I realise with that headline I’m just inviting trouble (!), but GTDInbox has hit a significant milestone. I did not reveal it in the early blog post (about the beta of 2.0.9), but it has actually switched to 2.1’s new core; which has been heavily rewritten to take advantage of some great new techniques. What does this mean? It is noticeably faster, it uses significantly less resources, it should work well with other addons (like RTM), and it is at the height of its (current) functionality, matching anything the original version of GTDInbox could do and much more besides.
Of significant note, we have,
The Return of Hipster Print
Hipster Print is there to help you print out your task lists (and anything else) so you can carry them around. It is easy to use, all you need to do is load your inbox, or do a search (e.g. all Next Actions), and then click the Hipster Print button. It will open a new window with the most recent 100 threads, in a format that is easily printed (using Firefox’s print button).
Multi-Message Preview
The old preview only used to show the latest message on the thread; but you can do cycle up & down through all messages with the Preview box.
Pre-Labelling is Back
Pre-labelling - applying labels to messages as you compose them - is back and totally rewritten. It should now work everytime, and avoid the earlier problems (like re-labelling messages you didn’t want labelled!). The only caveat is that it is set on a timer, so it will not invoke the pre-labelling until ~20 seconds after you’ve sent the message.
Gauge the Magnitude of Tasks in your Inbox
The ‘Review’ drop down will now tell you, at a glance, how many Next Actions, Actions, Waiting On’s, etc. you have in your inbox; saving you the expense of needing to click them to find out.
Plenty of Bug Fixing
All of which have been reported by people in our community, so thank you al! (In particular, Paul Thompson, Frank Schneider, Jack Nelson and Jon Hind - cheers guys). I have to also say a huge thanks to the Gmail team, who have gone out of their way to make Gmail more accessible (and understandable!) for GTDInbox.
So what next?
Well, there will be a minor update to add a Pro version for those who have donated (which will store your settings across machines, and grant you earlier access to updates); followed by 2.1 sometime in August. 2.1 will bring really significant new functionality, to the point that once it is released, I will consider GTDInbox ‘done’, at least for its purpose of managing tasks within your inbox. (Of course, there is still plenty of stuff we can do later, around integrating other services).
And any problems?
The GTDInbox website is a little out of date, as it was written for 2.0. I’ll do a major overhaul for 2.1. There are still threads where the Preview will not work, I’m making a passionate plea to the Gmail team to resolve this; but until then I’m afraid we’ll just have to live with it. Of course, Gmail can still change; but the code is now pretty quick to update (and I can push it out via Mozilla almost instantly), so I hope that while irritating, it is under control.
You can download 2.0.9 from GTDInbox.com!
Jack Fuller Says:
July 26th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Previous install was 2.0.9.b1. When installing the new 2.0.9, I found that Firefox would no longer display my home pages upon launching, and my Bookmarks toolbar was blank! Had to reinstall Firefox, and dropped back to 2.0.9.b1 - which weems to be working OK, as it was. Maybe there is something wrong with the new 2.0.9. Anyone else experiencing this problem? Could it be a conflict with other FF extensions?
Dougal Says:
July 26th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
Congratulations Andy on another release!
I *really* like the drop-down menus for “projects” and “contexts” and the “new label” button. Great use of screen real estate.
However, as a person with as a person with over 20 status labels (lots of sub-labels - some day/maybe lists by topic etc), having all the statuses appear underneath the email header to me looks *really* messy.
How about an *option* where you can instead display statuses as a drop down “status” menu to the left of projects and contexts? To me this would be much more elegant.
Unfortunately, the look of gmail is really important to me and enough to convince me to stick with 2.0.8.4 for the time being, but I’m sure there’ll be a future version of GTDInbox I can live with. Looking forward to 2.1!
(NB: I’ve written a longer post under “feature requests” in the forum.)
Alex Says:
July 26th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Wow this version is great! I really do feel the speed improvement. Can I still go Pro if I donated last year?
Andy Says:
July 27th, 2008 at 5:57 am
@Jack, that sounds like a real pain, and I honestly have no idea why. If you could run 2.0.9b1 I would expect you can run 2.0.9 without problems; as they’re essentially the same (just 2.0.9 has bug fixes). If you’re feeling brave, you could try the 2.0.9 installation again. Feel free to email me if you like!
