Agenda Fusion 5 Preview Shots

[Ed Hansberry]

<a href="http://www.developerone.com/">http://www.developerone.com/</a><br /><br />In another escalation of the Super PIM wars, Developer One is readying Agenda Fusion 5.0 for a June release.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/hansberry/2003/20030612-agendafusion5preview.gif" /><br /><br />No specifics on pricing, device requirements or new features have been given. If you buy Agenda Fusion 4.93 now though you are guaranteed a free upgrade to 5.0. In fact, if you purchased 4.90 or later you get a free upgrade according to their home page. I am sure there will be some sort of discount for those that purchased Agenda Fusion when it was 4.89 or earlier, but no details are currently available.

[ricksfiona]

Man, I wish my Trans/ACT! looked more like that! Agenda Fusion has such kick-booty gui.

[CESkins]

Doug also posted a couple of screenshots of AF5 here (http://discuss.pocketnow.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=13524&perpage=12&pagenumber=1).

[baker]

I was hoping for some better task features :(

[Keith Layton]

Man... I am sooo psyched about this update and can hardly wait to get it! I hope they added some of my suggestions including additional journal functionality.

Keith

[CESkins]

I was hoping for some better task features :(
Like what for example? :?:

[baker]

A "main" task with a completion date and a listing of smaller sub-tasks with completion dates that get the main task to completion. It would be nice to be able to create and save a template that had for a main task and the smaller sub-tasks so you wouldn't have to re-create the same thing over. The "sub-tasks" make my task listing rather long in AF. I've tried using AF's tasks then adding notes to them, but that takes a little too much time. Thanks for asking.

[paris]

Agenda fusion is a cool app that i enjoyed using after i've won it here :lol: 6 months ago.

After some time using it i have stoped since the Hourly Day view was a must for me and i ended up revertin to the built in PIM of Pocket PC 2003. Now with this new version i am sure i'ts going to be a must but i will have to buy it again since i am selling the previous version i've won together with some other appz and my 5450, my vaja case and an extra battery (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3029510840&ssPageName=ADME:B:LC:UK:1) in favor of the new 1940 coming out soon :mrgreen:

[quidproquo]

I am anxiously awaiting this next version as well.

I just hope they have integrated the Agenda Today screen to give you the ability to view your Today Screen plug-in's without having to go out to the Today Screen. Now that would be sweet! :rock on dude!: I forget where I got that heard that, but I think that feature is supposed to be included in the new version.

Let's hope so.....

.

[CESkins]

A "main" task with a completion date and a listing of smaller sub-tasks with completion dates that get the main task to completion.
Sounds like you are requesting nested tasks...a feature even the desktop version of Outlook does not have. This would require AF to manage the structure of the task list using a database to keep track of the relationships of the various tasks and could get quite complicated. Worse yet if you have to perform a restore and the main task gets a new ID (ActiveSync has a tendency to do so) then all the subtask info linked to that task ID would be lost (or difficult to assign). Given the limitations imposed on both AF and PI by choosing to use the native PIM databases, nested tasks while doable could result in data corruption or loss should things go wrong. With all that said, if you must have nested tasks I would recommend that you take a look at Pocket Informant, ListPro, etc.

If you are an AF user like me and want to have pseudo nested tasks then you can try this. Create a main task and assign it a priority of A1 for example. Then create your subtasks and assign each a priority of Ax (where x is the level in the heirarchy of the subtask). If you sort the task list according to priority then all the Ax tasks will be grouped according to their priority. To create another "grouped task" just assign a different priority letter like B for example and assign the subtasks as B1, B2...B9. This is what I have been doing and it has worked well for me.

The other alternative is to create a main task in AF that links to a ListPro file with the subtasks arranged heirarchically...when all the tasks in the listpro list are flagged completed just check off the main task in AF. The downside to this strategy is that you have to learn to use two applications instead of just one. Hope this info was helpful. :)

[baker]

CESkins,
Thank you. :) I'll give the task suggestions for Ax, etc. a try. I use AF every day and especially like the appointment templates.

