Wishing You a Happy Holiday Season!

The holidays are a very special time of year for all of us. MyLifeOrganized Team would like to share the following great news with our community for this Holiday Season.

MyLifeOrganized for iPhone - multi-select and … import Custom Views from desktop!

Our beta testers have already received the new MLO-iPhone build with the following new functionality:
1) Multi-select - select several tasks and perform an operation on the selection.
2) Export your custom views on Desktop and import them to your MLO-iPhone device to see the same filtered task list. Yes! This long awaited functionality has been implemented by our team and I would like to share this news with you! :-) I must say it was not easy to do but we wanted to make our users happy before this Holiday Season. The same feature will be also added to our new applications on iPad and Android. It will make MyLifeOrganized even more powerful not only on desktop but also on all your devices.

MyLifeOrganized Cloud is much faster now.

We’ve improved our Cloud sync service. You can find the details about our recent improvements in MLO-Cloud here.

MyLifeOrganized for iPad with … a CALENDAR VIEW!

As you know we are working on new generation of MLO-iPad v.2. I would like to let you know that another long awaited functionality, the Calendar View, is planned for MLO-iPad v.2. I’m considering this as another small present from our team to our users. Look how we designed this functionality and let us know if you like it. We hope all iPad users (and later users of other devices) will find this new function very useful.

Calendar View in MLO-iPad v.2

Subscribe to get the news about MLO-iPad v.2 development.

MyLifeOrganized for Android

The great news for all MLO-Android users. We’ve already started our work on redesigning MLO-Android and adding all new functionality we implemented for MLO-iPhone to MLO-Android.

Subscribe to get the news about MLO-Android v.2 development.

You can apply for the Android Beta testing by filling this form.


We hope you liked the news and we wish you a very Happy Holiday Season!


Andrey
MyLifeOrganized Team
Like us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/mylifeorganized

MyLifeOrganized old iPhone version will be removed from the App Store

The old version of MyLifeOrganized for iPhone v.1 will be removed from the App Store on December 14, 2013. If you’re not planning on updating to our brand new MyLifeOrganized for iPhone v.2 or need the old version for any reason, you will want to install the old app before the specified date.

We will remove the old version of MyLifeOrganized for iPad v.1 from the App Store two weeks after we release our brand new version MyLifeOrganized for iPad v.2. As we announced earlier, all current customers of MyLifeOrganized for iPad v.1 will have a discount to upgrade to the new Pro version of MyLifeOrganized for iPad v.2.

We are fully focused now on MyLifeOrganized for iPhone v2 and MyLifeOrganized for iPad v2. You can subscribe to the release news for MLO-iPad v2 here.

MLO Team

MyLifeOrganized Cloud Sync Service Performance Improvements

MyLifeOrganized development team has invested to the improvements of the performance and stability for our MLO-Cloud sync service. We have optimized the servers architecture.

As a result the sync process for the regular operations is almost 2 times faster for me now. Let me give you some numbers for my current connection:

1) Getting ~750 tasks from cloud to a new file in MLO Windows

old: 6.16 sec

new: 4.95 sec

2) Complete 10 tasks on MLO for Windows and sync to cloud

old: 6.3 sec

new: 2.95 sec

3) Check cloud for modifications (if no modifications)

old: 2.4 sec

new: 1.61 sec

4) Putting ~750 new tasks from MLO Windows to the new file on Cloud

old: 28.09 sec

new: 15.01 sec

Hope you will enjoy the new performance of MLO Cloud Sync Service!

Andrey and MLO Cloud Team.

MyLifeOrganized for iPhone - Conflicts, Passcode, Magic Navigation Arrow and more

The new big update of MyLifeOrganized for iPhone will be released to the beta testers very soon. If you would like to take part in the beta testing of this new update with new cool features before the public release please fill this form.

The following features will be added to the next update.

Profile Link

The current profile is displayed in the bottom of the home screen. You can switch your profiles quickly by clicking this link.

