGTD or OmniFocus. I first had to take a considerable amount of time to study how it worked. It’s not without quirkiness — at times it felt more like I was learning how the developer’s mind worked. In the end, I gained a real appreciation for the time and effort that must have gone into developing this tool. I also gained an appreciation for the logic behind the workflow. Yet, I concluded it was not for me. I would like to check out version 2.0 when it arrives to see how it has changed and improved.

3. How well does the app integrate into the Mac OS?

While the program integrates well with Mail & iCal, and successfully reaches out to gather items from any folder on my Mac, the integration still seemed limited. It has the feel of a stand-alone application. Unlike OmniFocus or iGTD, there is no Services Menu function, there are no right-click menus, and there is no Apple Dock menu. You can’t drag and drop items around (except from within the ‘Organize’ window). Nor can you synch your data with other third-party Mac applications. I also could not find an export function to get my data out of Midnight Inbox and into a text file or other export format.

4. How well could I manage all of my tasks (work, home, play, etc.)

If you don’t use Mail, iCal, or the other pre-sets to manage your data, you can set up new rules to collect information from different areas or programs of your choosing. However, I found my choices to be limited. I use Yojimbo, for instance, to capture notes throughout the day, but I was unable to configure Inbox to automatically collect Yojimbo notes. Presumbaly, it’s because Inbox doesn’t know what to do with the SQL database where the Yojimbo notes are stored. That’s a shame — I think more people might take the plunge and try the auto-collect idea if more types of data could be included.

It appears that the only real flexibility I have is to choose a file location of my choice where Inbox should collect stored text documents or files. Yet I can’t really imagine getting any use out of collecting text files or documents. I simply don’t store relevant information in stand-alone text documents or files (relevant to my task management process, that is). This limits the usefulness of the auto-collection process for me (particularly because I don’t use iCal either).

Still, it’s an intriguing idea. I think there is a bright future for this kind of application: the meta-program that aggregates data and then allows you to process (file, tag, refine, categorize, etc.) a lot of information from many different sources on your Mac in one place. I look forward to seeing how the developer refines these ideas in future versions of Midnight Inbox.

Footnote: you can choose to turn off the auto-collection feature altogether from the Preferences menu if you would rather manually enter your own data.

5. How did the program ‘feel?’ How ‘Mac-like’ is it?

When I first launched Inbox, I was struck by the beauty of the user interface. The design is stunning. The look and feel of the program is undeniably like iTunes, but the metaphor breaks down there. Nothing about the program is much like iTunes when it comes to operational use. It’s quite unique and, if my learning curve is any indication, will take the average user some time to really grasp.

For example, the top menu area of the program has an interface that looks like iTunes, but I never found clear documentation to show me what I was supposed to do with that giant ‘Play/Pause’ button. I’m guessing it’s a timer with which you can countdown the minutes you’ve alloted for a particular action. But why would I really want to do this? For such a large prominent button, it seems like it should be more important to the program. Likewise, the giant ‘check’ button to the left of the ‘iTunes’ window seems to only be for checking off an item when it’s completed. However, it’s much easier to just check the box next to the item to indicate it’s completed. And then there’s the big iTunes-like window at the top. It’s clearly an information pane to indicate your current action, project, and context, but I didn’t find it particulary useful. This window, for instance, provides a hint to ‘Select a context from the Work menu to switch active actions,’ but I found it frustrating that I had to literally go to the work menu on the Menu Bar to change contexts. Clicking on the context doesn’t do the job, nor does double-clicking. Again, I think building in more user-entry inroads would help.

Another curious interface choice is that you can’t close the program window. The developer has disabled the ‘Close’ button (I’m talking about the red, yellow, and green buttons on the top left corner of every Mac window). You can minimize, you can toggle the size of the window, but you can’t close the window. The only option is to ‘Hide’ the program from the Menu Bar. I assume this is because you’re not supposed to w ant or need to close the main window once you open the program, and presumably the developer hopes that you will open the program first when you fire up your Mac. Me? I would like the choice.

Next, I found the use of the double-click in this program to be unintuitive. Double-clicking is how you pull up a menu to change the parameters of each item in Inbox. You can’t right click on anything, which I intuitively wanted to do in order to get more options. I’ve never used a program that required me to use the menu bar choices so often (sure, there are also a plethora of shortcut keys I could use to navigate through Inbox or to add or change options, but I normally don’t get to learning ‘power user’ shortcuts until I really know a program well).

So, Midnight Inbox has a way to go when it comes to that elusive ‘Mac-like’ flow.In conclusion: If you carry forth the intended integration of this app to it’s full potential — that is, if you allow it to collect a good chunk of the daily data you accumulate on your Mac and then use the program to process all of this incoming data — it will surely be one of the most-used programs in your toolbox. But will you commit? It takes a lot of work. At times during my trial of this program, I felt like I was spending more time processing, organizing, and managing than actually getting things done.

Conceptually, Midnight Inbox is not really that distant from other Mac GTD-based task management apps. It’s closest in function and design to iGTD, in my opinion. So why did I find this program harder to use than two GTD-based task management apps I’ve tried out? I had a hard time quantifying this. It’s strange. In one sense, the organizational structure of this program is very logical. It very closely follows the GTD process, perhaps more than any GTD task manager I’ve reviewed. It’s also aesthetically pleasing.

I think the issue for me lies in the way the data is managed. It’s about the degree of flexibility. The only way I really got it working for me was to adopt the workflow planned out by the developer. I think that’s what frustrated me. At times, I would begin to glimpse the potential of this app, only to be frustrated when I clicked on something to discover it didn’t work the way I expected it to work. If the developer can open up the interface a bit so people can navigate around more freely, I think it would increase it’s appeal. OmniFocus, for instance, is much more intuitive and freeform in the way it allows a user to add, sort, and categorize data. Midnight Inbox, conversely, is more about process: you need to be willing to follow a fairly rigid ‘Getting Things Done’ workflow. I am personally more inclined to use a more flexible tool like OmniFocus or Cultured Code’s Things (which I’ll review next).

A single license for Midnight Inbox is available for $35 (which is good through version 3.0). Midnight Beep Softworks is now hard at work on version 2.0 of this application. Be sure to check it out.

Yet again, I want to note that ‘GTD’ and ‘Getting Things Done’ remain registered trademarks of David Allen & Co.