[Mark R Penn]

[Biased post]

baker wrote:
A "main" task with a completion date and a listing of smaller sub-tasks with completion dates that get the main task to completion.

Sounds like you are requesting nested tasks...a feature even the desktop version of Outlook does not have. This would require AF to manage the structure of the task list using a database to keep track of the relationships of the various tasks and could get quite complicated. Worse yet if you have to perform a restore and the main task gets a new ID (ActiveSync has a tendency to do so) then all the subtask info linked to that task ID would be lost (or difficult to assign). Given the limitations imposed on both AF and PI by choosing to use the native PIM databases, nested tasks while doable could result in data corruption or loss should things go wrong. With all that said, if you must have nested tasks I would recommend that you take a look at Pocket Informant, ListPro, etc.

Yes that's true, PI has had Hierarchical Tasks (HT's) for a long time, and it's true that they are not supported by Activesync. They are maintained by a separate database, which relies on the item ID's, and yes that will change after a hard reset.

However, in both PI and AF, links are maintained in a simillar way, using the item ID's, and so linking to a ListPro file is really no more and no less robust than HT's.

If you did lose your HT's, re-assigning them is NOT difficult - in PI it's just a very simple drag and drop process. The complications that you refer to are taken care of by the programme code. It's complicated for the developer, but not the user!

Plenty of people use links in both PI and in AF without worrying about the consequences of a hard reset (which lets face it should be very rare), so those people should have no fear of HT's either!

If you already have AF though, the ListPro link idea is as near as it's possible to get to HT's. It also sounds from Doug's little summary as if AF5 is going to bring AF almost up to the feature set of the current :wink: version of PI (well in terms of the basic views it offers at least), so for you it'll be a good thing to have.

[/Biased post]

[lapchinj]

After some time using it i have stoped since the Hourly Day view was a must for me and i ended up revertin to the built in PIM of Pocket PC 2003.

I needed that same feature. I wrote to DeveloperOne and they said it was in the making - that was a year ago. What I did in the meantime was buy and load up Pocket Informant. That killed a lot of space but I reloaded both onto a CF card. The combo has worked fine but when v5 comes out I'll be able to take PI off my iPAQ. I didn't stay with PI since they had problems when they had a schedule start and end at the same time. (An app or task that started at 8am and ended at 8am).

[Mark R Penn]

(An app or task that started at 8am and ended at 8am).


For the record, tasks don't have start and end times, and that issue does not exist in PI now for appointments. What version do you have?

Mark

[lapchinj]

For the record, tasks don't have start and end times, and that issue does not exist in PI now for appointments. What version do you have?

:onfire: WOW!!! :onfire: Just tried it and it’s fixed!!! :shocked!: You just made PI my official PIM - :beer: THANKS!! Sorry Fusion :boohoo: (for now anyway). Fusion will stay on my iPAQ until v5 comes out though and then see what gives with them (maybe :?: ).

Your right about the task having no time. I really meant only the appointments. I just shows you how long I haven't tried it. :oops:

:alfdance: :alfdance: :alfdance: You made my day :alfdance: :alfdance: :alfdance:

[Mark R Penn]

So do I take it you're happy? :mrgreen:

When AF5 does come out, do also try the upcoming, but not nearly so heavily hyped, version of PI as well, before you make a final decision.

I've seen it, can't tell you anything about it, but can assure you that the feature gap between AF and PI is about to get bigger, not smaller. :wink:

Mark

[CESkins]

...do also try the upcoming, but not nearly so heavily hyped, version of PI...I've seen it, can't tell you anything about it, but can assure you that the feature gap between AF and PI is about to get bigger, not smaller. :wink:
Mark if that's not hyping PI, I don't know what is. ;) Now do I have to take you at your word that the next version of PI will extend the feature gap between PI and AFv5 (which has yet to be released) or will you share some of those secrets with us. :D OK I know what you are going to say..."I could tell you...but then I would have to kill you" or something like that. :lol:

[Mark R Penn]

More like "I could tell you, but then Alex would have to kill me!".

I'm under NDA unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it), so really, I can't.