Link to change profile quickly

Indent and outdent new tasks with Space and Backspace

This new feature will allow you to create your outline structure very quickly. As you know after you have entered the title for you new task and while the keyboard is still open you can click Return button to create another sibling task. In the new version if you click Return and then  Space button (before typing the title of new task) the task will be indented. As a result the task will be converted to the subtask. If you click Backspace before typing the title the task will be move to the left position. Try this in the new version and I am sure you will like it!

Move for Tasks in the Task Preview Dialog

In the new version you can move a task to any outline position very quickly. Just click the new Move Task button in the task preview dialog.

Move Tasks

Then new window with the list of all your projects and goals will be opened. Click any listed task for move.

List of projects and goals in move dialog.

You can also find any task to move to by typing its name in the filter input on this dialog:

Filter tasks in move dialog.

Now click the new parent and then click Move Task. After the task is moved you can click Down button in the Task Preview dialog to select other task and move it. This is especially useful when process tasks in Inbox.

The tasks which were last used in the move dialog are stored in the recent section for your quick access.

Lock Your MLO Profiles With a Passcode

In the new version you will be able to protect your MLO-iPhone profiles with passcodes.

Passcode for MLO profiles

Each profile in MLO-iPhone may have its own passcode. You can select if it should be a simple passcode (4 digits) or complicated password. You can also select a delay before MLO locks your profile after usage.

Note: it is not possible to restore your passcode if you ever forget it. So please use with caution.

Conflict Resolution

We already mentioned that  we've completely redesigned the automatic sync conflict resolution algorithm so that you have fewer conflicts during sync. However the conflicts are still possible. For example you can edit notes for the same task on different devices before syncing them to the cloud. In older releases one of the versions of your notes will be lost after the sync. In the new version we have added the User Interface for the conflict resolution. You will be able to see the list of conflicts, identify the values which were rejected during automatic resolution and restore lost data if needed.

Sync conflict notification

The history of all values for the conflicted field

I plan to prepare a separate detailed post about the conflict resolution later.

Magic Navigation Button

Now I would like to tell you about something really special. Something I personally like very much. It is a single navigation button which will help you to navigate in your long outlines. The idea is simple but very powerful. Let me explain.

Navigation Arrow

Notice the new arrow in the toolbar pointing to the left. Very often you would like to know what is the parent of the selected task. When you click this new arrow it will jump directly to the parent of the selected task:

Parent of the selected task

The parent of the task Projects that I want to-do was not visible on the screen initially. With a single click you found this parent even in the long outline. But this is not all we have. Click this button again and the selected task will be collapsed showing you its sublings:

Collapse of the task

Why we called this button "magic"? Because it works depending on the current state of the outline and selection. If you select a task and then scroll the outline so that the selection is not visible, the magic arrow will be ready to help you and show where is your selected task in the outline now:

The selected task is located below the screen.

On this picture you see that the arrow is now pointing to the location of the selected task. Now if you click the magic navigation button in this state it will find the selected task for you and bring it into the view:

Selected task found

Now you can click again to collapse it, find its parent etc.

The Magic Navigation Button is new Pro feature of the application.

I am using this button several days already in the private beta and really-really like how it helps me to navigate in the long outlines! Hope you will like it also :-)


The new release will be available to the beta testers soon. If you would like to help us in the private beta testing and share your ideas before the public release please fill this form to join the beta team.


Thanks,
Andrey.
MyLifeOrganized.net

MyLifeOrganized for iPhone ver. 2.0 Released

We are excited to announce that MyLifeOrganized for iPhone ver. 2.0 has been released and already available on the App Store for free download. Initially we planned the release in September but decided to make it earlier to show you what is already done and to release the updates later.

More about MLO-iPhone:
http://mylifeorganized.net/products/my-life-organized/iPhone-todo-list.htm

Below are some new features already available which I did not mention in my initial post about MLO-iPhone v.2.

1. Search

 Fast search-as-you-type for any part of the word in task title, notes or context.

Search in MLO-iPhone v.2

2. Review

When it is time for the task preview a button will be shown to mark it reviewed in the task preview dialog.

Task Review

3. Reminder with snooze

We implemented snooze for reminders. When it is time for a reminder the buttons to control reminder's activity will be shown on the task preview dialog.

Snooze for reminder. Hold for more snooze options.

Features not released yet.

