New GyroQ “k” tag: Set destination map keywords

One of MindReader‘s handy features is that it allows you to send tasks to specific maps based on a keyword. This allows you to avoid having to deal with a huge “Daily Capture Map” backlog when you want to sort out things related to specific project or area of responsibility.

Previously you needed to add the destination map keywords directly in the MindReader.mmap configuration file. Now all you need to do is install the packed text for the new MindReader “k” tag from the GyroQ tag library into your GyroQ dialog box. Once installed, navigate to a frequently used map, toggle to the k tag, and then enter a keyword to associate with that map.

I have keywords associated with the map centrals associated with each area of responsibility and for frequently used maps. You can associate as many keywords with a map as you like (e.g. “2007 Taxes”, “2007Taxes”, etc). Be sure to choose keywords that are unique enough that they won’t cause false positive matches on unrelated topics.

Note that you can now also organize the links branch of your mindreader.mmap into layers rather than as just one big list. MindReader will search from the bottom up so you can have a keyword like “MindReader bugs” that will fire off before the parent “MindReader” keyword. In order to get this functionality, you need an updated copy of MindReaderOpen.mmbas from the Macro Library.

22 Comments »

  1. ActivityOwner said,

    January 27, 2008 @ 3:04 pm

    Note that with the latest version you can get a list of your current map destination keywords by typing “listlinks” at the m-tag prompt.

  2. ActivityOwner said,

    January 31, 2008 @ 10:40 pm

    Note that per Mal’s suggestion, the latest version links to the specific topic you have selected. This allows you to send tasks to several sections of a particular map. This version requires v7.

  3. BillS said,

    March 4, 2008 @ 3:58 pm

    FYI: Make sure -C is not a hotkey in another application. I took 15 minutes debugging why my ATI Catalyst Center kept opening up since I don’t use it.

  4. Chuck Brown said,

    March 31, 2008 @ 9:57 am

    I pulled up a map, went to GyroQ and typed “K ” and got the “Create map keyword for mindreader” correctly, typed in “agenda” then clicked send. My mindread map opened up, but something strange happened then. I had a tag “links” already, which had the default “defaultmap”, “mapmap”, and a couple other tags in it. When MR did it’s thing, the old “links” box was now blank, and there is a new tag hanging off of the central one, with just my new “agenda” tag hanging off of it. Also, the link off of “Agenda” looks like a pushpin, where the links off of the old ‘links’ looked like MM icons. Any idea what’s going on?

  5. Chuck Brown said,

    March 31, 2008 @ 10:01 am

    I should have said this was really an informational complaint, not a big issue. When I rearranged things as they should have been, and added another link, everything worked fine. It’s just odd what happened the first time!

  6. ActivityOwner said,

    March 31, 2008 @ 7:02 pm

    Hi Chuck — The “pushpin” link is a “feature”. The “k” tag sets a specific destination topic rather than just a destination map (with items going to the in-tray). It does this by utilizing the new “topic hyperlink” feature of v7. I’m finding this very handy with outlinker as it allows you to set a “reference branch” desitnation for information items.

    I don’t know what would cause the blanking of the “links” branch in mindreader.mmap that you saw. Usually you would want to hit enter or hit “add” to run the “k” tag rather than hitting “send queue”, which is meant to dump out your queued up items into maps. Let me know if you see it again.

  7. Chuck Brown said,

    April 1, 2008 @ 10:57 am

    1. Is there a keyword creation tag that simply puts the activity in the In-tray of a destination map, or are the k keywords the only automatically created ones now? Or, is the behavior such that if you have a topic highlighted it does a pushpin, and if you don’t it points to the map itself?

    2. Maybe this is a known behavior…
    I opened up a map.
    Entered “k” space in gyroq. Got the “k – create map keyword” header
    Typed in “managed services”
    mindreader map opened up, created “managed services” tag, with a hyperlink that said “Type: unknown file”. When I looked at the hyperlink properties, they were the contents of my clipboard.
    I went back and entered “k” again, and put in “managed services”, and the link was added correctly.
    Just to test, I closed the MR map, and did it again without the quotes, and it was added correctly. Not sure what the circumstances are that this happens, but it happened!

    3. I’ve noticed that whenever I use “k”, the MR map is left open, so that the next keyword winds up being a pushpin to the last keyword entered. In order to enter several keywords for a map/location, you have to close MR map each time.

    4. When step 2 above DID work, the tag “managed services” was created under “links” with a pushpin. When I open up the mindreader map, and click on the pushpin, I get a message that says “The target map does not contain the topic”. I haven’t deleted any topics from the target map, so I’m not sure how I could be getting this.