Remember as well that I know no more about AF5 than Doug and D1 themselves have said, so maybe they are going to surprise us all? However, most of the things I've seen so far are things PI has had for a long time anyway, like Day View, graphical week view (in fact "graphical anything you want view" in PI!), date picker that takes you to your choice of view (OK, AF5's covers 12 months rather than a choice of 2 or 6, but you have to pre-define the view it will take you to) and a full screen Month View.

Mark

[disconnected]

I don't know much about the various PIMs as my life is not complicated enough to need much more than the built-in stuff. A few things that I would like, however, are --

In month-view, I'd like to have icons (plural) for various categories, like hotels and flights (independent of busy/not busy time). I think Agenda Fusion allows this?

I'd like a scrollable list view, similar to PenAgenda's, but able to go forward and backward for a variable amount of time. Also I'd like to be able to filter this scrollable list to show, for instance, all calendar entries for last year that contain a specific word or phrase, like Marriott hotel, or are in a specific category, like flights.

[Mark R Penn]

Pi certainly does both things you asked for, and I think AF does too.

[lapchinj]

So do I take it you're happy?

Well Mark I must say that it was only one missing feature from each product that I had a problem with. Fusion is very nice but missing the hourly day feature was a big mistake for them not to have. The real reason I was so happy was because I finally had only one PIM with everything that I needed and used.

I went nuts when I saw the screen shots on the DeveloperOne web site and I still check them out 2-3 times a day to see if v5 is available. Before I had the newer iPAQ with the SD card slot and the Memplug expansion pack it was impossible to keep both loaded in memory. Now since I own both (and will continue upgrading both) they can both live on my CF card forever in harmony.

I was just trying to blow a little steam off at DeveloperOne for not responding very well to customer needs (IMHO). All they ever said when asked about hourly day view was “sit tight it’s coming”. That was over a year ago. (I think that I’ve been using Fusion for about 2 years now.)But I must say that Fusion itself is rock solid – any bugs were immediately eradicated.

...or will you share some of those secrets with us.

I would ask you to divulge some of that insider info but I’m hip to non-disclosure agreements (which I assume you come under).

[Mark R Penn]

I would ask you to divulge some of that insider info but I’m hip to non-disclosure agreements (which I assume you come under).

I do. All I can say is you won't have to wait long, and the features being added are many and useful.

BTW, I know some people think that PI has features for features sake, but of course that could be said for any programme that has a feature you personally don't use. Every single one of the new features is useful not just "cool" and will make PI fit even more peoples lives than it does now. Many of the new features are also aimed at ease of use and speed.

Nuff said for now!

[lapchinj]

So do I take it you're happy?

Well Mark I must say that it was only one missing feature from each product that I had a problem with. Fusion is very nice but missing the hourly day feature was a big mistake for them not to have. The real reason I was so happy was because I finally had only one PIM with everything that I needed and used.

I went nuts when I saw the screen shots on the DeveloperOne web site and I still check them out 2-3 times a day to see if v5 is available. Before I had the newer iPAQ with the SD card slot and the Memplug expansion pack it was impossible to keep both loaded in memory. Now since I own both (and will continue upgrading both) they can both live on my CF card forever in harmony.

I was just trying to blow a little steam off at DeveloperOne for not responding very well to customer needs (IMHO). All they ever said when asked about hourly day view was “sit tight it’s coming”. That was over a year ago. (I think that I’ve been using Fusion for about 2 years now.)But I must say that Fusion itself is rock solid – any bugs were immediately eradicated.

...or will you share some of those secrets with us.

I would ask you to divulge some of that insider info but I’m hip to non-disclosure agreements (which I assume you come under).

[disconnected]

Thanks Mark. I'll take a closer look at both as soon as I decide which new PPC 2003 device I want to upgrade to.

[ctmagnus]

Every single one of the new features is useful not just "cool" and will make PI fit even more peoples lives than it does now. Many of the new features are also aimed at ease of use and speed.

Does this encompass the long-rumored Today plugins? :wink:

[Mark R Penn]

NDA could stand for:

Non Disclosure Agreement.
Nobody's Doing Anything.
No Details Available.
Not Developers Assistant.
Never Describe Anything.
Need Designers Agreement.
Not Directly Aware.