The following features are postponed and will be released in future updates:
1) Custom views
2) UI for conflict resolution
4) Protection with a pin code
5) Copy/Cut/Paste commands
and more!
UPDATE 4/20/2014: All listed features already added to MLO v. 2.6.0+.

 

The upgrade procedure

MLO-iPhone v.2 is released as new app in free/pro model. You can install MLO-iPhone v.2 for free.  Once the app started the Pro mode is selected for your trial. Most of MLO-iPhone v.2 features are FREE forever. However you may want to upgrade to continue using some advanced features after 45-day Pro trial expires. You can import your existing MLO data to the new app using MLO-Cloud or WiFi from MLO for Windows. Since MLO-iPhone v.2 is a new application you can use it in parallel with MLO-iPhone v.1 if needed.

Discount for MLO-iPhone v.1 users.

We agreed with Apple to allow all our registered users of MLO-iPhone v.1 to purchase the MLO-iPhone v.2  Pro with 50% discount. If you already purchased MLO-iPhone v.1 you should install v.1 on your device together with new MLO-iPhone v.2 (re-installing apps from the AppStore is free if you already purchased an app). When you open the upgrade dialog in MLO-iPhone v.2 your MLO-iPhone v.1 is detected on your phone and discount is offered. IMPORTANT: existing v.1 users may even choose their own price to upgrade to MLO-iPhone v.2 Pro depending on how much you liked this new major update.

We are offering free cloud sync for your app review.

We are currently offering 3-month MLO-Cloud subscription for free to anyone who writes a review in App Store for MLO-iPhone v.2 even if your review is not positive :-) It is a limited time offer.

To get your free cloud subscription:
1) Write a review for MLO-iPhone v.2 mentioning what you like and what you want to be improved. To write a review click "Review" link in MLO-iPhone About dialog.
2)  Write email to support@mylifeorganized.net with subject "MLO-iPhone Review FREE Cloud"
3) In the email provide your review and your nick.
4) We will respond to your email with MLO-Cloud subscription/renew code. 
There may be significant delay if you do not set exact subject for your email: "MLO-iPhone Review FREE Cloud"


Note: we are offering free cloud even if your review is not positive!

Thanks!

Andrey Tkachuk
MyLifeOrganized

MyLifeOrganized for iPhone ver. 2.0

I would like to announce the upcoming release of MyLifeOrganized for iPhone version 2.0. This is the first major upgrade for MLO on iPhone and here I want to list the main features of this release. Subscribe to the announcement about the release date.  

Outline in MLO-iPhone v.2

Home screen with views

1. Designed completely from the ground up to support modern technologies.

We’ve completely removed the old C++ code we used initially in MLO-iPhone v.1 to port MLO from Windows Mobile platform to the young iPhone platform.  The new code is completely native now to make MLO faster, more robust and to support the new technologies and new platforms from Apple. With new architecture it is easier to use the new modern controls and release the updates with new features faster.

2.    Improved navigation with real Outline

The task navigation in MLO-iPhone v.2 is completely Outline style now. You can create tasks, subtasks and see them on the screen in the same time, expanding or collapsing the branches.

Drag & Drop to move tasks

3. New Look&Feel

Our goal was to design MLO-iPhone v.2 with lightweight and easy to navigate style so that the most important information is presented to you in the most convenient way.

4.    The auto-sync is fully automated!

The sync with MLO-Cloud is completely automated now. All your changes are instantly in sync with MLO-Cloud and MLO4 for Windows connected to MLO-Cloud.  It is not needed to click Sync button again and again on iPhone.

5.    The sync process is completely in background.

You can edit your tasks and even not notice that there is sync in progress. The changes will be merged instantly. This was the hardest part of the new design in MLO-iPhone application. The structure of MLO is very complex and user can change the task outline significantly before background sync finishes.  The simplest way was to block UI and not allow changes from users during sync. However we decided to improve this functionality and you will be able to see how it works very soon. 

6.   New conflict resolution – less conflicts.

 We’ve completely redesigned the automatic sync conflict resolution algorithm so that you have fewer conflicts during sync. For example if you change the title of a task on one side and the due date of the same task on the other side there will be no conflicts after the sync now. The data will be merged automatically. If you do change the title on both sides MLO will resolve this conflict for you and you could review this resolution later and fix it if needed. We have spent many developing hours to support the background sync and conflict auto merge and I really like the results we achieved!

