Golden Rules Organizer Blog

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I wish you all Happy New Year!

GRO 2.0 Available!

I'm glad to announce publicly available GRO 2.0 version!

GRO 2.0 supports shared Contacts and Listings repositories for multiple LAN users, as well as for single users with multiple PC (over web-sychronized drives, like Dropbox). Spaces are replicated to local cache at every PC, and allow concurrent offline updates - even when not connected to LAN.

Please read Shared Spaces chapter in the supplied User's Manual.

Your comments are welcomed - please submit them here and at the Golden Rules Organizer Forum.

GRO 2.0 - In Work!

GRO 1.x has reached stability, so the next thing is GRO 2.0 - collaboration, as the version implies.

This will be the biggest enhancement, and hopefully will be available before Christmas - at least, in beta.

In the meantime, I wish you happy usage of GRO!

Sub-Release 1.8.0 - Project Cost and Expense Tracking

Release 1.8.0 introduces new project tracking facility - cost and expense tracking.

Cost tracking

It is now possible to specify rate per hour in the Project Details dialog (dialog is rewritten for this release). Child projects may inherit rate per hour from their parent, or may override it. Inherited rate is shown as effective rate.

Rate per hour serves to calculate work cost (estimated, remaining, or actual). Cumulative work cost may be viewed by pressing the Totals button in Projects toolbar. Actual cost is prorated based on actual number of minutes reported in Logs for the project and its children.

Expense Tracking

New secondary tab - Expenses - has been added to the Projects tabs. It allows to track estimated and actual expenses.

Total estimated or actual expenses for the project and its children are shown in the Expenses toolbar.

Note that expense catalog may be maintained as one or more dedicated hierarchical projects (e.g., in Inactive status). When a new expense is added (via Expense Details dialog), its code, category, and title may be chosen from the catalog.

Totals Tracking

The Project Totals dialog, invoked by Totals button (also Ctrl+Shift+T), allows to view project hours and cost totals.

Major Sub-Release 1.7.0 is Available

I'm glad to present a new major sub-release of Golden Rules Organizer, featuring these highlights:

• Better usability
• Scalable contact management
• Enhanced scheduler.

Better Usability

• Portable installation to USB drive (see instructions) allows to manage single database for all locations (e.g., home and work PC).
  
  NOTE: it is still highly recommended to always backup the data at end of work to an Internet storage provider, such as Dropbox or Google Docs, to recover from USB drive failure or loss.
  
• Activity details dialog rewritten for usability, and to accomodate new contact selection dialog (see below)
  
  
  
• Event notifications via reminders. Message box 'Some activities were escalated, canceled, or expired' is replaced by detailed reminders (combined with appointment reminders), with ability to jump to respective activity, project, or plan.
  
• Go-To Shortcut (Ctrl+Shift+G). Selecting a row in a secondary / third level grid (e.g., Contacts-->Activities) and pressing the shortcut, will reposition you to respective object (in this example, Activity) in its primary tab (respectively, Activities).
  
  Previously, this was achieved by right-clicking the object (e.g., Activity), choosing Go To in the popup menu, and selecting Activity in the sub-menu. This is still the correct process if you wish to jump to a referenced object (e.g., activity contact) while standing on referring object (activity) - no matter in which tab.

Scalable Contact Management

• Contact tags. It is now possible to allocate multiple hierarchical tags to a contact, making him in fact a member of multiple contact groups. Standing on a tag, all contacts belonging to tag or its descendants will be shown in the secondary Tags-->Contacts tab.
  
  It is possible to add multiple contacts to a tag in one action, or respectively, multiple tags to a contact.
  
  Also, project tags were added.
  
• New contact selection dialog. Drop-down list is replaced by a table driven selection dialog, with ability to select contacts by tags.
  
  
  
  It is possible to customize the table (fields, their order and width) like any grid table, using the table control in the upper right corner.

Enhanced Scheduler

Scheduler is a new facility, first appearing in v1.6.0 (this article covers changes since that release). Significant effort is spent, and will continue to be spent, to create state-of-the art, non-graphical scheduler.

• Agenda and Minutes-Of-Meeting. It is now possible to plan the agenda of an appointment, while agenda items may be optionally linked to existing activities, projects, contacts, objectives,and values. Duration and order of each item may be specified.
  