Or,

Never Disobey Alex!

But whatever it stands for, I'm under one, so I ain't talking no matter how much money you offer me! :evil:

[Mark R Penn]

On second thoughts, how much did you say you could afford?

[Mark R Penn]

Thanks Mark. I'll take a closer look at both as soon as I decide which new PPC 2003 device I want to upgrade to.

For your interest:

Quote from Alex (PI Developer) talking on his site about his new iPaq 2215 with PPC2003:

BTW, PI FLIES on this device. I've never seen dialogs and screens pop up so fast on a WinCE device.

[CESkins]

BTW, PI FLIES on this device. I've never seen dialogs and screens pop up so fast on a WinCE device
Mark that may be true for all apps given the performance specs I have seen for the 2215. It is a very fast PDA all around. It's good to hear that about PI though as I am sure that it signals a general performance increase for many apps (and perhaps even more of a boost if they are written to take advantage of the new OS code).

[Mark R Penn]

Yes that's right - Alex has commented how fast the thing is overall.

I'm hoping (and from some of what I've read think it could be true) that even upgraded PPC's (like my 5450) will get a significant speed boost. Maybe not up to the level of the 2215 with it's faster processor/bus, but people who've tried it so far say it is a lot faster with 2003.

Mark

[alex_kac]

More like "I could tell you, but then Alex would have to kill me!".

I'm under NDA unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it), so really, I can't.

Remember as well that I know no more about AF5 than Doug and D1 themselves have said, so maybe they are going to surprise us all? However, most of the things I've seen so far are things PI has had for a long time anyway, like Day View, graphical week view (in fact "graphical anything you want view" in PI!), date picker that takes you to your choice of view (OK, AF5's covers 12 months rather than a choice of 2 or 6, but you have to pre-define the view it will take you to) and a full screen Month View.

Mark

You can feel free to talk about 1-2 of the new things...why not?

[Mark R Penn]

Wow, thanks Alex!!

But which two to pick? OK, I'll deliberately go for one productivity one, and one fun one (in fact the only one of the many new features that is purely for fun):

Task priority manager

The old priority manager has been replaced with a new version. Looking like the various other "group by" views for tasks, it lets you apply ALL of the filtering power of PI to the tasks before beginning to drag and drop them into order, so it's now possible to drill down to a group of tasks you're especially interested in, and then apply priorities to those. What's more, you can give the priority groups names, so you are not limited to "ABC" etc. This works fantastically well for people who are used to something like the Franklin Covey method, where you might prioritise tasks as "Must be done Today", "Should be done Today" and "Today if time allows", or anything else that takes your fancy! It's incredible how having descriptions for your priority groups helps you to focus on what's to be done!

Someone on the beta group claimed he was going to use "Important $£!&", Other $£!&" and "Who gives a $£!&" - it's completely up to you!

Colour Schemes

PI now supports colour schemes that can be shared with other users. A whole load are included as standard, and can be selected from the tools menu, but it's also possible to create your own and share them with others (it's one file). These adjust the UI colours, the text colours, and the fonts, but NOT important things like category and status colours. It's no practical use, but it is nice to freshen things up a bit every now and then, without having to spend time going through the options!

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mark.berry93/TAP0006.JPG

There are many other new features, and many make the programme so much easier to use, and even more intuitive.

That's ya lot for now!

[ikesler]

You can feel free to talk about 1-2 of the new things...why not?

