Hi Mitch -- what is the OSAF's position re software patents? I recommend disclaiming them up front, and making sure that any outside contributions to your software are patent-free. Save yourself a lot of pulling-out-of-hair a few years down the road, and help the software biz focus on creativity not lawyers. The W3C has been trying to sit on the fence on this one with really bad results, imho. What do you think??

Posted by: Dave Winer at November 7, 2002 09:06 AM

There should be plugin capability in Chandler. Lets say people can add plugins to check webmails, support for other instant messenger clients and dare I say MS Exchange support!

Posted by: Vasanth at November 7, 2002 01:47 PM

Fan mail: I loved Agenda and I hope to see that kind of flexibility with the added power of wireless internet & email. Yow.

Posted by: John Malan at November 7, 2002 02:45 PM

I hope Chandler incorporates the best of Lotus Organizer v6 (not 5) and Lotus Agenda. Here is why and what. I am very excited you are doing this.

I use Lotus Organizer v6 which I have compared closely with Outlook and find organizer superior in all but two areas: 1 it doesn't have an integrated email program and 2 its task or to do function is extremely limited. My solution is to use outlook express as an email application and Lotus Agenda for most of my to do list. I only use Lotus Organizer to do list for to do items with a due date or to do items I want to see in my Palm. Some of the features in Organizer that I find superior to to outlook are easyclip, the # of fields in Contacts, the Planner section, the Web section (tighter integration with Contacts would be nice)Notepad, Calls, and Anniversary as well as holiday options.

Lotus Agenda is an exceptional program that I cannot live without because I have never found anything that is as flexible, comprehensive, simple (once you understand it) and fast. I use it in three primary ways (3 files): 1. a 500+ item to do list that I use daily 2. an information database on companies (I am in the investment business) essentially my notes from company conference calls, meetings, and my own research. 3. My boat - I have a sailboat and I have all my boat to do items in a separate file. I could probably find adequate alternatives to the latter two (companies and boat) but I cannot with my main 500+ item general to do list.

The main 500+ item to do list can be kept organized and up to date spending no more than 5 to 10 min every day. It is incredibly fast and simple to do usually with no more than one keystroke per item when I want to make a change. Each item is set up with the following principal categoreis: Review Frequency, Today's Priorities, Importance, and Project. I also have a number of other categories that are used as the item demands such as where which might be a town or store so that when I go to another town or store I can see what else I can get that I might have forgotten.

Back to the main Categories of Review Frequency, Todays Priorities, Importance and Project.

Review Frequency is Now (today's to do), Daily Review (DR), Weekly Review (WR), Monthly Review (MR), Quarterly Review (QR), Semiannual Review (SR), Annual Review (AR), No Review (Z). Daily I simply review the Daily Review and the Now review and with one keystroke (D or N or another) I can move an item into or out of todays to do list. I have developed a separate view for each Reveiew Frequency: Now, Daily Review, etc.

Todays Priorities are 1-9, First, Second, Third, High, Medium, Low. When I am done deciding what is to be done today, then I arrange them in the order I want by assigning the today priority to each item again with only 1 keystroke.

Importance is actually taking on less imporatance as I rely more on Reveiw Frequency but I still use it. I assign things into Must, Should, and Nice To Do.

Project is very useful because I can view everything to do with one project or subproject such as house:landscaping.

I use the Now and Daily Reviews every day and the Now View is my working list for the day which I sometimes work from the computer and sometimes printout. I love being able to rearrange everything with a single keystroke for each item. No mouse needed.

My overall advice is that you design something that is simple and fast, has extraordinary power and flexibility under the hood, and is exceptionally customizable for the power user. If you design something that incorporates everyone's ideas it will be too complex. If you go strictly for speed and simplicity it will lack the power, if you shoot for the middle, you will have a bad compromise. I have found the best programs start out really simple and fast, but then when the question comes to mind gee I wish I could do this or have that, you find you can. Everyone works a little differently.

The best personal information manager must be able to handle a ton of different types of data and tasks, quickly and easily. To be truely useful, you want to be able to put everything in one place. The trick is that when everything is in one place it becomes massive and difficult to manage so the program must make it easy and quick to manage.

Posted by: Josh Venter at November 9, 2002 04:43 AM

Go Mitch Go!

Posted by: Edward Vielmeti at November 12, 2002 04:00 AM

Mitch - I just read the article about Chandler on cnn.com. I was a senior software engineer working for Beth M. on Agenda 2.0. I am now a CTO of a software consulting firm. My company builds custom web based solutions and we have a lot of java based tools and a couple of frameworks. Because of the Agenda influence I always bring to the table (it never really leaves you does it :> ), parts may be useful to Chandler. I have approval from my CEO to offer what we have to you for open source use.