    Thanks!

  8. ActivityOwner said,

    April 1, 2008 @ 10:13 pm

    Hi Chuck —

    1. Yes, the 1st version of “k” I created was set up to just set a general link to the file and send items to an in-tray. It is available on the wiki as the “v6 earlier packed text”:
    http://wiki.activityowner.com/index.php?title=Mindreader-k-packed&oldid=1772

    Some folks wanted the power to have destination keywords go to specific topics so I updated to the current version.

    2 I haven’t seen that behavior yet, but I know what is happening. MindManager doesn’t have any programming hooks to create topic hyperlinks so it has to be done by sending keystrokes to MindManager to put the hyperlink on the clipboard. If for some reason they don’t reach mindmanager (or if you don’t have a topic selected), then the tag ends up using whatever was on the clipboard on as the topic hyperlink. The gyroq language doesn’t allow if/then control logic to check for this type of error. I could rewrite it to use macro code in the 2nd portion but I haven’t seen this issue enough to merit it. Its actually one of the more useful examples of pure Gyroactivator code. Note that the v6 version won’t have this problem.

    3. I debated whether to close the mindreader.mmap after adding the hyperlink. I often want to drag the new hyperlink up into the existing hierarchy so I thought it might make sense to leave it open. Having used it awhile now I tend to agree it would be better to close it. It is easy enough to reopen with “o mapmap” command. I just updated the wiki with a new version of “k”. If you want to do the same with the v6 version, just add a “; map:close” to the bottom of the tag.

    4. Not sure what is happening here.

  9. Chuck Brown said,

    April 2, 2008 @ 9:55 am

    I see that the code for k now has a map close at the bottom, so the update you mentioned is apparently there, but the last update date on the wiki was not updated. Didn’t know if this only represented major updates, or if it was an oversight…

  10. ActivityOwner said,

    April 2, 2008 @ 6:44 pm

    Hi Chuck — I tend to forget to edit the main page to update with revisions. For frequently edited tools I’ve moved to replacing the date with a link to the wiki history instead. You can always check the actual revisions by viewing the code and clicking on the history button.

  11. Travis Carnahan said,

    September 10, 2008 @ 9:48 pm

    I’m sure this is not the right place to post this, but have you looked at a way to put information from OneNote into GyroQ? I use OneNote for all of my meeting notes and it would be great to have a “Send to GyroQ” OneNote tool….Just wishing

  12. ActivityOwner said,

    September 11, 2008 @ 11:04 pm

    Hi Travis — I’m not a OneNote user. so I’ve never considered doing something with it. Perhaps I can download the trial at some point and explore possibilities.

    You can’t bring over rich text or graphic information, but there may be a few things you can do today with the tool.

    If you copy a list of things from onenote into the gyroq “q” tag, it should treat each line as a separate task and split them out.

    If you highlight onenote text, and hit control-shift-G, you can get the highlighted text to be the “note” of a new task (remember to toggle to “q” tag after hitting control-shift-g).

  13. Travis Carnahan said,

    September 12, 2008 @ 11:14 pm

    good info! fyi- if you copy handwriting in onenote it is treated as text automatically. thanks again!

  14. MIke said,

    January 22, 2009 @ 4:45 pm

    Hello,

    I am a neophite when it comes to all of the macros and whatnot in GyroQ and MindManager. I really like the idea behind MindReader, but I am having a heck of a time getting it to put information into the “in” box of indivdual maps.

    It looksl ike MindReader is working properly on the email items processed through Outlinker. But, when it is processing items that are entered into GyroQ, it does not pick up on the keywords and places all of the items on the daily capture map. In addition, it does not pick up any of the contexts and I have to go back to each item and run the ResutlsManager process to update all the fields.

    Obviously, this is not the desired output as I need to process each item again. Do you have any suggestions as to what might be going wrong. Iam sure that it is my error somewhere along the way, but I dont know where to even begin looking.

    Thanks for your work on these tools. I can see that once I get them working properly, I will be the shinning star around here! ;-)

    Mike

  15. ActivityOwner said,

    January 22, 2009 @ 9:18 pm

    Hi MIke — If you have this much working you are 90% of the way there! Most people are not brave enough to venture into outlinker setup. Can you answer a few questions and try a few experiments for me?

    What version of mindmanager are you using?