WOW!!!!!!! That was unexpected!!!!! :D

And good picks Mark!!!!! :D

[CESkins]

I don't know if the 1st gen XScale devices will get a speed boost on the order of the 2215 (and other 2nd gen XScales) with PocPC 2003 given that the hardware could be a serious bottleneck even with the OS refinements. From all reports the 22xx series appears to be as snappy as a Palm Pilot (OK there I used the word Palm...now I have to go and confess my sins and blasphemy :D ). I played with the Tungsten C and man that thing rocks...FAST with a screen to-die-for...fortunately the 2215 stopped me lusting after a Palm Pilot. Looks like PI will be PocPC 2003 ready come June 23rd. ;) Now care to at least drop some hint as to what it will offer? :D

Holy molly Batman...while I was typing this post looks like I missed the screenshot...looks interesting. I just love the ever escalating bars...makes it easier for me to do the limbo not to mention drives some fierce competition that leads to cool product innovations. :D
What's more, you can give the priority groups names, so you are not limited to "ABC" etc. This works fantastically well for people who are used to something like the Franklin Covey method, where you might prioritise tasks as "Must be done Today", "Should be done Today" and "Today if time allows", or anything else that takes your fancy! It's incredible how having descriptions for your priority groups helps you to focus on what's to be done!

OK so what's the differnce between this and assigning categories with the names '"Must be done Today", "Should be done Today" and "Today if time allows"' to your tasks and then sorting by category?

[thomas1973]

What's more, you can give the priority groups names, so you are not limited to "ABC" etc. This works fantastically well for people who are used to something like the Franklin Covey method, where you might prioritise tasks as "Must be done Today", "Should be done Today" and "Today if time allows", or anything else that takes your fancy! It's incredible how having descriptions for your priority groups helps you to focus on what's to be done!

OK so what's the differnce between this and assigning categories with the names '"Must be done Today", "Should be done Today" and "Today if time allows"' to your tasks and then sorting by category?

1) The biggest advantage is that you can easily rearrange your priorities by using drag&drop on the tasks. A task can only have one priority, as opposed to categories. So you can't do that in category view, as you can add multiple categories, dragging&dropping just adds the new category, creating a mess in your 'category priorities'. Going into the category picker would be to slow to use on a day to day basis on every task.
2) I think it's 'cleaner' to keep your categories seperate from the priorities. As they are very different things.
3) It assigns A-Z priorities, which are ported over to Outlook.

I love the fact you can custom label them, as the A-Z headers don't really turn me on. I agree with Mark that it's amazing how the descriptions can help you focus. I actually only just found out about the custom labels reading Mark's posting, even though I have the beta, too :oops: :lol: .

I think Mark made some good picks for a 'serious' improvement, and a 'fun' one, but there are sooo many things in the new PI :mrgreen: :mrgreen: Okay, relax and say the mantra: NDA, NDA, NDA...

Thomas.

[Mark R Penn]

OK so what's the differnce between this and assigning categories with the names '"Must be done Today", "Should be done Today" and "Today if time allows"' to your tasks and then sorting by category?

Yep that works as a workaround if you don't have it (some people do that in the current PI), but it precludes other use of the categories.

But, how do I then order my tasks within those groups? I surely don't have categories from "Must be done Today - 1" all the way through to "Today if time allows - 99" do I? That's 297 categories, on top of my "normal" ones! PI's Task Priority Manager allows me to have my tasks ordered as 1-99 within each priority group.

And what happens if a task also has an A-Z, 1-99 priority? do I believe the fact it's in my "Must be done Today" category, or the fact it says it's only Z99 priority? I guess what I do is turn off A-Z, 1-99 priorities, but then what's the point of them?

As Thomas says it also makes the whole drag and drop process a total breaze to use. You can drag and drop to change categories as well (even in the current version you have a choice of either dragging to copy, or dragging to move - the current AF always moves them when you drag, which is counter intuitive for anyone who's used to Outlook, because that always copies), but useing that, how would you deal with those tasks that have no priority yet? In the new priority manager view those all appear under "none", ready to be dragged into order within a priority group. If you tried to use categories, each task that has no "priority category" yet would appear in one, or maybe several, other category groups. Even the tasks that you HAD assigned to a priority category would also appear under other "proper" catagories, so how would you know whether or not they still needed prioritising - memory I guess, which is exactly what a PIM is meant to replace!

See, I recon this is a perfect example of something. PI has in the past been acused of having features for features sake, but items like this do 2 things: 1) they make the programme easier to use, not harder, as it's not demanding a workaround and is as intuitive as can be (what could be more intuitive than dragging tasks into a group called something that means something to you, rather than just A,B,C etc?), and 2) it's yet another example of how PI allows you to fit it to how YOU work, rather than taking a "one size fits all" approach.