Bottom line -- how can I help. Agenda was one of the most exciting times of my career and I would love to be a part of its "spiritual successor."

Email for any more info (Chandler people only please).

Posted by: Sonjaya Tandon at November 12, 2002 10:50 AM

Hi

I am new to blogging, word on the street is you are the man to know.

What's the good news?

Posted by: camille jacks at November 27, 2002 07:59 PM

Hi==
I am anxiously awaiting the first available dowmload of Chandler I hope I have subscribed to the oroper news letters to alert me.

I would like to ask about including a"form fill in" feature, such as proided by MemoKeys.
Thanks
Joe Bighorse
Central Texas

Posted by: Joe at December 10, 2002 12:10 PM

Dear Mr. Kapor,

I read the recent blurb, "The Outlook Killer", in the November 2002 issue of Wired Magazine with great interest. I am particularly interested in the implementation of contact management systems in an Open Source environment, and in this case, specifically the "auto-updating address book" feature of Chandler.

About a year ago, having grown frustrated with the limitations of proprietary contact management systems, I launched an initiative called OpenContact on the web, at http://opencontact.org. While the site never quite took off, I still believe OpenContact.org poses some valid expectations and questions for the contact management industry.

Although I may have limited programming experience, I have listened to the complaints of hundreds of small and medium sized businesses who seek a better way to manage their contact information. OpenContact.org represents a wishlist for an Open Source standard of contact management, and Chandler seems to have the potential of fulfilling the front-end role of such a system.

I look forward to learning more about Chandler. Also, Mr. Kapor, if it is possible, I would welcome the opportunity to communicate with you via e-mail. My e-mail address is wlevin@macboy.com

Sincerely,

William Levin

Posted by: William Levin at December 15, 2002 11:49 AM

How much duplication is going on vis-a-vis the open source wxWindows-based Mahogany email client?
http://mahogany.sourceforge.net/

Although Mahogany is C++ wxWindows (not wxPython), their source does technically embed a Python interpreter so they are not against using Python.

I like the Python-at-the-top approach much better, but still, it seems like a lot of duplicated open-source effort. Maybe there is collaboration that I don't know about, please forgive my ignorance if so.

M.

Posted by: Mark Evans at December 16, 2002 05:38 PM

About the security write-up, I do tend to agree with the idea of automatic, on-by-default security. That would be grand.

I have always desired a way to send secure messages to people who do not have GPG. Such as a preliminary note that tells them "you have a secure message," and then some kind of web- or email-based procedure whereby they can view or download the message securely.

Conversely the ability to block non-enciphered messages can be important. Some email accounts should not receive any such messages. Especially in nations where persecution is severe. Human rights activists, freedom movements, and whistleblowers everywhere are helped by encryption.

Some simple initial steps might help the world: making GPG easier to build on non-Unix platforms comes to mind. The GPG folks don't release for Win/Mac as often as they should, because the builds are so hard, I am told. Also, developing or funding better email client GPG plugins would help. The GPG front ends could also use some work. They are buggy.

Whatever you do, please make sure that security like GPG is factored out from the main distro, so that you don't face export restrictions. It would be fine if the program knew where to "fetch" GPG and did so automatically.

OpenPGP is an important standard to support, including digital signatures. Don't support the older NAI PGP. Time for everyone to move on.
http://www.OpenPGP.org

Posted by: Mark Evans at December 16, 2002 05:55 PM

Cool deal..
Is an auto backup on log off or backup schedule in the works.. many non profits need that..
Put me on the beta test list can't write code but I am good am wrecking it (LOL)
A plugin that could do like ghost explorer and extract an archived email etc would be great also.
Keep all the email packrats happy (sigh)

Oz

Posted by: Oz at December 21, 2002 09:07 AM

OpenOffice wants to create a PIM. I've suggested that they think about collaboration with you folks instead. Give them a call.

http://newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=02/10/15/1459259&mode=thread&tid=11

Posted by: Mark Evans at December 21, 2002 12:04 PM

I agree with the author.

Posted by: zip codes at September 6, 2003 02:01 AM

Mr. Kapor,

How I can run Agenda 2.0 with Windows XP Professional. I did install it successfully but I am not able to print from the Agenda. The Agenda is great software and I would like to use it as long as I can.

Best regards,

Mladen Milter

Posted by: Mladen Milter at November 12, 2003 01:09 PM

Please help!!

1) How to make Agenda 2 full screen in XP Home.
2) How to print with Agenda 2 in XP Home.

Please email me if you have any solutions.

Sincerely,

Nelson

NDonley@erusd.k12.ca.us

Posted by: Nelson at July 1, 2004 08:19 PM