@Dougal, that’s very interesting; I admit I didn’t anticipate so many status labels! In 2.1 I had planned a better Options screen for controlling the UI, but maybe I should move it forward to 2.0.9.1? I’ve added it to the todo list anyway!
@Alex, really pleased you like the new version, and of course, everyone’s donation is valid so as soon as Pro is hooked up to GTDInbox, I’ll be sending it out to everyone!
Jack Fuller Says:
July 28th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
I was puzzled at the problem myself, as it seemed most unlikely.
I’ll give it a shot! Will advise of results!
Jack Fuller Says:
July 28th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Andy,
I installed 2.0.9 from Firefox, rather than downloading and installing as I had done before. All is well! Thanx for the tip!
Imbo Says:
July 29th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Andy, when you are looking at Dougal’s 2.0.9.1 request, please consider an option to *not* nest the Project and Context labels — it now requires lots of mouse clicking opening various drop-downs, etc. just to apply a few labels. While it may be technically slick programming, I think the old school UI where you could quickly apply the labels is much more in keeping with GTD. I can’t imagine DA would think much about having lots of labels and sub-sub projects.
Clarence Says:
July 30th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
This is terrific! But I have one problem: Hipster Print doesn’t work for me for any Status, such as “Next Action.”
If I click on “Next Action” in the dialog box on the left, the Next Action items appear, as usual. But when I click on Hipster Print, the page that appears says
“Print ‘label:S:Next-Action -label:S:Finished’”
I assume the “-label:S:Finished” has something to do with this.
How do I get Hipster Print to work with Statuses?
Clarence
Andy Says:
July 30th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Hi Clarence,
I’ve just tried to replicate (made ~20 inbox items Next Actions, ran a Review on Next Actions, then did Hipster Print) and it worked :/
Do you want to drop me an email (andy@productivefirefox.com) with details on what you’re using (version of GTDInbox, version of Firefox, etc.); and we’ll see if we can investigate it for the next release.
TY Says:
July 30th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
GTDInbox doesn’t work at all after update. GUI of GTDInbox doesn’t show at all.
Please advise.
Andy Says:
July 31st, 2008 at 3:59 am
TY,
I’ll drop you an email, we should be able to work it out!
José María García Says:
July 31st, 2008 at 8:56 am
Great update!
Definitely I found the new UI better than the older one.
However, I found a problem when using this GTDInbox version along with Gmail Labs “Quick Links” Feature. When I use a saved search on quick links to see my tasks in the context “Work”, and then open a mail from the shown items, the GTDInbox labelling options aren’t be shown. If you could take a look at this it would be great.
Anyway, looking forward to 2.1 improvements
Andy Says:
July 31st, 2008 at 9:16 am
Jose - good find! I know what the problem is; expect to see it patched in 2.0.9.1
matt brandabur Says:
July 31st, 2008 at 1:31 pm
I want to remove hipster print button. how do i do this?
if i have to, i will rip out the entire GTD to get rid of this idiotic button.
Andy Says:
July 31st, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Matt - I suggest you just uninstall GTDInbox, I think it will be easier all round.
José María García Says:
August 1st, 2008 at 5:45 am
Thanks Andy!
BTW, I have found another bug… the Finish button doesn’t seem to do what it is supposed… As the tooltip says, clicking Finish button should remove status labels, mark as read and archive the thread. However, it does not remove status labels (it only removes the star if the thread was labelled as Next Action).
Additionally, I think that Finish button should add the ‘Finished’ label… maybe it would be easier to add the Finished label and let GTDInbox to remove the rest of the labels in case you have chosen the ‘only one label per message’ option.
Cheers!
TY Says:
August 1st, 2008 at 6:12 am
the latest update didn’t work at all. I uninstalled GTDInbox and deleted the relevant lines in pref.js.
After reinstallation, it works now.
Ian Says:
August 1st, 2008 at 8:01 am
The Hipster Print is too near to the delete button - I keep confusing the two.
On the email view the buttons are arranged Archive, Finish, Report Spam, Delete.
On the main view the buttons are arranged Archive, Report Spam, Delete, Hipster Print.
I’m finding the shifting placement of the button unhelpful - anyone else?
Andy Says:
August 1st, 2008 at 8:08 am
Ian - Nathan Sudds had a similar issue, I’ll move the buttons around in 2.0.9.1!
TY - glad you got it working, I wonder what was wrong?
Jose - I’ve emailed you. I can’t replicate that problem