View Single Post
  #27  
Old 12-14-2012, 01:10 PM
schferk schferk is online now
Registered User
 
Join Date: 11-02-2010
Posts: 151
Short update:

Nick Duffill, the man behind ResultsManager, GyroQ and the command list behind GyroQ, GyroActivator, is highly professional, really interested in what he's doing, and a kind guy on top of that (so there's a difference with kinook here, in style at least).

Unfortunately, with GyroQ you are not actually buying a "GyroActivator MM ready-made macro language" or such, since command sequences built with these commands tend to be unreliable: GyroQ is one, handy thing, but don't try to do too much with those macro commands that come with it, you'd lose your time as I did.

This being said, RM is top-notch and not programmed with those (and more) "GA" commands, but it uses the MM API, so here you are to expect reliable, trustworthy functionality - at 295 bucks plus vat it's just too expensive for individual use.

People trying to use MM/MJ for project / administration work... well, I'm not too sure that it's a really good idea here, since the core functionality of any current mm sw is just sub-standard, and so, the overhead of brilliant sw like Duffill's is considerable (as said, update sessions of many minutes 2 times a day, instead of real-time synching of any element in any open map in the network).

But there is that real advantage that mm, for planning and deciding, is unequalled. And then there is the prob that at some time, ideas become "actionables", and within your "actionables", you'll create further ideas, so the alternative of "doing the thinking within the mm sw, and then pouring it all to more PM-suitable sw like UR or such" is not a viable one, since you'd create chaos between your PM elements within the mm sw, and those within the PM sw. (Cf. current MM/MJ - MS Project integration which is strictly one-way!)

As for an intermediate measure, in order to avoid to have spread your "ToDo's" over dozens of maps, you could do a simple AHK (or other external) macro in the form of:

- assign an "action" symbol to the mm topic / element / item (e.g. a symbol for "Phone", for "Today", for "Look up", etc., idem for delegations)

- copy the item

- open your dashboard map (you also can do this with several dashboards, for several main projects; the important point here being, you'll have dozens of maps (each containing a more-or-less "self-contained" micro-subject of your overall project(s)): so don't get a dozen dashboards, on top of these!)

- select the central topic there (here a hint of mine: in MM, this would be the undocumented command control-home!)

- select the respective branch, for "Phone", "Look up", etc. - in MM, this is a real prob (you could do a search, but what a visual fuss that would be!): I solved the problem this way: downarrow (= starting from the selected central topic), then a given amount of "downarrow" repetitions (= the macro "knows", e.g., that the fourth such "downarrow" will reach out for the "Look up" branch (you'll shuffle these main branches around, so that your most frequent target will be only one "downarrow" away))

- do a control-v

- revert back to your original map (by alt-leftarrow, or, unnecessary, by using an AHK variable fed before)

So, this "solution" is far from elegant, and far from being "both-ways", but it solves the main problem of them all: To get all your "actionables" from your dozens of maps into 1, 2 or 3 dashboards to process them from.

From this, you can refine your macro, e.g. by putting the name of the original map into a variable, then by pouring the content of that variable, within the dashboard, into a label attached to that copy (= not clone, unfortunately, as we all know) within the dashboard. Or, much simpler, just add that info to the copy's text: original text: "Blahblahblah", from map "Thisandthat", would become, in the dashboard: "Blahblahblah (from Thisandthat)".

Also, you could refine your macro by changing the original symbol, i.e. the original item would have an icon "x", but that icon would mean, "is to be processed that way, but hasn't yet been processed that way", and the moment you copy it into the dashboard, its icon would be changed to icon "y", meaning the same kind of processing, e.g. "Look up", but also, "has been put into the corresponding dashboard"; this would be a good idea if a map remains within the planning stage for a while, with lots of changes being made, before you then only enter its "actionables" into the respective dashboard.

This is all one-way, meaning when the dashboard "ToDo" has been done, there is no indication of this within the original map, and it goes without saying that technically, a macro backwards would indeed be possible, by going to the respective map (which, remember, we'll have notified with "from Thisandthat" within the copied item in the dashboard), then searching for the corresponding item there (meaning for (unchanged!) text in that item, and then deleting the item, or just changing the symbol, the background color or whatever.

But what a fuss! There isn't any better proof for what I say: Inter-map clones are way overdue! (And I explained above how to realize them on the technical level.)

If it weren't for the superiority of idea finding by mm maps, I would never advocate such a hybrid system; in other words, it's really worth all these unwanted probs... whilst a cloning feature would indeed be tremendously welcome.

If I was allowed just one advice, it'd be:


Separate your thinking / planning / "decisional" (and together with your ToDo) stuff from your "material".


And this would be valid for 100 k of "material" items, or for just 5,000 of them. What you don't bring forward, will be safely buried, most of the time, and any amount of tagging will be of not much help.

Hope we'll get an "integrated hybrid system" instead of all these manual manipulations between incompatible sw's, some day.
Reply With Quote