Download GTDInbox Alpha 9 from http://www.gtdinbox.com/3/
This is not your average blog post… you’ll no doubt be aware that Gmail has released a fairly major new feature, and I believe that has royally broken 2.x.
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This has slightly screwed with our timeline. We’re doing a bit of a juggling act between contracting to bring the pennies in, and getting 3.0 to Beta - the bottom line being we were not quite ready to discontinue 2.x but I suspect migration to 3.0 will be the best choice for a lot of people.
So if this is your first foray into the world of GTDInbox 3.0 Alpha (alpha for “it’s really not quite finished yet”), welcome! As a quick introduction, 3.0 is a complete rewrite to be way more flexible (lots of new features coming), faster (!), more stable (!!), and far more useable. The problem with a rewrite is that some features have yet to be reintroduced, and it’s not yet bug free.
If you want a quick catch up, I recommend:
* The post that kicked this all off, Unveiling GTDInbox 3.0 Alpha 1
* A more up to date, Our Plans for the Next Few Versions
* A behind the scenes look at How and Why We Work
* Oh, and we are on Twitter, which we use for the smaller updates that are not blog worthy -> GTDInbox @ Twitter
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Back to this new Alpha 9…
We have finally restored the Preferences, this means you can change your prefixes (i.e. you are not forced to use S/ and P/) and your default labels (such as ‘Action’). There’s not much in the way of help yet; so I only recommend you change this if you used to do it back in GTDInbox 2.x. Oh, and the Preferences are now in Firefox, go to the ‘Tools’ menu, then ‘Addons’, find GTDInbox, and click ‘Options’.
Pre-Labelling is back on the Compose screen! It’s a little intermittent right now, but I’ll track down the problems for the next release.
It works on the final release of Firefox 3.5! And it’s *fast*.
To save space, the Dashboard/Label/Contact popup now puts threads on a single line, like Gmail does.
And most crucially, how do we handle Gmails’ new Labels UI? Well, in the sidebar GTDInbox Box, there is a line for each category of labels (Projects, Contexts, Misc, etc. -> may be hidden behind a dropdown arrow). If you mouse over these, they pop out with nicely structured labels. We no longer try to modify Gmail’s own Labels UI (it got very complicated/breakable when they introduced drag and drop); but we may look at supporting drag and drop on our own labels.
Big question here… if you can no longer do something as effectively as you used to, let me know what that is and I will see what I can do.
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As this is still an Alpha and I’ve had to release it a little faster than would have been desirable, there are some known issues,
1) As above, the Pre-Label on Compose screen is a little intermittent
2) When you open up Labels via the dropdown (e.g. in the blue Labelling box), and click the scroll bar, it disappears.
3) The new single-line messages in the Popup do not always display correctly.
4) There are some broken spots in the user interface - things need to be more obvious (like using the correct mouse pointer to indicate its clickable).
5) I’ve just realised Options does not appear to be enabled in Firefox 3.5… I will try and find out why.
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If you have any problems getting it to load, please check out:
Diagnosing Load Problems
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Download GTDInbox Alpha 9 from http://www.gtdinbox.com/3/
Expect those bugs to start getting addressed in the next few days.
(Oh, and thanks to Sam Katakouzinos who was actually the first to post a helpful message to the forum about the new 3.0! Thanks Sam!)
Sam Katakouzinos Says:
July 2nd, 2009 at 6:55 am
You’re very welcome Andy!
Nice to assist those that create something that makes my life manageable.
Regards,
Sam Katakouzinos.
David Sarnowski Says:
July 2nd, 2009 at 7:58 am
Andy,
Thanks so much for the quick and thorough updates. The link for 3.09alpha takes you to the page for 2.0.11 on Mozilla. Just wanted to let you know.
Thank you again for all you do!
Dave
Susan Penter Says:
July 2nd, 2009 at 9:20 am
Hi Andy,
) however whereas in the last version the labels were still nicely nested they are no longer nested in version 9. Interestingly the Gmail label move didn’t happen until I upgraded to version 9 I guess the previous version over ruled it?!
I’ve updated to 9 (as I always like to have the latest
Of course the GTD inbox panel takes care of the status’ but it would save space if the rest of the labels could still next.
I know there is a load to do so of course this is a non urgent future request.
Andy Says:
July 2nd, 2009 at 9:23 am
Hi Susan,
In that sidebar box/panel, if you look below the Statuses, you should see a ‘Projects’ text. If you mouse over this, it should pop out with all your labels neatly nested.
Can you see it?
Alain Says:
July 2nd, 2009 at 10:05 am
Hi
first of all, keep the good work up. Thanks!
I just migrated from 2.x to 3.
Bug:
My Problem: I was not able to access the settings via add ons. The “options” button is just gray.
My Solution:
- about:config
- manually change extensions.gtdinbox.account_default; and extensions.gtdinbox.account_prefs
- restart firefox
I use A/ for Status and Zold/ for old to have them at top and at bottom of the conventional Google UI.