Conflict resolution

7.    More predefined views added

We’ve implemented a new view creation mechanism inside MLO-iPhone v.2 and now it is easier to add new views. The initial release will contain more predefined views added with this mechanism. Later we will use this mechanism to allow users to create their own custom views (see below).

8.   Custom views – in next updates after release

 In the next updates after the initial release you will be able to create custom views. The outline filtering will be implemented the same way it works in MLO for Windows now. We are already testing this functionality internally.

9.    You can customize the appearance of your outline.

You can configure how items should be shown in the outline. You can select the number of lines, text size and elements to show.

Configure appearance

More tasks visible with compact settings

10.    Workspaces (tabs)

Workspaces have been added to MLO mobile app! You can create different workspaces and switch between them quickly like between tabs. The different workspaces may contain different views, zoom and search results. The workspaces are very useful to manage complex outlines with many tasks.

Workspaces (tabs)

11.    Task preview dialog (the same as on Android)

You can look at your task details summary on task preview dialog.

Task Preview

12.    Undo/Redo your changes

Just click Undo to revert your latest changes in MLO-iPhone v.2

Commands in toolbar

13.    The upgrade procedure

MLO-iPhone v.2 will be released as new app in free/pro model (like MLO-Android). Most of MLO-iPhone v.2 features are FREE forever. However you may want to upgrade to continue using some advanced features after 45-day Pro trial expires. You can import your existing MLO data to the new app using MLO-Cloud or WiFi from MLO for Windows. Since MLO-iPhone v.2 is a new application you can use it in parallel with MLO-iPhone v.1 if needed.

14.    Discount for MLO-iPhone v.1 users.

We are working with Apple to allow all registered users of MLO-iPhone v.1 to purchase the MLO-iPhone v.2  Pro with 50% discount. The other idea was to even allow registered users to choose their own price for the upgrade. Let’s see what Apple responds.  We plan that to use the discount for MLO-iPhone v.2 the previous app MLO-iPhone v.1 should be installed on your device.

15. We are offering free cloud sync for your app review.

After the release we will offer 3-month MLO-Cloud subscription for free to anyone who writes a review in App Store for MLO-iPhone v.2 even if this review is not positive :-) 
It will be a limited time offer.

We are already preparing the beta release of MLO-iPhone v.2 to the selected beta testers. Our current plan is September for the release to the App Store.

I think this is the best MLO mobile application our team ever created!

Subscribe to our mailing list to be the first to know about our release to the App Sore. 

Thanks,
Andrey.
MyLifeOrganized.net

MyLifeOrganized Development Tasks Tracked in MLO

Many people ask me how I use MyLifeOrganized. So I wanted to post a quick screenshot from my current MLO file where I store development tasks. 

Currently this file contains ~7000 tasks divided by small projects (features) and releases. The tabs are configured to show different views like task selected for the next iterations. I use flags to group tasks for different iterations. Sorry for the mix of English and Russian on the screenshot since I use both languages in the same time :)

For my personal life I use another MLO file which is synchronized via MLO-Cloud. My wife Katrin and I are also sharing a separate file for shopping via MLO-Cloud. Thus Katrin can add the shopping items on her iPhone, sync this list to the cloud and I can use this list on my phone in a supermarket.

Thanks!

Andrey Tkachuk
MyLifeOrganized

MyLifeOrganized v4.1 - Tab Icons and More

Recently we published a new update for MyLifeOrganized Windows. 

More than 120 small and big "internal" changes have been added to MLO v.4.1 to improve the stability and user experience. And as always the beta team has done an excellent job proposing and testing the new features and fixes. I really like our beta team!! :)  Thank you!
What was added to this new release: icons in tabs, hotkeys for tabs, delayed dependency ("show task in 3 days after other tasks completed"), lock tabs and more. The full change log can be found here:
http://mylifeorganized.net/products/my-life-organized/change-log.htm




Below I will describe the main changes in this new update.

