MindReader 2.0

After a few weeks of shakedown and clean-up, it seems the setup.exe program created to install MindReader, Mark Task Complete, and Next Action Analysis and their associated Gyronix GyroQ tags is just about ready for prime time.

If you are a MindManager user and have wanted to give these tools a try in the past, but prefer your software installations to be “two-minute actions” instead of “projects”, now might the time to give things a go. If you have used the tools, but haven’t kept up with the incremental improvements over time, this also provides an opportunity to get caught up and keep up to date.

A big thanks goes to Hans, who developed the installation program using Inno Setup, and to Reenie, Marco, Stefan, Ron, Mike and others for testing out the early versions. The installer has performed well, with most of the glitches related to my overhaul of the tools themselves in preparation for use with the installer.

As part of this effort the wiki documentation for using and customizing the tools has been cleaned up with the help of Reenie. I’d recommend browsing the pages for MindReader, Mark Task Complete, and Next Action Analysis. In particular you might want to have a look at using the MindReader m tag in order to familiarize yourself with the full capabilities of MindReader.

For detailed instructions on downloading and installing the software, visit the Setup page on the wiki. Note that OutLinker still needs to be installed manually and should be updated as part of this upgrade if you are a legacy user.

If you do run into any issues, post comments below so they can be addressed.

10 Comments »

  1. Scott said,

    March 5, 2009 @ 2:58 pm

    Afternoon Mr ActivityOwner,

    I finally plucked up the courage to give this setup.exe a try. Seems like its all there and up and running. Ive had a play with the M tag, but my favourite so far has been the NM tag for creating a new project.

    I would like to know a couple of things.
    1) Why do the INTRAY tasks have a project icon marker?
    2) Is it possible to modify what it produces so that the text used for the central topic is put in the INTRAY topic as well? Otherwise I have 10 different projects with INTRAY coming up in my dashboard. How can I modify this without messing up all your good work?

    Any help is appreciated,
    Scott

  2. ActivityOwner said,

    March 5, 2009 @ 10:19 pm

    Hi Scott — Thanks for diving in and giving things a try. I also find the nm tag very useful for creating fresh project maps with lots of elbow room for new projects (or those that are lagging).

    Good question and suggestion.

    I put project icons on the in-trays to get around a “bug” in ResultsManager. I’ve been meaning to blog about it at some point.

    The problem is that I work almost entirely from dashboards AND often don’t fully plan out my projects to the end. I just get a few next actions in there. If I happen to complete the last task on a project, I need the Daily Action dashboard to warn me that I have a project without any next steps so I can mark it done or plan a few more moves.

    The problem is that even though they are filtered out of dashboards, ResultsManager sees in-trays as a next actions, and will not list a project with an in-tray as lacking a next action. If you define the intray as a project or result, then that problem goes away. I’ve updated the tag (in setup.exe and wiki) to set it as a subproject/result instead of a project.

    Per your suggestion I’ve changed the tag so that it adds the project name into its text to avoid confusion at the dashboard level. I don’t use in-trays at the dashboard so hadn’t noticed that problem.

  3. Scott said,

    March 6, 2009 @ 10:14 am

    Thanks for going through what I asked. I would like to see a blog post on your workflow. We could all learn something I reckon from something like that. Doesnt have to be anything too fancy. When you get the time.

    I have a query now about how to get these new updates you have made…..Im lost. Do I download the setup.exe (stable) and run it again, or do I download the (beta).

    If you could let me know and Ill try it out again.

    Cheers,
    Scott

  4. ActivityOwner said,

    March 6, 2009 @ 11:56 am

    Just re-run the beta setup.exe and make sure you overwrite the gyroq.ini to get the new nm tag. It won’t overwrite anything else inappropriately.

  5. George said,

    November 7, 2009 @ 5:00 pm

    Just upgraded to MM 8 and GyroQ 2 and also latest MindReader. Working great, except when I try to open a website using the o tag, the following happens:

    1. page opens in internal MM 8 browser

    2. Sax Basic error message pops up:

    Error trying to follow hyperlink in mindreaderconfig.mmap: Error: “Unable to execute a command”

    3. The browser closes and a new map opens with a central topic.

    Any thoughts as to what might be causing this?

    Thanks!

    George

  6. ActivityOwner said,

    November 8, 2009 @ 8:03 am

    Disable the MM 8 browser under “mindmanager options”, “add-ins”.

  7. George said,

    November 8, 2009 @ 10:00 pm

    Yep. That fixed it.

    It looks like the tag actually works with the internal browser as well but an error gets triggered. It is the error processing that opens the map and closes the browser.

  8. ActivityOwner said,

    November 8, 2009 @ 10:14 pm

    Yes — The “o” tag uses same code as the “q” tag for sending items to maps, so it is very conservative and will pop up a map to “capture” an item if it thinks the destination didn’t open up correctly. I’d need to do some debugging to figure out how to ignore this particular error. In general I think MIndManager expects to open hyperlinks on topics. In this case the hyperlink is in the mindreaderconfig.mmap file so it may be getting confused by the jump back to original map.

    Does anyone actually prefer to use the internal browser?

  9. George said,

    November 9, 2009 @ 12:34 am

    I have only just moved from MM 6 to MM 8 so have not fully formed my opinion yet. I know that in your MM 8 migration suggestions you suggest turning off the browser and I am considering it. The appeal for me of the browser is that a hyperlink can then function in a manner similar to a note. What I don’t know yet is how useful this will be for me. In the meantime I have just put links to gmail and google calendar as topics in some of my dashboards so I can click on them to open my calendar or email if I want. I’ll be glad to share my thoughts once I get some experience using this. Thanks, by the way, for an amazingly useful set of tools!

  10. ActivityOwner said,

    December 27, 2009 @ 8:23 pm

    The error issue with opening external websites with the o command has now been addressed in latest mindreader version.

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