Golden Rules Organizer Blog

Navigational Keyboard Shortcuts

A number of grid navigation keyboard shortcuts were added in v1.5.7:

• cursor right - expand selected node / go to child node
• cursor left - collapse current node / go to parent node
• backspace - go to parent node
• home - select first row
• end - select last row
• F2 - edit selected cell
• Context key - invoke popup menu for selected row
• ctrl+up - scroll up one row
• ctrl+down - scroll down one row
• ctrl+page-up - scroll up one page
• ctrl+page-down - scroll down one page
• ctrl+home - scroll to first row
• ctrl+end - scroll to last row

They join many functional shortcuts introduced in v1.5.3 which can be learned about from button / menu item tooltips.

Recent Usability Enhancements

Recent sub-releases 1.5.0 - 1.5.3 include a series of important usability enhancements:

• In-frame editing. Description pane now allows rich text editing without a need to invoke pop-up editor
• All dialogs now support Esc and Enter keyboard shortcuts for Cancel and OK operations; as well, main entry field gets immediate keyboard focus 
• Keyboard shortcuts were introduced for frequent grid and editor actions; they are mentioned in the tooltips and menus

In addition, it is now possible to create sibling nodes above and below the current node in the hierarchies.

Golden Rules Organizer v1.5.0 Released

New release contains the following changes:

· Change history (via new Extended Search button)

· Contacts import in Outlook/Yahoo/Google CSV format, export in Google CSV format

· Extended set of contact fields

· Tooltips showing full cell text in the grid

· Resizable editor window

· Multiple selection when adding to a list (e.g., adding set of values to an activity, adding listing entries to references)

In addition, several usability improvements have been made.

Minor Sub-Release 1.4.2 - Advanced Search

New Advanced Search facility allows:

• viewing modification history within specified dates range (as alternative to searching for text)
  
  This allows you to easily find out your recent Listings entries, or recently handled activities (inclusive automatic status changes!).
• narrowing search to specified item types (e.g., Listings, Activities).

In addition (least, but not last): search results are now sorted by decreasing modification date.

Golden Rules Organizer v1.4 Features Tags Support

Tagging facility has been added to Golden Rules Organizer, with the following functionality:

• Maintain tags and hierarchical tag bundles via new Tags main tab
  
  
  • Bundle example: music-->mp3-->free-mp3
• Allocate multiple tags, or tag bundles, to Listings, Activities, and Logs

Case Study: Golden Rules Organizer as Blogging Back-End

I'm currently publishing series of blog articles Case Study: Golden Rules Organizer as Blogging Back-End at my new content blog Mind Listings.

I invite you to read and comment.

You may find articles on personal finance tools (Budget Tool, Retirement Planning Tool) next to productivity topics - and there is a reason for that.  My involvement with productivity tools started years ago with exactly this - personal finance.

Blogging back-end case study isn't accidental - Golden Rules Organizer entered the content publishing back-end domain with recent addition of HTML editor, and will stay there for good and be expanded to support content upload and other content authoring topics.

Stay tuned by subscribing to Feedburner RSS or e-mail feeds!

Golden Rules Organizer v1.3.1 - Images in Descriptions

With the new minor sub-release 1.3.1, images can be added to descriptions. (Note: this blog entry was prepared in the Golden Rules Organizer using the new facility.)

To invoke Add / Edit Image dialog, press mountain-shaped Image icon   in the Editor, and the following dialog will appear:

Image File (mandatory) - points to .png, .jpg, or .gif image file located either on your local network (selected using button) or on the web (you may cut & paste address from a web browser).

Alt. Text (optional) - text that will appear when image file cannot be located, or when HTML browser lacks image support (by default, 'Image').

Width, Height (optional) - desired image width and height, in pixels. When not specified, actual width and height of the image file is used.

Note: It is recommended to specify width and height even when no resizing is needed, to avoid scrolling effect every time editor completes loading an image with unknown size.

Alignment (optional) - positioning of the image relative to the surrounding text (important when image is located inside a text paragraph). Possible values - top, middle, or bottom (default).

Hyperlink (optional) - a web page or a file to be invoked upon clicking on the image.

Show Border - whether to show the blue border around clickable image (default - yes).

Other Small Changes

• Editor window height is increased, to accomodate larger images (recommendation: resize images that don't fit)
• Expired plans are no more filtered out, to allow easy navigation to recently expired plans.

Tip: Exchanging Data with Other Users

The best way to exchange information between Golden Rules Organizer users is to send or publish exported data (here Listings data sample) together with respective report (here Listings Report sample).

Exporting data and report

To export data, select tree node (or one or more table rows), press right mouse button, and choose 'Send To File' option in the popup menu. It will be saved as XML file.

To produce report, do as above, but select 'Report'option. After Report is opened in your Web browser, save it as .htm or .html file (not as complete HTML page).

Now send both files by e-mail, or upload them to a Web site (like I did with the samples).

Importing data

The recipent(s) can first review the accompanying Report in Web browser, and decide whether to import the data.

To import the data to Golden Rules Organizer, the XML file with exported data has to be downloaded and saved on local network.

Following that, open respective tab in the Organizer (Listings, in our case). If it's a tree (as in Listings case), select the parent node for the imported data. Press right mouse button, choose 'Import from File' option in the popup menu, and select the downloaded XML file.

Data will be imported.

Usage Tip: Working with Multiple Databases

Golden Rules Organizer supports one database per user account. If you need to work with multiple databases, the following methods may be applied (sometimes, combined):

Export / Import Method

To work with several databases in one account:

• Ask other database owner to export database with Export Data
• Export your database using Export Data function (don't use Backup Data)
• Import other database using Import Data, and work with it
• If you made changes, export using Export Data and send export file to the owner
• Import your database, and proceed with your work.

Multiple Accounts Method

Open multiple accounts and download Golden Rules Organizer in each account.

Major Plans Defect Fixed - Please Download

In case you downloaded an Organizer version with Build Date before March 2 2009 that includes Plans tab - please download new version with a major Plans defect fix.