There is NO extra UI overhead involved in this feature, or in fact in lots of the new items - if you don't want to use it, you don't, and there is no button to ignore, no option in options to leave alone, and no menu item to get in the way.

Etc Etc Etc.

[lapchinj]

Hey Alex (or Mark) if these enhancements are so close to completion then how come there's nothing mentioned on the main page on your site? I mean companies hype the new releases of their software before they even know what changes they will offer. If you know the changes that you're making then why not hype the product a little. I know users like me would love to have an idea when and what enhancements will be available. Mark might be under an NDA but I wouldn't think you are Alex.

I'm sorry to say that since yesterday when Mark told me that the appointments feature with the same start and end time work I've taken it off my iPAQ :( . But I installed it on this brand new Viewsonic V37 that I received from Microsoft yesterday afternoon :alfdance: Anyway, AF dropped into a distant 2nd place. (Since I need my iPAQ I'll have to buy another copy of PI to put back on the iPAQ soon.) I think your design of the calendar screens are great especially moving from 1 day to 7 day and expanding the 31 day calendar etc. I felt bad I couldn't use the product because of that one problem feature but I live by it. It's a must have. Thanks to Mark I've seen the light 8) :clap: 8) Now that you'll have this task priority feature I must know when this will come out. Pleeeeeeze - at least a hint. :ppclove:

[Mark R Penn]

Hi Edsger,

I personally think WebIS could do a lot more hypeing too, but that's up to them to decide! This release was going to be a minor upgrade a first, but it's kind of evolved into something much more! Maybe that's taken Alex by surprise as much as it has the rest of us!

Re release date, there is no definate date yet - it will be when Alex is certain it's a rock solid version. From what I've seen it's very close to that, and a couple of days ago Alex said "more than a week, less than a month"!

Keep an eye on the PI forums (http://www.pocketinformant.com/Forums/). That's where you're likely to hear first.

Mark

[lapchinj]

Hi Edsger

Sorry for the misleading signature Mark but Edsger is the father of “GOTOless Programming." He is the person that first identified the three basic control structures in programming; namely, "if-then-else," "while-do," and "sequence of statements" (i.e., all other control structures are variations of these three. His work in computer science lead to the abolition of many commonly accepted practices that produced spaghetti code. He’s my man! He passed away last year so there’s a lot to read about him. Good history stuff. If your into that (even if not) do a Google on him and you’ll get some good history of programming to read.

Yeah! I always checked both the AF and PI sites daily in that order. I did that now also except the order was reversed. I used to work for a company that wrote shrink-wrapped programs for the masses. After a release they would wait a month and then start hyping the next release even if that release was months away. They would not announce a specific release date until much closer to the release but let them hype the “new release” the whole time. This allowed the release date to slip but keep the masses interested and talking about the product. The only problem with this is that some companies would give a release date and let it slip for a year!

Jeff - the real me :D

[Mark R Penn]

Oops, sorry Jeff!

I'm not in IT at all, so have to admit I'd never heard of him. Sounds like an interesting guy.

Those three rules sound fascinating - I've always been intreaged by Asimov's fictional "Three laws of robotics", and the same principal applies - the 3 rules define and control all behaviour, and everything else is a derrivation from them!

I'll do some reading, Thanks.

Mark

[thomas1973]

Those three rules sound fascinating - I've always been intreaged by Asimov's fictional "Three laws of robotics", and the same principal applies - the 3 rules define and control all behaviour, and everything else is a derrivation from them!

Those rules give me a Robocop flashback :lol: !

Thomas.

[lapchinj]

Yeah Mark - he was an interesting guy. I'll also hear of some obscure name, do a google on the person and then sometimes end up spending a whole night following the links. Sure beats the newspapers. Or I'll just sit down and read through forums like this one. Great reading great info. :D

I think that we might be taking this thread off track. I think that we started talking about my second favorite PIM AF v5 :way to go: .