It’s no secret that I think GTDInbox and RememberTheMilk work well together, with GTDInbox providing much needed structure and faster handling to the inbox; and RememberTheMilk for general tasks.
However, it seems our two addons fight over the same bit of territory in Gmail. Prior to 2.0.7, that meant GTDInbox lost out, and for affected users Preview/AutoLabel would not work. I thought I’d fixed it in 2.0.7, and indeed, I made GTDInbox more stable; but broke RTM in the process.
I’ve emailed RTM several times to try and resolve this. GTDInbox is open source, but RTM encrypts their code. Therefore I’m very much fighting the issue blind. Unfortunately, right now RTM do not wish to let me look at their code, or nor does it seem fixing the issue is a high priority for them. I hope this will change, but regardless, with the release of an improved Gmail API all problems should vanish anyway.
In the meantime, as of 2.0.8 (coming soon) I’ve added a new option to GTDInbox. You will be able to choose whether GTDInbox is dominant (and more stable); or whether it plays second fiddle to other addons, making them more likely to work; but at the expense of possibly losing the Preview/AutoLabel features.
I apologise again for the slower rate of development, I still have another few weeks of intense client work - but I managed to squeeze in time over the weekend; so I hope to get the next release out this week!
Update 28/04/2008
John Wilson, a well-known former London VC has a more personal take on this situation over at Remember The Milk’s Gone Sour
Glenn Says:
April 27th, 2008 at 11:32 am
Good to hear (except for the RTM folk being “reticent” to work at resolving issues). Fortunately, I’ve been running RTM for Gmail in a Gmail account that I don’t much use for email–I mean, as a “system for management” of email RTM is virtually useless; it’s great for tasks, and you can adapt email somewhat to help manage tasks, but that’s not really the same thing as managing email.
Yep, I always knew those multiple Gmail accounts would come in handy some day. ;D
Schoonzie Says:
April 27th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
Hey Andy,
Thanks for the update. I’ve been using GTDInbox 2.0.7 and the RTM plugin for Gmail fine for the last week. The only issue I’ve noticed is that RTM seems to always think it’s not logged in, but when I click “Refresh” it works and all my tasks appear.
I’m using Firefox 3b5.
Nick
Alan Swartz Says:
April 27th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
I have the same experience as Nick. I have to keep hitting the the refresh link to see the tasks. I hope RTM will choose to work with you!
Todor Says:
April 28th, 2008 at 2:03 am
Good news, Andy! Thanks for the update on the issue.
It is a good news that you plan to roll out a new version of GTD. I plan to make a review about your plugin in one of my blogs, so most probably the new features you plan to make will be mentioned in it.
As far as RTM is concerned, once I managed to completely remove the problem but after browser restart I started experiencing absolutely the same problems like Nick (Schoonzie), who commented above me.
Have a great day!
Paul Thompson Says:
April 28th, 2008 at 10:39 am
Hey Andy - thanks for your continued hard work looking into this issue and for working on GTDInbox in general. It is a great tool and it is a shame that some project teams such as RTM do not value the need for collaboration and cooperation.
I do hope this changes and the difficulty can be resolved.