Doris Blog

After quite a bit of work a new version of DorisDesktop is ready, you can download it here.  While in beta the app will be free.  My plan is to make the desktop version of Doris the most full-featured of all the ways of accessing Doris, it’s where all the new ideas and feature requests will be tested out.

In general I’ve become a bit fed up with web apps, mainly because you have to learn substantially different interfaces with each one.  Desktop apps, especially on the Mac, not only get around this shortcoming, they also allow you to link in directly to some rich resources you use every day:

• your Calendar
• the Address Book
• your Email
• photos and docs

Managing these items on the web is possible, but it’s always more painful.  A desktop app provides the best experience and can sync with the cloud and be just a single click away.

What is DorisDesktop?

It’s just a desktop app that provides an additional, hopefully easier way to get to all the tasks stored in your online Doris account.  It’s main advantages are:

• it launches fast
• it runs in the background and is only one click away
• being on the desktop, you’ll be able to better integrate task management into your existing workflow

What’s new in this version of DorisDesktop

• drag and drop to re-order tasks now works properly (same for groups coming soon)
• you can easily add notes to your tasks
• you can drag URLs from your browser into DorisDesktop and they becomes tasks
• security is improved with passwords now saved to the Keychain
• the login workflow is improved
• the app is globally available from its icon in the menu bar
• interface improvements for adding and deleting tasks
• see the CHANGELOG for the full list of changes, and note the API has been updated

What’s not working yet

• currently you can’t drag & drop to re-order groups
• nor can you drag tasks into different groups, this is planned for the next release
• one-click access to bring DorisDesktop to the foreground no matter what you’re doing – to get this working I need to do some more work to be able to record keyboard shortcuts

Bugs

One bug I’ve discovered is if you drag to re-order, and in the process drag your task outside the task list, eg, into the groups list, the app thinks it’s a URL, I’ll fix this for the next release.  Also, in some cases the task list and note description doesn’t update properly, this will be fixed.

Keyboard shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts are supported for all the basic features:

• <spacebar> to add a new task to the current group
• <enter> to edit the current task
• <backspace> to delete the current task
• <cmd> , to launch Doris’ prefs, currently where your can login

Feedback

As always I’d love to hear your feedback, either here in the comments, at Uservoice, or just shoot me an email to support@dorisapp.com.  I’ve updated the Doris Uservoice account with the tasks that have been completed.  According to their overview my feedback isn’t looking too bad.

Thanks to a friend was just turned me on to Quantified Self, a site dedicate to exploring tools and technologies for tracking your activity, goals and productivity.

Colin Schiller – Time Management Experiments from Steve Dean on Vimeo.

Peter Robinett – Quantifiying productivity from Quantified Self Amsterdam on Vimeo.

I’ve also made some good progress on the next update to DorisDesktop. You can now drag and drop URLs to your task list, and re-ordering tasks is almost done. A new release will be ready within a week or 2.

By way of an early Christmas present, please check out DorisDesktop, a Mac desktop version of Doris.  The main selling point is it’s much faster than all the other clients, around 10x faster.  So if you have a huge todo list, DorisDesktop is for you.

This is a very early version so only basic functionality is available for now, more features planned soon.

Please download the app and give it a try, and let me know what you think.

This version is only for Mac users I’m afraid.

Recommended reading

• What’s your coding APM? – amix.dk – Again my bias for programming is coming out, but this is a really neat OS X app for capturing your actions/min
• Make Your Business Card Stand Out – Forbes.com – Don Crowther thinks you should put your picture on your business card. Not only that, but he wants you to include a mini-résumé, your Twitter handle and some sort of special offer that entices each recipient to get in touch
• 10 Tricks for Improving Your Memory – One of the keys to productivity is in fact a good memory – here are some interesting tips, but take the girlfriend talk with a grain of salt

I thought this was a great visualisation of a day’s activities, what do you think?

via Journalism in the Age of Data

Recommended reading

• SteveStreeting.com » Blog Archive » Work 2.0 – the interruptible programmer – More for the programmer inclined, some great productivity tips
• Best In Class: Developer Productivity – The Red Pill – Some good productivity tips – dev focused
• agreeAdate meeting and event scheduler : home – This is a great free app for agreeing a date for a meeting between multiple participants. Especially useful for those cases where you have a LOT of people who can never agree on a date. Give it a try!

We just moved the dorisapp.com domain to a new provider, and next step is to switch over the DNS. I’m hoping it will go without any interruptions to service but it’s possible there may be some hiccoughs.

The switchover is planned for Friday at midnight, UK time, so hopefully any interruptions to service will happen over the weekend and cause as little disruption as possible.

I expect the Doris service to be fully back to normal by the end of the weekend, ie by midnight, Sunday July 11th.

Thanks for your patience.

Thanks to all the users who wrote in about the Doris crashes after updating to iOS4, a new binary was uploaded to the App Store last night and should be with you shortly! Thanks for your patience.

March was a good month for Doris reviews – here are 3 substantial ones I spotted that appeared on March 2010

• A Look into the Minimalist Productivity Application Doris
• Doris – A Minimalist Productivity App for the Task Masters
• Geek Tip: Get Things Done With Doris

Thanks guys for the positive feedback!

A very inspiring piece that suggests that artists and small businesses creating their own products actually only need about 1000 true fans to generate a decent revenue.