1. Icons for tabs

 This was one of the most asked feature. With the icons on the tabs MLO looks even better now:

The icons for tabs are most useful when used on pinned tabs.

To assign an icon for the tab:
1. Right click on a Workspace tab
2. From the menu select "Assign icon":
  Current view icon - the tab icon will be always the same as the icon of the selected view
  Custom icon - the selected custom icon will be always visible
  No icon - there will be no icon for this tab

 

 2. Assign tab hotkey and hotkeys conflict detection

Assign hotkeys to quickly select the tab.

To select a hotkey for the tab

1. Right click on a Workspace tab
2. Select "Assign hotkey" from the menu
3. Press a hotkey for this tab and click "Assign hotkey"

If this hotkey is already assigned to other operation you will see a warning.

3. Hints for pinned tabs and tabs with long titles

If a tab is pinned or its title is too long, you will see a hint with the full title when the mouse hovers over it.

4. Delayed dependency

As you already know you can set dependencies for the tasks in MLO. There can be tasks in the outline which cannot be started until some tasks from other branches are completed. To prevent a task from being shown in the To-Do list in the Active Actions view until other tasks are completed, you can add these tasks to the Dependencies section for the task you want to block.

In MLO v4.1 we have added delayed dependency to this feature. If delay is set together with dependency then after the dependency tasks are completed, the task will continue to be inactive for the delay period you have specified. After the delay is over, the task will be shown in the To-Do list. For example, you can see the task "Hang wallpaper" activated in 1 day after you completed the dependency task "Paint the door" to have time for the paint to dry before you start hanging the wallpaper.


To set Delayed Dependency
1. Set dependency for a task
2. In the field Delay set the time to delay the activation of the task after the dependency tasks are completed

Note: if all tasks need to be completed to open the dependency (option ALL set) then the delay will count from the time of the last task completed. If ANY option is set for the dependency then the delay will count from the time of the first task completed in the dependency list.

5. Action status in inspector to explain why task is inactive

Android users already know this feature in our MLO-Android app and many people asked us to add this feature to the Windows client also. Now it is easy to know why a task is inactive (not visible in the Active Actions view) - just look at its action status in Task Statistics section.

 6. New sync configuration dialog

I like this new dialog to connect to the MLO Cloud :)

 

7. Lock default settings for tab

With the tab command "Lock default in this tab" you can lock the default settings so they cannot be changed for the tab. A new tab is created if you try to change the settings of the locked tab (view, zoom etc).
 
There was a long discussion on the beta forum on whether we need this feature in MLO. I personally was not sure, since we already had the "Restore default" command for the tab. But the beta team provided very good arguments to include this feature in MLO and it has been eventually added to MLO v4.1

Here is the post from Dwight with explanations why we need it:
http://mlo.uservoice.com/forums/9235-general/suggestions/3678179-lock-a-tabbed-workspace-to-a-specific-view

This is one of the examples when MLO Beta team really influences the development of MyLifeOrganized.

 

8. Changes in auto-archiving

Starting from MLO v.4.1 auto-archiving old completed tasks will not archive the subtasks from open Projects and open Recurrence tasks anymore. You need to complete a project or recurrent task before archiving their subtasks.
Below are the reasons which Dwight summarized in his post on the beta forum after Dmitry raised this problem one more time on the beta forum.
 

The answer is to enable the user to prevent the archiving of tasks that are in a hierarchy below an incomplete project or a repeating task. We have discussed this several times before, and you can now add Dmitry to the list of people who are troubled by this.
...To recap, the problems users encounter when they don’t get this right are:

1.       Misleading project status as noted by Dmitry

2.       Lost subtasks of repeating tasks if they were completed early in the cycle and were archived before the cycle completed
3.       New project made by cloning a successful in-flight project is missing the tasks that were already archived
4.       Lost opportunity for continuous improvement by analyzing project delays or to learning better estimating by comparing estimated to actual task completions

Dwight

For now we decided to make it a default behavior.  We may want to make it a separate archiving option if we receive complaints from our users.

This is another example of a great job by the beta team to advertise a new feature to the developers.

Thanks!

Andrey Tkachuk
MyLifeOrganized