    I assume you have set up destination keywords already. Can you test some of them by typing “o keyword” in GyroQ which should use the o tag to open up the destination map and put you on the destination topic. If that works from GyroQ, it should work from Outlinker.

    In a similar fashion, select a topic and type “m contextkeyword” into GyroQ and see if sets the context.

  16. Mike said,

    January 23, 2009 @ 8:41 am

    Hello again,

    Yes, I would be more than happy to answer the questions and do a bit of experimentation.

    I am using the most recent version of MindManager – 8.0.235

    I went through the process of setting up the keywords via the “mra” macro from GyroQ. On a side note, when I was doing this, the destination keywords were not being placed under the “links” subtask in mindreader.mmap. I figured out where they needed to go and moved them under the proper subtask and things started to be placed into the proper destination maps when using Outlinker.

    Now for the testing:

    o keyword – This seems to be functioning properly. I tried a number of the key words and each time it worked without a hitch. Although, in one case I found that a link to the map had been broken (I think I moved the destination map). I updated the hyperlink and it functioned properly.

    m contextkeyword – I would get the following Sax error when trying to complete this process. The error reads:

    “Your currently have version 20090112 and the most recent version is 20090122. Would you like to visit the upgrade page?”

    However, it appears that the context is still being set even after the error is displayed and I would choose “No” to not upgrade.

    As I indicated in the original post, the items that I enter into GyroQ that are not handled by Outlinker are where I am having the issues. Could this be because I am not entering the items into GyroQ with the appropriate key letter – “o” for instance)? When I am putting things into GyroQ I normally use the task and i owe tags. Could this be the reason?

  17. ActivityOwner said,

    January 23, 2009 @ 11:07 pm

    Hi Mike — The first few tags in the tag list are original Gyronix tags. Only the “mindreader” tags recognize keywords. The “q” tag saves up entries for later transfer to mindmanager. The c tag parses the selected topic. The m tag markes up the selected topic based on entered text. The o tag opens maps based on destination map keywords. The s tag sends selected topics to destinations based on keywords.

    The upgrade message is a “feature” not a bug. It is suggesting you check wiki for new version that is available. If you run the setup.exe (link sent by email) it will get you up to date.

    I’m not sure what happened with mra. You may have gotten caught in the mid-stream of the upgrade.

  18. Mike said,

    January 23, 2009 @ 11:36 pm

    I feel like such a dolt.

    I was actually playing with more of the tags today and came to the conclusion that I was using the MindReader tool incorrectly. It was doing things consistently… I guess it pays to read the descriptors.

    Can I list the tags at the beginning of the item I am placing into GyroQ to have MindReader do the operations in sequence? Say – m q o or do I need to do each one separately? I think it is the latter based on how you enter the text into GyroQ. It only tags the entry with the first tag (clear as mud) you place in the box.

    Thanks you for helping such a dimwit. I really do like the tools and how they work with one another. Now I just need to get more motivated and build out some of the project maps for the focus areas of my job… Then I can really put the pedal to the metal.

  19. ActivityOwner said,

    January 24, 2009 @ 7:31 am

    Hi Mike — It is not your fault. The “documentation” is dispersed and vague. Now that the setup program is working pretty well, improving the documentation is the “next action”.

    You only use one tag at a time. The “q” tag is the one that handles putting tasks into the GyroQ queue for later transfer to mindmanager. You can toggle to it by typing “q”. It will place items into maps based on destination keywords and mark them up based on keywords. In a sense it is running “o” and “c” in combination.

    “m” comes into play when you realize you want to add more mark up to a selected task. “s” comes into play when you realize you want a tag somewhere else.

  20. ActivityOwner said,

    January 24, 2009 @ 12:37 pm

    Mike — I was just testing various tags as part of putting together some better mindreader documentation and used the mra tag.

    It actually had some major bugs introduced recently which explains the odd behavior you were seeing. Please download a the new setup.exe from same link I sent you. AO pack has also been updated. Sorry about that.

    For improved documentation (at least a start at it), see:

    http://wiki.activityowner.com/index.php?title=MindReader

  21. ActivityOwner said,

    August 29, 2010 @ 2:19 pm

    This tag needed a slight edit to work in MindManager 9. The new packed text is in the wiki and a new setup has been uploaded with it.

  22. MindManager Project Management Part 3 – GyroQ Capture » ActivityOwner.Com – Getting Things Done with MindManager, ResultsManager, and GyroQ said,

    October 17, 2010 @ 10:38 am

    […] send it to the map I had created on the issue. This is done automatically as I've created a destination keyword (mm9project) for the […]

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