Question / Feature Request
- I’d like a possibility to set the size of the dashboard. It seams like a very good new function, but its just to small, my screens big…
PS: On an other issue, I just installed meetimer (like the idea), on about:config it trows an error: (not really one I care about
“MeeTimer createFNewPage
[Exception… “Component returned failure code: 0×80004005 (NS_ERROR_FAILURE) [nsIDOMLocation.hostname]” nsresult: “0×80004005 (NS_ERROR_FAILURE)” location: “JS frame :: chrome://meetimer/content/MeeTimer.js :: anonymous :: line 228″ data: no]”
Peyton Stafford Says:
July 2nd, 2009 at 11:29 am
Hi Andy,
I’m glad you already had a working version of GTDInbox 3 when Google changed their labeling system, last night. I upgraded Firefox to 3.5 and upgraded GTDInbox, this morning. The whole process took about an hour, including playing with all the features and reading your FAQ. I’m back in business, now. Thanks, so much, for all your work.
Best,
Peyton
Alan Schwartz Says:
July 2nd, 2009 at 11:57 am
I also can’t access Tools..Add-ons..GTD Inbox…Options. Grayed out. This is FF 3.0.11.
Andy Says:
July 2nd, 2009 at 12:02 pm
Ok, thanks guys - I think I may have made a rookie error on the Options… I may not have linked them in on the release. Very embarrassing
Will try and get another alpha out in the next 24…
Robert Says:
July 2nd, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Thanks again Andy, you have saved my bacon (and whatever hair I have left on top of my head). The new Gmail stuff totally hosed the 2.x version to the point I could do nothing with my mail. Popped over and got the 3.alpha8 version and was back in business (rough corners and all). About the only thing I noticed to nit pick was the speed of doing label changes. Clicking “Finished” would then add that label, remove any other status labels, and then archive the mail - which is how it should work - but it took a number of seconds for each step to process. Was going to just leave this comment, but saw the alpha9 release and will now try it to see how things go. BTW, running FF3.5 now.
Robert Says:
July 2nd, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Um…Where is 3.0a9? The download link above points back to 3.0a81 and the faq (http://www.gtdinbox.com/3/faq.htm#qinstall) points to 3.0a2.
Andy Says:
July 2nd, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Hi Robert, it should be there… try and refresh on that page; and if it’s not still there drop me an email!
Zalkind Says:
July 2nd, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Andy,
I had to install the 3 version due to new gmail.
The interface is astonishing.
Congratulations, wonderfull job.
Narasimhan Says:
July 2nd, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Hi Andy,
First of all, thanks for your continuing efforts at providing a GTD implementation integrated into Gmail.
I was using 2.0.11 and this change in labels by Google is a big blow.
Coming to the point: Though the nested labels are now available in Alpha 9, its still not possible to right-click on a Context and look for Next Actions or Actions etc. The right-click menus were very valuable in 2.x and would be, IMHO, a must-have in future versions.
with best regards,
Narasimhan
Aaron Says:
July 2nd, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Hi Andy,
I finally got around to installing 3.0 this morning when Gmail updated the labeling system. Fantastic! Keep up the great work!
Ahma Says:
July 5th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Awesome! What a great feel. You probably already know about this but in the rare event that you don’t, when you hover over the reference label you get a list of al you references that you can click on, but the box comes up too far to the right and by the time you drag your mouse over to click on one of the labels, it disappears…
Robert Says:
July 6th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Hey Andy,
Sorry, had to do my July 4th stuff - BBQ, blow things up, etc… - but I was able to find the 3.0a9 version. Install went OK, and things are looking good. Speed is better than 3.0a8, though I’d prefer to have my “Finish” button first, then the “Archive” button like it was in 3.0a8. Not much of a quibble and I can live with it as is now.
Best,
Robert
Katy Says:
July 6th, 2009 at 9:17 pm
hey there,
i just downloaded the newest version of gtd…
and all my labels are in a Misc “folder”,
rather then in the original “folder” i had them in:
ie. 2008 or 2009 — these show up under Misc
i don’t like it - can the misc be removed?
Daniel Says:
July 7th, 2009 at 6:31 am
Updated to FF 3.5. GTD inbox works with shva=1! But still no preferences, even with Alpha9.
Gary Says:
July 7th, 2009 at 7:16 am
1. Just got a beta version of Google Gears from the gears user group, when loaded then the GTDInbox box on the left does not appear. Hopefully when the official Gears appears this will be better behaved. Especially as I want to use the offline support with GTDInbox.
2. I know it’s alpha, etc. etc. but the “GTDInbox Support” and “The GTDInbox Workflow” take you to pages that offer to down load version 3.0a2 !?! You should at least turn those into links to the page that has the current alpha.
3. Please provide a way to make the boxes that appear at the top of read and composing mail smaller. When working on my notebook this simply takes up too much space. Having to scroll down before I can do any real work seems antithetical to the purposes of GTDInbox.
4. Great tool, you have my full sympathy as you attempt to develop new features but have to try to keep up with all the changes Google throws at you.
Philip GILMAN Says:
July 7th, 2009 at 10:59 am
Hi,
One suggestion for those with load problems is to use the link http://mail.google.com/mail/?labs=0#inbox which turns all labs off. Then, you can refresh the normal Gmail link and the GTD functions should be there.
Also, I also don’t have “options” available. In order to migrate from older ver I had to change all my labels to the defaults which threw off some of my special filters and email addresses. Btw, I use “!” for statuses, “.” for Projects and “@” for contexts.
Thx for the great work!
Philip
Andy Says:
July 8th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Alain - That was a good tip, I think people will have found that useful
Robert - I will make that an option.
Gary - good call on the out of date pages
Will keep on top.
Philip - A great tip for labs=0, I will add that to the FAQ / diagnosis.