  Agenda may be printed, or e-mailed, using Appointment Report.
  
  By end of appointment, Log entries may be created per agenda item, and Appointment Report may be produced again - this time, including Minutes of Meeting.
• Appointment Reminders. Each appointment may be assigned a reminder; default reminder is 15 minutes before start, and it may be customized using Tools-->Options.
  
  Popup window with reminder sound will appear at requested time. Popup window may include multiple reminders, and allows to jump to an event record (in this case, appointment).

Sub-Release 1.6.4 - Portable GRO on USB Stick!

With version 1.6.4, it is now possible to install Golden Rules Organizer (GRO) on USB stick, as portable software (for Windows, Linux, and Unix).

Portable GRO stores the database and the user settings in the installation directory, and not in the user home directory. This facilitates migration between computers, even if only home and work computers are involved - since there is no need in additional GRO installations on PCs, and no need to restore the data every time location is changed.

How to install portable GRO from GRO Home Page

1. Download Windows installer from GRO home page (may be done on any computer, with the only requirement that Java is available), and start the installation.

2. Change installation path to, for example, F:\GRO (assuming F: is your USB drive)

3. Unselect option 'Create Shortcuts in the Start Menu', and proceed.

How to install portable GRO from your local GRO installation (version 1.6.4 or higher required)

Copy your GRO installation directory (done using Windows installer) to, for example, F:\GRO (assuming F is USB drive).

How to run portable GRO

Submit run.bat (for Windows) or run.sh (for Unix and Lunux) located in the GRO directory on USB drive. 

Note: you need to make GRO directory your current working directory before running.

What if a PC will not have Java installed?

To be prepared to the possible situation that target PC will not have Java, do the following (instructions are suitable for Windows):

1. Find out your JRE (Java Runtime Environment) directory: open Control Panel --> Java, go to Java tab, press View, and look-up the Path column.

2. Copy JRE directory to F: (assuming F: is USB drive)

3. Rename JRE directory on F: to jre.

Now your portable GRO will even run on a PC with no Java!

Call for Action

If you are using the Golden Rules Organizer and like the application, please help to promote it:

1. Vote it up on the software distribution site where you downloaded it, and leave your recommendation.

2. Subscribe to the Golden Rules Organizer Forum; post there about GRO functions you are actively using, features you wish to be added, functions you don't understand, features you don't like; ask questions; participate in discussions.

3. Share the application with your friends and colleagues, mention it on the Internet forums and in the blogs.

Thank you for using the Golden Rules Organizer!

Release 1.6.3 - Reminders

New function - Reminders - has been added with sub-release 1.6.3.

Appointment reminders - can be specified for each appointment; default reminder is 15 minutes before the appointment, but this can be modified using Tools-->Options.

Event reminders - messages related to activation, urgency escalation, expiration, generation from task, etc. This is a replacement for Actions-->Check Events function, and these reminders are replacing the default pop-up message.

Reminders frame allows to navigate to the event (e.g., Appointment) by pressing Enter. The frame can be customized by resizing, moving, or changing column visibility (e.g., Event Date and Event Time columns are invisible by default).

Release 1.6.1 - Appointment Agenda

As part of continuing Scheduler roll-out (starting with v1.6), appointment agenda has been added.

It is now possible to compile agenda of an appointment that is connected to organizer entities:

• activities
• projects
• values
• contacts
• objectives (will be available soon)

Agenda entries may be tracked back from those entities via their new Schedule tab.

Following agenda features are available:

• define duration of each agenda item (start and end time will be calculated)
• change order of agenda items
• create Minutes of Meetings (make logs per agenda item, then produce appointment report)
• copy /paste agenda items between appointments.

New Facility - Scheduler

With release 1.6, a new facility - scheduler - is now announced.

Although it will be further enhanced in the upcoming sub-releases, it provides essential scheduling facilities, integrated into the GRO system:

• Ability to define, and later modify, one-time and recurring appointments using easy non-graphical navigator (note new tab - Schedule)
• Logging support for appointments
• Association of appointments with time slots, and management of slot-specific appointments from Slots tab

Supporting facility includes new Tools-->Options menu allowing to modify time presentation format and week start day.

Your comments in the GRO forum will be welcomed!